This section exists specifically to ensure there is no ambiguity or ambivalence in what, precisely, the challenge requires of each participant. If you have any specific questions which are not addressed here, please send them to @Terminal for resolution.

For The Seventh Labour, I have asked you to write about a character having to choose whether or not to rescue their family - with unfortunate results.

Q. My character needs to be beholden with kindred ties?
A. They need to have a family. Not necessarily blood relations, but people whom they perceive as family. Family being plural, as in more than one person.

Q. The family needs to contain ancestry and descentry?
A. Both the old and young need to be amongst their number. This restaurant will turn away parties of four filled only with twenty to thirty somethings.

Q. The family needs to be placed in mortal peril?
A. Idiots flock together. Or was that birds? Doesn't matter. The entirety of your character's family must be in imminent danger of being killed.

Q. Mortal peril at the hands of a merciless foe?
A. The foe need not be wicked nor unprincipled. Merely opposed to your character - and, at least within the specific context of your story, devoid of any notion of mercy. They should not hesitate to slay every last member of your character's family, or the character themselves for that matter.

Q. If my character tries to play hero, I have to end their entire lineage?
A. Hostage situations are very rarely tidy, after all. If your character should try to save their family - kill them all. Your character alone should be permitted to live, if they should happen to still be alive at the end of their ordeal.

Q. Can I revive or otherwise bring back the deceased?
A. Absolutely not. All Deaths Are Final. Feel free to bring them back outside of The Seventh Labour, and use them in RPs and such, but for the purposes of this contest they must die and stay dead. They can return for future contests, of course.

Q. My character's family is made up entirely of immortal and invincible reality warping gods who are already dead zombie ghost liches!
A. That's nice. END THEM.

Q. What was that about my character acceding?
A. If their mortal foe took their whole family hostage, clearly they want something. If you feel like having your character do as they are told, you may.

Q. If my character accedes I have to punish them?
A. The punishment could just be whatever their foe intends to do to them, by way of example. However, presuming their foe did not see fit to inflict any undue pain upon your character - see that their acquiescence nonetheless leads to a darker, harder existence. No slaps on the wrist.

Q. How long can my story be?
A. As long as you feel is necessary. I will read any and everything submitted, irregardless of length, and write a review on it. Do not let the short three-day judging period dissuade you. If you have a 800,000 word brick for me, I will take it. Similarly, extremely short stories are also welcome. It is entirely possible for segues as short as three paragraphs long to clear the challenge.

Thanks again to @mdk, and the entire RPGC crew for helping with scheduling for The Twelve Labours!

Great thanks to @mahz and the other members of the guild staff for helping to renovate the guild and enabling the features that allow us to reward contestants and to advertise our presence.

By @WrongEndoftheRainbow.


On October 14th, 1806, the message came. Boomed through the sky, it came with some supernatural phenomenon, granting all people the ability to understand it. Announced to the general populous was the fact that heaven was closed, forever, to humanity. Secondly, it commanded worshipers to lay down and die. Many did. This left the fighters, the defiant. Hell was to claim dominion over the world, the final judgment of humanity, but first it would have to go through what remained.

The battles of Jena and Aeurstäd were called off after the message, leaving the Prussian army intact. The forces of Prussia and France gathered together, almost none of the disciplined and drilled men having followed the message's command. Scouts had reported a demonic herald en route to Napoleon's position, so they gathered and waited. No longer were they warring empires, they were one and the same; humanity. They had all realized that quickly.

A short while later, the demon could be spotted on the horizon. It flew with speed, swooping in towards Napoleon's field tent. Looking like a strange mix of an ashen demon with hints of griffon, Napoleon was quick to leave his tent. The herald held a parchment in its jaws, sealed with a wax stamp. On the wax stamp was the crucifix, a symbol of Christianity as a whole.

Napoleon snatched the parchment from the demon, and its job done, it took to the sky again. It flew southwards, on the way back to the demonic overlord from whence it came. No matter to Napoleon. He opened the parchment, giving the contents a once-over.



In the days to come, it was to be that none of the proud empires of Earth surrendered. Instead, they prepared their guns, prepared their artillery batteries. They all knew it was a lost cause, but so too was it a lost cause to surrender. To surrender was to give up their pride, their livelihood. No matter the rewards, the cost was simply too much. And so they made ready for war.

Marching from the cradle of humanity, 66 legions, making up a total of 666,666 demons, descended upon the nations of the Middle East. They fell quickly. From there they split into 33 legions each, one side destined for China and Japan, with the remainder marching upon Europe. The Ottoman Empire resisted them bravely, as did the Austrian hosts, but to no avail. On they marched.

They met with the combined forces of Prussia, France, Britain, and Russia on the fields of Linz, in the shattered nation of Austria. They formed vast lines of rifles, an incredible number of artillery batteries brought to bear against the demonic host. They all knew the effort would be hopeless, but they had to try. Their empires, their families, their friends, everyone, was doomed. All of it was doomed except their own pride, their own nationalism and devotion to country.

The armies of Hell marched onto the field amid the chatter of cannons in 66 columns, each hundreds of demons thick. Cannon balls chewed through their numbers, but there were simply too many for the massed artillery of the four nations to handle. Soon, they reached within range of the lines of men that made up the bulkhead of the armies.

They were positioned on a steep slope, giving each line, five companies deep, three men deep per company, free access to fire upon the columns that made of the legions of hell. On their flanks were the cavalry, from the boisterous heavy cavalry to the humble Austrian remnant militiamen. The demonic legions descended upon the lines, ignoring the cavalry.

“Present arms!” the calls went across the lines. Hundreds upon hundreds of men in the first rows of their lines presented, bringing their muskets and rifles to bear.

“Aim!” called out the commanders. Each line took a different part of the column, preparing to fire in the right direction.

“Fire!” finally came the fateful call. The air filled with the cracks of muskets, waves upon waves of balls now flying towards the demons.

Many demons fell, but simply not enough. The musket balls slammed into their tough hides, some penetrating, some not. Still, with supernatural courage, they carried on their march, seemingly unaffected by the massed volleys. These volleys were repeated, each row of men crouching after they had fires to give access to the next row to fire.

The cavalry saw their chance. They grouped together, surrounding the demonic columns, before bringing themselves inwards in a brutal charge, sabres at the ready. Their charges were suicidal and useless against the large and tough-hided demons. Their sabres simply would not cut, and the bronze tridents of the demonic host proved highly effective. So ended the cavalry, so ended the lives of hundreds of men.

As the columns neared, the first line of infantry prepared their charge. Made up of mainly Prussian men, they were brave and unyielding. Allowing the lines behind to get off one last volley, they suddenly surged forwards. Bayonet met trident, and bayonet proved useless. The Prussians were decimated to the man, none retreating. They all knew the cost. There was no way to hide, no way to run. Humanity was going to be hunted to the last man for their stark refusal to surrender, and so there was nothing to return to if they ran.

The second line prepared their charge. While the third, fourth, and fifth lines put in volley after volley, the second line prepared to use the momentum of the steep hill against the legions of hell. The demons began to climb the slope, slowed by the angle. And so the second line charged against their tridents and died. The British army was no more.

Next, came the Russian army. They outnumbered the other armies two to one, making up the third and fourth lines. The third line prepared their charge, as the demonic host climbed over the bodies of the first and second lines unperturbed. And so the third line threw themselves against the trident and died to a man.

Thus came the fourth line. The volleys were quieter now, only the French companies providing fire now. The cannons grew silent as they were slain to a man by demonic cavalry, atop great lobster-like beasts. They proceeded to come around and smash into the French lines, silencing the last cracks of gunpowder sparking.

And so the fourth line charged, while the fifth line fought a losing battle on low ground against the armored and seemingly invincible demonic cavalry. Not a man was left to tell the tale from the two lines, leaving the few guard regiments across the field to face the onslaught of demons. These guard regiments defended the tents of the commanders, Napoleon among them.

They fought valiantly, holding off the demons for an hour, far longer than the massed soldiers of the regular army could. The guard regiments accounted for 1,543 demonic casualties by the time they fell. No-one witnessed their heroism. On that day, over a hundred thousand demons had fallen. Upon their return to hell after their conquering of the Earth, the grand duke that let it happen was executed.

The armies of empires had fallen. No-one stood strong enough to oppose the legions, the greatest minds of the era having met their bloody end on the disastrous field of Linz. Everyone knew it was going to happen, everyone knew they would die. The dead remained dead, and they knew they would never see their families again. But they died defiant, they died spitting in the face of Satan himself.

They died heroes. They did their duty, they followed their principles. Their natures of obligation, of conviction were tested, and they did not die lacking. For even while their own families were held ransom, they fought on. They fought without mercy, mimicking the demons. They died standing.

By @mdk.

In a place so black and desolate that the whole of the universe seemed a single point of dim light, three blights flashed white-hot and blue. Smallships in lunar boom decelerating past lightspeed and erupting with the gathered optic flash of timeless energy crashing against the abyss in a brilliant and terrible instant. The smallships slowed and circled and winked at one another in the language of jackals, pointed shapes bristling with impossible power. A voice on omnidirectional transmission cackled.

“The longest ten minutes in history,” it croaked. A man, or something alien but man-like and vicious.

“Shut up.” Her anger spoke the words before she pressed the transmitter. When she spoke again, she was calm. “Let’s get on with it.”

“Systems check.” Robotic tones easily ignored and passive, unlike the creature at lead.

“In a hurry, Rupp?” it enjoyed her agony. “One is green.”

“Two green.”

“Three green, let’s go.” Rupp inched her throttle forwards. The robotic voice chided quietly.

“Fall in,” hissed the creature in One.

Rupp ignored them both. “Target in sight. Catch up or stay here, I’m going.” The others complained as they gave chase. She yielded the lead position back to the creature and worked a finger about her neck. Beneath the G-suit, black polymer links of a necklace pinched against her skin.

“Lead, two. Port bay closed.”

“Divert thirty degrees, check starboard.”

“Negative,” Rupp interrupted. “We’ll go in through the hull. Forecastle, bearing 358.”

“That’s not your call, marshal,” the creature growled. “GN, divert thirty…”

“Do what you want, that’s where I’m going,” Rupp said flatly. There was a silence, then the creature laughed.

“Never figured you for a sadist, Rupp. Alright. We’ll do it your way – on my signal.”

“Then be quick about it.” The robotic voice chimed in with a damage assessment and a casualty count that turned her stomach. “Don’t talk about it,” she cut in, “just do it, now.”

The smallships descended on their prey with gentle terror. A lumbering colony wrought of metal glass which gleamed a bitter blue. Stellar canopy which opened onto nothing at the black edge of existence.

“Breach,” the creature called. The smallships opened fire, lightning pellets in a torrent against the helpless vessel. The canopy shattered and spun. Atmosphere exploded outwards and vanished in the void, carrying in its wake nameless hundreds of utopian supplicants, relict settlers forgotten from a lost age of exploration and philosophy. A genocide of that human past.

Silence among the jackals. A retch suppressed at the back of her throat. “Come on,” she said, forgetting again the transmitter. She pressed it. “Door’s open.”

“God,” said GN.

“I don’t have time for this,” Rupp bellowed. “Get on my wing and get inside. Besk – lock it up, let’s move.”

The creature said nothing, but dipped his wing and fell in behind Rupp’s ship. GN did the same. The trio descended through the ruined dome and settled their crafts within the great carcass. A dead garden crumbled beneath their landing skids, green sanctuary of perpetual night frozen in vacuum. Rupp’s canopy opened and she pried herself out with a hand on the transom. Her legs weak but holding. The others followed. For an hour they plied their morbid salvage in desolate quietude, filling each craft with now-precious resources and valued records, the metal drives cut and pried savagely with tools from the colony’s brain. Then so loaded with the treasures of the slain race, the jackals lifted off, and vanished back from whence they came, looking to the dead like red lances aimed soundly at the speck of light at the heart of everything.

---

Rupp waited in a bright room once familiar and full of pain, no longer familiar. For the room and the world it occupied she had been gone a lifetime, though it seemed to her less than a day. Besk and GN conferred outside with an aged man who scarce resembled the villain she remembered. His dark-haired scowl was ringed instead with gray and white, and filled now with regret in place of greed.

The silver wall parted and the villain entered. Besk and GN stood behind him. “Well,” he said, sitting.

“Where is she?” Rupp demanded. Then a mother’s tear softened her voice and she pleaded. “Leon.”

He spoke with difficulty. “She is alive,” he said, doubtless trying to reassure her but failing in his tone. “I want you to know I regret…”

“God damn it,” she screamed, “show her to me!”

Behind him Besk and GN cowed. Leon fought himself. “There was damage,” he said as softly as he could manage. “The stasis damaged her brain. There should be a kinder way to say it, but there isn’t. I am sorry.” Rupp was frozen in place. “With an implant we can…. There are limits, but…” he struggled. “You can still have most of her back. In forty years, who knows.” A paralytic binding on her wrists saved his life then. “I didn’t want this – any of this,” Leon went on.

“You just wanted the money,” she growled.

He fixed his eyes on her, meeting her fire with a dead black void. “Yes,” he agreed. “Yes.” He left with the others and Rupp remained frozen, able only to weep for her child.

After some time had passed the silver wall opened again. Her face was swollen red. Her child was ushered in, freshly washed and numb to all her surroundings. A blankness in the child’s eyes that mirrored her own. The light Rupp remembered in her was entirely gone. Leon placed a hand on the girl’s shoulder and she did not react. “GN told me what you’ve done. The lives you took – that was never part of the arrangement,” he said.

“Bullshit,” Rupp managed. “You knew what I would do. You made me do it.”

Leon frowned. “Maybe you’re right,” he said. “Still, for this, I know there is no forgiveness. Not in you. I will see your daughter cared for – but you cannot leave here. I wanted you to see her again before you are gone. I give you this much.”

“Take your hands off her.” The three villains all shied back, and let the door close. “Taina,” Rupp said. The girl did not seem to hear her. “Taina, it’s me.” But there was nothing. Taina only stood dumbly in the corner, gnawing on her damp hair. “You’re going to get better,” she said. “You’re going to get better, and when you do, remember these men and what they did to you. To us. Please, Taina. Remember who they are.” The door opened. “Kill them, Taina. When you grow up, when you remember – kill them!”

Besk leveled a pistol. “I love you,” she cried.

By @PlatinumSkink.





Eviri flew, the young woman soaring with a trail of green shining light to the backdrop of the stars, surrounded by a green orb of power which enabled her to travel through space at her leisure. She was dressed in a tight green suit of superior technology, a helmet on her head giving information about her surroundings directly into her brain. Her eyes were attentive, her expression one of supreme focus. This was her pleasure. Ever since she had been a little girl, flying through space without as much as a visible craft had always been her dream. This feeling of ultimate freedom, to fly wherever she wanted. The sphere of power carried her wherever she wanted, unbound by natural laws and thoughts. But, unfortunately, she wasn't free. Although she had trained all her life to come to this position, this position had duties attached to it. Duties Eviri had been dealing with the past ten years. Duties to protect her kin.

She was joined by hundreds of others similar to herself dressed in varying colours and surrounded in similar spheres as they descended down towards the dark-brown, murky planet of Itarion, which was the last refuge of the race of alien bugs known as Vilemugs. They resembled giant mosquitoes, with great eyes, long mouth-piece, thin bodies, many legs and great wings which they somehow swung against solar-power to travel through space. Eviri frowned as she descended towards an entire fleet of them, defending their home planet like a swarm of bees, their very numbers clouding the planet behind them. However, in the past, it had been the humans who had been protecting their planets from the waves of this alien race. Planet by planet, they had been able to beat the Vilemugs back. Eviri had throughout this war proved her capabilities and showed herself to be one of the most capable pilots of her age. And this, this was it. The final planet. The final battle.

The enemy fired black shots of power from their weaponry, which was surprisingly advanced considering the appearance of the species. Being black, it was naturally hidden in the backdrop of space, yet Eviri's helmet picked out the shots and informed her of their exact location. From there it was easy for her to command her flight-path to sway left and right with her mind as she flew, dodging the shots off gooey destruction. This was the case for their entire invasion force. They were already experienced at exterminating the Mugs. Ever since they had launched that attack on the Solar System, humans had researched this vile race of invaders which plundered the resources of any planets they came across with no regard to those who lived there. They were humanity's first contact with aliens, yet it was decided that they had to be eliminated. And now, here they were.

'You all know what to do! Spread out! Attack from all sides! Fire!' The voice of Koala, Eviri's commander, was heard by all those connected by this system. Eviri knew the woman was flying in her purple sphere further to her left, blasting beams of power through the enemy lines, the Mugs scattering to avoid but getting inevitably burned when caught. Beside Koala, was the brown colours of the sphere of her wingmate, Aimer, projecting his shields to defend the ships. Further to the right, she saw the yellow enveloping her friend Aren, wielding his power as a long yellow lance that he threw into the horde of enemies, seemingly missing before it exploded in the midst of ill-suspecting enemies. It was Eviri's turn, too. Having dodged the black blasts, she dove at the enemy lines at great speed, focusing her energy into large green blades of power which extended out in the directions in which she directed her arms, currently backwards. Behind her, fellow members of her squad charged in with her, while many more behind opened fire, shooting blasts of varying colours of energy at the enemy. The enemy inevitably scattered, most blasts missing. This was why they came into close combat. The bugs were experts at dodging, but in close combat, human technology was faster.

'CHAAAAAH!' Eviri let out a shout as she came up against the first enemy, and unable to avoid her in time it was split into two with ease, her green blade carving through it. A second enemy behind the first directed its black gun at her, but Eviri's field allowed her to swing out of the way and fluently soar behind the enemy, before cleaving it horizontally. Her helmet was informing her of the location of every potential danger around her. The bugs had no such luxury. She even knew she didn't need to bother with the enemy to her left aiming for her, because that one would be intercepted by one of her allies before firing. Even here, in the midst of the numerically superior horde of bugs, Eviri felt no reason to fear for her life. This very same battle had been fought against this foe so many times before, and always with the same result. They'd win. Knowing this, Eviri swung her arms with grim determination and with them the giant blades of energy expanded out of her sphere of power, and the battle above the dirty planet of Itarion continued.

__________________

'The War is now over. The Vilemugs are extinct. They will never threaten the Milky Way any longer!' A cheer went through the groups of humans standing listening to Commander Koala's speech, most with relieved expressions more than happy. Koala was standing at a podium inside their largest hall of their largest starship, the Isabelle, before the crowd of fighters that had partaken in this battle. On her side stood Aimer, the muscular man in brown, for no apparent reason other than to stand at Koala's side. 'I know many of you have lost people close to you to them, and even more of you desire only to come home, but now, it is over! We'll lose nobody else, and we can finally return home!' A greater cheer was heard. Eviri sighed, smiling a bit where she was seated at the side at a table with a couch, made for relaxing in this great room. Truly, it had been an exhausting venture. Unless every single Vilemug was eliminated, they'd come back, so for the past years they had worked very hard to destroy them on every planet they bugs had colonized. They were a threat that had needed to be dealt with, and now it was. Finally.

'That's it, huh. Victory, at last. Rid the Milky Way of its giant infestation.' Max was seated to Eviri's left, leaning on the table and holding some beverage from home. 'It wasn't even a battle, really, we were superior in every way. They were just, like, really many, and we just lost a lot of civilians because we weren't prepared for their sudden attack. Took more time than they were worth. Sci-fi writers must be rolling in their graves, how uninteresting this fighting was.' He drank of the beverage, actually sounding bitter. Eviri was forced to smirk a little. Max was a great warrior, and had become bored of fighting Vilemugs ages ago. Still, it had been very reassuring to have him on their side, no matter how much he grunted.

'Surely you must have gained some manner of tales with which to boost to those who look up to you?' Eviri asked in amusement. The war was over. They could all relax and joke with one another again. Eviri, at least, felt like a huge weight had been taken off her chest.

'Sure.' Max rolled his eyes. 'However, nothing will be spoken about as MY feats. All of this was made possible with Plutonian technology, not by the hands of the fearsome warriors that use them!' It was true that in battle, Max was fearsome. A great red comet wielding his power as if it was a giant morning-star, smashing large numbers of enemies out of the way with ease and brutal efficiency.

'I'm pretty sure the age of heroics is over, Maxie.' A young late-teen girl leaned over from another couch to join into the conversation, her eyes kind of wide as she inspected the two more experienced warriors. 'We've graduated from swords and personal skill, ya know? Every single action can be done better by a computer, anyway.' Jarnet was one of those that let a computer make every action for her, which has proved to be effective. A blue little sprite hovering about just outside the enemy's reach, shooting rapid-fire blue strikes with the accuracy of a super-computer. However, her method allowing a computer to fight denies the potential of human ingenuity as well as the feeling of being in-control, as such most warriors used the more personal fighting system. Max just grunted again and drank more from his beverage at her displeasing words.

'That's not entirely true.' A man in his mid-twenties came by, stopping standing beside the couch, looking down at them. Aren was a steadfast and polite young man who had served as Eviri's friend and mental support through this war. She smiled a little more in relief, looking up at him as he continued speaking to Jarnet. 'As you may know, during the first wave of Vilemugs, the Triton Union found itself entirely undefended, the enemy striking out of nowhere using the darkness of space to their advantage. A Plutonian named Wence happened to be the vicinity, and all by himself he managed to save untold civilians from certain death. Since then he's been known as the Knight of Triton, and despite being Plutonian he's been given many awards from the people of Triton. A hero if there can ever be one, most certainly.' Aren nodded matter-of-factedly.

'Bah!' Max made an unhappy noise. 'Lucky bastard. Just by being in the right place at the right time. Had I been the one there, I would have been the Knight of Triton!' He grumbled something more, drank up the last of his beverage and struck it down into the table with a rather loud bump. 'And now, I'm out of opportunities to become a hero...' Max complained, making Aren sighed a bit at his insistence at that he was to become a hero in some form of way.

'Please, do accept this peace we've fought so hard for. It's going to last for a long time.' Aren attempted to convince Max to let go of his ambition, though his words caused Eviri to lose her smile. That's right. There was something else she worried about.

'I wouldn't promise that. We're not entirely safe yet.' Eviri lost her smile as she said, getting stares from the other three while she herself stared down into the table. She continued. 'We're all Plutonians here. We've defended the Solar System from threats on the outside, but we should be wary of threats from the inside, as well. Ever since we branched from the technology-level of the rest, the other nations have coveted for what we can do. But, fearing for what they might do with it, we have not let them have it. It might get more dramatic than we want it to in the near future, especially with what the the universe has just shown itself capable of.' Eviri outlined her worries.

'Hmmm.' Jarnet poked at her lips and glanced up at the roof, making a thinking noise. 'If any might try anything, it would be the Mars Empire or the Jupiter Confederation. The rest are peaceful enough.' Her words caused a scoff of laughter from Max, who had been mumbling at his empty beverage.

'Don't pick out opponents yet, little one.' He warned her, Jarnet looking at him with an expression of surprise. 'I'm pretty sure they'd find that rude.' Max continued, causing the girl to raise her eyebrows at him as he then turned to Eviri, placing down his glass as he did with a little smile. Aren looked on with mild interest in what he had to say.

'Don't worry, lass. As disappointed as I may have sounded, this is a time of happiness.' Max told her, in a surprisingly comforting tone. 'The different planetary nations of our Solar System might covet our technology, but guess what, there's a reason they can't. It's the same reason as why it's we Plutonians which are out here fighting Vilemugs. We were blessed. The moment the Solar Gates were opened, allowing solar energy to be regulated to planetary bodies outside the habitable zone, something just happened. All the geniuses were born and all the progress happened with us on Pluto, leaving the rest behind. Even if they try to take our progress, the only thing they can take us on with is obsolete space-crafts.' He grinned, in his own comforting way, saying that everything was fine.

'So, stop worrying, you worry-wart. Instead of the negative, think of the positive. We're going home to our families again. You DO have a family waiting for you, don't you?' He inquired, looking at Eviri expectantly, and so did Jarnet and Aren at his question. Eviri blinked a little at him, but breathed out, feeling a bit calmer as her mind got to focus on something else.

'I do. My good mother and father, a younger brother who's currently studying to work with terraforming, dreaming of colonizing outside the Solar System. There's also my aunts and quite a few cousins, then my grandparents...' Eviri sighed a bit at the thoughts of their happy faces, the ones whom she had fought to keep happy. Satisfied, Max nodded.

'So do I.' Aren smiled, building on. 'I'm the youngest of four siblings, and most of them already have families of their own, so family gatherings tend to be crowded. But, indeed, seeing them all, old as well as young, is a more comforting sight than anything else I can possibly imagine.' It was a sweet mental image, indeed, Eviri admitted. She had seen his family in the past, so she knew first-hand what he was talking about.

'Oh! I do, too!' Jarnet raised her hand to speak, as if simply to join into what the rest were doing. 'My parents were really worried about letting me go to war, but I convinced them that technology would keep me safe! They'll be so happy when I come home! It's just me at the bottom of the family ladder, everyone else is old or ancient! But looking after those old people makes me happy too! I can show off all the new things and they get so amazed!' She smiled brightly, and Eviri could just imagine what the youth shining with energy meant to those old ones. Yeah, that's a good image.

'And of course, so do I. I'm pretty sure I'm a grand-uncle by now.' Max chuckled. 'We were all out here fighting to protect our families. Don't you all forget. We Plutonians, we're practically shunned by all others in our Solar System, so we must never forget our sweet ties to one another. To our families and friends. If we ever feel alone in the emptiness of space, always remember. Just think of all of us smiling together with our families one day. We're all practically one big family here, anyway. Yupp. So, let's go home and meet them all with smiling faces, alright?' He smiled, and Eviri had to admit she hadn't expected him to be that good at giving a comforting speech. Sure, it was cheesy and such, but it made her heart warm. Aren and Jarnet also seemed to be in pretty happy moods after that. Satisfied, Max stood up with a proud little smile.

'Oh, and by the way, did I tell you? I have a fiancé now.' He said a most surprising thing. Eviri looked at him in surprise and interest, accompanied with that unmistakably happy emotion.

'Oh, wow. Congratulations!' Eviri immediately clapped her hands together a bit in delight at the news. Was this the same guy that had grumbled about lack of heroism as before? 'That's an odd time to find one. How long ago?' Aren smirked and asked his companion, wide-eyed with surprise as well, going forth and clapping his friend on the shoulder.

'I proposed just before the first wave. Unfortunately, there became the war, so we agreed to wait with saying anything official until after the the war was over, just in case any of us died on this mission.' Max nodded with pride, looking happy. Why wouldn't he? He's getting married in this post-war world.

'Whaaa-aaat? On this mission? Then, she's on this ship!?' Jarnet looked extremely confused, leaning over from another couch, staring in disbelief at that Max actually got such a person from somewhere. 'Whom!? Whom is it!?' She demanded, and Eviri got a feeling that it looked like Max's nose got longer as he raised his chin in pride, but, he deserved this one moment.

'Oh? I hear you're already bragging.' A playful voice caused three of them baring Aren to jolt a little in surprise, since they all usually associated that voice with barking strict orders they're supposed to follow. Max grinned wider in a guilty display, blushing a little from having been found out, here. 'N-no way...' Jarnet immediately sat up straight again, staring in disbelief. Indeed, Eviri herself felt a feeling of amazement at this revelation.

Commander Koala was the superior officer of this mission and according to any of the fighters here she was a tough and beautiful woman who commanded respect and sowed destruction among the lines of their enemies. Yet here she came with a playful little smile, walking up to the side of an innocently grinning Max and locking her arm with his. There were numerous stunned expressions as this became a scene the average fighters also could take interest and amazement in, Eviri flinching as Koala looked over them with a smile clearly taking pleasure in their reactions.

'Eviri. Your numbers were very good last battle, and you're quite the close combatant. If I ever want a body-guard, I'm picking you.' Eviri felt a little blush of pride come upon herself as she nodded in gratitude at her commander. 'Aren, your numbers were exceptional, as usual. You're becoming a fine soldier.' Aren nodded to her, a smile on him that was still happy for their happiness. 'Jarnet, you were the most energy-efficient fighter in the whole attack. I've never seen an AI quite THAT good. I'll put a good word in for you to the computer science division if you admit to having programmed that AI yourself.' Jarnet flinched backwards a bit from the commanders words, and then mumbled something while seemingly shrinking together a bit. Eviri raised an eyebrow. She had assumed Jarnet had used a normal AI... but she had programmed it herself? That's impressive. Jarnet didn't look like she wanted the attention, however. Hm. Good for her.

'And of course, you...' Koala grinned as she turned her body towards the man she had entwined her arm with. Max grinned back at her. 'You're as violent as ever, but the numbers don't lie. Behind you was among the safest places on the battlefield...' Max made an amused chuckle back, and replied. 'Only because I had been directed by your dependable guidance, my lady. And you, yourself, was a force of nature which no bug could stand against...' The two giggled together in the strangest case of flirting which Eviri could remind herself of ever having seen. There was a bit of a commotion after, multiple people coming up to congratulate the couple. Eviri sighing, sitting in place while Aren came and sat down beside her.

'They look happy. Guess he didn't need need to become a hero after all.' Eviri commented, causing Aren to chuckle a little.

'Aspirations in love and ambition in power are two separate things, Eviri. If one achieves one it can make up for failing the other, but it can never replace it.' The way Aren said that almost sounded like he himself had experience in that. … Which was troublesome to Eviri, who threw some glances at him where he looked happily at Max and Koala. If the boy had a secret lover, that was in her highest interest so she didn't make a fool of herself... whenever she made a move. She blushed a little thinking about it, quickly determining that today wasn't the day she would be making said move. Jarnet was looking over at the two of them leaning her hands against her cheeks, looking like she was thinking something interesting.

'So, the trip back to the Solar System will take two years. What will you all do? Freeze yourselves or stay around?' Max asked when he finally was able to get back to the table, Koala smiling at his side. While they could travel quickly through space faster than light in these ships, they couldn't travel quite THAT quickly, and as such freezing oneself was popular to not have to wait for that long. Some people did have reasons to stay unfrozen, however.

'I'd like to do some work. Though, when I get bored, I'll freeze myself. Two years is too long to wait.' Jarnet declared, shaking her feet back and forth a bit as she did, already looking a bit bored with the current festivities.

'Except for my shifts, I think I'll do the same.' Aren followed up after Jarnet's words. 'Maybe I'll wake myself up once every 30 days just to check around.'

'Oh? Would you like to match cycles? Just for some company~!' Jarnet immediately asked him back with a brilliant smile, after which she gave Eviri a sneaky and expectant look. Eviri refused to be affected.

'What about you, my lady?' Max asked to his fiancé, their faces rather close. She turned back with a rather clear smile.

'Since the war is finally over, I'd like to let loose and do as I like. So, with that, I want to have a one-year old kid when I arrive.'

'That-' Max looked a bit taken aback at this declaration which caused Eviri slight embarrassed discomfort just listening to it. Max looked just a little bit panicked as well, but after a pause he gave an improvised answer. '-can be arranged.'

'Great~!' Koala sounded out happily in front of a slightly panicking fiancé, before she turned to Eviri.

'How about you? Now that the war is finally over, do you have anything you wish to do now that you aren't constrained by constant impending battle anymore? Anything you've had to hold back?' There was the air of something obvious being hinted at.

'I'll freeze myself.' Eviri declared outright and with finality, standing up and leaving the table. She felt both Jarnet and Aren's eyes following her while Max and Koala burst out in tiny giggles to one another. Eh, this was fine. There were peaceful times ahead. Some playful teasing as well as fun and games were fine. After all, they were free now. Free to return home to their families on Pluto, where they belonged.

__________________



'Huah...!' Eviri's eyes shot open in surprise as she awakened. Her mind was immediately supplied with the information of what was going on through the Plutonian information-network, even as she stumbled with tired limbs out of her freezing capsule. How... what had happened!? They were just now arriving at home, after the two years of travelling back to the Solar System. What had happened while they had been gone? Even though Eviri's body was only about half a year older than it had been when she left for this mission, it had gone about ten years since they had left. What had happened in these ten years? Why... why was Pluto under occupation!? … And by the Triton Union, of all nations!?

Eviri didn't understand the information she had been provided. There was no helping it. She got herself dressed in her green battle-suit and helmet as quickly as she could, frowning as she dashed for the hangar along with a lot of other soldiers. In the hangar there was a large open space with energy-windows leading out into space. The soldiers were dashing, jumping out through these barriers and were enveloped by spheres of power in their colour as they came out on the other side, protected from space. Keeping her teeth clenched, Eviri dashed as well. Diving out through the field, her suit woke to life and enveloped her in her green sphere of power, which immediately soared out into space along with the other soldiers.

The Triton Union was a union of the different countries that had formed on Triton, Neptune's major moon, after its terraforming. They were Pluto's closest neighbours for this century, they had mostly kept to themselves except for their regular appearances at the Earth Council. They received notable attention after having taken the brunt of the Vilemug attack, saved by the actions of the Plutonian Wence and his white powers. Yet... where had this thing appeared from? In front of Eviri was Pluto, Charon circling around the now green and blue healthy dwarf-planet, the sun shining through a Solar Gate to her left giving the dwarf-planet the solar energy it needed to survive with the help of healthy technology. It looked untouched.

However, right above it, was a positively enormous spaceship, floating in orbit. It's diameter looked to be about one tenth of the dwarf-planet itself, way more massive than anything humanity had ever put into orbit. It consisted of two giant metal pikes, pointing down at the sides as it slowly and ominously rotated horizontally above their home, a great white spire of power pointing down at the planet. The ship looked very much like a trident, pointing down at Pluto with the potential to skewer it. The readings which Eviri's mind was given about the power contained in the middle spire... it was off the charts.

'Plutonian forces, welcome back.' A voice hailed them, coming from the ship itself. The voice was calm and as ominous as the ship itself, making itself heard to all incoming Plutonions. 'I advice you not to make any sudden moves. The Trident contains more than enough power to eliminate all life on Pluto.' The numerous starships which had arrived, including the Isabelle, used energy to come to a halt and the many fighters were given the halt command. Eviri came to a stop, staring at the dangerous scene before her. Upon closer inspection, there were far more metallic crafts of war than just the Trident in orbit, but it was definitely the most eye-catching.

'Wonderful. Now, I would like to negotiate with your commander in person. You may bring a single ally onboard the Trident. No contact with the surface world of Pluto will be allowed. Failure to comply will be met with immediate consequences.' Eviri felt a combination of anger and panic, floating in mid-space looking at their home planet. This had been supposed to be their last action for a while. They were supposed to come home to see their families. She thought of the faces of her parents and little brother. Were they safe? What had happened? The Tritons shouldn't have the technology to defeat the Plutonian garrison! Yet, she felt no sign of them! What had happened? How long ago? … She didn't know.

'Eviri.' She blinked in surprise, hearing Koala's voice speaking directly to her. Eviri turned her attention towards the bridge of the Isabelle, where she knew Koala was. 'Y-yes, Commander?' She responded, unsure why she had been contacted. '… Come with me.' Koala asked her, and although surprised, Eviri was quick to bite back her doubt about the situation and resume her duty as a fighter. 'Yes, Commander!'

Shortly after, Eviri in a green sphere was following Koala, who was floating right in front of her in a purple suit and sphere. The woman looked as determined as ever, and there was no clear change in her body-structure, as far as Eviri could see. Yet... that conversation before Eviri had gone and frozen herself... 'Commander...' She asked, sounding worried.

'Yes, Eviri?' Koala asked, as they were drifting towards the Trident, ominously welcoming their tiny existences and a signal from the craft showed them where to enter. This was very stressful and scary to Eviri, but Koala showed no sign of being disturbed. Yet, there was no way she wasn't. Building a bit of courage, Eviri asked the question.

'Is the little one alright?' She asked, staring focused at Koala. If she had made a mistake, then the commander could simply correct her. Koala, a looking a little surprised at the question, smiled a bit back at her. It was a really kind-looking smile.

'Yeah. Karen's alright. She's frozen right now. I couldn't have her be awake when this crisis started.' Koala answered, causing Eviri to sigh a bit in relief. 'To have the first soul you worry about after this to be me and my daughter, I'm a bit happy.'

'Ah, no...' Eviri blushed a little, but had to hold a little smile. 'The first ones I worried about was my family. It's just that, um, I can't come into contact and hear if they're alright, but I could hear if you're alright. That was all.' Yeah, somehow, all signals were being jammed from the surface of the dwarf-planet, there was no hearing what was going on.

'Oh, yes. Of course.' Koala nodded, before turning back to the situation. They were both high on alert, but... it still made Eviri feel a little good knowing that part had gone well. Still. The many Tritonian metal space-crafts with their guns directed towards them as they drifted towards the Trident was very uncomfortable.

'I've analysed the components of the Trident.' Jarnet's voice was heard from somewhere behind them, no doubt having her computer run through every single piece of data which she could obtain. 'It is possible that they were developing it from the materials of Neptune's core.'

'So, they hid it from us. This thing has been in development for longer than we've known of the existence of Vilemugs.' Koala quickly surmised, glaring ahead at the giant craft. This led to Eviri making another realization.

'Then, it must have been originally built to combat us.' She shared, a very worrying additional fact that brought an air of tension from the unknown powers this machine had to offer. Indeed, the Triton Union did not usually have the power to occupy Pluto. They must have used something, some trick, in order to neutralize the garrison. The question was, what was it?

'Indeed.' Koala nodded at Eviri's conclusion. 'Jarnet. Continue analysing. I want to know as much as possible before I come back. Aimer, take command while I am away. Make sure nobody moves before they should, this is a delicate situation.' She gave quick orders as they approached the giant craft.

'There's a lot of interference, but I'll do what I can.' Jarnet responded, sounding worried.

'Don't worry, we'll keep things in order. Good luck, commander.' Aimer added on, now having been given command during Koala's absence.

'Great. Let's go see if we can deal with this, then.' They continued onwards as they by distance disconnected from the network of the others, into the suddenly very silent environment of space.

__________________

'Welcome.' A very thin, yet obviously pleased man was sitting behind a desk in the well-lit room which Koala and Eviri had been led to. Since they had entered the enormous craft and been led towards this room, all the soldiers of Triton had been sure to show their numbers and their courage standing around the Plutonians, but they were obviously unnerved. It wasn't strange. Their whole lives they had been taught that the technology of the Plutonians was unbeatable, yet here they were, holding Pluto hostage right before the full power of the Plutonian invasion fleet. However, the man in front of them held nothing but vile confidence, extruding an aura of being in utter control of the situation. The sight of his expression made Eviri feel very uncomfortable. It felt like he took pleasure in their troubled situation.

'You must be the famed Commander Koala, correct? I'm Lord Umeron of the Triton Union. I'm honoured to meet you.' He stood up and raised his hand to shake, but neither Koala nor Eviri were particularly interested in becoming friends. Eviri shrunk back a bit, frowning at his pride, feeling uncomfortable. She was a bit amazed at how Koala could stand there, looking virtually unperturbed, her expression practically emotionless as she addressed the man.

'What are you doing?' Koala asked, both Eviri and Umeron looking surprised at her question. Seeing how she wouldn't take his hand, Umeron retracted his hands to behind his back, looking at her with a seemingly respectful look, though Eviri could tell he was looking down at them mentally.

'I beg your pardon? What does it look like I'm doing?' He asked, looking at her with curiosity.

'By invading Pluto, you've turned the entire Solar System against you.' Koala's voice gave away the hints of her irritation, but the contents of her words did not let themselves be swayed. 'Triton, while respected, does not have the manpower to command this system, especially not with us while using the majority of your forces just to keep us Plutonians in check. With this invasion, there is no way the different nations of the Solar System aren't gearing up for battle, making alliances and keeping a watch of your every move. All you have is the Trident. Other than that, you have no army to fend them off with.' Koala stared judgingly at Umeron, who smirked a little at the woman's sentence.

'My gentle lady, you underestimate the power of fear.' He told, smiling gently. 'The Trident is able to strike any planetary body in the Solar System in moments. Now, we wouldn't want to do that, but we're holding far more than just Pluto hostage, here. It might be in orbit around Pluto right now, to celebrate your arrival, but at any point we might point its edge somewhere else. We haven't said any threats, however. As such, yes, the other planets are gearing up for war, but they won't act. What if Triton is happy with just Pluto? They all hope that is the case. Sure, they might beat us in a fight, but they may lose so much more as a result... nobody wants to take that chance.' He grinned, seemingly taking pleasure out of the words he said, looking at the two women before him. Umeron raised his head even higher, as he came to his next point.

'Speaking of which, that army you just claimed we don't have... didn't it just arrive?' Eh? Did he just...? Eviri's lips parted slightly in disbelief as he hinted on something without explanation. He definitely just referred to the Plutonian invasion force as his army.

'… You're more confused than I thought.' Koala answered, a clear edge audible in her voice. 'What do you think will happen should you destroy Pluto right now? We'll destroy you. Your own bargaining chip against us is also the one reason you're not floating debris right now. So, we cannot attack you, but you most certainly cannot attack us either.' She answered with confidence. Eviri blinked a little in surprise. Something felt wrong. There was something about the promise of mutually assured destruction which scared her.

'Don't.' Eviri surprised herself as she spoke. But... she couldn't keep silent. Because, she could read Koala powering up her suit. Koala, realizing that it was her that had been spoken to, turned her head and gave a mildly intimidating look at Eviri. 'Th-they were able to take down the garrison at Pluto. They have some kind of way of fighting us. As long as we don't know what it is, don't challenge them. W-we don't know what they might be capable of.' While scared of turning her only ally into an enemy on this front, Eviri couldn't let Koala go and risk all the people of Pluto just for the sake of this threat. Umeron was visibly pleased with her words.

'Good, good. I love me some drama. Looks like your disciple here is smarter than you.' He said, looking from Eviri to Koala, entwining his fingers as if to keep them from showing his excitement. 'She's correct. We have measures to combat your kind. Your fleet stands no chance against us as it looks now. We're well prepared for your arrival. We just can't fight the other regular machines. So we'd like your help with that. Should you not help us, then we have no use holding our army up by keeping you in check here, so we could just eliminate you all and then place our forces at more strategic locations. The choice is all yours. It would be a pain to have to eliminate you just because we needed our fleet somewhere else...' He outlined a definite threat.

'Hm.' Koala turned her stare back at Umeron, looking somewhat annoyed at having been talked back to from her own picked aide and being put in an unfavourable position. 'That may be the case. Alright, so we might have a bit of trouble facing against your unknown weapon...' She placed her hands on her hips, staring forward at Umeron, who was still smiling with his hands entwined. '… But you made a grave little mistake. You shouldn't have let a Plutonian fighter onboard your super-weapon.'

'Wait.' Eviri muttered in stunned fear, raising her hand to attempt stopping her commander, but Koala had already flared up, her hair flattering as a purple field of power enveloped her and she was in full combat-mode within a second. Eviri felt it. Koala was going to charge straight through the internal structure of the Trident's core and wreck havoc. Since it'd be hard to imagine them firing their weapon onboard their own ship, it was hard to imagine some form of counter-weapon arriving in time to block a free-moving Plutonian fighter already inside the ship, but Umeron had not stopped smiling. That pleased, disturbing expression that seemed to dare her to do exactly what she was about to do. Eviri wanted to interfere, but fear stuck her on the spot.

Koala took off upwards, the direction of the highest concentration of energy in the Trident. However, just as she was breaking through the ceiling, a shock of power erupted from right above, forcing a surprised Koala back onto the floor. Eviri's eyes widened in surprise. This power-signature! It was...!

Standing beyond the hole one floor above, surrounded by a white sphere of power, was Wence. The Plutonian Knight of Triton. He stood with as straight a back and as knightly an aura as always, but he was staring down at Koala with a look which could be described as if he was disgusted with her. In his right hand, he was holding what appeared to be a steel gun, with a barrel long enough to reach outside his sphere.

'I see.' Koala commented, frowning. 'If you let them research your-' She wasn't able to finish the sentence. Wence directed the gun at her, the end of the barrel outside his own sphere. Noting being in danger, Koala dodged to her right, carried by the high acceleration of her field. However, Wence's hand was faster. He intercepted her flight-pattern and fired. The shot felt like it reached its target instantly, an echoing bang resounding through the room. Pounding into Koala's sphere, the shot sent a ripple through the purple power of Koala's defence. Normally, the sphere would protect its host from most damage, but... Eviri flinched as she watched Koala's sphere shatter, the various power-cells spread through her suit cracking. Her mouth opening in pain, black steam rising from her fried suit as the powerful commander fell powerlessly to the floor, blood spilling out of her from numerous wounds under her suit. Eviri stood, helpless and terrified, watching. Th-this... this was real danger. She had never felt it before, only dealing with Vilemugs...

'W-wence... Wh-why did you...?' Eviri tried, looking up in fear at the man with the gun, the man formerly having been known as a hero. The man looked at her as if she was little more than an insect.

'What is it to you? If you have to know, Triton had more to offer me. On Pluto, everyone is doomed to always be treated equally. In the Triton Union, I can finally be treated like I deserve. Like a proper hero.' … The supremely skilled fighter outlined the most base desire humanity had ever known.

'Wh-wha...' Eviri stared wide-eyed at Wence, not believing what she had heard. 'You... You're terrible...' Wence merely met her gaze, seemed as if he felt her fear, and stared her down. Eviri realized she couldn't look at him anymore, and even less could she look at Koala, so her eyes settled on the man still looking so very pleased with himself having seen the scene before him. Reminded by the situation around her by looking at Umeron, Eviri felt her soul quiver a bit. Fearing what he might do, she sunk down on her knees and bowed to him.

'I-I'm sorry.' Eviri heard her own shaking voice say. She was crying. She was afraid. She had no choice. 'P-please, forgive my Commander for her transgression. Th-the Plutonian forces will obey your commands. B-but, please don't make us attack civilians and those who don't resist. We're... not made for that.' She attempted to compromise, fear having taken root in her heart, her head down before Umeron. And... she heard his bone-chilling laughter. He loved it.

'That's it! Good girl! That's what I like to hear! Yeah, sure, as long as you wipe out their fleets, I'll be most pleased!' She could hear his grin, and some guilt went through her as he accepted her proposal. Eviri would have to go through with this, now, wouldn't she? She... was keeping Pluto safe. Would... would the cost be worth it? 'You! I like you! What's your name?' Umeron asked, excited.

'E-eviri! My name is Eviri, sir!' Her voice still afraid, she responded instinctively to him while staring straight down into the floor. Wence made a noise of disappointment, as if he had wanted her to act some other way, and she could read that he powered down his suit and wandered off on the floor above. Even with her sitting like this, her suit still told her how Umeron bent forward, staring approvingly at her in that wicked way of his.

'Good girl. From this day on, YOU'RE the Commander of the Plutonian invasion fleet, Eviri. I won't accept anyone else's leadership from this point on. We'll keep Koala here, captive, as extra insurance of that. Don't worry about her, we'll take well care of her. I trust you'll make the Triton Union proud, Plutonian girl. For the sake of dear Pluto and Koala here...' His voice. It was so... creepy, frightening, merciless. This huge responsibility... From the beginning, Eviri had wanted to dress into this suit for the sake of flying free, but was drafted after the Solar System came under attack from Vilemugs due to her excellent capability. And now... now she was...

'Yes, sir...' Eviri answered him, her tone defeated, feeling utterly helpless.

__________________



Eviri felt so tiny. When she came back, she now had to stand in the place where Koala had been standing where she had given the speech that the war was over. At the podium in the largest hall of the Isabelle. There were so many eyes on her. She just wanted to sink away and vanish. But...

'For those who don't know me, I am Eviri. Feel free to look up my record as you please. I was tasked with accompanying Koala onto the Trident. As Koala has been taken hostage along with the rest of Pluto, it falls on me to tell you what has happened.' There was fear in the eyes of the many fighters that were watching her, too. She didn't know how this would be taken. But she had to. She saw Aren and Jarnet in the back, Aren with his arms crossed and Jarnet looking worried. Where... where was Max?

'The Triton Union has a new weapon able to shoot us down. I saw it happen. Koala was neutralized with a single shot from a strange gun. We don't know how it works, but as it stands, we stand no chance against them. We've been tasked to destroy the military fleets of other nations. I've managed to ensure we don't have to hurt civilians and those who don't resist, but if we do not assist Triton in invading the Solar System, the Trident will lose its reason to keep us hostage and annihilate Pluto for the simple reason of keeping its backs clean when moving on to conquer other planets. If it's for the matter of defending our families, we don't have a choice. I've been selected by Lord Umeron of Triton to lead us in his name.' There were heavy murmuring around the crowd. Frightened murmurs, angry murmurs, all kinds of negative ones.

'Any complaints-'

'You're damn right there are complaints!' Eviri quieted as her words had been interrupted. A notably annoyed Aimer, the large man who was always at Koala's side, stepped up towards Eviri. She shuddered a bit. He was so large and intimidating. 'We shouldn't obey the commands of one who's threatening our homes! Let's attack! Their secret weapon be damned, it's just a gun that happens to be effective, right!? Now that we know, we can dodge it! We should take the chance and hold onto our honour, and blast the Trident into pieces! I won't let the Plutonians become the lapdogs of the Triton Union!' He informed, angrily, glaring down at Eviri. There were numerous agreeing murmurs in the crowd. N-not good.

'W-we can't.' Her voice sounded anything but convincing. 'If we fail, he'll just destroy Pluto. Th-they have Wence. Wence betrayed us. He was the one who shot Koala. They've researched on his suit, and found a weakness. We must-'

'We must not at all.' Aimer countered, his voice filled with anger and vigour, making Eviri flinch back. 'We'd betray our families even more by letting Umeron use us to take over the system. You, little girl, have fallen for fear and is right now as much of a pawn of Umeron's as Wence is.' Eviri panicked at Aimer's words. This was going all wrong.

'I-I'm just trying to defend Pluto!' She tried. 'You didn't see him! Umeron... he's heartless! He'll destroy our home without a shred of hesitation if given reason! I'm...' Eviri placed a hand over her beating heart. I'm in the right... right?

'Now, now.' A steady voice was heard through the hall. Eviri and Aimer both looked in its direction. Max stood with a little smile by the door, in his hands a tiny sleeping one-year-old little girl named Karen. 'Don't bully the poor girl. Give her a chance. After all, we're not completely lost. Koala's given us a chance.' He said, rather confidently. With those words, Max wandered over and handed a little datapad to a surprised Jarnet, Aren blinking a bit in surprise looking on.

'TH-THIS IS...!' Jarnet became ecstatic as she looked at the contents of the datapad.

'Indeed. It's the data from Koala's suit from when she was shot. She had it plugged in just in case, to give readings on what happened to her should she be countered. She planned to force them to shoot her.' Max grinned at her, then waved at her to scurry off. 'Now, off you go.' Jarnet didn't hesitate for a moment as she spun around and dashed for a better place to analyse the data. Then, with little Karen still sleeping on his arm, he turned and looked at Aimer, who was frowning back at him with his fists clenched.

'With the data Koala has given us, we'll eventually be able to gain a counter for the enemy attack. And when we're done, we'll be able to regain superiority once again.' Max informed, not backing down for even a moment. 'When that has happened, we can strike back against Umeron and his Trident with better luck. As it stands, we're unprepared. A greater chance might follow if we allow Eviri to command us for a little while, until we've discovered the means with which we'll take back our home. Now, shouldn't that be a healthy compromise? Or will you just ignore this chance which Koala has offered us?'

'…' Aimer was silent, staring at Max. Eviri stared at Aimer, afraid of what conclusion he could make, while feeling privately helpless. Even now, she was just being helped by those around her. Was flying really the only thing she could do? Did she have no choices, was all the choices already made by those around her? What was Aimer thinking right now?

'Fine.' Aimer finally ended with, causing Eviri to breathe out in relief. 'Do note, I do not approve of this plan, but I do accept it. For the sake of Koala.' He turned and left, and the rest of the fighters seemed to more or less accept it, too. The crowd dispersed, although permission had not been given to do so by Eviri, but she felt in no way like she was in any position to tell them otherwise. She sheepishly went over towards her friends, Max and Aren, feeling exhausted.

'D-did I do the right thing?' Eviri asked, looking for answers at Max and Aren. Max grinned, standing with the little one on his arm while Aren stood with a grim expression, but nodded. 'You did the best you could. I do not envy your position.' Aren said, his arms crossed looking at her. 'Koala knew this would potentially happen, if she set up her suit to get those readings. Meaning she picked you over even Aimer to be the one to take care of the aftermath of her being shot. Koala trusts you. You should feel better, knowing this.' He shared, and Eviri blinked a bit at this realization. Yeah, that was right. Koala HAD picked her for this.

'Yeah, you're right.' She said, with a more steady voice. That did calm her down a bit, strangely enough. 'I'll make sure to make her proud. … If I can.' Currently, however, that just meant playing Umeron's lapdog, obeying his commands.

'Good thing, too.' Max grinned, lightly bouncing on the spot with a small baby sleeping there. 'Had it been Aimer, we'd likely have attacked, too.' Eviri quivered at the thought of what Umeron might have done then. 'In any case.' Max turned his head and looked at Aren. 'Luckily Umeron agreed that we didn't need to attack those who don't resist. Aren, I'd like you to escape and message the other nations about this deal. Tell them to stand down. If possible, also request for aid in liberating Pluto. If they accomplish that, we'll have no reason to fight for Triton anymore. When we have regained control, we'll wipe out the Triton occupational forces. That way, we will not have to actually invade anyone.' Aren frowned a bit, looking at him.

'And if I'm seen leaving this ship?' He asked.

'Oh, we should be able to explain one deserter, should we not? Plutonians are a people of freedom, after all. You'll likely not be the only one.' Max continued to grin, and then turned to Eviri. 'Is this plan of action approved, Commander?' Eviri winced, realizing she had been spoken to while being referred to as “commander”.

'Ah. W-well, yes. Please do.' A feeling of strange guilt went through her. Not only because she had taken a title that she didn't feel she deserved, she also hadn't been able to defend herself in this situation. It had been all Max. That, and they were still planning to rebel against Umeron, despite the danger of doing so. Of course they intended on doing so. Living under the control of the Triton Union was no way to live, but it filled Eviri with fear for their futures, and the future of their home planet. Of their families on it. How were they doing? It was... impossible to know. Still...

'And... you have my permission to do things without asking me first for this intention.' She told them both, feeling that it was easier to let that responsibility off her head by saying so. 'Please be careful.' She asked Aren, who looked at her with a little analysing look before he put a hand on her shoulder and smiled a bit.

'Don't worry about me. I think I'll be on one of the safer missions around here. Just you be careful dealing with Umeron and his Triton Union. Good luck, Eviri.' And with that, Aren turned around and left her, lifting his hand off her shoulder as he did. Eviri's heart felt a little cold after his touch left her. He was going out on another mission, and now Eviri would not be able to take comfort in his presence. It'd just be her, Max and Jarnet...

'Awwaaah...!' Eviri flinched when the little creature in Max's arms suddenly reached out for her while making a loud vocal noise only a baby could make. Her flinch seemed to frighten the baby, too, for Karen retracted her hand to her mouth and looked at her with a confused, almost panicked-looking big eyes. Oh. That's right. Eviri giggled little, smiling at the little one who had turned in her father's hands to inspect Eviri.

'I'm sorry. Did I frighten you?' She carefully held a hand forward to let the little one become familiar with her hand, but instead got surprised when Karen lifted her arm and softly struck Eviri's hand with her arm and then laughed as if she had done the most amusing joke in the eternity of forever. Max proceeded to laugh as well, readjusting his grip on her a bit, joining Karen's little fit of laughter.

'Yes. Funny, was that? Very funny. Daddy's sense of humour is having a hard time catching up to your comedic genius. That's how funny it was.' And the two laughed together for no apparent reason, Karen encouraged to continue laughing from Max's laughing joining in. Eviri was just watching the scene and it was hard not to laugh herself, despite the situation that was going on. That's right. This was what she was protecting. She had to stay strong for a while longer.

'Thank you, Karen.' Eviri muttered, before she waved them off and started walking herself.

__________________

'Do your duties and you will be rewarded, Plutonians! Obey the order of your Commander, and clear the way for us! That's all you need to do! For the Triton Union, and the safety of Pluto!' … The voice was coming from a relatively large space-cruiser behind them, along with the small army of Triton attack vessels. He had been going on non-stop since they left Pluto. In one of his first sentences he had referred to himself as Captain Sewbrig, but really, most of the Plutonian forces had stopped listening to him within the first few shouts. They all knew what they were being asked to do.

Eviri stood at the forefront of the flying fighters, a sphere of green surrounding her and her arms crossed. In front of her was the dwarf-planet of Eris, with the Solar Gate shining down energy from above at it. There was a meagre fleet of ships defending the yellow and green-spotted planet. They didn't stand a chance.

'Stand down.' Eviri commanded. 'We have no reason to attack you if you simply lay down your arms.'

'Yes!' Sewbrig happily called out from behind her. 'Lay down your arms, and accept the Triton Union as your new masters!' … Eviri felt the inevitable tinge of annoyance. He was potentially making this a whole lot harder. There was silence. Most likely the people of Eris were discussing the best cause of action among themselves. Eviri just had to pray that they didn't do anything that would force the Plutonians to attack them.

'This is Admiral Suen of Eris.' A voice said after what felt like forever, hailing from one of the vessels around the planet. 'I'm afraid I'll have to decline.' And with that said, suddenly the ships blasted forward small capsules at considerable speeds towards the Plutonian fighters. 'Oh.' Eviri made a small noise of realization as she stared. They were nukes. How did you counter super-fast Plutonian fighters that's way more agile and powerful than your own ships? With extremely huge explosives, appeared to be the answer of the Eris fleet.

'Jarnet.' Eviri commanded, and she knew immediately what to do.

'Yes, ma'am! Uploading schematics!' Because unlike the Trident, this was a known kind of projectile, it was possible for the information about these projectiles be provided to the fighters. This provided a very peculiar detail. The nukes worked on a timer, and upon the timer being triggered a small projectile would be launched and detonate the bomb. Very well.

'Forward team! Intercept the explosives! Slice off the detonator!' Eviri commanded, naturally knowing what to do as she and many other fighters soared forward, closing the distance between them and the nukes in a mere fraction of a second, way faster than the Eris' commanders could even react to. Closing her hands and letting the computer in her helmet calculate exactly where to strike to help her, Eviri let green blades of power extrude from her sphere in the directions of her arms, and her dance started. Swinging her arms as she passed the explosives, she split off the detonators from the rest of the bombs, her sphere swinging from explosive to explosive. On her sides, her many fighters were doing the exact same, flawlessly executing their commands with the help of the information provided to their minds.

Noting the actions of the Plutonian fleet, the Erisian ships opened fire. Notably at the nukes, intending on detonating the already deactivated explosives. Without even needing the order, Aimer flew in front of Eviri, the big man in brown putting his hands forward with a grim expression on his face as a brown barrier extended from his sphere, blocking the shots along with many other defensively suited fighters, creating a wall that the Erisian ships simply didn't have the firepower to blow through. Max was flying around in red behind her with numerous others, carefully picking up the explosives and removing them from the battlefield in case of instability. Eviri... felt safe again. Her many fighters were doing their jobs flawlessly. However, so far, it was all defence.

'Magnificent job, Plutonians!' Sewbrig's voice was notably louder in the ears of those who heard him than it needed to be. 'Now, finish the job! Annihilate them, for Triton, and for your home!' That man... Umeron had very intentionally put Sewbrig in this job. The Lord of the Trident knew very well how this fanatic would sound to the ears of the Plutonians, yet they could do nothing about it. It had to be pleasing Umeron to no end, imagining this. However, should the enemy continue to resist, they would have no choice. Would they have to kill the innocent? Eviri frowned angrily as she turned to the enemy fleet.

'So, Admiral Suen? Do you have any other tricks up your sleeve, or would you like to stand down, now?' Eviri asked, making sure that her irritation at this trick of his was clearly audible. The ships of Eris stopped firing, and silence was heard once again. Eviri stared in silence, glaring down at them, surrounded by her other fighters while Aimer let down his shield for the moment and turned to stare at her a little.

'… You do make a good Commander.' The brown fighter commented, looking at where Eviri stood with her arms crossed. 'You have the aura. You just needed to get out on the field of battle to show it. Had circumstances been different, I wouldn't have objected to following you normally.' With that, Aimer turned back and stared down at the enemy forces. Eviri was still annoyed at having to deal with the explosives, as such couldn't appreciate Aimer's odd praise, but she duly noted it as she stared down and awaited the enemy response.

'You leave us little choice.' Suen's voice was eventually heard again, more somber than it was before. 'We're prepared to discuss the terms of surrender.'

'EXCELLENT! That's where MY role comes in!' Sewbrig announced. Eviri grimaced, but assumed her job was done with. The Plutonians parted way to let the Triton vessels in so that they could dock with the Erisian one, but they had to stand around to warn about the consequences of sudden resistance. Eviri felt horrible, this felt wrong. She had just let Umeron conquer another world. But, it was for the sake of Pluto. That's what it was. So she stayed there, feeling empty, standing inside her sphere of green in mid-space, watching the two vessels docked in orbit around Eris.

The deal was finished soon enough. The dwarf-planet did not have the means of defending itself from Plutonians, as known. However, not all planets would so peacefully roll over. The Uranus Tetrad, made of the moons Ariel, Titania, Umbriel and Oberon, all resisted fiercely. To a watcher's eyes it would look like the forces of Uranus severely out-powered the Plunonians, with all the many energy-beams and explosions from Uranus ships blasting everything in sight, but the truth was the opposite. Commanded by Eviri to merely disable the enemy ships rather than annihilate them as Sewbrig's obnoxious yelling demanded, the Plutonians cut the weapons and disabled the engines of the ships they flew past, easily dodging the shots of the Uranus forces. They were superior enough to do so. The only casualties in that battle were those who the vessels of Uranus shot down of their own numbers by accident, since they fired so widely in all directions. That battle was also one which was soon won, the Plutonian experience in fighting Vilemugs coming well to use. The moons of Uranus was under Triton's rule soon enough.

__________________



'The Jupiter Confederation and the Republic of Saturn are planning to make a surprise strike at Pluto to drive Triton away from our home, in order to free us from Umeron's rule.' Aren reported to a distressed Eviri. The battle against the Uranus Tetrad had shaken her a bit. Even the slightest mistake while attacking would have resulted in the death of those she was attempting to disable, yet she had to dodge enemy attacks herself in order to stay alive. Fighting Vilemugs had been so much easier than fighting humans. It had been so much easier when the order was “exterminate”. But, seeing Aren again and hearing this report in her office on the Isabelle, it comforted her. Present in the room was Aren before her, Max and Aimer by the side and Jarnet sitting backwards on a chair, leaning her arms on the backrest.

'Th-that's good news.' Eviri said, breathing a bit heavily and letting her expression soften, sitting in her chair hearing his report. 'It will happen in tandem with our scheduled attack at Saturn.' Aren continued, standing professionally in front of her. 'With the sheer numbers of ships defending the moons of Saturn, they estimate the majority of the Triton fleets will be there, leaving Pluto relatively undefended, not counting the Trident. Commander Shum Wei of Jupiter will gather as many ships as he can and attack Pluto while we attack Saturn. President Omair of Saturn wishes you good luck in our coming battle, hoping you'll spare his troops as you did those of Uranus as well as that hoping you don't suffer too many casualties.' … So, the coming battle would be a fight between allies set against one another, both sides acknowledging it but letting it happen regardless.

'Very well.' Aimer spoke. 'Then there's no question about it. We'll turn around and leave for Pluto before the attack starts, arriving just in time to help Shum retake Pluto.' He declared, beating one of his hands into the other. This caused Eviri to blink a bit in surprise at him. That was... no.

'We will not. We will attack Titan, as Umeron wishes. When Shum's message that he has retaken Pluto arrives, first then will we turn our forces to fight Triton.' Eviri declared, rather sure of her position on the matter. That's right, she thought. Their hope would be put into the sheer might of the Jupiter military force. They outnumbered the Triton forces at the very least ten to one.

'What?' An outright hostile one-word question of someone who didn't believe what he had just heard came from Aimer, causing Eviri to turn and stare in slight surprise and fear at his angry glare. 'We're not going to get a better chance than this. Jupiter's forces are the strongest in the Solar System. And we're NOT going to help them retake Pluto?' He asked, angrily. Eviri, needing to reaffirm her own beliefs, stood up to meet him.

'If this attack on Pluto fails, then we don't want Umeron to have reason to punish us. We cannot risk that we'll lose. As such, we will continue our attack on Titan. That way, Pluto won't be destroyed, even if we lose.' Eviri said, confronting him. Yes, she believed what she was saying was in the right. Jupiter didn't need their help. They sounded quite confident in their own capability, since they had decided to do it this way.

'If we lose...?' Aimer repeated, clear anger arising in his eyes and voice. 'This is the Jupiter Confederacy we're talking about! They're the best chance we've got!' He was shouting at her, and Eviri was feeling quite intimidated by the large man. 'So imagine Jupiter loses. We take Saturn, and then Jupiter just lost their fleet attacking Pluto, hm? What's left? The engineers and researchers of Mercury have no army to speak of and Venusians are renowned for their peaceful oblivious attitudes to everything! We're left hoping for the Mars Empire and the Earth, and not only are they a weaker alternative to Jupiter and Saturn, they're also long-time rivals and enemies! If we let this chance go, we'll never get it again! We'll live all our lives under Umeron's thumb! So you really want that!? Are you on our side or not!?' Aimer shouted at her, those words stinging really badly. He did have a point, but...

'We can't.' Eviri said, her heart shaking in fear within her. 'Our duties is to the people of Pluto. This has the greatest chance of keeping them alive, as such, we have no choice. We're still vulnerable to Triton's counter-measure against us. There will be no change of plans. We will attack Titan as commanded.' Her heart wasn't in the words. She did want to help defend her home from the occupation of Triton, but she felt frightened. Frightened about risking her family and everyone else on Pluto for the chance of everything going fine. She didn't want to do that.

'…' Aimer glared angrily at her, before turning and walking angrily out the room, his every step sounding like the step of an angry giant. Eviri was left pale and looking after him, unsure how to best handle the situation.

'Oh, wow. He was really angry, huh.' Max commented, scratching behind his head looking after Aimer with a small smile.

'Oooouuuugh...' Jarnet complained, pressing her forehead down into the backrest of the chair. 'If only I could actually analyse the bullets or whatever it was to complete the readings of what happened to the suit, then I could really get to know how it worked and how to counter it...'

'It's not your fault.' Aren told her. 'Would you like me to attempt stealing one for you?'

'No waaaay.' Jarnet said in a disinterested tone staring at him. 'The scanners of today would find you in a heartbeat. Don't go risking Eviri's hard-earned trust from Triton with such a stupid thing.' Aren winced a bit at her words, and then shrugged in an “as you wish” manner which caused Max to chuckle a bit. Eviri looked between them for a bit, feeling doubt in herself again.

'A-am I doing the right thing?' She asked for the fifteenth time since the was given command.

'Wouldn't be able to say. I see the points both of you are making.' Aren would say, looking at her quite honestly. 'If we attacked the Trident and lost, then you're right. If we attacked and won, then Aimer's right. From here, I can't say who's more right.' Aren said, making Eviri feel a little better about this, at least. They can't tell, either.

'It's also a question of if you'd prefer your people to be dead or living under Umeron's control.' Max smiled and chimed in, making Eviri wince.

'Don't make her imagine that.' Jarnet complained and sighed. 'The battle's coming up. We need to get ready.'

'Y-yeah...' Eviri said. This was a battle that would be a diversion for a more important battle at Pluto. Hopefully, Shum Wei would be able to destroy the Trident. The only thing Eviri could do was her best in an attack on Titan commanded by Triton. She felt helpless and useless being forced to do so, but her mind was convinced that this was the one thing she could do.

__________________

'Woooaaah, they're so many...' Jarnet commented as they stood mid-space inside their different coloured spheres, staring forward at the yellow moon of Titan, behind it the absolutely giant planet of Saturn, it's magnificent rings making a brilliant backdrop to the battle which would be occurring. The space around them was filled with mechanical structures, towers floating in space defending their home, and before them was a more tightly focused armada of Saturn's best as well as the myriad of smaller one-man crafts which were emerging from them, their ships ranging from giant cruisers to tiny space-fighters. “Fighters” was the term Plutonians referred to their suit-wearing combatants surrounded by spheres of multicoloured powers standing around in the midst of space, but here they'd face an older version of what was called a “fighter”. And indeed, there was a lot.

Eviri felt tense. As superior as the Plutonian fighters were, she couldn't promise a fight without casualties this time. While they were no strangers to fighting superior numbers thanks to Vilemugs, Vilemugs didn't have the thing that was called human ingenuity. The forces of Saturn had known that Triton had taken command of the Plutonian invasion forces for a while now, so they could have prepared. Behind her many fighters standing in mid-space was a small armada of Triton's ships as well, but they were inferior in number to Saturn's. These were the forces of all of Saturn's moons gathering to fight their one united foe, in the space above Titan.

However, something that disturbed Eviri was the presence of Wence, standing notably higher than the Plutonians in the direction they had decided was up, far behind them with his arms crossed and gun prepared on his right side. Why was he present? He had never been present before. Was there a reason why the Plutonian forces needed extra supervision? … Yes, there was. The battle at Pluto that would be occurring, they could potentially turn around and attempt to help. But Wence shouldn't know that. And if Wence knew that, then Umeron would know that. Eviri silently prayed that the only reason he was there was because this would be a major battle that would determine the result of the war in general.

'Do not falter for their numbers!' Sewbrig's voice was as persistent as ever. 'Fight, fight gloriously for your homeland! There's plenty of rewards in this for those who distinguish themselves on the field of battle! For Triton and Pluto! ' He shouted out, as if the two planetoids were allies due to the hostage situation which was going on. Eviri couldn't deny that the thought of betraying just for the sake of shutting down that mouth wasn't too abhorrent, but she had to keep it up, however she could.

'Advance.' Eviri commanded, starting to float forward, today joined by Aren and Max on each of her sides, their yellow and red spheres backing up her green and making her feel stronger.

But meanwhile...

'… Tihi.' Jarnet, seeing Wence would be watching over the battle, giggled as she got a silly little idea watching the gun at his side. In her blue little sphere, she bounced upwards and back to get to his side, aware that she caught his attention. She stopped at the side of his white sphere, looking out over the armies from beside him as if she was his comrade.

'What are you doing?' He asked, his voice sounding like contempt itself.

'Oh, since you decided to pay an unanticipated visit to this incredibly dangerous field of battle, we didn't have time to prepare for you being here! Just in case, Commander Eviri felt it appropriate to appoint me as your personal guard for today. Don't worry. Even if the enemy goes out of its way to target you, I'll totally defend you!' Jarnet lied cheerfully.

'I don't need your protection. Begone.' Wence predictably looked away from her and banished her from his presence. But Jarnet wouldn't have it.

'And defy my Commander's very specific commands? No way! In addition, Pluto and Triton command chains are still separate, so you have no rank to override Eviri's order with! I'm staying!' Jarnet stubbornly refused to leave. Wence's expression frowned, his fingers on his right hand twitching near the handle of his gun. Don't rile him up more than necessary, Jarnet quickly decided. Let's see. Something to talk about.

'So, um. Don't you have family and friends on Pluto, too? You know, in case Umeron destroys it...?' She leaned forward a bit to peek up at his unamused expression where Wence was glaring forward.

'None which I would miss.' He answered, an edge in his voice.

'Um. So you mean there IS family and friends.' Jarnet quickly translated what she heard, leaning back and pulling out a datapad from a pocket in her suit. Examining the database with her finger, she could poke her way into the database to check individual records, homing in on Wence... 'Aha! There is a family! … And a large one, at that!' Jarnet blinked somewhat in surprise.

'Plant-engineer father, gardener mother, eleven kids from six births, you being the oldest, them all living just outside the city of Venetia, taking vehicles into town to work each day...' Jarnet looked on the images of their Facepad accounts, and it looked like a rather happy family. 'So, what's wrong with them for you not to care if they die? Did they overwork you because you had ten younger siblings?' She asked, looking at Wence with a curious expression.

'No. I was quite alright with taking care of my family duties.' Wence said, finally sounding like a decent human being with some of his words, making Jarnet smile. 'However, they're nothing special. I feel nothing thinking of their potential deaths.' He insisted, his eyes twitching at being made to answer these questions.

'Oh, you lie. Nobody feels nothing thinking about their family in peril...!' Jarnet grinned as she said, thinking that she saw the signs of somebody who's trying to convince himself of a lie in Wence's words.

'Enough.' Wence put his foot down, turning and glaring angrily at her. 'Your futile attempt to stir feelings of empathy has failed. Stop at once, or I will treat your intrusion into my privacy as an attack and-' He stopped at once, and Jarnet blinked in surprise. Because both got the same information about the surrounding battlefield at the same time.

Further away, at the tip of the advancing force of Plutonian fighters, Eviri's eyes widened and came to a halt. They still had yet to come within firing range of the enemy forces. However, something just happened that required her immediate attention. Eviri and her green sphere spun around on the spot, staring at the long lines of units of fighters, who were glaring at her where they had stopped. In the front of them stood Aimer, surrounded by his brown sphere, glaring unhappily at her as well.

'I'm sorry, “Commander”, but we're going to Pluto. We're deserting.' Aimer declared. Eviri felt a bit of panic go through her. It was roughly a third of her force. Many of the remaining fighters were too confused to determine the proper cause of action in this case, and looked to Eviri. She herself felt stunned and unsure. Sure, their opinions were different, but that he'd go and gather support to then desert!? Nodding to them, Aimer and the many fighters he had rallied turned around, facing towards Wence and the Triton fleet behind him.

'Alright, fellas! This force is going to go retake Pluto! If you want to be stuck here fighting your own allies as Umeron wants, fine by me! But if you want to make a REAL difference and retake Pluto for the sake of our ancestry and descentry, COME WITH ME!' There were numerous cries of approval, joined in with more cries of approval, and it looked like most of the Plutonian forces were more or less in favour.

'Ouchah, that might be bad...' Max scratched at the top of his helmet looking over the field of average troops, Aren frowning as he looked over the same field. However, both of them blinked in surprise when suddenly Eviri took off at highest possible velocity like a green arrow.

'And we'll, of course, be starting with you...' Aimer declared, glaring straight at Wence, who stood there within his sphere of white with his chin raised ready to accept the challenge. Jarnet in blue at his side flinched away in fear realizing what was going to happen.

Aimer accelerated, a brown rocket taking off with a huge lot of power towards Wence. Behind him, the army of Plutonians accelerated, intending to take on the lone white Plutonian and the Triton fleet behind him.

'What are you doing!? Are you betraying the almighty Triton Union!? A thousand curses on your kind! The Plutonian kind shall be annihilated for this treachery!' Sewbrig shouted out from a craft behind Wence. Wence showed no sign of fear as Aimer approached with eyes of hatred, intending on doing his mark on the Knight of Triton.

'This one's for Koala...!' He roared out, intending on punching with brown power. Wence, not hesitating in the slightest, pulled out the gun at his side and directed it towards the what he considered an incoming brute. However, there was a bright flash of green coming in from the left. Wence didn't care. He fired anyway.

Guns in space make no sound.

… However, just before the gun had been fired, any onlookers would have seen a blue flash, which flickered into white.

Eviri had suddenly charged in front of Aimer, her eyes wide, panicked and determined, his giant brown fist of power having been successfully halted by Eviri's green blades, held in a cross outside the sphere just as she herself held her arms in a cross of defence inside her sphere. She had charged into place precisely before Wence pulled the trigger. However, just as Jarnet's eyes had widened because she realized what was about to happen, she blasted herself in. By matching the frequency of Wence's sphere of power with her own, Jarnet had managed to dive straight into his sphere just in time to push his arm upwards, making the shot fly straight out into space instead of hitting Eviri in the back.

There was a silence. The charging Plutonians halted at the scene before them. The panicked but determined Eviri in green faced against the grim look of Aimer in brown, a fist and two blades meeting and still bubbling with power. Behind Eviri, Jarnet in a blue suit had somehow gotten herself into Wence's white sphere, the young girl holding the knight's gun-arm raised into space. Her eyes looked up at him in relief and fear, while his glared down on her with nothing short of pure loathing.

'… GET OUT.' Jarnet flinched at the sound of Wence's voice, that look of hatred much more intimidating this close to him. She let go of his arm, jumping back out into space and was enveloped once again by her own sphere, which first appeared as white as the sphere she just jumped out of until it periodically faded back to her personal blue, her own eyes blinking in disbelief at what had just happened. Wence lowered his arm, looking like he debated aiming it at her, before he finally lowered it completely and looked ahead of what was going on. Eviri had just defended him from Aimer.

'What are you doing?' Aimer asked, giving her a tired and grim glare. 'Will you really stand against me?' The brown fist and green blades of power extruding out of their spheres were still in contact.

'I can't let you do this.' Eviri told back, notably more distressed than the currently calm man she was facing. 'I can't let you endanger everyone's lives like this!' That's right. She had to hold onto her beliefs.

'HAH! I'M the one endangering their lives? Little girl, YOU'RE the one who's taking them on a trip of either death or misery! At least I offer between death or hope!' Aimer retaliated, regaining a confident grin.

'It's not as simple as that!' Eviri replied, panicked. 'I want us to be under Umeron's rule as little as you do, but death isn't valid alternative! At least in life, there is always the hope! The hope of a new chance!'

Aimer's grin faded at her words, his expression just sinking into disgust. He saw her point, but he didn't like it. He couldn't live like that, and she wouldn't change her opinion. '… Out of my way. Or I'll kill you first.'

'I-I...' Eviri swallowed, looking at him in fear. As much as she feared him, she couldn't let him pass. 'I can't do that. I can't let you pass.'

'STAND BACK, ALL!' Aimer shouted out, causing the soldiers around him to flinch back. 'THIS BATTLE WILL DETERMINE WHAT BELIEF YOU'LL FOLLOW FROM NOW ON!' He said, suddenly forming a brown shield of power with the hand not making a fist, and then slamming it at Eviri. Eviri blinked in fear, but used her excellent reflexes to propel herself upwards and place herself standing in space, sideways looking down at Aimer, her two arms held straight and mirrored by two green swords outside her sphere.

'B-by show of force is a horrible way to determine whom is right!' Eviri shouted down at him. '… But I won't let anyone pass!' That was her way of acknowledging that working by that logic was beneficial for her too, she couldn't stop everyone. With that said, and Aimer having grinned at finally getting to battle, Eviri soared down to slice at him. However, as all Plutonians he gained information about how it looked around him in an instant. A brown shield took form from his brown sphere and blocked the hit, even as Eviri completed her fly-by and turned around to face him. This was bad. She had never fought another Plutonians before, and Aimer specialized in defence. Plutonians were already near impossible to hit because they could see your every move and attack, and this guy had impenetrable defence on top of it! How would she ever injure him!?

'What? Are you done already? Offensive specialist Eviri?' Aimer taunted her, knowing she had no means of striking through his defence. 'Damn it.' Eviri cursed. To deal with things with good defence was why high-power people like Max was sometimes necessary. Eviri had customized her fighting-style after battling quick but weak Vilemugs. This was way too different. But, she couldn't stop. Her tactics relied on speed, so she couldn't stop. Turning around and soaring straight back, way more agile than the large defensive man, Eviri's green sphere darted back and forth, left and right above and below the brown sphere, the green blades swinging at unpredictable angles as Aimer lifted his brown shields to block every single one. It was an awesome display of power between two elites, so many fellow Plutonians watching in amazement and wondering as the colours clashed and flashed.

Jarnet looked at Wence in worry. The man was just standing upright in his white sphere, chin raised, holding the gun in his right hand. He was simply awaiting the result of the battle in front of him instead of judging the obvious intended treachery. Jarnet swallowed and watched the battle as well.

Aren was just about to fly in to help Eviri, the man in the yellow sphere frowning out of displeasure seeing his friend in such a dangerous position, but Max's red sphere placed itself right in front of him.

'Don't.' Max said, watching intently with a grim little look. 'If we open the doors to outside interference, what do you think is going to happen?' He followed, making Aren have to reconsider, staring at the fight in displeasure.

'Ekh...' Eviri's arms were growing more heavy, her breathing getting heavier as she swung and struck against the brown shields which Aimer confidently held in place. When her swords hit something solid which she couldn't get through outside the sphere, Eviri's sphere provided the equivalent resistance to her arms within the sphere, and as such her arms and blades would always be as synced as possible. This did, however, mean that her arms grew tired after repeated strikes against solid defences. She had no choice. Eviri started slowing to make some stronger strikes...!

'That'll do. Sorry, little girl, but we need to reach Pluto in time to help.' Aimer declared, losing the grin as he glared at Eviri. 'Eh...' Eviri realized the trouble she might be in due to the absolute confidence of his voice, when suddenly a new brown sphere formed. It formed around her green one, locking her in place. 'A-ah...' Eviri's eyes widened as she realized she was caught. Caught outside Aimer's brown sphere, inside another brown sphere. A powerful shield was formed between Eviri and Aimer. She'd be squashed here, the brown sphere she was in pressing down on her green one, forcing it down.

'Ah...!' Realizing she would die if she stayed here, Eviri put her arms together in front of her. She summoned as much power as she could contain, swinging her arms over her head and then swung it down towards Aimer. Her arms stopped as her powerful giant two-handed sword barely came out the constrained sphere and hit against Aimer's shield. 'Nh...!' She'd die here. Defending what she thought would be the best choice, she'd die here. Eviri didn't want to die. It felt like the wrong time to die. She closed her eyes and pressed her hands down against the solid defence with all of her strength, and...!

'Whah-!' Eviri almost stumbled as the pressure holding her arms up unexpectedly vanished, her arms flying down and hitting her legs. She heard numerous gasps and shocked sounds in front of her from the other fighters, interlinked by their sound-system through signals. The girl breathed heavily, raising her head in confusion, not sure what had happened... and was met with the sight of Aimer's body, cut cleanly in two. He was drifting in space, his sphere shattered, the two halves of his expression filled with stunned surprise. His blood and organs were- Eviri's hand soared up to her mouth, to stop her from puking. She had to close her eyes and look away a bit, letting her sphere fly somewhat upwards to prevent her from seeing that again, having to force down the contents of her stomach back into her belly once already. Finally, she stood straight, looking at the fighters of Pluto, standing with her back right in front of Wence.

'TH-THAT'S ALL!' She shouted out, not sure what to say. 'I-if anyone else wants to try to come past me, I'll fight them, too! Otherwise, turn right around! We have a battle to fight!' There were murmurs through the crowd of Plutonian fighters, until...

'I'll follow your beliefs, Commander Eviri!' Aren declared, loudly. He clearly wanted to be heard.

'Yeah, me too!' Max joined in, smirking at what they were doing.

Numerous more acknowledging sounds came from throughout the crowd of people standing in coloured spheres, the leader of the people who had wanted to go to Pluto having been defeated it was easier to fall in line with the rest of the pack, following the trend Aren and Max had started. Eviri sighed heavily in relief at that they had come to a decision of what to do.

'Alright... Then, we have a battle to fight! We'll advance immediately to-' Eviri blinked in surprise when she was suddenly grabbed from behind and held back from advancing, somehow, inside her green sphere in mid-space, small arms grabbing around her chest. Jarnet had matched her frequency and jumped into her sphere to hold her.

'Whoops, whoops, whoops, not like that you're not. Do you realize how shaky and pale you are?' Jarnet informed, holding onto her. 'Let Aren command this one. You'll be staying right here.' Eviri blinked a bit in surprise, but looking forward she saw Aren holding a thumbs up to her, which confirmed that this was the way to go.

'… Alright, everyone! Due to current unsuitability, you'll follow Substitute Commander Aren for today! He's the guy in yellow in the front! Follow his commands, and remember to kill only if you have to! Disabling their vehicles if possible comes first! Good luck...!' Eviri shouted out, and got a reply of acknowledgement before she breathed out and fell backwards into Jarnet's hands inside her own sphere, which turned from green to blue as Jarnet took over powering it.

'Geesh. You worried us all for a bit, there.' Jarnet smiled down at her, with a little sadness in that smile, as she held Eviri leaning towards her.

'I'm sorry...' Eviri breathed out in response, still remembering how easy it had been to kill after his defences fell, and it was so disturbing a feeling.

'It's fine, it's fine. Not something you could help.' Jarnet made a sad little giggle in reply, holding Eviri as the battle started, the Saturn forces having waited for when the Plutonian forces came charging, Sewbrig shouting praises and glory sentences after them from way behind. Seemed like Eviri had protected her beliefs for today... She blinked awake realizing that Wence had floated closer to her, looking down at her. His judging stare was really hard to relax with.

'Did you, or did you not, assign this girl to be my personal guard for this battle?' He asked, in a way that sounded so sincere that it made Eviri confused.

'I did.' Eviri replied without even thinking about it. Jarnet smiled ever so happily at Wence.

'I see.' Wence said, looking down at her. 'It was unnecessary. I need no protection. However, today you've shown your dedication for our deal. This will not be forgotten, as such I will disregard the rebellion within your ranks this time and any other unnecessary actions which has taken place.' He said, turning away.

'Ooooh... I killed someone...' Eviri complained, the reality of it coming to her. She never intended to kill. Certainly not another Plutonian. The possibility had occurred to her, of course, and she had killed so many Vilemugs too, but that didn't really count... But this time, she had made an attack intending to kill, and it had killed. Her eyes were about to cry. She felt horrible.

'It's okay. You'll come to terms with it.' Jarnet encouraged her. 'For now, relax. I'll take you back to the Isabelle.'

Eviri really did want to relax. But, it felt wrong, somehow. Right now, her forces were engaging their greatest threat yet, whom was honestly trying to kill them despite the “friendly” terms of agreement. However, there was something else that felt really foreboding. She couldn't describe it, but as Jarnet was accelerating to bring Eviri to the Isabelle her eyes focused on Wence. He stood, his arms crossed, staring very determinedly in a specific direction. That was the direction of Pluto. What was he looking for? What was he-

There was a brilliant light. A light so powerful that any normal person had to shield their eyes. A white light, it shone in the distance. A common witness would perhaps even refer to it as beautiful. However, there was a sense of dread which came along with it. A sense of foreboding wrongness, that something horrible had happened, and nobody knew because it had taken the light so long to get here to tell them about it. Because that was in the direction of Pluto. The fact that the light had come from Pluto meant that it had happened multiple hours before, but what had happened to cause the light? Jarnet stopped moving, turning to stare along with Eviri. Th-that was...!

__________________

By @PlatinumSkink.



Shum Wei's fleet had been destroyed. A single shot from the Trident had obliterated most of the Jupiter fleet's major ships and the rest were easy pickings for the Triton vessels stationed at Pluto. Too easy pickings. The Triton fleet had suffered virtually no casualties, while the Jupiter military status was in complete disarray. Saturn had been defeated in the battle, their space-fighters capable but unable to turn on a dime or fire in any direction the way Plutonians could. Where Saturn one-man crafts were trying to dog-fight like airplanes in space, it was as if they were fighting super-men. In the long run, the Saturn military had to stand down before the Plutonian attack. However, with the loss of the Jupiter fleet, this was a loss for all but Umeron. The man had sent a video-message of himself happily congratulating Eviri at her success taking down the brief rebellion and Saturn's fleet, assuring her that Pluto had been kept safe from the Jupiter attack, mocking her with his eyes clearly taking pleasure in what he was doing.

'… And now we're where Aimer warned us we'd be.' Eviri lamented as she had leaned forward at her desk, her hands placed against her face. There had been a funeral for the man, and the numerous others that had been lost against Saturn, where Eviri herself had praised the man for doing what he thought was right for their people. Some of the fighters who watched didn't seem to appreciate her doing that, but she felt she had to. Now, however, there was a problem. Jupiter had laid down their arms after witnessing the power of the Trident, leaving only the Mars Empire and Earth, famously uncooperative and long-time enemies of each other, as well as the peace-loving Venusians. Out of these, none had the might that could match the Trident. In fact, even Eviri hesitated in thinking even the Plutonians could do it, even if the enemy didn't have those specific anti-Plutonian guns.

'Well. Had we done as Aimer intended, we'd likely all be dead, instead. Just as you warned.' Max crossed his arms and reminded. Karen was currently frozen, allowing her father to act as a warrior.

'You saved us, and possibly Pluto.' Aren said, looking at her from the side, standing straight. 'If we had gone, we'd have all died and Pluto would have been destroyed by Umeron. I believe you did the right thing.'

'Yeah, but... What do we do, now?' Eviri asked, leaning back in her chair, her hands placed on her head, staring forward in the room. It was just her, Max and Aren here. 'Even if we ask Mars or Earth for help, they can't fight that. It really looks like...' Like Umeron's won. Eviri couldn't imagine any other way. They'd take Mars and then they'd take Earth. Or maybe the Earth first, since Mars was unlikely to intervene, as self-centred as they were known to be. After that, the whole Solar System would belong to the Triton Union. And then... what would Umeron do to Pluto and the Plutonians then? They'd be the last military that stood any kind of chance against him...

'As you told Aimer.' Max said, smiling at her. 'As long as we live, there is always the hope of a new chance.'

'When will that be?' Eviri asked, feeling quite dismayed.

'Well. We're still alive, aren't we?' Max chuckled a bit. 'Though, yeah. If there was ever a time for heroics, then it'd be now.'

'For now, we're still tied by Umeron's deal, unless we want to suddenly follow Aimer's advice.' Aren said, getting a little angry. 'I'd like to assume we won't until we have some form of plan.'

'We can't.' Eviri muttered in despair. 'As we are, we'd be doomed.'

'That's it, then.' Max sighed. 'Well, for now I'd suggest we try to consider things. Umeron's next orders will most likely be here, soon. Doesn't look like talking here is going to solve much more, so let's depart for now.' Max continued. Aren nodded to him while Eviri just sat where she was. Though, at that moment, the door opened to allow Jarnet to come in. She had a silly little smile on her, and she held something in between two palms in front of her as she came in.

'Jarnet! Where have you been!?' Aren asked, notably on-edge. Jarnet hadn't appeared for the aftermath of the battle, she had just dropped off Eviri at the Isabelle and then taken off.

'And what are you smiling about?' Max smirked as he looked at the first sign of positive emotions since the destruction of Jupiter's fleet. This would be interesting. '… What's that you're holding?'

'Commander Eviri. I have two things I wish to debrief you on.' Jarnet said, smiling with light in her eyes as she stared directly at Eviri. Eviri, who was still drowning in dismay, was shocked back into a professional state by the sheer honesty in the girl's eyes. She straightened her back, took on a determined expression, and looked back at Jarnet.

'Report.' Eviri replied, with her commander's voice. Aren raised an eyebrow, but let Jarnet have her moment. Max grinned at what he sensed was potentially coming.

'Firstly, this...' Jarnet said, lifting her top hand to show a small, white object in her hand. '… Is the bullet which Wence fired straight into space, which he failed to hit anything with.' The bullet which would have hit Eviri's back had Jarnet not intervened. Jarnet's computer had been able to calculate from that exact point where the bullet would likely be, and she had successfully recovered it. Eviri stared in mild amazement at her.

'With this, combined with the readings from Koala, I've been able to work out how the counter-measure against us work, and I'm ready to start working on a counter-measure of our own.' Jarnet said, smiling happily on the other side. Th-that was... hope! Eviri breathed out in relief, while Max laughed.

'See!?' Max said, looking at Eviri. 'As long as we live, there's a chance for hope!' He then directed a thumbs up at Jarnet. 'Nicely done, lass!' Jarnet giggled at Max's words. Aren was looking on attentively.

'Th-that's excellent news. Tell me as soon as it is done. How long do you need?' Eviri asked her, desperate for the hope which was being provided.

'It could be ready today, but it could also take a month. I'm not sure. I'll have to make tests and theories. But it will come.' Jarnet responded, but that at least was good enough for Eviri. The promise that it was coming was enough.

'Good, keep me posted.' Eviri said with a smile, breathing out. There was hope yet. While Eviri had no safe ways of using the counter, at least she had it.

'And, one more thing.' Jarnet said, her smile disappearing as she looked at them with a focused stare, which made Eviri have to look serious in turn.

'When I matched the frequency of Wence's sphere and entered it, I was able to get a good close-up scan through him, since the sphere wasn't protecting him.' Jarnet said, her voice serious. 'There's a chip in his brain. I think he's being manipulated.'

Eviri sat back, thinking about it. As far as reports stated, Wence was a regular normal Plutonian fighter, with a normal family and all of that. It was indeed hard to see the transformation into the merciless man who had appeared inside the Trident and shot Koala. Eviri had chalked it up to that he had been wearing a mask, but the fact that he, as the Knight of Triton, had spent a lot of time on Triton by requests of the people did mean he was also the closest Plutonian for any plot of Umeron's. Mind-manipulation by technology was strictly forbidden, even to research on it was a sin, but if Triton could build the Trident in secret there was nothing saying they couldn't have done this as well. That would also have assisted them to research on Plutonian technology, and find a weak point, in addition to having an experienced hero of Pluto on their side.

'… Koala.' Max muttered. Eviri flinched. That's right. She had been in their hands for a while now. There was nothing preventing their enemies from doing something similar to her. In fact, there was nothing saying that hadn't done the same to the entire garrison which had been defending Pluto, they had the advantage that their weapon wasn't immediately lethal.

'Jarnet.' Eviri commanded. The girl immediately saluted. 'Do you think you can counter the effects?' To answer Eviri's question, Jarnet smiled widely.

'Yes! I can, and will!' Jarnet happily called.

'Good. Focus on all research first and foremost for now, you're exempt from battle duty until you're done! Use any and all resources or crew members you need to complete this task! Dismissed!' Eviri told her, a serious but mildly proud feeling in her.

'Yes, ma'am!' Jarnet continued before she turned and vanished in order to do her research. Eviri sighed in relief as she sat back. Alright. She was blessed to have someone whom did things like that. Without that, there would have been no hope at all in this moment, and they wouldn't have known of those chips. Max had been wearing a really grim expression ever since he learned of those. Aren was also looking serious, looking to her for leadership.

'Alright. For now, we continue doing as we're told.' Eviri told them, and just as she said so, a small note inside the helmet of the suit she was wearing informed her. She had commands from Umeron.

__________________

So while previously most of the fights had been large-scale battles where they all gathered their forces and put them against one another, Earth was something else. They were a completely different matter. There were asteroid fortresses, giant metal walls, mine-fields, plenty of things prepared to slow them down. The Earth forces were unique as well. Instead of ship-like space-crafts, they were humanoid in shape like robots of some kind, wielding energy-swords and guns in their arms, boosters in their legs, arms and backs for maximum manoeuvrability. Compared to Plutonians they were huge and only somewhat less manoeuvrable, but they didn't have the omnipresent knowledge of how the battlefield looked. Regardless, these mechanical warriors were the toughest enemies they had faced yet. Not as numerous as Saturn's space-fighters, but...

'Do not relent! Forward! Crush the Earthlings and all of their mechanical scraps!' Sewbrig shouted into the hectic battle of scurrying coloured spheres dodging and attacking the mechanical warriors of Earth, soaring about in front of a fortress in the asteroid belt.

'Kah...!' Eviri shouted out as she was forced to dodge and turn away from another homing missile, which chased her relentlessly. The humanoid robot that had shot it was already in scraps after Aren had thrown an explosive yellow lance at it, but it was starting to get really annoying for the Plutonians to constantly have to dodge and destroy these quick and fast homing missiles. Eventually, Eviri managed to slip close enough to it to cut it in half, the missile exploding behind her as she flew on. This... this was just a metallic space-fortress, bent on slowing them down, floating in the asteroid belt! How were they having such a tough time!?

'This is good, isn't it!?' Max grinned, the red warrior asked blasting through the centre of a mechanical warrior with what looked like a red spiked mace of power way bigger than anything Eviri could generate. 'Not only are these warriors unmanned so we don't have to mind sparing our enemies' lives, they're doing a damn fine job slowing us down! Gives Jarnet more time!' He laughed out, appreciating the challenge and charging headlong in a way nobody else really could, just blasting through all in his way with pure power.

'I-it is, but! Th-they're annoying!' Eviri complained, staring at how spread her forces were, attacking at this fortress in the asteroid belt on the way to the inner realm of the Solar System. Then, suddenly, she slowed down and stared in stunned surprise at what was behind the fortress. Martian ships, big, red and thousands of guns sprouting from each of the considerably large behemoths... coming to Earth forces' aid.

'Would you look at that, the day Earth and Mars, old rivals of war, came together against a common enemy has come at last...' Max said, smiling at them in awe.

'Did it have to be against US, though!?' Aren questioned, his long yellow lance hanging on a tangent of his yellow sphere looking at the newly arrived enemy.

'I-it's fine!' Eviri said, breathing slightly heavily, her blades at the ready. 'New line! Prepare for assault!' This was taking a lot of effort, but the Plutonians were hanging in there, slowly forcing their way towards Mars and Earth. It was taking weeks, with frequent updates from Jarnet on her progress. It seemed they were never getting there, and that was a good thing. But one day, they were there. And something was very wrong.

__________________

There they stood. Three individuals in a row. The one to the left in a yellow sphere, with a hand on his hips staring down on the planet in front of them. The one to the right in a red sphere, his hands crossed and frowning a bit looking down at the same planet. The one in the middle in a green sphere just standing still and straight, staring in disbelief. Behind them stood the remaining Plutonian fighters, inside their spheres of many colours, looking in the same direction as their commanders. The planet underneath them was Earth, seemingly having been untouched for the many years since mankind first left its surface to live on other planets for the first time, still as blue, green and cloudy as ever. But...

'There are no space-defences.' Aren stated the obvious. Eviri stared in stunned surprise down at the planet.

'They've taken cover in fortresses on the surface, hiding in shielded cities. Space is already lost, so they took the fight to the ground.' Max filled in, looking down with raised eyebrows. 'Not bad. I can't even imagine how they did that with twenty billion people.'

'The scanners are telling of underground super-structures.' Aren frowned. 'They're structurally superior to any buildings we've ever built. That's Earth's advantage.'

'Well...' Max scratched the top of his helmet, unable to get to the point which scratched in his hairline. 'That's good. If they force this into a siege, then they'll be able to hold us off for longer. That would mean our research could be done in time.'

'…' But what, then? Oh, they could make some kind of plan, Eviri figured. The Isabelle could travel at light-speed. As long as they made the action first, the information that they had gone back on Umeron's deal wouldn't be able to travel any faster than they already were.

'So that's their plan. How deplorable.' Wence's voice was heard from behind them, Eviri's eyes twitching at the sound of his voice. Aren and Max turned to look at him, standing with his chin raised in his white sphere, behind and noticeably above the Plutonian fighters.

'The victory of the Triton Union is at hand! Earth has fallen!' Sewbrig's ever so irritating voice filled their ears, the voice that they'd had to endure on every single battlefield to get here.

'…' This was the planet humanity had originated from. This planet placed in the habitable zone where life could thrive even before the invention of Solar Gates. Twenty billion people still lived on Earth. That was more than two-hundred times the population of Pluto. Because of this advance of Triton and the Plutonians under their command, these people, these ancestors of humanity, had been forced to flee underground. For the sake of the safety of their home, these people would suffer.

'Very well. Captain Sewbrig. Please prepare the PD-5-R.' Wence called out to Sewbrig, the notation getting an immediate reaction from Aren and Max.

'Yes, sir! PD-5-R armed and ready! With this, Earth shall know the true power of Triton!' Sewbrig announced, sounding even more fanatic than ever.

'… What's the PD-5-R?' Aren asked, looking up at Wence and Sewbrig's vessel with a very well-placed glare.

'…' When people from all over the globe first came together and launched the first colony-ships into space, mankind had hoped to be unified as one nation. As one curious union of all mankind seeking to make the best of their own race. This hadn't happened. Greedy humans had laid claim to whatever they could in space, forming new nations that would eventually be caught with greed again, which caused war to break out, once again. It was a cycle as old as nations, and even in space it had yet to break.

'It is of no concert to you Plutonians. What matters to you is that Pluto will be safe.' Wence reported, but almost before he had even finished...

'Planet Destroyer, Magnitude 5, Radioactive version!' Sewbrig happily announced. 'Planet Earth shall be rendered uninhabitable for thousands of years to come when the fist of Triton comes smashing down to punish them for resisting his rule!' He practically sounded like he was bragging.

'What?' Max asked, frowning and looking like he was just had to make sure that he heard correctly.

'That guy's manipulated too, right? He has to be. Or this makes no sense.' Aren reasoned, the limits when they removed the limitation that they'd only put chips in enemies literally endless, which made him hesitate on how much of the Triton forces he could actually trust to be human at all.

'…' Even after this... even like this. Eviri stared blankly down at the green and blue innocent planet. So many innocent people were being drawn into this struggle of the select few. Was there any way to end the cycle? It was hard to see possible. One would have to remove power from greedy people, and that couldn't end well. Yet, as she stared down on this innocent planet, one thing became abundantly clear. They didn't deserve what was coming. Anything that could stop it, should.

'Triton does not have the resources to stage a siege.' Wence stated as a matter of fact. 'Without Plutonian assistance, Triton could never have taken the Solar System. Rejoice. Pluto lives because of you. Now sacrifice the Earth for your home.' Not giving them a chance to react, the order came at once. 'Fire.'

'PD-5-R, LAUNCHED!' Sewbrig announced as a huge, round ball with an engine in the back flaring out of his own craft, aiming down at planet Earth. Aren's eyes widened in surprise, hesitating at what to do. Max flinched, distress in his frown, unclear what he was about to do. Many of the other warriors of Pluto also expressed sincere distress over the projectile now launched over their heads at humanity's ancient home. The one who stood perfectly calm was the their current commander, standing in her green sphere in the front of the unit, the Planet Destroyer passing straight over her head...

There was a flash of light.

Green light, to be precise.

Having suddenly lost one of its engines, the missile spiralled out of control, but did so completely missing the planet it was aiming for, spinning through space in the direction of the sun. Wence's eyes narrowed in hatred, following the trail of most gazes, looking at Eviri's back. She was standing straight, her arms down, looking down at the planet as she had previously as if she hadn't moved at all, but everyone had seen it. In the fraction of a second, she had swung her right arm around and a green sword had taken shape, cutting off two and a half out of six engines on one side, causing the bomb to deter from its intended course. Aren blinked in disbelief at this show of focused calmness and determination while Max dared to smile at her. This was getting interesting, he thought.

'Commander Eviri.' Wence's voice echoed in judgemental intention across the distance and to all Plutonian fighters in their spheres by the way of signals through space which they could hear. Most of them recoiled, but some turned around, determination was showing in their faces. Eviri herself showed no reaction. 'Are you aware of what you have done?' Wence asked, glaring at her back.

'…' Was she? Eviri wondered about that. Honestly, doing the right thing was such a pain. Aimer had been such an honest man. He was clearly viewing the greater picture. Was she thinking this only because he was dead, now? That really didn't matter. Thing was, right now she was feeling really good. She felt kind of guilty feeling good. But, she had just saved 20 billion lives, and she was definitely the good girl. Eviri had been a bad girl for the majority of this war, now, so a change of pace was nice. It was like all of her worries just obliterated, and now she could finally focus on what REALLY mattered.

'Pluto will not condone the use of such weapons.' Eviri declared, not a shred of doubt in her voice. She turned around, feeling like the most graceful and powerful person she had ever been, as she returned Wence's challenging glare right back at him, and to her sheer pleasure he winced a little at the sight of her expression. 'For the sake of our home, we have assisted in the occupation of all planetoids you've commanded us to occupy. This has been to save lives, to ensure the future of those who comes after us. However, if you insist on using strategies of war which will cause the blood of innocents to flow, then I will destroy your fleets, dismantle your armies and trap you all on that forsaken moon whence you came!'

'Haha, send back wincing Wence whence he came...' Max chuckled a little on the side. Sewbrig's loud voice started bubbling from behind Wence.

'Why, you, INSIGNIFICANT-'

'SHUT IT!' Eviri screamed out at him, and there was an audible whelp and the sound of a back hitting the floor, most likely Sewbrig stumbling backwards from the unexpected scream his direction which interrupted his usual gloating. The sound of his fall brought no small amount of satisfaction to the ears of the listening Plutonians. Wence sighed out at Eviri's resistance, his right hand closing around the handle of the gun on his side, against which Eviri still didn't have any protection.

'Are you going to stand in our way, Plutonian?' Wence asked, raising his chin even higher as he glared with all his disgust at Eviri. It was hard not to be at least a little intimidated by his powerful glare, but Eviri bit together, lowered her own chin a little, and glared right back.

'Should you decide to use means of conquest which does not spill the blood of the innocent, then a conflict between us can be avoided and the Plutonian fighters will remain under your command.' Eviri gave a solution which would hopefully be able to avoid a costly battle. 'But should you refuse to change your genocidal ways, then I believe I speak for all Plutonians when I say...' Eviri glared defiantly back at him. '… We will fight you to the very last man.'

There were agreeing shouts on Eviri's side from a bit of everywhere, the Plutonian fighters agreeing with this decision, Eviri's determination having spread to the crowd. Aren nodded in agreement with Eviri's words at her side, while Max grinned at her other with his arms crossed, waiting for the conclusion. Wence's eyes narrowed, watching the crowd of increasing hostile intent against himself. He came to a quick conclusion.

'A-5. Fly to Pluto at once in light-speed and inform Umeron of the decision of the Plutonians.' Wence commanded quickly, a ship almost instantly spinning around on its core and facing towards Pluto.

'… So, that's it, huh. No way you can't avoid genocidal means?' Eviri asked, a part of her stomach growing cold and empty at how easily the contract was broken, over such an unavoidable thing. Over the Plutonian shared information-network she immediately gave the command. AREN! TAKE A SQUAD AND A SHIP, AND INTERCEPT THAT VESSEL BEFORE IT REACHES PLUTO! He sprung to action immediately, Aren's yellow sphere and his squad following him towards one of their ships as the vessel behind Wence vanished into a flash of light. Plutonian fighters by themselves couldn't follow at that speed, which was why they had the Isabelle and other such ships. Wence was lifting his gun, and the other Tritonian ships prepared their guns, all of which could be assumed to be the same anti-Plutonian guns...

'That's not all.' Wence responded, once again with the stare of talking to an insect, the same as she had seen just after he had shot Koala. 'Had this been the beginning of the war, we would most likely be forced to accept your demands, since we had need of you. But...' He directed his gun... at Aren, who was soaring towards the ships in his yellow sphere, blinking as he became aware he was being aimed for. 'We have no need for you anymore, Plutonians. You've done your job. Begone.' He fired.

Fear went through Eviri, her eyes widening in panic. It was as if Wence knew exactly how to make her panic. Aiming the gun at her closest friend, with Eviri having no way of countering it. She sped up, intending on attempting to shield it with her own green sphere. But Aren had already started heading away from her in top-speed, there was no way she could catch up. Also, that shot was impossibly fast, not even a Plutonian could dodge it if they weren't extremely prepared. It looked like that was it, and Eviri would have to watch Aren be shot through...

The bullet hit Aren's yellow barrier, but the ripple merely circled around Aren's sphere and vanished with just a little bit with his sphere falling apart as he proceeded, mildly confused, to head towards the ship of his choice in maximum speed. Wence glared in loathing, Eviri in a mix of relief and confusion, until a giggle was heard. A playful, female giggle, the giggle of someone who had just succeeded with something she was honestly proud of.

'I made it in time!' Jarnet, flying way above them all in her blue sphere, smiled brilliantly down at the crowd and Wence. In her hands, she held what looked to be a datapad of sorts, and now that Eviri saw it she could see it was uploading something to their Plutonian information-network. Eviri could only stare.

'You...' Wence glared angrily up at her. 'You again...!' This was the second time she nullified his shot.

'Hiya~! Did you miss me~?' Jarnet made a peace-sign and winked down at Wence, before turning with a serious expression to Eviri.

'EVIRI!' The commander blinked back to awareness at Jarnet's shout. 'The newly programmed barriers will carry on the ripples of the OV-bullets and neutralize them on the other side of you! It won't shoot you down in one hit, but don't take too many of them! They'll still take you apart, layer by layer, just not all at once! You'll grow weaker with every hit!' Eviri heard the words, and it was exactly what she needed to hear. Eviri smiled, nodding to Jarnet and turning forward. The rest of the Plutonians had heard the briefing as well.

'PLUTONIANS!' Eviri commanded, rising upwards and charged her green sphere with power, and beneath her the fighters of Pluto did the same. 'ATTACK!' With that, all the different coloured spheres of power advanced at breakneck speed, assaulting the ships of the Tritons at last. Eviri was finally free to act as her heart desired, relieved of Aren's safety and with no reason to hold anything back.

'F-FIRE! ALL VESSELS, FIRE UPON THE PLUTONIANS!' Sewbrig shouted out in response, and the many vessels of the Triton fleet fired at them, Wence in the front surrounded by his white sphere still glaring at Jarnet. The shots were indeed the same kind as those in the gun which Wence wielded. Not only that, they were as lightning-quick and fired in spreads making them absurdly hard to dodge even when it was known they were coming. Many fighters in the front-lines suffered repeated hits, their spheres broken through and them falling from sudden injuries. However, they weren't taken out nearly quickly enough for the safety of the Triton fleet.

'Hahahaha...!' Jarnet laughed out loud, smiling down at their assault. 'Take that, Tritons! I win!' She cheered, happy that her research into their anti-Plutonian weaponry had paid off. However, she quickly blinked in stunned surprise as she realized a very dangerous enemy was soaring way too quickly in her direction, and it wasn't a bullet. Jarnet looked down in sudden fear to see the bulging eyes filled with the raging hatred of Wence coming flying straight at her.

'YOU...!' Aside from the gun he was holding in his right hand, his power suddenly spawned a plethora of white guns extruding from his white sphere, aiming for Jarnet. Realizing the imminent danger she was in, Jarnet immediately entrusted her dodging to her AI, way better pilot than she was, flying back in a wave-like pattern while firing swift blue shape-less blasts back at him for defensive purpose. However, from his first shot it was apparent that Wence brutally out-gunned her. The many guns he was shaping blasted white lines of offensive power everywhere around her, forcing her blue sphere to remain in an easily targeted location as flying in any other direction was flying into his shots. Jarnet blinked in fear as she realized she had been caught in his cage of shots, only the finishing shot was left.

'DIE...!' Wence called out in a hatred-filled voice towards the one he had identified as the one who had rendered his gun meaningless. He formed a larger cannon of white power in the centre of his being, blasting out with an enormous amount of power at Jarnet. She blinked in fear, realizing just how tiny she was by herself, and covered her eyes from her impending doom... Which caused her to miss the sudden red blast of energy which offset the white one, Jarnet first daring to look forward when it became clear that she hadn't died. In front of her was the big, red back of Max, who was grinning in the face of the white Wence's anger, Max's spiked mace of power blocking Wence's cannon's output.

'Hello there, “hero”. I've wanted to fight you for a long while, now.' Max declared, grinning happily at Wence.

'… What?' Wence replied, spitting at Max in anger, hearing the signs of mockery.

'Do you realize?' Max asked, an expression of bloodthirsty bliss in his face. 'All of Earth is watching us right now. A million tiny cameras filming this very battle. Everyone knows who you are, Wence, Knight of Triton, the one who shot Koala. And I've made sure I'm known at least a little as Max, friend of Commander Eviri and fiancé of Commander Koala. But after this...' Max suddenly pressed against Wence, his power bursting into red, hot passionate killing intent that caused Wence to flinch back in sudden surprise. 'AFTER THIS I WILL BE A TRUE HERO, THE RED DRAGON OF PLUTO WHO SLAYED THE WHITE KNIGHT OF TRITON! GHOOOOAAAAAH...!!!' Successfully driving Wence back with sheer intimidation, Wence's eyes suddenly widened in surprised panic when Max's power grew in shape and took the form of a red dragon, with massive wings and claws and teeth, glaring at him from where Max's eyes seemed to be burning.

Guns grew out of Wence's sphere, white shot after white shot blasted out from Wence as he retreated backwards from the giant red dragon chasing him, the signs of fear in Wence's eyes for the first time as he fled. The giant dragon which the grinning Max had summoned followed his movements, clawing after Wence's white sphere with massive claws and power as Max swung his limbs at the enemy. However, he couldn't hit. Wence was way too skilled to be hit by such huge swings of uncontrolled power. But what power! No fighter had ever been able to summon so much raw power! But Wence knew from experience, the energy would not last. While his shots against the dragon looked to be absorbed, he knew it had effect. All he needed was to outlast-

Wence blinked in stunned shock as he realized Jarnet had flown around and placed her blue sphere behind him. She smirked so happily at the panicked knight. While he could easily out-gun her on her lonesome, while being chased by this giant dragon of power was something completely different! She was intending on stopping him, making him an easy target for the dragon! He couldn't dodge her, she was too nimble and fast! He simply had to break through her! With this in mind, Wence spun around, focusing his rage-filled eyes at Jarnet and charged! The girl had such an extremely annoyed focused expression, combined with that smile! What was she going to...!?

Jarnet suddenly blasted off, heading straight for a head-on collision with Wence. Even if he could see it coming, the white knight couldn't dodge her blue sphere. Fine! He'd just break through her, like he intended...!

'…!'

Wence blinked in stunned surprise. She shot something at him. At this speed there was no time for him to react to it, even though he knew it was coming the millisecond she shot it. It went straight through his sphere, hitting him in the throat. A blast of pain shot from it, straight up into his brain. He screamed out in pain as Jarnet broke off her flight-path and flew off in another direction, the white knight slowing down to be consumed by the red dragon behind him, his white sphere being completely overtaken by Max's red one.

'Gotcha.' Max grinned as he grabbed Wence's unconscious body, letting his dragon-shaped power vanish back to an ordinary red sphere. He breathed out in relief, smirking at the knight he held in his hands. With that, most of the cameras down there should have seen him swallow up Wence's sphere. That should suffice to make him averagely famous, shouldn't it? Still, while he didn't like to admit it, he probably would have lost if it wasn't for Jarnet's help. And while on the matter of her help... 'I see you completed the anti-chip thing, too.' Max commented.

'Yupp!' Jarnet flew close and smiled so happily inside her blue little sphere. 'It's a tiny dart with a very precise electrical shock. It requires extremely close range to work, but if it hits it knocks out the target and neutralizes the chip! When he wakes up, he should be back to normal!' She made a few happy dance-moves in mid-space, her happiness acceptable since they had just taken out Umeron's chief enforcer. 'Say, while I'm very happy you came to save me, are you sure you shouldn't be at Eviri's side?' She asked, looking at him curiously.

'The heck are you saying?' Max laughed at her, knowing full well she knew the same information about the battlefield as all other Plutonians did. 'Isn't she doing absurdly fine on her own!?' Jarnet giggled at his words.

Right below, Eviri and the other Plutonians had already completely dismantled the Triton fleet. Although the Plutonians hadn't gotten away without casualties, not a single Triton vessel had been destroyed to the point its crew had died. Eviri had darted back and forth like a green flash, disabling each vessel one before the other, slicing engines and weapon-systems so quickly the pilots couldn't possibly keep track of her. She was now going onboard Sewbrig's vessel, in order to ensure there were no more PD-5-S bombs or likewise on it.

'ST-STAY BACK, INSOLENT FOOL!' Sewbrig demanded on the bridge. Eviri flinched a little as she saw him. A wide, overfed leader wearing a uniform at least three sizes too small, having to correct his outfit every passing second to look even remotely proper, sweating absurdly in fear at Eviri's entrance.

'… Wow. You look even worse than I imagined.' Eviri commented, kind of disgusted at how absurd an archetype this guy could be. Did Umeron pick him based on THAT, too? … He thought of everything, didn't he?

'T-TOUCH ME IN ANY WAY, INSIGNIFICANT VERMIN, AND I'LL HAVE YOU KNOW I-' Eviri punched him across his cheek, sending Sewbrig rolling across the floor and into the wall to the left. He was still alive, but heck, Eviri needed a little relief after what she had just been forced to live through, waving the hand she punched him with to get rid of the pain. Confirming that the two remaining bombs in the Triton fleet were confiscated, and somewhat lamenting that Umeron had entrusted the likes of Sewbrig with three of those monstrosities, Eviri ran and jumped out in space again, enveloping herself in her green sphere to fly.

'BACK TO THE SHIPS! WE DEPART FOR PLUTO AT ONCE!' Eviri commanded, wide-eyed and quick to act. There wasn't a single second to lose.

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A young boy ran down a green hill, through a collection of beautiful colours spread on top of a field of grass. High in the sky was a shining sun, and the boy laughed as he tasted the fresh smell of growing plants. Slowly walking after him with a little smile on her face was a young girl, only slightly older than him.

'Isn't it amazing?' The boy asked his sister, spinning around on the spot to smile at her. 'Despite living on Pluto, we're able to have all these flowers and plants! With the help of the Solar Gates focusing sunlight on our distant planet, even we can sustain life! It's amazing! There are so many colours!' He spread his hands as to show what he was referring to. There were flowers in blue, red, yellow, white, purple, brown, all kinds. Of course, his older sister already knew of this, giggling a little at his happiness.

'Yes, indeed.' She answered, running a hand through her hair. 'So, which colour is your favourite?' She asked, smiling at the energetic little boy. The boy looked confused for a little, and then grinned back at her.

'Green!' He answered. The girl blinked a little at the younger boy in surprise, but he quickly had an argument to back it up. 'Because, you know.' He crouched down, brushing his hand over the green grass he was standing on. 'Because without the green to pick up the sunlight, none of the other colours would be possible.' He said, sounding actually a bit dejected because his sister had looked so confused. However, hearing that, she smiled widely.

'I see. I understand. Now that I think about it...' She thought about it. 'It's my favourite colour, too.'

'Yes! I've decided!' The boy stood up, turned around to the landscape and raised his arms, announcing. 'When I grow up, I want to become an expert terraformer! I will make new worlds habitable to mankind! I will make the best worlds mankind has ever lived on!' The girl smiled widely at his little proclamation, crossing her arms a bit.

'It'll be difficult, you know. And with all likelihood, you're not going to be able to live to see the end-result. Terraforming takes a long time, and we've pretty much terraformed all of our Solar System already.' The girl raised her head, staring out into the great unknown that was the sky. 'I'm more interested in that. The great unknown, past the far reaches of our Solar System. What unknown discoveries await us around other stars? I wish to become a flyer, able to fly and explore as many systems as I can, to see as much as I can with absolute freedom.' Her mind imagined such a happy journey of exploration.

'That's impossible, you know.' The boy cheekily called out on his sister, who looked at him with a challenge. 'No matter where you go, you're going to be constrained by the amount of food and water you can bring with you. Oh, and most of the universe is dead anyway, we already know from all our research. We already know what most of the universe consists of merely by observing. No exploration needed.' He continued, with the smile of a cheeky know-it-all.

'Oh, yeah? Well, I want to go there in person, and see for myself!' The girl raised her chin proudly. 'I'll discover things that mankind could never hope to discover without being there in person!'

'Don't worry, sis, I got you covered.' The boy surprised his sister, by saying that line. He turned away from her, raising his hands in the air. 'I'll be the first man to terraform planets outside the Solar System! And then you can use those planets as bases to launch your explorations into the unknown with! I'll have your back!' He grinned back at her. 'Deal?'

Eviri giggled happily at his innocent logic. Never mind that it would take way too long to terraform a planet, as she already had said, and also... oh, screw it. 'Deal!' And the two siblings shook hands and giggled with each other.

__________________

There was complete silence. Eviri was staring ahead on the bridge of the Isabelle, blinking in stunned silence. The rest of the crew stared in equal silence, for the scene which met them was incomprehensible to them. They had arrived at Pluto. But, even though the Solar Gate still shone brightly, even though there was two big planetary bodies which it shone on, a planet and a moon, there was no green on them to pick up the light. An enormous cloud of ash was blowing across both planetary bodies. Charon seemed to be leaving Pluto's orbit, drifting away at an ever so slow pace. A huge crater revealed the location where the Trident had fired in full power down into the dwarf-planet's body, then it had turned and fired at Charon as well for good measure. In front of them were the ruins of the squad sent to stop the vessel. The ship was destroyed, the corpses of those who had gone drifting in mid-space. There was no sign of the Trident, or any Triton forces at all.

Eviri collapsed back into her commander's chair. Her heart felt empty. How... how long had she been delayed by the fleet attacking Earth? How late had she been? For what she knew, it was only a couple of minutes. Yet, it looked like she had been years late arriving. Her family... her brother. They had been on that planet. The families of everyone else in this fleet. Crushed. Destroyed. She could hear Umeron's laughter in her head. What... what had she done? She had saved the lives of twenty billion people on Earth. This... this was her reward? Would she have felt better had she let everyone on Earth die, just as long as Pluto had survived? No! She shouldn't have to think like that! This was wrong! All wrong!

She screamed out in frustration, the first noise anyone had made since arriving in the system. A long, sustained scream of despair, clutching her hands hard against her face. It hurt. But not nearly as much as the failure of her mission as protector was hurting. Her heart was screaming with her. Not a single person on the bridge was trying to comfort her. They all needed comfort, and somehow, her screaming gave them some manner of such comfort. Even when she ran out of breath, Eviri just took a deep breath and screamed again, her tears breaking out, just like they were on so many other people in the ship. Currently, there was no such thing as the necessity for a commander to keep a cool head. All those rules had gone out the window. They had lost.

'C-commander! There are survivors among the interception squad!' A bridge-member suddenly declared, blinking wide-eyed forward. Eviri's head shot out from under her hands, blinking through her tears forward.

'B-bring them in!' She commanded, her voice desperate for any kind of good news, no matter how insignificant they were compared to the bad news which they had just received.

__________________

'Aren!' Eviri ran to the side of the bed where he lay patched up, her cheeks covered in tears as she saw him lying there, injured, but alive. It was a much-needed silver lining in an otherwise pitch-black darkness. However, as alive as he was, with patched injuries all over his body, his expression was devoid of passion or happiness of life. It looked very empty.

'Eviri...' He whispered, noting her presence but not looking at her. 'I'm sorry... I couldn't catch up...' He said, his voice absolutely broken. Eviri threw her arms around her old friend, hugging him and crying on his shoulder. In the same room, Max was standing along the wall on the other side, while Jarnet had dutifully followed her commander here, her eyes red from crying.

'I-it doesn't matter now... you're alive... there's hope in life...' There really wasn't. The comfort which Eviri gained from seeing Aren alive was a comfort which Aren couldn't get. To him, it was his fault this had happened. Because he had failed his mission. While he understood her, there was no way that could comfort him right now.

'Hey.' Max's voice suddenly called out from across the medical room, causing both Eviri and Aren to blink in notable surprise. 'Get over here.' Max was turned away from them, a grim expression on his face and his voice equally grim. While both Eviri and Aren were destroyed inside, it took way more energy to refuse their friend's words than it took to listen to him. Eviri prepared to help Aren up, but it turned out he was stronger than he looked as he stood up without aid. As if he couldn't accept Eviri's help right now. They then both edged forward to what Max wanted to show them. Jarnet kept to the background, a hand on her heart as tears continued to fall.

What Max showed them... was the small tube of freezing within which Karen was currently frozen. The one-year old child with little hair on her head and sleeping so peacefully, actually frozen in this tube and didn't even know about it. She'd stay there until someone thawed her out. Eviri winced as soon as she got close enough to realize what she was staring at. She had inappropriate angry thoughts. “You're going to show off your family, now that ours are dead!?” “This is not so simple that you can just show me cute things and it'll get better!” “Fuck you, I don't want to look at this thing right now!” … Of course, she couldn't actually say any of those.

'When I wake up Karen, what kind of world will she wake up in?' Max asked, glaring almost angrily down at his own baby. Eviri stared silently as Max continued. 'I currently don't know. It's all up in the air right now. But know this; as long as my child sleeps in this tube, I know that I'll have to continue to fight. I have to make the world a better place for my girl.' He lifted a datapad and pressed a button on it. Suddenly it was shared over the common information-network that the body of Commander Koala had been found among the others. Umeron had simply left her there, to mock the incoming Plutonians. A scan of her body revealed that she had a chip implanted in her brain, showing that Umeron had planned to use her for something, but then just decided to terminate her there and leave her for them to find. Eviri's heart took another hard hit from the loss of another close to her, but her eyes glanced quickly at Max again. H-he had lost his...

'Don't say a word.' Max demanded, staring down at his daughter. 'We all know what needs to be done. We can't let grief hold us down, there is work to be done. If you want to bellow in grief, there's a time for that. But currently, remember the lives of those who remain. We can't let ourselves drown in the past, we need to do what we can for the future. There will be a time where we can-'

'GEESH, Max...!' Eviri rubbed at her face with her right hand, interrupting him while her voice still sounding struck with grief but she gained a little smile underneath. 'Even in this situation... Can't we mourn for five seconds without suddenly getting an inspirational speech? Let us grieve in peace. You're the one who should be comforted the most, damn it.' Eviri had to keep herself from giggling, something she felt would have been incredibly inappropriate at this moment. Max glared her a little and then shrugged.

'Hey. I'm trying to be a hero. Heroes make good speeches.' He casually dismissed, frowning.

'Max, we were never intending on stopping.' Aren took over. 'We were going to return on our own, you don't need to give us a reason to continue living every single time we look down.' Aren sighed, but even he was forced to give a little smile in the midst of his grief. A smile meant to show that his speech probably had the intended effect.

'Hey!' Max frowned even more, glaring at them. 'This isn't like, “normal” down! This is the mother of all downs! You're telling me to keep quiet when you look like you're five inches from suicide!? Fine! I'm out!' Max threw his hands in the air and started walking out from the room, his bombastic attitude forcing even Jarnet, who had seemed like a shrinking little husk since they learned of Pluto's destruction to get a little smile in the midst of her grief.

'I'll need to both thank and apologize to you, Jarnet.' Aren turned to the young girl, who blinked back at him in surprise. 'Your technique saved my life, but I also let it be discovered by the enemy. I apologize for that.' He bowed his head, but Jarnet just smiled back at him. 'Don't worry. He won't be able to make a counter-measure THAT quickly.' She assured, confident in her own ingenuity.

'So, Commander. Your orders.' Aren said, turning to Eviri. Aren and Jarnet both looked at her expectantly, and Max stopped right outside the door, to turn and give her a confident little smile. She nodded, frowning, taking a deep and focused breath before focusing her determination on one, sole, obvious goal.

'We're heading for Triton.'

__________________

'Stay here. Prepare to go to light-speed at any sign of danger.' Eviri told the crew of the Isabelle and the other ships. They were a reasonable distance away from Neptune and Triton. They simply couldn't bring the ship carrying Max's daughter anywhere near the battlefield, but they still had to use the light-speed to get there in any considerable amount of time. The crews acknowledged, and Eviri stood up straight in mid-space. She turned around, enveloped by a sphere of green to look at her companions.

Aren stood, with a somber but determined smile looking at her, inside his yellow sphere. He was always at her side, always supporting her with his presence. A little wince inside Eviri realized she had never told him that she loved him. She probably never would now, either. Then there was Max, grinning inside his red sphere, his arms crossed and ready to take on the greatest enemy they had ever faced. Oh, Max. There was no sign that he had lost his loved one, but she knew it was within him, he just hid it for all their sakes. Jarnet held her fists in a fighting-stance inside her blue sphere, ready to get at the enemy. Eviri was reminded that without her genius, they'd never have been able to counter Umeron's devices. It was a blessing to have her on their side. Speaking of that...

'Nice too see you could join us.' Eviri smiled in the direction of the man in the white sphere, Wence frowning and anger seething out of his eyes, but this time it was not directed at them.

'Because of that the public wanted it, I let myself enjoy fame and fortune for just a little bit.' Wence said, glaring at the blue ball over there. 'JUST A LITTLE BIT! And then I went to sleep for just one night...!' Rage was burning in Wence's eyes with such intensity that Eviri felt she had to wince back. 'Umeron will PAY for his wrongdoings...! Not only for what he did to Pluto and all our families, but also for what he DARED do to ME...!' Wence's fists were shaking in anger within the white sphere. Eviri quickly concluded he wasn't a very nice guy even without the chip... but oh, well. At least he was on their side, now? Jarnet giggled a little bit at Wence's answer to Eviri's statement.

'Alright. We're about to take on Umeron, his Trident, and all of Triton.' Eviri focused over her more regular fighters. They had all grieved, they had all been shocked by the news of what happened to Pluto. But now, they all knew what to do. There was no doubt in their minds. 'Are you all ready?' Eviri asked. It was more of a formality by now. She knew the answer already. Some saluted, other just reached their arms into the air, some made grand shapes of approval from their spheres. All sounded out in a determined, approving cheer. Eviri breathed out to the satisfaction of hearing that. She spun around, looking at her friends. She gave them rather odd, inspecting looks.

'Why did you chose the colours you did?' She asked. She got odd stares from all of them. 'I choose green because of a conversation I had with my little brother. It's the colour of photosynthesis, which allows planets to get oxygen, which creates life. It's the most beautiful colour because of that, I think.' Eviri said, smiling a little sadly, remembering her brother.

'Hmpf.' Aren crossed his arms and smiled, his shining yellow sphere shining just a bit brighter suddenly. 'But photosynthesis would be impossible without the energy of the sun. If you want to find the true source of all the energy green is giving to life, then you'll have to look in the bright origin of that yellow in the sky.' He looked rather proud of his comparison.

'White is the collection of all colours.' Wence answered, his expression softening somewhat as he stared out towards Neptune, his white sphere shimmering a bit. 'When I set out, I vowed to become the perfect fighter, the collective which all other colours aspired to be. There is no more fitting colour for that than white.' He raised his chin, also confident about his choice.

'I, eh, thought red looked fearsome.' Max grinned a bit. 'What? Sorry, I don't have that deep a reason for it. I wanted to be intimidating, and no colour spells out warning as much as red.' He breathed out a little, a little bit of sadness leaking through. 'I know Koala picked purple simply because it was her favourite colour. She liked its mysterious properties. She wanted to appear mystical, like the colour purple, so she picked that colour to give that effect.'

'She succeeded.' Aren muttered, and an agreeing sound could be heard from the onlooking crowd.

'…' Jarnet blinked in random desperation when Eviri looked at her for her answer. 'I didn't have a good reason to pick a colour! I was too into the actual research to think too much about it! But, um, when thinking of a fighter you naturally think of the sky, right? And the sky is blue, so... blue.' Jarnet looked as if to ask if that was good enough an answer. 'I don't know! It just felt the most comfortable to me, alright!?' She giggled.

'Alright.' Eviri nodded, understandingly, to each of her allies present. 'The people of Pluto has long prided ourselves with the freedom which we've offered to our people, further shown by allowing our fighters to pick any colour we wanted. Even now!' Eviri smiled proudly over the forces gathered with her. 'Even now you're all free to leave this area, to seek your fortune elsewhere in the universe. It is the freedom of our people, none of you would be judged for leaving. In fact, if you feel any doubt about fighting, then I urge you to leave. But if you wish to fight with me...' Eviri rose herself in altitude and she, Aren, Max, Jarnet and Wence all took offensive stances, preparing.

'… ADVANCE!' And with that, Eviri launched herself and her green sphere towards Neptune and its largest moon, Triton. After her followed a yellow, a red, a blue and a white sphere of her now closest allies, and after them came the myriad of determined Plutonians, ready to fight.

__________________



There was a huge fleet of ships. They stretched out left and right like two giant arms, the Trident in the middle the fleet forming its own Trident form and pointing at them, the Trident being the middle spire of a trident-formation. Eviri was going to meet them head on. However, her brow twitched in reaction at what she realized was placed right in front of the huge craft called the Trident. There was a gathering of a large amount of people, standing in mid-space, all of them surrounded by dark spheres. Each one of them was wielding one of the same guns which Wence had previously been wielding. The one in the very front of these was wearing a very disturbing smile.

'I've been waiting for you.' Umeron stood there, his hands joined together and face smiling like he was some kind of saintly priest.

'Umeron!' Eviri replied, glaring at him in anger, not really surprised or caring about that he had stolen Plutonian technology after his much worse crimes. 'We've come to finish this!'

'Oh, yes. Finishing this. The final battle.' Umeron mused, looking almost innocently happy. 'You have no idea how long I've been waiting for this battle. In fact, I wouldn't go so far as to say this battle was why I did all this to begin with. For the sake of having this battle with you Plutonians...' His sphere of power, black in its nature, looked like a hole of pure darkness except for Umeron standing in the middle of it in a Plutonian suit. He suddenly lost his saintly look, hit pupils shrinking and his smile widening into a mad grin. 'COME AT ME, PLUTONIANS! I'LL TEACH YOU HOW IT FEELS TO BE INFERIOR!' And with that, all of his ships opened fire. Showers upon showers of the anti-Plutonian bullets came flying through space while his gathering of soldiers of Plutonian technology set up in a line defending the firing ships, aiming their guns forward and firing.

'Don't worry about being hit!' Jarnet shouted out. 'With the data from the last battle, the computer can predict the shot-trajectories! Trust the information in your heads!' Indeed, the bullets weren't hitting. They had overcome this counter-measure already, Eviri using the knowledge to shift left and right to avoid the shots. There were those who were being picked off behind her, but they were much fewer in number than last time. They were advancing well.

'Careful...' Wence frowned behind Eviri, glaring at Umeron. 'I know first-hand. He's a Plutonian fanatic. He's researched his entire life how to beat us. All because he heard “Plutonians can't be beat” as a child. I believe he has more tricks than he has showed me.' Eviri nodded, forming her blades of green in preparation to face the lines of Tritonian warriors wielding Plutonian suits. That they all held black spheres was very disturbing to Eviri's eyes, used to seeing them in many colours. These...

'The garrison of Pluto.' Jarnet said, just as Eviri came close they started recognizing some faces. Eviri hesitated, suddenly slowing down, trying to process this information. Every one of the Plutonian fighters had been given Jarnet's small darts in arm-bands around their wrists, launching straight forward. She could potentially save their lives with these specific and easily dodge-able darts, which made Eviri hesitate thinking what she should do. However, due to her hesitation, the lines of manipulated Plutonians got off another volley with their guns, which blazed past her and into several Plutonian fighters who had hesitated with her. A little burst of anger ignited within her for that stupid emotional mistake.

'Fight to kill! Use Jarnet's darts only when you feel you absolutely can! We don't have the luxury of sparing their lives!' Her allies cried out in angry approval as Eviri boosted up her speed again, heading straight at the lines of her kinsmen enemies. They shot at her, but reflexes combined with speed and information made Eviri avoid them easily, crashing into them with speed and experience, pushing the dark spheres away with surprised stares from the individuals within. The enemy in front of Eviri wasn't fast enough to bring up his defence where he needed it. Eviri sliced at his torso, and he correctly created a shield of power to defend his torso. However, Eviri twisted her slice and cut off his legs, glaring at him darkly as he screamed in pain. She flew on towards the next enemy, a woman who stared at her in stunned fear.

This was where Eviri belonged. An elite warrior, in the midst of the enemy lines. The Plutonian systems informed her of the exact location of every single danger and every single opponent and ally around her. This was home, now. And this garrison did not have the experience to match the elite of the Vilemug wars and the First Solar War. Eviri clashed against enemy after enemy, dodging enemy shots and sending enemy dark spheres scrambling, cutting enemies left and right, their guns spiralling off into nowhere while she danced with grace, her swords moving from enemy to enemy. This was much easier than fighting Aimer had been, he had been a true elite. These... these were raw recruits in comparison.

In the distance her senses informed her of Max soaring through the right fleet of ships in the trident-formation, his dragon way too quick and powerful to let any of them get away, lots of explosions and broken as metals flying everywhere as the Dragon of Pluto roared through the formation with ease. A similar scene, albeit not quite as fast, was taking place on the left side. Aren was flying through, throwing explosive lance after explosive lance, easily dodging the shots of all those ships that were coming in. Jarnet was doing a fine job flying around with speed and efficiency among the main combat against the enemy manipulated Plutonians, shooting her darts with desperation, trying to save as many enemy lives as she could. Wence was not as merciful, utilizing the same strategy as he had against Jarnet, caging in the enemy spheres with numerous shots around them before finishing them off with a single shot in the middle, time and time again. He had clearly been trained in the arts of killing Plutonians.

'Oh, dear. Looks like my forces is having trouble.' Umeron chuckled at his little situation. 'Good thing I have a solution for that!'

Eviri danced right past one enemy's shot and sliced through another enemy's torso straight through his shield because that shield was way too weak, just as she heard Umeron's words. She prepared herself for whatever dastardly thing he had cooked up, her eyes narrowing and body tensing up preparing for... Eviri barely flinched out of the way of something. Out of the way of... what? It had come out of nowhere from diagonally above, and it had been so fast that she had barely gained a reading on it before it was already past. What was that!? … She didn't have to ask that, because others than herself weren't so lucky. Explosions took place around her, as extremely high-speed missiles blew in from seemingly nowhere and blew up into Plutonian fighters. Everi's eyes widened as she realized what they were.

'H-he's put light-speed engines on missiles!' Jarnet announced what everybody had already figured out. That was ridiculous. Light-speed engines were ludicrously expensive. Yet, seeing Umeron's disturbingly pleased smile over there, it was clear they had just the kind of maniac who would pay all of Triton's national treasury just for the sake of getting the means of destroying the Plutonians.

'H-hold out! He can't afford an infinite amount of them! Strengthen shields above!' Eviri called out, just barely getting her shield up in time to block a missile of her own, but with sincere effort. With a troubled sound, she was launched backwards, her shield barely holding as she stared up in light terror. They weren't travelling quite at light-speed, but at that speed they were almost impossible to dodge and the power they gained in that speed was phenomenal. Not only that, but the enemy Plutonians were using their spot of trouble to launch a counter attack with volleys from their guns, which turned very effective due to that their targets were already busy worrying about missiles from above.

Eviri blinked as she felt the situation all around her. Their numbers... were dwindling. Even Max and Aren had to stop their assaults on the Triton fleet due to the missiles from above. This was exactly the kind of pressure Umeron needed. But, he was in no way going to just settle for that.

Suddenly, while Umeron was so pleasantly grinning in front of it, the Trident started glowing. It was charging power, to blast into the combat in front of him. Eviri flinched in realization. 'Scatter!' She commanded, and the Plutonian forces under this heavy barrage spread out of the way of this giant death-machine under Umeron's command. But, something felt wrong. Sure, the Trident was a giant death-cannon with monstrous range, but against the extremely nimble Plutonian fighters its use was really moot. There was no sense of danger in letting that thing charge to almost being ready to fire. What was he possibly intending to-

'It's aiming at the Isabelle!' Jarnet informed, her eyes suddenly going wide with fear. Eviri blinked with a similar realization, and immediately threw her intentions towards the crew.

'LIGHTSPEED! NOW!' Would they make it? It took numerous seconds to charge up to light-speed. Eviri would have thought that they were safe there, because Umeron would surely have been busy dealing with them. She was wrong. Umeron was just the kind of cowardly being to aim at their softest point at any one time. 'A-ah...' Eviri got stale with the realization going through her. They were not going to make it.

'Oh, NO, YOU DON'T!' Max blasted out at maximum power, his form taking that of a red comet as he charged straight into the way of the Trident's blast. His eyes were burning with determination to stop this blast, no matter what. 'MY LITTLE GIRL IS ON BOARD THAT SHIP! IF YOU THINK YOU'RE GOING TO TOUCH EVEN THE TINIEST LITTLE HAIR ON HER HEAD, I'LL GOING TO HAVE TO-' Max's red dragon took shape, growing larger than Eviri had ever seen it. It was a gigantic monster of its own right, almost matching the Trident itself in size. Wh-where was Max getting all his sheer power? Eviri could only stare in awe as Max's dragon of power folded its scaled wings over its chest and snarled at the giant cannon. Umeron, clearly amused, accepted the competition of power and the Trident launched its attack.

A huge, dream-like blast of energy beyond which amount Eviri could even fathom streamed out of the Trident, straight ahead at the Dragon of Pluto, which stood ready to defend those behind him. Max grinned, welcoming the challenge as he braced for impact. Eviri felt so useless, able to do nothing but watch this hero of her people accept this gargantuan task of surmounting the very same blast which had destroyed Pluto. The same that had destroyed Pluto... Eviri's emotions were struck through by fear. She was an idiot. There was no way a single Plutonian fighter could match up to that kind of strength.

'MAX! GET OUT OF THERE!' She screamed out in desperation. However, Max wouldn't budge. Not as long as behind him, in the ship which the blast was aiming for, was his sleeping, adorable little girl. The white blast of the Trident ripped straight through the dragon's wings and chest, enveloping Max and soaring on to cause numerous explosions in the distance as it impacted the rest of the Plutonian ships. Eviri's heart sank, once again. They had failed to protect... they had failed to protect Karen...

'HAHAHAHAHA...!' Umeron laughed maniacally. 'The Dragon of Pluto, EH!? Brave soul, indeed! Brave little pesky HAHAHAHA...!' He was doubling over, taking immense pleasure in his success, a hand over his face where he stood in the middle of his dark sphere. However, he was very suddenly forced to blink in surprise and quickly bring his hands forward a create a dark shield, his expression somewhat twisted from sheer pleasure to sudden fear of the consequences of his most recent action. The shield had come up just in time to just barely block a really big green blade from running him through on the spot, the blade having come like a green shooting star of monstrous speed from the location Eviri had previously been located. She was now right in front of him, burrowing her blade slightly into his sphere, glaring at him in dark anger, her green colliding with his dark.

'You... have lost.' She declared. Eviri REALLY wasn't in the mood to lose one of her closest friends, or feel the guilt of failing to protect his daughter. Umeron's lightly fearful expression above his pleased smile made her aware that she did not look very happy. That was fine. Get scared, little man. 'On this range, I am the most dangerous Plutonian fighter there is. I can even react to your light-speed missiles as I detect them. Try a single move, and I guarantee I'll be able to outmaneuver you in the fraction of a second and end your life. You... have lost. Stand down.' She followed, her sword pressing powerfully against his shield, forcing Umeron to focus on his shield rather than try anything else.

Umeron lightly chuckled, not doing anything but seemingly thinking about what to do. Behind Eviri, she was aware of Jarnet, struck with grief at the loss of Max, was still flying around in her nimble blue sphere, shooting darts at those she could with considerable success. Wence, frowning in dark awareness, had risen above the rest and started shooting widely in all directions, creating a white web of his power lingering after his shots which caused many of the light-speed missiles to blow up by blasting into his net instead of on the Plutonian fighters. Aren had doubled his efforts, grimly continuing to launch explosive yellow lances at the Triton ship formation, which was frankly running out of ships by now. Not that Umeron seemed to care. He just smiled widely at Eviri where she was, right in front of him.

'So you're playing the assassin's card, eh? Your own little green assassin. I always really liked you, Eviri. You knew where your limits went, unlike Koala, and I could always so easily predict what you'd do next.' Umeron admitted, smiling pleasantly at her in a way which caused Eviri to twitch unpleasantly. 'I've kind of played with the idea of keeping you alive after this battle. As a memento of the things I've experienced. In a different turn of events, I might even have confessed that I'd have fallen in love with you. Ops, seems like I just did. Hahaha.' Umeron laughed his creepy little laugh, the contents of his words causing Eviri to press just that little extra to get her sword through his shield.

'Whoops, oh.' Umeron made an amused little sound as he backed off just a little to not be cut through. He was still plenty within Eviri's range, so she let him and just glared at him. 'Still.' He smirked really widely. 'I already knew you'd betray me at Earth. So honestly, I really didn't need to wait before I administered the punishment of Pluto. You're such a pure-hearted girl. Let me just say, even as I manipulated every last one of your moves, somewhere deep in my rotten black heart, your kindness really touched me. Sniff.' Umeron smiled like he was at a wedding, pulling out a handkerchief from who knows where in his suit and started drying up tears that he started shedding. Eviri was really starting to consider just decapitating him and be done with it. But...

'But, this is about the time you'd lose patience with me.' Umeron stated with frightening accuracy, putting away the handkerchief with a somber little smile. 'So. You have three seconds to kill me.' Eviri didn't need more. Whatever happened, she could not allow this man to survive three seconds. She felt the Trident powering up. She had no idea what it was going to do, but she couldn't let it happen. Eviri blasted herself forward at him, slicing with both her swords at his shield, intending to break through. However, she blinked in surprise as Umeron's shield blew up in proportion, easily blocking her strike. This strength... his suit was backed with more power than an average Plutonian suit. That explained his confidence. He had quadrupled the power-output, and most likely the storage as well. This suit was four times stronger than hers. Umeron grinned confidently at her, while Eviri gritted her teeth at him in anger. That wasn't enough to beat her, and he knew it. But it might allow him to survive three seconds.

Eviri flashed around him, darting at full speed around his sphere while grinding her swords along his sphere. Umeron blinked, noting that she'd quickly sink her teeth into his sphere with sheer friction if he didn't do something. So he did. He extended a hand and a block of dark energy thrust out at her, the power of the large block considerable. In order to not crash straight into the block and be destroyed, Eviri instantly reverted her movement, spinning herself back in the opposite direction. However, Eviri was skilled enough to combine her back-spin with a deadly thrust at Umeron's dark sphere, her green swords shining in power. Umeron, quickly noting the danger he was in, finally moved his sphere, flinching to the side barely avoiding Eviri's swords. That was, though, exactly what she had intended, because she could now go directly for the Trident. Streaming straight past Umeron, for currently he was but another foe in Plutonian tech, Eviri headed with her swords out directly towards the tip of the charging Trident. She'd strike through it with her swords, rendering it inoperable, and that would be the end of it.

'Not good enough.' Umeron grinned behind her, and Eviri was filled with a mild dread of what she could have possibly failed with. And then... she ran straight into a shield. Her own sphere blocked any damage from happening to herself, but she ran straight into an invisible shield, which flickered in white showing its existence as she hit it. She couldn't break through it. She realized with a start what this was. Umeron had adapted the Plutonian technology and created actual shield-generators. The Trident was the first war-vessel with actual shield-generators in mankind's history. Eviri paused, staring up in fear and awe at the monstrous creation. She had no idea how to break it. It was impenetrable.

'Three seconds are out.' Umeron informed. The Trident's tip charged, and Eviri flinched and flew out of the way. But, how did the Trident's power help him in this moment? All the Plutonian fighters were way too nimble to be hit by that! If the Trident was truly built to be an anti-Plutonian weapon, a giant cannon was the least effective means of taking them down. So, why was the Trident built? If it was just to destroy planets, then the PD bombs would have done the job. While it was beneficial to have the blast of the Trident, which couldn't have its engines cut off and was as such a lot more dangerous, it simply wasn't an effective weapon against Plutonians. Then why...?

'Let me answer the question that just went through your mind, scared little Eviri.' Umeron smiled at her, crossing his arms. This was when Eviri realized, looking at him. He was standing straight in the firing-path of the Trident. Then... his muscles loosened, the pupils of his eyes narrowed and his grin turned into one of pure pleased madness...

'THE TRIDENT IS NOT A CANNON...' The Trident then shot out a beam. A considerably thin little white beam, which caused Eviri to blink in surprise. It hit Umeron's dark sphere. Umeron spread his arms as the white enveloped him, smiling in pleasure, and then... Eviri flinched backwards, her eyes widening with shock. His sphere of power expanded. She had to flee away from the trident, because Umeron's sphere grew larger and larger, eventually encompassing the Trident itself. The sphere grew until it was larger than the largest crafts ever built by humankind, causing Eviri to retreat backwards, afraid of what might happen if she came into contact with it. At its largest, it was shining pure white, stronger than the light coming from Triton's Solar Gate.

And then... it shrunk. The massive power shrunk down, down back to only merely four times larger than a normal Plutonian sphere. The light faded away as it shrunk, sinking down from the pure brilliant white to a black hole of darkness, flickering with the awesome might. Eviri could sense it, and Umeron grinned wickedly within it, knowing she could. The full power equal to all the power in the Trident was in that sphere now. Umeron summoned a weapon, the same way Eviri extruded her power from her green sphere to create her swords. A huge trident took shape at Umeron's side, extending through the barrier from Umeron's right hand. He calmly lifted his left hand, palm upwards, and waved a bit with his fingers, taunting Eviri to come get him.

Eviri felt afraid. There was no way she couldn't feel afraid. He had somehow adapted Plutonian technology, and improved on it. He wasn't just a mad warmonger and a Plutonian fanatic, he was also a brilliant inventor, a masterful manipulator and, as Eviri had just learned, a natural fighter. It didn't matter how much more experience Eviri had, with this amount of power at his disposal there was no victory. His basic shield was probably enough to deter any attack she could possibly make. However, as she was fearing about this... she suddenly became aware of the battlefield around her again. There was only a single enemy left.

'Phew. Good job holding him up, Commander.' Jarnet descended on her side in blue, breathing heavily. 'I've disabled the chips in as many as I could, there's not a single enemy-controlled Plutonian left on the battlefield.' She explained. Behind her, was the force of surviving Plutonian fighters from the fleet and also a rather large amount of formerly controlled Plutonians from the garrison Umeron had taken control over. Jarnet had improved her darts so they didn't knock the people out for numerous hours, and they were now glaring angrily at Umeron, wielding the very same anti-Plutonian guns which they had wielded previously, but now on their side. Jarnet herself had picked up a spare such gun which had floated around.

'The light-speed missiles have been eliminated.' Wence declared, floating down from above, placing himself on her side in white. 'Those blasted things couldn't aim well enough to get through my net. I'm ready to pay back Umeron for all he has done to me.' The man was still seething with rage, but he had just saved many of their lives by creating that defensive net. It was comforting to have him on their side, and Jarnet was as much of a blessing as ever. Their force was down to less than half, yet they were still going strong.

'With the exception of the Trident, the Triton fleet has been destroyed.' Aren floated down behind her, but still at her side in yellow. 'Commander Eviri. We'll help you take down this enemy. For Koala, for Max, for Pluto, and for everyone else that has fallen.' His face was filled with grim determination, and there was a murmur of absolute acknowledgement in his words from the warriors behind him. That's right. Eviri was not alone. She breathed out with a little smile, turning to face Umeron. Their last enemy, grinning at them so confidently.

'Let's go.' Eviri informed them all of their orders through the information-network and darted forward. She was mildly aware that Umeron was likely monitoring their minds through that same network, so the orders were very simple. The result was all of them soaring forward, a stream of colourful spheres heading to intercept the black hole in front of them.

Umeron flashed them a grin, and then stabbed. Eviri flinched, being forced to move aside. However, she became distinctly aware that had he aimed for her, she would have died. Umeron's dark trident of power extended far faster and far further than any Plutonian could ever imagine one of their weapons reaching, and it stabbed straight through a poor warrior directly behind Eviri and beside Aren. Th-this was their enemy. Eviri feared a future where technology like this decided the outcome of battles. They had to take him down.

The Plutonian lines spread out, in all directions. Umeron was likely faster than all of them, so they had to create a cage to lock him in. Eviri, however, soared straight at him, glaring at him intently as she shot like a green bullet through space with her swords stabbing forward. Umeron smiled happily at her.

'Oh, you came to see me, sweetheart.' He teased, easily dodging aside her stab with a mere thought. However, he did not counter-attack. Eviri was aware of her advantage. Umeron did not want to kill her, because he liked her. It was a stupid advantage, but it was an advantage nonetheless. This meant that Eviri could charge at him without fearing death. To him, he was already so superior that he could do this without fear. To her, it was something that she simply had to take advantage of, any minor advantage was worth too much to pass up on.

She sliced at him, time and time again. As the warrior with the highest top-speed among the Plutonians, she was best suited to catching up to him. Even with his super-powered things, he was limited by the suit's capability to dampen G-forces for his acceleration, and that was the same as for Eviri and as such she could catch up to him. However, she couldn't hit him. She sliced diagonally, she sliced horizontally, she chased after him and stabbed. He easily and with a small smile dodged left, dodged upwards and sidestepped in space at her stab. He then somehow placed himself on the edge of his large dark sphere, reaching forward with his left hand and easily penetrating her sphere. Eviri's eyes widened as she realized his intention of merely softly stroking her cheek, and she couldn't avoid it.

'Oh, such a sweet little-' Umeron had almost reached her, smiling with a blissfully happy expression of looking at something cute, when suddenly he had to jerk backwards because of a yellow lance stabbing in between him and Eviri which threatened to take his arm off. Umeron stumbled back in his dark sphere, and was then forced to dodge a volley of shots from his own anti-Plutonian guns as he stared in mad happiness at where Aren stood, glaring angrily at him in front of Eviri. Eviri's eyes immediately turned scared, for Umeron likely wouldn't hesitate at all to kill Aren.

'Oh, my!' Umeron shouted out happily. 'Looks like I have a rival!' He cackled happily, then looking at Aren's yellow lance before inspecting his own dark trident. 'Both with stabbing weapons, eh. Guess this was fated to happen!' He glared happily at Aren, when he became aware of a unit of Plutonian fighters approaching him from below and above, intending on taking him on...

'DO NOT INTERFERE!' Umeron suddenly angrily shouted out, and from his dark sphere a multitude of new tridents shot out, almost instantly piercing through every single Plutonian heading for him, causing Eviri to gasp out at this happening. Why... why was he so powerful? She knew why, but, it was really disheartening to see their final opponent being so invincible! She felt a panic, seeing Aren still in front of her, protecting her. Eviri didn't feel like the kind that needed protecting, but Aren sure would need protecting if Umeron decided to kill him.

'Alright, let's go, sunny boy.' Umeron grinned happily, and Aren grimly accepted his challenge. The two soared at one another in this game of space jousting, Eviri not fast enough to keep up as Aren had intentionally blocked off her means of assisting by keeping her directly behind him. The yellow and the dark sphere clashed, the dark one multiple times faster than the yellow one, and they passed one another. This caused Umeron to stop, smiling, staring down at Eviri.

'I'm impressed.' Umeron said, lifting his hand to stroke off some leaking blood from his chin. 'You actually scratched me.' The confidence with which he said so made Eviri fear, and then Aren fell down on his knee in mid-space behind him, blood leaking from his stomach.

'Aren!' Eviri flew straight past Umeron, the enemy just smiling in pleasure from the drama at hand being given to him just how he liked. Eviri soared around to in front of Aren, and breathed in relief when she saw that he also only had taken a minor cut to his side. It was more dangerous than the one Umeron had taken, but it was not fatal, the power of the suit was healing it by the moment. However, Aren shouldn't fight in a little while.

'… Heh. He knows nothing of Plutonian cooperative techniques...' Aren smirked at her, Eviri blinking at him a little. Huh? Umeron knows nothing about...? What does that mean?

She didn't have the time to ask, as suddenly Umeron was forced to deal with the next attack which Eviri felt the need to pay immediate attention to. Umeron blinked in realization as the white cage of Wence started forming around him, the white guns shooting around him and locking him in so that he couldn't move.

'UMERON! This is for everything you've ever done to me!' Wence roared down at him, Umeron looking up at him with a pleasantly amused expression.

'Oh, the cage I taught you.' Umeron mused happily. 'Well, that does the job fine, but it doesn't matter to someone with as much power as me. I just need to soar down the direction your shots were heading...' Umeron turned around, intending to fly down that line. Inevitably, the shots would spread out further and further, eventually revealing the cracks in the bars which would allow his escape from the cage. However, as Umeron turned to escape, he suddenly was confronted with something blocking the way.

'That WOULD work, but...' Jarnet smiled confidently up at him, wielding one of his own anti-Plutonian guns along with a whole force of the turned Plutonian garrison aiming up at him with the same guns, placed directly in the way in that said direction and aiming their guns up the same cage. No matter how fast he was, that sphere of his was still unnaturally large for a Plutonian sphere and a single hit to it was all that was needed. There would be no avoiding it inside this cage. 'Makes you somewhat regret making anti-Plutonian technology and then using Plutonian technology yourself, eh, UMERON!?' She shouted out at him, the guns aiming up at the perplexed-looking Triton lord. He looked like he couldn't quite believe what was happening.

Wait. Something was wrong, Eviri realized. Umeron would not make that oversight. Her suspicion was confirmed when she saw the vile disbelieving grin which suddenly spread on the man's lips. Fear surged through Eviri as she turned to...

'JARNET! DON'T!' She screamed.

Jarnet's expression twisted a bit into confusion at her commander's words. Then the gun in her hand exploded within her blue sphere. All the guns wielded by Plutonians at the end of the cage exploded in their wielder's hands, and within the protective spheres there was no defence. They all died instantly, their limbs and blood bouncing around within their protective spheres preventing the force of the explosions from escaping, just crushing the bodies of the owners inside before the spheres faded into nothingness due to the destruction of the suits within. Eviri's heart sank in horror, while Umeron started laughing uncontrollably.

'Hahahaha...!' He laughed out loud, his left hand clasped over his face. 'Oh, you have NO idea how long I thought of how to possibly get bombs within your spheres! It was impossible! The only way to do it would be to make you pick them up yourself!' He stretched out his hands, an absolutely giant smile on his lips. 'But I did it! Look at my absolute genius! The whole stealing Plutonian technology and then making anti-Plutonian technology were all by-products of the original anti-Plutonian thought of “how do I get bombs within Plutonian spheres?”! Look at it! The ancestor of all my plans has finally succeeded! I'm so bloody happy...! Hahahaha...!' Umeron laughed out in almost nostalgic happiness for the success his oldest plan.

'J-Jarnet...!' However, Eviri couldn't appreciate his sentiment, knowing that one of her closest friends had just been reduced to nothing from this bomb, along with a lot of other Plutonians. Her body was shaking from this feeling of loss and failure. All it would have taken to stop that was the common sense that Umeron wouldn't have let his own guns aim at him. Such a tiny thing. There were now barely any Plutoians left. Eviri had to...

'I'LL CRUSH YOU MYSELF, THEN!' Wence soared down through his own cage at Umeron, blasting with his white guns at Umeron wherever he went. He seemed... more angered than before. Angered at Jarnet's death. Umeron just easily drifted downwards faster than Wence could catch up to him, dodging the bullets with frightening ease. 'I'LL BLAST YOUR TECHNOLOGY TO PIECES, AND THEN I'LL KILL EVERY PERSON ON TRITON, JUST TO MAKE YOU FEEL THE SAME PAIN WE FELT WHEN YOU DESTROYED PLUTO!' Wence screamed out at Umeron, who suddenly got a really curious expression.

'… What, you think I actually care about the people of Triton?' Umeron asked, staring in disbelief at Wence. Wence's expression twitched somehow, as he realized just how demonic this man was. 'Oh, gosh, this is hilarious.' Umeron chuckled in front of Wence, still dodging his shots. 'Why don't I do it myself and spare you the trouble?' Umeron playfully grinned as he suggested, making Wence's eyes go wide in stunned surprise. There was no way he'd actually...

'There we go.' Umeron sent a signal to the Trident, and a hatch opened which sent several bombs falling down at Triton. Eviri herself had to freeze as she looked at it to decide her next cause of action. This was unbelievable. Even if he had the heart of a demon, that planet had resources he needed. He would destroy his own home? What kind of a man was he!?

'Oh, it's quite simple.' Umeron grinned, replying to a thought he couldn't possibly have heard. 'Nothing past this battle matters to me. Everything has been for this battle. What happens after it... I don't care. Triton has helped me a lot. Putting chips into the leaders of the Triton Union has helped me get all the resources and assistance I've ever needed. But now, now it's all over. I don't need them anymore. And you've already conquered the Solar System for me. The world is mine, I can do as I please.' Umeron smiled so pleasantly... when a white flash just straight blew past him, making Umeron have to blink a little in surprise.

With extremely accurate shots, Wence blew off key engines of the PD bombs raining down on the planet. With parts of their engines cut off, they started spiralling into space, leaving Triton safe. Wence breathed out in relief, the white warrior with guns of power extruding from his sphere stopping between the Trident and the moon.

'Oh, my, this is glorious!' Umeron clasped his hands against his cheeks in amazement. 'You really ARE the Knight of Triton! You, Wence, my chief enforcer and the reason why I made my anti-Plutonian weapons into guns... You're so sweet! Even when I betrayed Triton, you're still loyal!' Umeron held his hands together in front of him along with a silly little smile like he was looking at the most adorable thing he could possibly imagine. Eviri felt a burning need to do something. She shot away towards Umeron-

'Come an inch closer to me and I'll kill you for real.' Umeron said in the sweetest voice he could summon, freezing Eviri in place. Her emotions were overcome with fear. Umeron... didn't lie. If she went closer to him, he'd stab her through with his trident, and she wouldn't stand a chance. Eviri would have wasted her life. Wasted the life which all the others had fought alongside of, which they trusted. She couldn't do that. As a Commander, Eviri felt she couldn't kill herself by suicidally charging into Umeron's trident. It was the same as how she couldn't refuse his orders when he threatened Pluto. As long as there was life, there was a chance of new hope. That's how Eviri operated. And Umeron... Umeron knew it. He used it against her, causing her to freeze in mid-space, helpless.

'And now, since I knew of the weak point of the PD bombs, here's a specifically modified version which has no such weakness. Have fun, Wence.' Umeron said, as the Trident launched another bomb. Wence glared with hatred in his eyes at Umeron for a second, before turning to look at the bomb. It was a perfect metal sphere, and it was heading for Triton's Solar Gate. Should it be destroyed, Triton's supply of solar energy would be cut short. That simply couldn't happen. However, there was no engines to shoot. Shooting the sphere at all would cause it to explode, and that would cause grave damage to the moon even from this range. It had to be pushed away.

Wence didn't even hesitate. He charged into the bomb and started pushing, his white sphere enveloping the bomb as he pushed with all the power contained into the suit. Just as he had intended, the bomb was pushed off target, and he pushed it further and further into empty space. Eviri couldn't move, she could only stare as Umeron would kill her if the tried anything. She flinched, noting that other Plutonians were soaring towards Umeron in a last-ditch attempt to take him down.

'N-no, stop! You'll all be killed!' She begged them. They didn't listen. They already knew, but unlike Eviri they trusted a miracle to happen and that they'd defeat Umeron. It didn't happen. Umeron didn't even look at them, his eyes focused on Wence pushing away the bomb while tridents shot out of his sphere at absurd speeds, instantly impaling the Plutonians trying to hunt him down, Eviri once again powerless to help. It felt horrible. Why... why was she so powerless? Why was the enemy so powerful? Why had all this happened? Why...?

'Kaboom.' Umeron made the sound-effect with his voice as space didn't carry the sound, the bomb which Wence's white sphere was pushing exploding as soon as it had come out of the dangerous range, enveloping the white knight with the more powerful light of a massive planet-busting explosion, the man's life ending immediately. Eviri cried, feeling absolutely helpless. What kind of Commander was she? There was... no way to...

'No. There is a way. I scratched him, didn't I?' Aren said, standing in his yellow sphere beside her. Eviri blinked, looking at him. … He was right, he did. But, how? Umeron's shields were strong enough to- Eviri's eyes widened as she connected what Aren had said earlier, just after the impact. That's right. There was a way to hurt him. She looked ahead, staring at Umeron as he drifted over to his Trident, turning towards them once again.

'Okay. But to do it, I need to reach him. I can't reach him without dying.' Eviri told him, and Aren smiled a bit beside him.

'Then we'll just have to make sure you reach him uninjured, right?' Aren said, and Eviri noted that closing in on them were all the surviving few Plutonians, all of them giving her the same supporting smiles.

'You're all going to die.' Eviri informed them, a dark little tone as tears were running down her cheeks, though she felt the little need to smile with that they had actually come up with something.

'Please. Does that change in any way, regardless of what we do at this point?' A male Plutonian in an orange sphere beside her asked, smirking at her.

'Yeah. This here, this is the last shot, anyway. We're with you all the way.' A female Plutonian in a cyan sphere filled in, smiling at her. Eviri didn't know them, but... at this moment, they were all their own closest allies.

'There you go.' Aren said, smirking inside his yellow sphere, as he turned towards the enemy.

'Geesh, you all...' Eviri sighed. But, with all this going on, there was nothing less to do, huh? The green sphere of the Commander took its place in the middle of the small gathering of remaining Plutonians. Before them was Umeron, in his large, dark sphere, and behind him was the large Trident, and in almost perfect line was then Triton, and behind it, Neptune. Behind that, was just the endless expanses of space, stars shining in the far distance.

'Oh? A last charge, is it? Then come. I've grown weary of my happiness. Let's finish this.' Umeron said, his smile looking slightly tired from all that had been going on around him. Eviri shared the sentiment. So, now, for the last time...

'CHARGE!' She screamed out, and the Plutonian fighters gathered around, soaring forward at Umeron at as high speed they could manage and with their shields holding forward. A colourful little pyramid built out of spheres formed, Aren placed right in front of Eviri, as they flew in defensive formation towards Umeron's dark larger sphere, who grinned at their strategy.

'Oooh, how desperation settles in... HAVE AT YOU!' Feeling no risk whatsoever from the enemy charge, Umeron started thrusting his dark trident forward time and time again, each time the trident extended far beyond what would be realistic for an average Plutonian and impaled a fighter with the sheer insurmountable speed. They were being picked off one by one, and Umeron was in no hurry to reach the most important pieces in the middle. He impaled the average troops, taking care to leave the more delicious souls he actually knew in the middle for last, a stream of dead impaled Plutonian fighters falling after their formation as they were being picked down.

The orange warrior fell after being stabbed through his stomach. So did the cyan one, after a particularly gruesome thrust through her throat before the trident retracted. Their shields were meaningless. Soon, there were only five of them left in front of Eviri. Four left, one was stabbed through his heart and drifted off. Three left, one got a trident through his head. Two left, the one on the right was stabbed right through his ribs. One left. The only other person who wasn't Aren flew over Eviri's head, stabbed through his chest.

'Now it's your turn, pretty boy.' Umeron grinned at Aren, and Eviri just pushed on behind him, crying. Aren was not afraid, he was just pushing on. Eviri flinched as he was stabbed in front of her, Umeron first aiming for his right leg. Even with that hole, Aren flew on, giving Eviri additional room. He reached forward and managed to block a stab at his head by letting his arm be impaled instead, still pressing forward. Then he took a straight stab through his stomach, and Aren stopped moving... Eviri gasped out, as she had to move around him, but as she did she suddenly felt her sphere being pushed on. She looked back.

Aren in his yellow sphere glared at her, holding over the wound in his stomach, pressing his exploding lance at her from behind. He only had one word for her.

'… GO.' And then he shot all of his yellow energy into her back with an explosion of power, and Eviri's green was launched forward with such great acceleration that she felt her body straining against it, despite the dampeners in her suit. She flew forward towards Umeron, who spread his arms as if to welcome her, utterly convinced of his own superiority.

'COME, LAST PLUTONIAN IN EXISTENCE! COME, EVIRI, LET US ENJOY ONE ANOTHER, FOR ETERNITIES TO COME...!' He screamed out, his sphere getting larger in front of her. She extended her two green blades, ready to attack. She knew what had to be done. She saw hands extending from his giant sphere. They were going to capture her, and then she'd belong to him, as he wanted her to. The front of his dark sphere gathered immense amounts of dark power. Eviri knew she couldn't break through it. Umeron grinned widely, knowing he had won. There was nobody to argue with him.

Eviri soared forward, accepting her role as the last living Plutonian, and prepared her arms to strike with her swords against the dark sphere of the enemy. Time felt like it moved slowly, but the impact was approaching very quickly. She'd break against this dark wall, and then his hands which were reaching behind her would capture her. It was inevitable. Eviri breathed out, knowing about it, letting her body relax as the impact was coming up. Umeron's expression got brighter and brighter in ecstatic excitement, imagining all which he'd do to her when she was his. And then... the green and the black sphere collided.

And that's when Eviri simply had her sphere of power match the frequency of Umeron's sphere, making them melt together, allowing her to fly straight through.

Eviri maintained a calm, focused expression as she flew, powerlessly, through Umeron's large sphere. Umeron's expression, still smiling in excitement, twisted slightly in complete disbelief. As Aren had said, Umeron had no idea about Plutonian cooperative techniques. Sometimes, Plutonians needed to enter each other's spheres to help each other out, or they'd be locked out from one another by their sphere-shields in mid-space. Umeron, inexperienced with the use of Plutonian strategies and focused on just making his as strong as possible, didn't know how to scramble his frequency to lock others out.

While Eviri lost her own sphere and all her powers when she entered Umeron's sphere, she did maintain her extreme velocity. This gave Umeron a fraction of a second to react before Eviri's closed fist collided into his stomach. Since he had absolutely no idea this was possible, he was frozen in shock for the entire duration. Eviri, maintaining the absolute focus of a professional who knew exactly what to do in a stressful situation, held a straight professional expression with but her determined eyes showing off her passion for what she was about to do. And then she swung her right fist so that it impacted straight into Umeron's unprotected stomach, feeling how his soft flesh gave way under the sheer power of her speed.

Knocked backwards, the dark sphere which would always follow Umeron's movements flew backwards at the giant ship, the Trident. Because the shield was programmed to let Umeron come and go as he pleased, his sphere flew unopposed straight through the shield which Eviri's other brute force had been entirely incapable of breaching. The dark sphere, powered by Eviri's fist digging deep into Umeron's bowels, flew straight into the firing-tip of the Trident. Because the hardness of Umeron's extremely powerful sphere was so much stronger than the metal which the tip of the Trident was built of, the Trident's tip gave way. Umeron's trip, pressured into his stomach by Eviri's fist, carried him straight through several floors and compartments of the Trident until the momentum finally ceased.

Umeron, spitting out blood and gasping for generally everything, quivering with blood leaking from everywhere within the hole he had for a stomach, blinked in front of him. He was located at the powered core of the Trident, a shining white glowing center was located right behind him. His eyes widened as he looked in front of him. Since Umeron's sphere suddenly vanished due to his condition, Eviri was now back inside her shining green sphere, staring down at his pitiful form with an unnerving calmness. On her side, her two swords were extending out in the directions she held her arms, the swords of power gleaming in beautifully controlled green power. She was so... so perfect, in Umeron's eyes.

It was strange, Eviri thought as she looked down on his pathetic, dying form. Now when his shield was down, she could see the chip in his head with her scanners. He WAS the master-mind, right? That there was someone else manipulating Umeron's actions behind the scenes was a terrifying thought. That, or maybe he had put a chip in his own mind in order to make him able to make become the monster he needed to be in order to defeat the Plutonians? Should she shoot a dart and keep him alive just to find out? … No. Eviri's emotions were dead-set on what she had to do. If there were more to this, she'd learn it later. Now, there was something she simply had to do.

So then she swung her swords, stabbing forward with them and let them both run straight through his chest, then impaling the core of the Trident right behind him. Umeron gasped out in his final pain as the overloading sound of irreversible damage to the Trident's core sounded out, and Eviri closed her eyes and held the swords in place. She wasn't afraid to die here. Life had no meaning to her anymore, as all those she lived for was already dead. And as such, she held herself in place as the entire space-vessel exploded in a brilliant flash of white light which would be visible from all corners of the Solar System within the time it took for light to travel to them. It would appear as an additional, bright star in the heavens of those on Earth for a full minute, before it finally faded away and left nothing behind. Nothing at all.

However, those closer to the explosion, the people of Triton, would see that the explosion did actually leave something behind. A very tiny little shining something, only a little larger than a human. It would stay there, silent and stationary, for several minutes. Maybe it was just staring out into nothingness with the blank realization of "Oh, I'm alive". Eventually it would slowly drift off, leaving only a tiny trail of green.

__________________



'Welcome to the Mercury Planetoid Terraformation Center! Man, am I glad to see you!' A bearded engineer of Mercury happily informed the stranger in front of him while changing what sign was displayed from “Mercury Useful Scrap and Junk” to what he had presented after hearing the intended business of the customer. 'The name's Claus, and woah, it's been a long time since I've seen anyone here!' He informed the stranger, though he kind of obviously had seen more, even if not for this specific purpose.

'It has?' The stranger asked, smirking a little and choosing to entertain the shopkeeper.

'Yupp! Ever since the Solar War years ago, everybody has just been focused on gathering up the things which belongs to them, rather than thinking at all on expanding. So much destruction! Man, those Plutonians and those Tritonians sure caused a lot of destruction!' He complained, breathing out. 'I'm thankful as heck that they never reached Mercury! Hoh-hoh-ho!' Claus laughed out his odd little laughter, clapping his rather large belly.

'But, don't the reports state that the Plutonians generally felt the people they attacked alive?' The stranger double-checked the facts.

'Sure did! That didn't make up for what the Tritonians did after, though! They razed and took control the only way they knew how, with brute force! But man, we sure are happy that the Plutonians managed to destroy that foul Lord Umeron, or we'd all have been in deep trouble! Too bad about all their losses. Did you hear? Apparently they only had a SINGLE survivor! One! Only one! That's cutting it amazingly close to dooming us all!' Claus informed on the amazing event.

'Of course I know.' The stranger sighed. 'It was all over the news at the time.'

'Yeah, that's right.' Claus breathed out a little in disappointment and crossed his arms. 'And then she flew around, destroying the varying occupying remaining Triton forces across the universe, and the military of the varying planets rose up in force again. Triton was occupied before anyone knew anything about it! The leaders of the varying planets ensured to have Triton and Neptune searched to the core in order to find and destroy any and all weapons or technology that might have been left. After that, scans for chips in people's brains suddenly become mandatory on way too many occasions! Man, what a trouble that is! I'm not controlled, stop thinking I am!' He complained, stomping his feet into the floor a bit.

The stranger chuckled a bit. 'Still. After all that, we're finally united.'

'What do you mean, “finally”?' Claus frowned and looked the stranger. 'Sure! Now we're all a part of the Solar Federation! … And now we all have to follow all these strange laws everywhere! The number of examinations for secret plots to take over the universe has quintupled! All manners of weapons have been banned forever! It's a complete disaster!' Claus breathed out with a little smile. 'Well, for profit, anyway. Suppose some people would be happy. I heard that surviving Plutonian was a great supporter in this thing, increasing support throughout the Solar System with speeches, interviews, talks and whatnot. And then there was the off time she dealt with random criminals. Geesh. The pirates that came to Mercury to shop were all scared stiff for a while! … And then they vanished!' Claus complained again.

'They had good reason to.' The stranger chuckled for a bit.

'Oh, well. The world's back in order, anyway. Except for Pluto. Pluto's a dead rock.' He sighed again. 'Still, can you imagine how depressing it must be to be the last of your kind? Sure, she left detailed accounts on all of those she knew so they'll be remembered in history, but... Surviving all alone, as the last of her people...' He shook his head. 'Wouldn't want that to be me.'

'No.' The stranger sounded a little down, thinking about it. 'Nobody would.'

'Eh, let's just be happy we're who we are, right?' Claus waved if off and then smiled at the stranger. 'In any case, that's not why you were here. You wanted to buy a terraforming set, right? The most expensive thing in that by far is the Solar Gate, hahaha.' Claus chuckled as he looked down at the stranger.

'Ah, no. The planet I'm terraforming is already in the habitable zone. You can scratch the Solar Gate.' The stranger looked up at Claus with incredibly attentive eyes, smiling up at him. Claus stared down at the stranger in complete disbelief.

'Um. Okay. Uh, wait. There are no suitable bodies in the habitable zone that aren't already terraformed in the Solar System...' Claus mentioned, frowning.

'That's right.' The stranger smiled at him. 'I'm going to be terraforming a planet beyond the Solar System. It might take a while to get there, but I'm ready for the challenge.'

'Woah.' Claus flinched back a little, staring wide-eyed at the customer. 'History's being made before my eyes. Alright. Then please.' Claus handed forward a little datapad to the stranger. 'Upload the information of the planetary body, and we'll provide what will be needed to terraform it.' And so it was done. The stranger plugged something in which uploaded the information about the planet in question, and Claus took it back and looked at it.

'Starting out easy, eh.' He smirked, looking at it. 'Well, that's entirely fine. First attempt outside the Solar System should be something reasonably easy to make habitable, after all. Compared to Mars, Triton or Pluto, this is child's play.' He said. The only reason humanity hadn't gone outside the Solar System yet was because of territorial laws and Vilemugs. Speaking of which...

'How did you slide under the prohibition against colonizing outside the Solar System?' Claus asked, frowning a little.

'Ah, don't worry about that. Let's just say I'm exempt from the system.' The stranger said. Claus frowned at this, and then stared at pad a bit...

'Wait, the crew is ONLY you!?' Claus said in disbelief. 'Aren't you going to get awfully lonely?' He asked, looking a bit worried at the customer.

'Don't worry about it. I'll just freeze myself on trips here and there. I won't be spending all that long alone. Just long enough to prepare the things I need. Other than that, I'm already used to being alone. A friend of mine once said to, whenever I feel lonely, just to imagine me, all my friends, as well as their and my families smiling together.' The stranger said. 'Though, it rarely helps.' The stranger added, smiling at him. Claus scratched his head a bit, feeling like he thought the stranger's eyes getting a little sad, there.

'Er. Right. Then, onto a matter of payment. I DO assume you can afford it. You don't look very rich, but considering you're here...' He asked, looking at the little stranger. Said stranger sighed a little, reaching down into the bag that was brought along, and then placed something on the table between them. A green suit...?

'Huh? What's this?' Claus asked, frowning as he looked at it.

'The last suit of Plutonian technology in existence.' The stranger smiled, a sweet little smile, looking up at him. 'I don't need it anymore. Do you think it will be adequate as payment?'

Claus flinched back, his eyes going wide in part disbelief and part shock. 'Y-you're...!' He suddenly realized.

'Oh, but, only on the condition of that if you do unlock the technology, you share it equally with all of the Solar System.' The stranger asked of him, smiling at him. 'If you don't, I'll find you and destroy you. That's alright, right? Mercury Legendary Engineer Claus?'

'…' His eyes remained wide as he looked at the little form. This small woman... she was... '… Yes, Commander! This will DEFINITELY do!' He saluted her, in a distinctly Plutonian way. She giggled a little. How did he know that salute? Eh, it didn't matter.

'Then, I'll be on my way. I wish you good luck, sir Claus.' She turned to walk away the way she came, her resources for terraforming already being stockpiled on her ship. Claus stood, blinking in disbelief at whom had just come through his shop, and what kind of deal had happened. Looks like she was going to create a new world, and probably then invite people to live on it. No wonder she had picked a planet that would take less than a life-time to terraform, she wanted to see the result herself. Did she want to create a new world, in repayment of losing her old one? She should know it wasn't her fault, but...

Claus was left staring in mild wonder as he watched Eviri leave, before looking down at the green suit. A Plutonian suit, known for creating a sphere of power around the wearer which made the impossible possible. He picked it by the arms and lifted it, looking at the shapes, and...

'… This'll never fit me.' He established. Not only was it for the wrong gender, it was also tiny compared to him. Whelp, he'd have to find out the secrets of this suit before he could accomplish his life-long dream of flying free in space like a Plutonian, he supposed.

---

When I was still very small, my father sat me down on his lap and told me that the world was dying. It seemed inane to my childish mind, which up until then had been filled with nothing but rainbows and sunfish. But still, my father had told me this dreadful news anyways. We had a great enemy, you see. He never named the enemy, but he told me I would know when the time was right. My father was the king of Atlantis, and the people looked up to him in times of struggle. At least, that's what my Guardian tells me. I was born into a peaceful era. The sea was thriving, and the people were happy. I had never known struggle, or hardship. Until the day I left Atlantis.
Until the day that I became the enemy.

I had left the city for first time without the watchful eye of my Guardian. He had fallen asleep, which was something that he usually didn't do. The creature was a Ocula, one of the Undersea dwellers. Us Atlanteans rarely associated with their kind, but the Ocula were an exception. They were highly obedient entities, and their one large eye could keep track of a person's location no matter where they went. To be honest, my Guardian scared me as a child. Its body was like that of an octopus, but its tentacles had small red gemstones seemingly engorged into its skin. It was a frightening sight for a child. But that night, it had closed its big red eye, and I had seized the opportunity to escape and have some fun.

I swam away from Atlantis, and towards the coral fields. They went on for miles, and were quite a beautiful sight. The coral stretched up towards the surface like thousands of hands reaching for the moonlight. Strobe lights danced along the ocean floor. The creatures that lived here were older than time itself. My grandparents used to gather up all seven of us royal hatchlings, and tell us stories about the great coral gods, and how they were here before even Atlantis. That always seemed funny to me. Atlantis, in my mind, was a place where time stood still. It seemed as if the rest of the Mer were frozen in time, never aging or growing. I knew that wasn't true, but I had rarely left my bedroom, and all of the citizens of Atlantis blurred together to me. I couldn't even think of any names, if you were to ask me. I had spent my entire life with my six siblings, playing in the palace, and occasionally evoking the wrath of my aunt, who was the true matriarch of the house.

I pushed all thoughts of my family from my mind and swam down to the ocean floor, brushing through the coral trees like a ghost, floating through the ocean. My red and green locks floated around me, and I occasionally got my long turquoise tail stuck in a branch. I wasn't used to swimming in the wild like this. Something moved in the corner of my eye, and I stopped, coiling up and watching from the shadows. A big, lumbering creature swam slowly through the coral. It was an inky black fish, with a gaping mouth and bulging eyes. It made no noise as it moved, stalking through the forest, searching for prey. I reeled back, hoping it didn't like the taste of Mer.

I darted fast away from the beast's location, trying to put as much distance between it and me as possible. I practically shot right off the edge of the cliff, without any thought. I started to fall with my momentum, but I used what little muscle I had to swim up in the open water, looping back into the coral and trying not to get pulled down. I had come to a steep decline in the water, and could see nothing but darkness below. I had reached the end of the forest. Looking back, I could have stayed in the safety of the pink coral hands, holding me close to home, where I belonged. But if I hadn't swam down into the darkness, I would never have found out the truth about the ocean.

I hadn't meant to go down all the way, exactly, but I decided that I might as well see if there was anything down there, especially since I didn't think I would ever see the city again. So, I rolled slowly down into the darkness, using my tail to keep myself just slightly above the ground. At first, I didn't see anything, and was tempted to go crawling back to the safety of my home. After a few minutes of swimming though, I realized that I wouldn't have the strength to go back up even if I wanted to. It was freezing down there, and my body was taken quickly by fatigue. I tried to resist the cold and go back up, but soon, every muscle in my body felt the pull of entropy, and I fell into a cold void, falling deeper and deeper into the depths as I fell asleep. I hardly felt the warm limbs as they wrapped themselves around my limp body and pulled me down.

When I woke up, I was instantly blinded by harsh blue and violet lights. I sat up slowly, trying to become aware of my surroundings. I was laying on a stone table, my tail dangling off the end and dragging across the smooth ground. I was in a tiny cave-like room, with barnacles growing out of every crack in the wall. The only thing in the room was my table and me. The light was shining from the other end of the room. When I looked, I gasped and rolled off of the table, swimming over the the window that was placed in the other side of the cave wall.

The city was lit by florescent coral that grew on the side of all of the buildings, shining cool tones into the otherwise empty space around the city. It was the opposite of Atlantis. Where Atlantis was all pearl and marble, this place was stone and dirt. Buildings seemed to be crudely carved out of rock, or naturally formed over thousands of years. Strange, dark shapes seemed to swim along the edge of every shadow, and as I realized where I was, I backed slowly away from the window.

"Do you enjoy the view?" a voice asked from across the room, a thick accent dancing into my ears.
I turned and saw her. She was thin and beautiful, in a foreign way. Her face was all angles and sharp lines, unlike the round, plump Atlantean frames which I was used to. Her skin was a dusty grey, and her eyes seemed to shine violet into my very soul. Her tail was as black as the darkness outside, and her long, flowing hair matched it. She smiled at me.

"Its very...interesting." I offered. "I demand you take me home. I am princess Lumina of Atlantis." I announced all of a sudden, with strong confidence. All doubts about where I had ended up faded away. My grandparents had always told us stories about the Undersea, and how the souls of lost Atlanteans were trapped beneath the earth, crying for a saviour. My aunt Persella always told us that if we ever wandered out of the city alone, we would be taken by monsters and made into a slave. I always thought she was pulling our tails, but now I wasn't so sure. If this was the Undersea, then I needed to get out. Fast.

"The city may not be what you're used to, princess, but it is our home," she began, her smile warm and welcoming, seemingly out of place on her harsh face. "Submaris. City of wonder and magic, and home to my subjects." she mused, and moved past me to the window, to look out upon the city. A she brushed against me, I saw that her tail actually split into two halfway down. I stared in awe as the pointed tendrils dragged across the floor. When she reached the window, she raised a grey hand, and the creatures emerged from the dark. I recoiled in horror at the beasts. They came in all shapes and sizes, and their faces were all equally terrifying and inhuman. The woman laughed, and waved her hand, her pointed white nails cutting through the water. All the creatures returned to the dark, and she returned to my side.

"What are you going to do to me?" I asked her, my voice shaking. I didn't want this. I just wanted to explore, and actually have some independence for once. She laughed again, and it rang as cold and cruel as her face. "I'm not going to hurt you, dear, I don't want your father coming after me and my people." she explained. "On the contrary, I saved your life. When my warriors found you, you were half dead in the wilds." she snapped, and motioned for me to follow her out of the room. "Well, I should be going home now." I hoped as we floated through many empty stone hallways. "Oh, that won't do." she said, and I felt my blood run cold.

We eventually came to a dimly lit room that had two hulking creatures stationed outside. They looked like nothing I had ever seen before, with many arms and an armored body. The woman waved her hand at me to enter, and I followed past the figures, and into the room. The only light came from a pool of viscous smoke in the center of the room. It swirled, and sent rainbow fractals of light across the room. Things crawled in hundreds of jars and vials that were strewn messily on tables all around the room. The woman swam over to the pool, which I then realized was more like a cauldron.

"My name is Ulsa." she stated simply, meeting my gaze head on. My mouth dropped open. Ulsa was the name of the goddess of the coral forests in my grandparent's stories. She was said to be a kind and forgiving spirit. This woman was anything but forgiving. Surely this was not the same Ulsa. She smiled, as if she had read my thoughts. "I am not a great goddess. Just a humble witch." she attempted to sooth my worries. "I am also your great aunt, so I'd suggest you show some respect towards me." she demanded, and my face contorted in confusion. I knew that my grandma had a sister, but I was told she had died. Looking at the creature she had become, I realized why they may have told me that instead of the truth.

"If you're my aunt, then why are you-" I began. She cut me off immediately, slamming her clawed hands down on the edge of the cauldron as she spoke. "Why am I a monster that lives in the Undersea instead of up in your fake, bubbly castle?" She snapped. "Because I loved a human, and your great grandfather removed me from the family for it." she spat. It made sense then. Humans were mythical creatures that were like Mer, but cruel and destructive. They were said to live above the water, but I didn't think anything was actually up there. Someone who tried to marry outside of the Mer race was seen as a danger, and left to survive on their own outside Atlantis. It made sense why she was so deformed, too. Years of living in the wild must have destroyed her. She reached into the cauldron, and pulled out a ball of smoke. Inside the sphere, I saw images swirling menacingly.

A castle rose above the sea, into the sky. A man stood on a balcony of sorts, calling out to the ocean. He was tall, dark, and handsome. Around his neck was a shell necklace, glowing and standing out in the sphere. He tore it from his neck, and threw it into the ocean. As he did so, spears flew from the ocean and seemed to smash straight through the castle. It crumbled around him, and he fell to his doom. Ulsa crushed the smoke in her hand, and stared at me with a determined gaze. I was beginning to think I understood what great enemy my father had been talking about.

She reached once more into the cauldron, and the smoke turned red, pooling out of the cauldron and snaking towards me. I turned to dart through the doors, only to see the hulking creatures from earlier slamming them in my face. The smoke reached me, and I screamed as it wrapped itself around me. It didn't hurt, but I still swung my arms, trying to remove it from my body. Once it fully enveloped me, I breathed it in through my gills, and began coughing. I felt it in my mouth, acidic and raw. When I opened my eyes, the smoke was back in the cauldron, and Ulsa was fiddling around with jars on a table. I looked around, seeing that there was a sword and a couple of jars sitting on the table closest to me. I reached for the blade, but a pain in my chest stopped me.

"What did you do to me!?" I asked her, rage in my voice. I looked down at my chest to see a large red welt forming across my breast, like a tattoo. Ulsa didn't look up. "I have marked you. Its an old Kitsune trick, with a little magical twist of my own." she explained vaguely. "What does that even mean!?" I screamed, pulling at my hair in frustration. Nothing made sense anymore. She gave me an unsympathetic look. "Simply put, I can now kill your entire family, old and young, with a rather complex incantation." she said bluntly. I stared at her in shock. This woman was evil incarnate. She smiled at me and moved to the cauldron, haphazardly throwing in the jars and watching them explode. She nodded, and then swam to the other side of the room, picking up a grey piece of silk. The cauldron began to swirl violently, changing colors from bright blue to bright purple, and back again. The neon fractals of light that filled the room became reflected a thousand times in all of the jars, and cast shadows all around the walls. She dipped the silk in the cauldron, and it exploded, smoke flying every which way. It seemed to not care that we were underwater, it got in my gills and made me choke.

I fell limply to the ground, looking back in time to see Ulsa floating above the pool, dragging the now glowing piece of silk along the surface. As she got closer to me, the smoke rolled out of the cauldron and across the room, like a wave. The iridescent cloth seemed to shift and move like the smoke itself, not moving like it should. As Ulsa floated close to my face, I saw the pain in her glowing violet eyes. "You will find my treasure, and return it, or your whole family will perish." she commanded. "You're the enemy my father warned me about." I sobbed, wailing as she began to wrap the silk around me. She frowned when I said that.

"I may be the enemy of Atlantis, but the sea has its own foe." she warned cryptically. I gathered all my might, and reached for the blade. Ulsa screamed, but it was too late. I stabbed her blindly through the smoke, sending the blade through her chest. She gasped, and her sad violet eyes met mine. She reached out and stroked my face as a tear fell from her eye. My hands shook as she melted into smoke, and I crumbled to the ground. The smoke was all around me now, filling my body. Changing me. I stared as my skin turned grey, and before I fully transformed, I felt the welt on my chest explode with pain. Tears rolled down my face as the image of a smoke filled Atlantis filled my mind. All were dead. I saw my twin sisters holding hands as the smoke enveloped them. I saw my grandfather desperately trying to drag my grandmother's lifeless body from the halls. I saw my father as he lay limp in his throne. Right before I passed out, I saw one image through my violet eyes.

A seashell necklace being thrown into the ocean.

By @Holmishire.

"A large group's coming this way," Antsi en-Naksa called down from her post. Gazing out over the dunes, Talahn's sister stood in a makeshift watchtower three yards tall, constructed from bone, cloth, and a bit of rope and bark. The structure was sturdy but small, only able to support the young girl's weight as it stood on the back of the largest of three bonnacon—thickset pachyderms with horns curling out of either side of their heads. "Orcs," she continued, her voice tense with fear.

Talahn cursed, rushing to the crest of the dune to have a look for himself. Sure enough, a large group of warriors were quickly making their way towards them, a large caravan following slowly behind. Having found tracks in the sand, Talahn had assumed them to be another tribe of trolls, intruding on their land—in the desert, resources were to scarce to be shared between tribes. He had sent Jahran, his half-brother, and Sahna, his cousin, to scout ahead, providing them the intel they needed to conduct a raid. He could only assume the two had been captured by the orcish warband.

The young troll knew that the Naksa tribe would be unable to escape with their bonnacon in tow. "Get down with the others," he called out to his sister. She nodded quickly, the twin horns protruding from her forehead tapping against the railing of the watchtower in her hurry. With a click from the back of her throat, she had her bonnacon sliding down the dune into the trough where the rest of the tribe had now halted, awaiting news. With one last glance at the approaching warband, Talahn too slid down the dune.

Hira, the tribe's chieftain, stepped forward to meet him. "Any sign of Sahna among them?"

Talahn grimaced. "No signs of Sahna, or Jahran." Though Hira tried to hide it, it was not unknown in the tribe that the father preferred his son over his wife's bastard, Jahran. "They're still too far out to make out much of use, but they'll be here soon. We'll hold here—get the girls safe."

Hira nodded, and rushed to his wife, Kendri. After they exchanged a few words, Kendri took their two daughters, Tafi and Divi, and brought them to Sambat and Antsi, waiting with the three bonnacon. Talahn, for his part, stood apart from the others, ready to face the oncoming force.

He did not have to wait long. The warband of twenty or so orcs came charging round a bend in the trough, riding on the backs of drakes. From the looks of it, they carried weeks' worth of supplies—why orcs would be in such a rush as to decide the cold desert the troll had no idea, but they had certainly come prepared for the voyage.

The lead orc gave a bellow, and the warband pulled up short of Talahn. Dismounting, he pulled something off the back of his drake and was joined by two others, who approached Talahn at a leisurely pace.

The first to catch his eye with her greyish-blue skin was another female desert troll, not of the Naksa tribe—from the scars etched on his face, he recognized that she was once of the Rokko tribe. He could only assume it was she that had managed to track them back from the scouts.

The second was a behemoth of green skin and thick tusks. Half orc, half ogre, and stronger than either of them alone. Hefted over his shoulder, Talahn recognized the body of Jaharn—dead, or soon to be.

The third, of course, was the orc leader himself. Skin a dark greenish-black, he was heavily armoured and doubly so scarred. Heaving his arms, he tossed a living form to Talahn. When it crashed into the ground and rolled a few feet towards him, crying out in pain, he recognized it to be Sahna, battered and beaten. He qickly rushed forward to untie him, and glanced up at the half-ogre. "Jaharn?" he whispered.

"Dead," he whimpered. Talahn shooed him back to Hira, and stepped forward to face the orcs.

Their leader flexed his muscles, obviously attempting to intimidate him, and grinned. "I am Murgol, head of the Warkaw brotherhood. We found these—" Pointing at Sahna and Jaharn's lifeless body. "—scum rifling through our supplies." He spat onto the stone and sand beneath him. "Came back to teach daddy here a lesson he never thought to teach his damned kids."

Talahn did not waver. "You trespassed on our lands. In the code of our people, any who—"

Murgol strode forward briskly and heaved the troll of his feet, lifting him until his brow pressed against Talahn's horns. "We are not your people. We have our own code."

Talahn grimaced, but did not flinch, glancing at the il-Rokko. "A misunderstanding. Let us go, and we'll bother you no more."

The orc drops him to the ground, and laughs with little humour. "We outnumber you, and we are stronger than you. If we wished it, we could slaughter the lot of you and not lose a single grunt." He grinned. "You are alive, because we orcs have something you lack—honour. Urkyl." He beckoned to the half-ogre. "We grow tired of the endless dunes. We yearn for blood." He turned back to Talahn. "A challenge; a duel. If you die, we get to keep your females." As he spoke, he eyed Tafi, Divi, and Antsi hungrily.

Talahn blanched. Orc females were rarer than males, and it was not uncommon for them to seek mates amidst the other races. If he lost this fight, he'd be dooming his sister and cousins to a life of painful servitude. "And should Urkyl be slain?"

Murgol grunted, as if he didn't consider it a real possibility. "Then I shall permit your tribe to live."

Antsi watched in horror as her brother donned his gauntlet, a long stabbing blade embedded into it, extending out of his fist. In his left hand he carried a smaller blade, curving round into a sharp hook. The half-ogre Urkyl towered above him, standing at almost twice his height—if discounting the twin horns protruding from Talahn's forehead. He wielded a single sword, long and heavy enough to pose a challenge even to a pure-blooded orc.

She had no doubt he brother would lose this battle.

Facing each other in the trough, walls of sand rising high to either side, the warrior prepared themselves for battle. After a few tense moments of silence, Urkyl tossed Jaharn's body to the side and lunged at Talahn. Nimbly dodging the half-ogre's blade, the troll spun past, scraping his hook-blade across the behemoth's left flank before embedding his sword-gauntlet deep into his back. Urkyl cried out in pain, dropping his sword, but as Talahn pulled out the spike for another jab, an immense arms swung around and struck him across the face, sending him flying into the dunes.

Groaning as he tumbled from the sand, Talahn was unable to dodge as Urkyl latched onto his horns and flung him back into the ground.

Shakily, Talahn rose into a kneeling position supported by his blade gauntlet as the half-ogre retrieved his own blade.

Antsi edged a knife from her belt, tensing to rush to her brother aid, only to feel a strong arm thrust in front of her, blocking her path. Looking up, her eyes met with her uncle Hira's, tinged deep with fear and worry. "Please," he muttered. "You'll only make things worse."

Despite the ache wracking his body, the sensation of blood filling his airways, and the world-shaking pain clouding his mind, Talahn could feel the soothing and familiar itch of the ivory sand between his toes. This desert had been his home for decades—the only home he knew. And in it, the en-Naksa, tribe of these lands. His tribe.

As he heard the whistling of a great blade descending towards his neck, he gathered the last of his strength.

Talahn ducked underneath the blade, keeping his head connected to his body—but it caught his thick horns instead, and flung him in an arc around the half-ogre. As soon as he slid free, he twisted to dodge another strike—it grazed his side, drawing a stream of blood. As the arm pulled the blade back, he latched his hook-blade into the flesh. The half-ogre immense strength pulled him up with it as the brute cried out in pain, and he flew off up the ground towards its head. He released the hook-blade and instead wrapped his left arm around the creature's neck. Pulling back his right arm, he then plunged the spike into its throat.

As the sack of flesh crashed onto the sand, Talahn rolled off onto his back, bleeding profusely from his side and with broken bones throughout his body. Not too far off, he could make out Jaharn's body, lying in an enticingly pleasant slumber.

Talahn's head rolled to the side under the weight of his horns, and he saw the orc Murgol approaching him, fury clear on his brutish face. As he drew near, the orc drew a broadsword from his back, spun it point-down in his hand, and plunged it into Talahn's heart.

Antsi screamed.

"Your champion is dead." Murgol waved to a pair of his grunts standing nearby, who moved toward the women huddled by the bonnacon. "Take the girls. We have no use for the elderly. But leave the rest—they have earned their freedom."

Kendri cried out in grief as her daughters were pulled from her grasp, and Hira stood still in shock. Murgol moved for Antsi, sheathing his sword.

Antsi glanced at the knife in her hands. If she fought back, she would almost certainly die—but at least she'd not have to suffer a crueller fate amidst the orcs. Clenching her fists, she closing her eyes as tears cascaded down her cheeks. Finally, as Murgol was mere feet from her, she dropped the weapon to the ground. She only would have made things worse for the rest of them.

As Murgol latched onto her arm, a new voice rose up from the orcish warband. "Stop, Murgol." Antsi turned; it was the desert troll.

"What do you want, Magka?" the orc growled.

Magka il-Rokko turned to Kendri, sympathy in her eyes. "I lead you across the plains to fight a different war, orc. Leave this woman her children, or find your path alone."

The orcs stamped his foot in frustration, turning to see Kendri reaching out to Tafi and Divi. He glanced down to Antsi, beside him. "Fine." He gestured to his grunts. "Leave those two. But she's coming with me." He dragged Antsi along to the drakes, before tossing her to Magka. "Deal with her. We ride now."

---

Cresting a dune, Antsi watched as her tribe faded into the distance, three trolls smaller today than the day before. Magka, riding on the drake behind, gently turned her head to face forward. "What is your name, child?"

Antsi voice was low, burdened by grief. "Antsi, en-Naksa."

"il-Naksa, now." The troll smiled. "I am Magka, il-Rokko. Trust me, Antsi, this is not the end of your tale. Stay close, and you shall be safe."

A casual chatter and occasional laughter filled the room. The banquet hall was filled with people, all relatives gathered to celebrate the 25th wedding anniversary of Matt Bansing and his wife Evelyn. Michael stood a bit to the side with a glass of champagne in his hand and watched his parents talk with his grandmother of his mothers side. The cry of a baby caught his attention and he smiled when he noticed his little nephew had woken up and let his mother know how hungry he felt right now. His cousin was the first in their family to give birth to the next generation and he knew he wanted children of his own one day, but not yet. It was great to see all his uncles and aunts, cousins and grandparents again and he enjoyed being at this party.

None of these people knew what he did outside of college and maybe that was for the best. They would only be worried. Being a demon hunter wasn’t without risk, but he was good at it. He was one of the better agents of the organisation. What he lacked in physical strength, and compared to most other agents he really wasn’t strong, he made up for memorizing and performing the necessary rituals and spells.

The door opened and a figure dressed in a purple trenchcoat entered. His yellow skin and long white hair drew all the attention to him and the room became dead silent. The purple eyes moved around until they settled on the reason of his arrival.

“Michael,” the demon said. His voice was smooth and filled with determination, even if he hadn’t stated his business yet, it was clear he wouldn’t take no for an answer. His posture had a certain elegance to it, but showed a great confidence at the same time. The confidence of a powerful being who knew no-one in this room could match his strength.

“Xantier,” Michael whispered. He knew this demon only through books, he had never met him face to face. The yellow-skinned demon was one of the higher demons and from what he had heard, a dangerous one too. “Weren’t you banished?”

“Do you really think they could keep me locked away?” Xantier asked, his voice filled with disdain. He walked further into the room as if he owned the place and he kept his eyes focussed on Michael. These other humans were of no interest to him. “Let us get to the point of my visit,” Xantier continued calmly, “I decided I want your soul, Michael.”

Michael tensed up. “And you think I would give it to you?” he asked as he moved his right hand towards the pocket of his jeans.

“Of course not,” Xantier said as he waved his hand in a dismissive way. He continued to walk over to Michael with an ominous smirk. “No human has ever given their soul freely, but that has never stopped me from obtaining them.”

As Michael reached into his pocket to get the charm he needed for a spell or a banishing ritual, Xantier lifted a hand and spoke three long words in a demonic language. The building shook violently and as a red band came out of nowhere and curled around the people in the room within seconds, a chasm opened beneath their feet. Flames burned vigorously in the bottom of the chasm. The heat coming from it was intense and the room glowed in an orange light. “Don’t do anything hasty now,” the demon hissed. “I have your family in my grasp. They are... how do you humans call it? My hostages. And I will offer a trade, you will sign my contract which will allow me to take your soul when you die and I won’t throw them into the fiery pits of hell.”

Michael looked at his relatives, those who didn’t look afraid were crying. Maybe he could save them. His hand gripped the charm and he opened his mouth.

“Do you really think,” Xantier spoke slowly, but with satisfaction in his voice, “that you will be able to complete your ritual before I release them? All I need is a snap of my fingers, so to speak. Be a good boy and drop your charm.”

Judging by the smirk, Xantier knew it would take longer than that, just as Michael knew that. For a brief moment he pondered if he should try anyway, this demon was dangerous and had to be banished. His relatives wouldn’t be the only victims. Then he heard his newborn nephew cry and his cousin trying to hush it while crying herself. They would all die. And if they did, who would he have left? But he’d have to give up his soul... but they would die... He closed his eyes and took in a deep breath. “Okay,” he whispered as he dropped the charm. “I will sign your contract if you will let them live.”

“Good boy,” the demon said as if he talked to a dog. As he walked over to Michael, he opened the trenchcoat and retrieved a rolled-up scroll and a pen. “You know how it works. Sign it at the bottom and your soul will belong to me. After that I will let your family go.”

With a trembling hand, Michael took the pen and scroll and he opened it. The text was straightforward enough, it said the owner of the contract, Xantier, from now on owned his soul and could claim it when he died. He looked at his family once more and he could see one of his uncles shake his head, but what choice did he have? It was either this or his family. Xantier spoke the truth, there was nothing he could do before the demon would kill them all. He wrote his name at the bottom of the contract and gave it back to the yellow demon. What else could he do?

Xantier took it and looked at the name with a pleased smile, before he rolled it up and put it in his inner pocket again. The chasm closed and he theatrically snapped his fingers to remove the binding spell. With that done he looked at the boy in front of him. “Come,” he said to him. “We’re leaving to my realm.”

“What?” Michael’s head jerked up and he looked at the demon. “But that wasn’t...”

“Your soul belongs to me,” Xantier hissed as he leaned forward. “How can I own a soul if the vessel is not with me?” The smirk he showed was anything but pleasant. “You belong to me now, boy. Your soul and your body. You will serve me until it’s time for me to collect what you gave to me when you signed the contract.” He pointed to Michael’s relatives. “I can always throw them in the chasm if that’s what you prefer. What would I care about the lives of humans? Killing one of one hundred makes no difference, but I’m a demon of my word. Come with me and I will not harm them. It is as simple as that. All I want is you.”

Michael swallowed heavily, but lowered his head in acceptance. Selling his soul hadn’t been an easy decision, it was the most prized possession anyone had after all, but he had expected to be killed for it as soon as he had signed the paper. Instead, he had to serve the demon first. He couldn’t even begin to image what that would be like. He heard his father say his name and he looked up at him with grief and fear battling for a place in his eyes. He opened his mouth to say something, but before he could Xantier opened a portal and dragged him along.

The realm of the demons was dark and hot. Black clouds filled the sky almost all the time. Every once in a while a gap in the cloud revealed a large, red sun. Red lightning lit up the clouds and the land below every couple of seconds. A dry wind blew over the rocky ground and pits filled with boiling tar or molten rock filled the landscape. The trees that remained were all dead. Either they were scorched and brought down to a black trunk, clawing with it’s root in the rocky surface, or they had completely dried out and had a pale colour, as if they were turned to stone.

The higher demons, like Xantier, lived in castles. Some of those were build on high mountain tops, others in one of the dead forest. Lower demons either stayed in the open or lived in one of the many caves. Xantier himself lived in a castle in a valley between two mountain tops. The six small towers of the castle were build in a circle around the large main tower and every tower had a pointy roof. The walls had a dirty, dark-grey colour and aside from the gothic-themed arches they were unadorned. The large double doors seemed old but sturdy and they were big enough to let a giant into the castle. Even though they looked to be quite heavy, the demon opened them effortlessly and Michael stared into the castle.

“Come on,” Xantier said as he gave an impatient push in his back. Michael stumbled forward and stepped inside. The doors closed behind him with a loud bang and Michael wished they hadn’t. It sounded like there was no way back, that his stay here was definitive. “This way,” the demon said curtly as he passed Michael and went towards the door on the other end. Their footstep echoed through the empty hallway as Michael followed Xantier. The grey stone walls looked like they hadn’t been cleaned in ages.

The black door at the other side gave entrance to a circular room. In the middle was a winding stair-case leading into the main tower above them. Six straight stair-cases lead to a door which would give access to the six smaller towers. Two black statues stood between each of the six stairs, they were crafted in the image of demons, all higher demons as far as Michael recognized them.

“Onyx,” Xantier said as he saw Michael look at the statues. “They are made from onyx.” With a wide gesture of his arms he brought attention to the entire room. “This is the central hall. From here you can go to all the towers. I will show you the six towers first. After that we will go into the main tower and I will show you were you’ll sleep.”

Michael nodded, even though his approval would change nothing about the fact they were going to look at the towers. He wasn’t quite prepared for what he saw in those towers. The first tower had piles of gold and silver coins and items in it. He had no idea the demon was this wealthy, nor that earthly goods like this attracted him. The room in the second tower had piles of precious stones, each gem carefully sorted in their own pile. The third room had pig-like demons chained to the wall, Michael knew these were classed as lesser demons. When he asked why he kept those, Xantier explained they were for experiments and that he cared as little about these low demons as he cared about humans. Not one bit. The fourth room made Michael’s stomach turn, shelves filled the room and each shelf was filled with dried organs, shrunken heads and jars filled with organs and foetuses of both humans and lesser demons. The fluid seemed to keep them in perfect shape. The fifth room housed horribly deformed creatures to which Xantier explained they were failed experiments, but he hadn’t gotten rid of them yet as they still could serve their purpose. As the rooms had gradually worsened, Michael wasn’t too sure he wanted to see what was kept in the sixth tower, but not going with the demon wasn’t an option. The sixth room housed five humans without any clothes on. They stared ahead and walked around aimlessly.

“These are five somewhat successful reanimations of dead corpses,” Xantier explained. “At first I just disposed of the body or cut it up for parts when I claimed a soul. After a while I thought it would be nice to bring their bodies back to life and see if I could make those obey my wishes. The first attempts failed, but I was rather successful with these.” He looked at the walking corpses with a thoughtful expression on his face, while Michael stared horrified at them. “I hope to perfect the reanimation spell soon,” he said as he turned to his new pet. “When you’re dead and I have taken your soul, I will use your body too. Maybe I will be successful this time.” Michael couldn’t do anything but stare at the humans walking there, was that his fate? It seemed to get worse the longer he was with the demon. First he had signed the contract that would allow Xantier to take his eternal soul, then he learned he would have to serve him first and now he would be turned into this after his death?

Xantier took Michael with him again and brought him back to the central hall, before ascending the spiral stairs to the main tower. Halfway up the stairs was a door and Xantier stopped here. He informed Michael that the floor above this one was his private floor where he did his spells and rituals, nothing the boy needed to see. The demon opened the door and Michael stared at the room as they stepped through it. Unlike the rest of the castle, this room was beautiful. In the middle was an ornate king-size four-poster bed made from the dark wengé wood. The bright red silk sheets and pillows were in high contrast with the black wood, but it seemed to work for the demon. The white walls were decorated with golden patterns reaching all the way up to the dome-shaped ceiling. There was another door on the opposite side of the room, but Michael’s attention was caught by a set of chains hanging on one wall with a simple white mattress on the ground under them.

“That is where you will sleep,” Xantier told him.

“Like a dog,” Michael added bitter.

“If you want you can sleep with the Dorcons in the third room,” the demon suggested and he watched Michael quickly shake his head, his eyes showing the fear he had for the creatures. “No? Then how about with your future friends in the sixth room?” he continued, to which Michael shook his head again, but with a sad look in his eyes this time. Xantier walked up to him and wrapped his slender fingers around his chin. “Don’t worry, you don’t always have to sleep on the mattress. Every once in a while I’ll let you sleep in my bed,” he brought his lips closer to Michael’s ear, “but I don’t think you’ll enjoy that very much.”

Michael swallowed heavily and stepped back from the demon. “T-the mattress is fine,” he muttered.

Without any comment, Xavier pushed Michael further towards the other door. He opened it for him and let him have a look around. He smirked when he noticed how Michael’s face turned pale and his eyes filled with fear when he looked inside. In the room were several devices Michael recognized from books about the medieval time period. Torture devices.

“That is one thing I like about you humans,” Xantier said as he walked into the room. With a hand he stroke over the sturdy oak of the rack. “You were quite creative with some of the devices you made to inflict pain on other humans. I quite like these designs from medieval Europe, I’ve used them quite a bit.” He turned to Michael and showed a smile that send a shiver through his spine. “We will spend some time here together, just you and me.” The demon walked back to Michael and grabbed his chin so he was forced to look at him. “You will scream and you will cry and I will enjoy every moment we spend here,” he promised.

“Whatever you’ll do to me,” Michael whispered. “I will not cry.”

“I will break you,” Xantier hissed. “You will beg for me to end your life and take your soul, but I will not end your life until I want to.”

Again Michael swallowed heavily, already the promise of not crying seemed impossible to keep, but he'd try to keep it nonetheless. He had no idea what kind of things the demon wanted to do to him, but he knew it would be worse than anything he could imagine.

On the first day Xantier already proved how sadistic he could be. The following days weren’t any better for Michael. The demon enjoyed torturing his victims, use them for his own pleasure and he loved the sound of their screams. And screaming was something Michael did, it was impossible not to. Xantier knew how to keep his human pets alive and he told Michael repeatedly that in the end he would take his soul, but for now he'd have his way with him. And there was nothing he could do but endure it.

Sometimes, when Xantier was bored inside his castle, he took Michael out for a walk through the lands and shared some knowledge about the other inhabitants. The walks, even if educational, were agonizing. Even if the demon wasn’t inflicting pain of some sort, there were always bruises or wounds that had yet to heal and ached when he moved. During the walks Michael saw many of the creatures of the demonic realm. While he knew many of the demons from books or from hunting them, both the higher and lower ones, he also came across some he didn’t know yet. He also saw big dog-like creatures which were called hellhounds. They were feasting on the corpse of a lower demon and Xantier warned him to stay away from those dangerous creatures. He also met some of the higher demons. One visit in particular was one he'd never forget. The demon they had visited had planted a garden, as he called it himself. He had put stakes in the ground and the impaled bodies of lesser demons and humans adorned his front yard. Michael refused to look at it, but that one glance had already made his stomach turn.

Days turned into weeks and Michael soon lost track of time in the strange realm filled with horror and pain. The daily torture and abuse started to take their toll on him, but so far he kept his promise of not crying. At night, when he lay on his mattress with a chain around his neck he often thought back to the party, that last moment when he had seen his relatives. He often wondered if he could have done it differently, but every time he concluded he couldn’t have done it any other way. Giving in to the demand of Xantier and sign that contract, even if it had lead to this, was still better than to be responsible for the death of his entire family. There was no way he could live with that. They were safe, at least they were safe.