Information had been sparse, out on the Jotun frontier. The worlds the Emperor had examined first were completely unaware of what was going on; of why their defensive fleets had been redirected. When he had finished tossing the remnants of their fleets into space, he simply moved on to the next world. Growing increasingly frustrated at the lack of worthwhile information, he set his sights on the one place that was virtually guaranteed to know what was going on; the Jotun capital.

As he arrived in the system at its edge, he could feel it; the entire place practically oozed with life. Billions. Maybe tens of billions. In his early days, this would have been an incredible feast. Now... it would be just another meal. As he passed through the system, he could feel hundreds of warships; from what little he'd learned, most of what the Jotun had left; swarmed around their homeworld and its defensive installations.

His tentacles twitched with anger. How could these lowly bottom-feeding crabs have the audacity to risk the entire galaxy.

He could sense an incoming communication abruptly. It showed... one of the larger Jotun. A female. But not one adorned with various decorations to mark where her previous shells had been damaged. Either a fairly young one, or not a warrior, then.

~Oh, almighty Emperor. I am Shaqtun, queen of the Shaqtun, daughter of Jotun, king of the Jotun. I know why you are here; and must beg forgiveness for my father's lapse. In his haste to capitalize on the death of Cronos, he drew your wrath by moving into the Forbidden Zone, in violation of Imperial law. He has died for his sins, and you have justly punished our people. What must I do to further spare our clutches?~

The Emperor pulled to a stop, tentacles suddenly withdrawing, condensing into a ball. Capitalize on the death of Cronos. To Capitalize. On the death. Of Cronos. Every bit as ageless as the Emperor, he'd fully expected to deal with the threat of Cronos dangling over his head for millions of years; that it wouldn't be until the time he was consuming the whole galaxy he'd be rid of him.

He focused on the Jotun.... or rather, the Shaqtun... homeworld. He started flying closer, pulling himself forward far too swiftly; for just a moment, the locals began to panic, as they saw him move from the edge of the system and simply appear in orbit, having stretched space and time to arrive long before they could sense his departure. He looked down at the palace, and focused; causing the entire structure to shake with his words. ~Who slew Cronos?~

The queen lowered herself to the ground, pressing her carapace low. He could sense the building having structural issues, but it was holding together fairly well. ~A new, younger species emerged on his world; we don't know which, but it was a member of this race which slew him. Jotun planned to break this species, and offer the world up to you as a prize. He... periodically inspected Cronos's world, and learned of Cronos's death perhaps sixty years ago.~

The Emperor studied the world thoughtfully. Most species that didn't control their own genetics would, randomly, produce 'Titans', some more rarely than others. None had ever produced one with Cronos's uniquely dangerous power. He should find the one who slew him... and reward him. Possibly exterminate the species, yes, reduce the odds of another Cronos emerging; but not whoever had taken that weight off of his mind.

He focused back on the palace once more. ~Your king should have come to me with this news. The slayer of Cronos would be rewarded, not slain; the punishment is for entering and interfering with the Forbidden zone, not for being born in it. The worlds you have lost will be deemed sufficient punishment for entering the Forbidden Zone. As Cronos was already dead, your homeworld itself is not forefeit. I will consider the four worlds consumed to be your tribute for the coming span.~

He pulled back, away from the world, floating back into the void. He should gather together a task force of ships, and bring them to Cronos's former world. This wasn't a job for a single brutish crush. This was something that called for a careful assessment. They would capture, interrogate, study. Obviously they couldn't be allowed to breed uncontrolled, in the wild, but if they were properly contained they might be useful. Even Cronos could have been useful, if he'd been born in captivity and properly contained.

He focused on nearby Imperial military installations... and chose the closest one that would have the sort of fleet he needed. Not warships; he himself could handle any fighting. Logistics. Support. Ground troops for police actions. Ahh... he could be there in a few days. He focused on the proper pinpoint of light in the stars; and twisted space once more, vanishing from the Shaqtun system.

Down on the surface, Shaqtun fell limp. Her species was saved. Her father's foolishness had not doomed them after all. She would need to inquire with the Imperial government as to when they would need their next tribute... but they could survive.

***

The medical bay was filled with the entire ground party; all ten of the beds were essentially being used as benches, as Doctor Harkness began his checkups. At first, he had wanted to start with Eyeball; while one of the marines had regrown a lost eye, the largest regrown piece was Eyeball's left arm, and he was intrigued to see if there was any significant difference, aside from the lack of body hair, between the two.

After the first test; which was exciting enough, revealing that Sergeant Dupre's eyes were functionally identical, and the regrowth, aside from brief pain during the process which, incredibly enough, the man had managed to keep shooting as the sensitive flesh forced his glass eye and the scar tissue around the socket out and into his helmet... there were no side-effects. When Eyeball learned this, he was a bit embarrassed; maybe an eye didn't have bones and cartilege in it, but that had to be an incredibly intense experience.

No negative ones, at least. The entire marine complement appeared to now be in their early 20s in terms of age, had no medical issues whatsoever, and all seemed to be in roughly the same range of inhuman capability; Dr. Harkness was forced to use one of the 'Hyper-Syringe' models for class-A tank metahumans to take blood samples, after the first few had broken on Dupre's skin.

Unauthorized reproduction: this story has been taken without approval. Report sightings.

Every single armored suit was damaged; the process of removing them required a fair bit of force at certain stages to pop seals and remove plating; and with the exception of Kezia, none of them were used to having a dramatic growth in power like this; and Kezia had actually torn her gauntlet apart while wiping sweat from her brow on the gunship ride back to the Jeanne.

As the final member, the one least impacted by the effect, Rex, stepped out of the room, staring at his hands as if they were alien life forms attached to his body, the doctor finally reached Eyeball, leaving the two alone in the med-bay.

He frowned at the doctor. Obviously he was competent; he would never hire anyone who wasn't to be the doctor for something like this; but he was honestly surprised Ascension hadn't filled this slot with yet another cyborg. The man was the classic stereotype of a handsome prime-time doctor; he was no George Clooney, but Harkness's neatly trimmed blond hair. chiseled face, and perfect physique somehow irritated Eyeball. The man was nice. Friendly. Great at his job. And while Eyeball would never have a problem with women, and hadn't since his days as a soldier, he couldn't help but be jealous of someone who was just that goddamned handsome.

Harkness smiled, revealing a row of perfect, white, teeth. "There we go. Now that it's just the two of us, care to explain why you were so insistent that you wanted privacy on this one?"

Eyeball sighed.... and pulled off his helmet. Harkness blinked, staring for a moment at the horrific mess of blood and debris that splattered out of the helmet onto the bed; and the completely unrecognizable face inside it. "I had plastic surgery back when I was evading the law, and it.... spontaneously undid itself. The fake hair I had implanted is gone, the fake nose, all of it just... came off. I also had a weapon built into my cybernetic hand that almost went off and killed me while a regrowing arm was tearing the hand apart as it regrew."

Harkness nodded slowly. "Good lord. No wonder it took you out of the fight, I'm surprised you could see. We'll get you cleaned up, of course, but I have no doubt you'll be just as healthy as the others. Maybe even slightly more-so, since you apparently didn't make it out the the perimeter with the rest of the ground team. We've got a shower in here. Why don't you go ahead and rinse off, then we'll do the check-up."

"I was actually wondering... would it be possible to implant it back in my arm again? Having a weapon with me at all times has saved me from some nasty situations in the past."

The doctor gently raised the immaculate forearm; the only real problem with it being the lack of hair or fingernails. "Ooof. Maybe? I would need to use some ridiculously powerful sedatives and tools... and the casing would need to be heavily reinforced. Most common alloys at this point would just be crushed by the action of the muscles in your fore-arm."

"...So. A special engineering project? Could you estimate the tolerances it would need, and I pass it on to RC? She's... well. An expert at cybernetics, for obvious reasons."

Harkness chuckled. "Oh, of course. The only one on the engineering team I even work in is that Rex guy. I took one look at the implants in Cordelia on the scope, and... yeah. I think Android might be a better name for them. There's an organic, living, human brain giving the orders, and all the usual organs and parts... but none of it is really needed. She tells me the skull can keep the brain alive for -weeks- even if every single organ fails."

Eyeball frowned. "Why did you even look at her? Was she hurt?"

Harkness... actually blushed. "Well, we were.. ahh.. Doctor-patient confidentiality. I can't really tell you."

Well. That answered the question about just how far the cyborgs went with pretending to make relationships. "Alright. Pass the numbers on, and we'll see what we can do with it."

"Of course. Now, I know you heard what I told the marines before... but be careful. You're functionally equivalent to one of the Olympians now; the effective 'life energy', whatever that is, of a thousand people running through your body. I can't measure the energy itself, but I can see the effects; and if you swing just a bit too hard, you can rupture your armor, your helmet, break your guns in half.. You got maybe triple what most of the marines did."

Eyeball sighed, looking at his bare left arm. "I've gotta ask... why did the ritual do this? I've met Odin. He only has one eye. Shouldn't this sort of effect have healed that, just one day while he was eating ambrosia?"

"You should ask Kezia. She's the expert at that sort of thing. My files are... woefully inadequate, and mostly just tell me when it would be a good idea to call in someone like her grandfather."

***

Kezia stared at her hands, as she sat in her room aboard the Jeanne; her purple armor scattered about the floor in pieces, mostly worthless now as she'd broken it apart just trying to take it off. Her grandfather had wanted her to call herself the 'Shadow Sorceress', or the 'Lady of Shadow', or some such pretentious name. She was, after all, incredibly dangerous; one of the Class-A, army-destroying, apocalyptic mutants. One of the ones whose closest equivalent among the normal arms was a nuclear bomb.

Except... even that wasn't a fair comparison, now. She hadn't taken out a city, or a country. She had consumed a world. She felt... incredible. When she got back to earth, she would be unstoppable. She had already been good with magic. She had so much innate power she didn't really need anything from outside to do... well. Anything. She could... snap her fingers and turn the inside of this ship into a tomb.

Now... The simple levitation spell she'd known... she couldn't feel its limitations. It felt... wrong. She'd need to practice it... but she was reasonably certain how the Emperor traveled now. She could hop out of the airlock and just... fly home from here. She could feel everyone on the ship. Feel the void around them. The... cyborgs. Inhuman. Lacking in real life force, as if they were animals.

The marines, all shining bright now, like stars against the darkness. The even brighter form of the Titanslayer approaching... She stared at the door; and as the form reached it, she slid it open. He didn't have his hand up to knock; of course not. He'd known the door would open, before it did.

"Well, hello there, sol...who the hell are you!?"

Holding a cracked helmet and wearing Eyeball's sleek black armor suit, complete with a missing left arm, a stranger was standing outside.. pale skin, short brown hair.. and three eyes. All green. All faintly glowing. "What, don't recognize me? Joking. Its Eyeball. I had plastic surgery done a ways back, and... you undid it. I was actually wondering if you had any sort of explanation for that."

Kezia studied the new face. Youthful. Smooth. Absolutely unblemished. All the scars and marks of time completely gone. And... the third eye was a bit odd. Still. Decent enough. "Sure. I'm fairly familiar with all of this. Come on in, we can have a chat." She turned away; deliberately walking to show off her curves in the skintight black outfit she wore under her armor, shifting her hips as she headed to the locker in her room; withdrawing a bottle of wine, and a pair of glasses. "We can celebrate our success, and I can explain just what happened to you."