The black-armored figure whistled a tune as he jauntily walked down the street of La Famiglia; stepping calmly off of the docks, leaving behind the 'Outer Ring' of the island city; the permanent ring of artificial islands housing the hundreds of thousands of refugees who were slowly but steadily integrating into the city. His chrome helmet blinked with a pair of glowing red lights as he surveyed the crowd; and the slow buzz of drones flying overhead.

As dystopian hellscapes went, this wasn't too bad. Nobody was starving, nobody was sick... but they were very definitely being watched at all times. As he walked by one of the towering housing structures, an enforcer; wearing black armor, with a silver La Famiglia logo on the shoulder, and a set of four horns on his head marking him as definitively a metahuman of some description; and with a trio of hovering drones behind him; was glowering down at a hispanic man.

"The Family isn't a charity, mister Ramirez. Either you have a sponsor, you work, or you leave. Amnesty for the able-bodied has been done for months now." One of the drones dropped down, floating beside the enforcer; a hologram appeared beside him, showing a list of text. "You've turned down two job offers. This is your third strike. I've got an offer here for you from the Expansion team. Either take it, or be on the next boat to the continent. In six hours, when the evening boat leaves, you'll either be classified as employed, or have a warrant. I'd hate for you to wake up in the Arena tomorrow"

The man seemed lost, staring at the enforcer's feet. "Sir... I've got kids. My wife died in the plagues. The only jobs are either building at the expansion sites or fishing! They all require you be gone for days at a time! Weeks! Nobody's here for them!"

"They work pays well enough for child care. If you decide not to take the job, make sure you register how many kids you have on the boat. They'll give you extra rations for when you're dropped off."

He handed the man a plastic slip. The chrome-helmed figure could read it from where he stood; it was an optional job offer; or eviction notice. With a tag at the bottom. The man started to read it, walking towards the stairs; as the Enforcer started off in another direction; following one of the drones. Likely, he had another subject to talk to. Or another hundred.

Silver and black. Popular colors, here. He walked through a few barricades; the guards behind them offering salutes, nods of respect, or just avoiding meeting the glowing red eyes; as he reached La Famiglia proper.

Nice, expensive apartment buildings. Well-dressed crowds. And, of course, a nice, neat row of tall corporate headquarters.

Some of them had a single label on them. Others, had a string of labels along the side; amusingly enough, a string of Fast Food company headquarters were all in the same building, denoted by floor; apparently relocating to the safest available option. He smiled as he approached his target; passing by more security scanners as he reached 'Research Row'; the home of the most high-end, secure, labs on the planet. And, of course, Eye-tech.

As he approached the front door, studying the logo... four figures stepped out. Two from the building itself; two seemingly appearing from thin air. All of them wearing what seemed to be a walking tank; three meters tall, black-painted steel with some sort of grenade launchers, energy weapons; a veritable arsenal pointed at him from all sides; though each of them moved slightly to ensure that rounds passing through the chrome-helmed figure wouldn't strike one of the other four. They seemed to be heavily modified versions of the Jotun powered armor... with terran pilots.

"Unknown target. Research Row is a restricted area. You need a pass to come in here. You should've been stopped before the last two barricades. Raise your hands, or be destroyed."

A familiar, digitized voice emerged, as one hand rested on the handgun at his hip. "Are you sure you want to do this, boys? Considering who I am, and the logo on that building?"

In a movie, there would be the cocking of a weapon. The loading of a gun. Instead... they simply held their aim on the man. The weapons were already ready to fire at a moment's notice. In fact, they likely had the same programming as the anti-Jotun weapons; if he made any sudden moves, they would simply go off. "If you think we haven't dealt with illusions, or shapeshifters, before, you've got a few screws loose. Final warning."

A long-suffering sigh; and the figure raised his hands. As he did so, the helmet vanished; at first revealing a human face, before his features twisted, distorted, becoming subtly inhuman, his size seemed to shrink... and he had four arms raised into the air. The armor shifted as well; remaining a sleek, well-formed suit, but now with a dark green color. "Ugh. Fine, tell Eyeball Loki is here to see him, at his invitation."

***

"Do you have any idea how close you came to dying there?" Eyeball leaned back in his chair, looking at the four-armed figure seated before him, absently toying with a solid silver cube. His armor and helmet were vaguely similar to what Loki had been imitating; but distinct. The differences were obvious, at close inspection; aside from the armor being more bulky.

"About as close as any other time I infiltrated the fortress of someone dangerous." He shrugged. "So, not too close. Honestly, I was already forming an illusion in the spot I was standing, and a teleportation spell to escape. You ruined my entrance, by the way. I wanted to be waiting there, behind your desk. I do find your little island interesting. A very clear class division; Odin seems to have been misinformed about you."

Eyeball chuckled. "Superficially, maybe. So. Are you finally willing to answer my questions on this? I've already been preparing for years now, and if I don't get more intel, the whole project is a waste of time. All of the Jotun star-charts only include their own space, and their neighbors."

"Superficially? I'd like an explanation for that. Here, I see people in nice suits. Short walks to food. Fine dining. The outer ring? Tiny apartments. Rationed food. Curfews. Constant watch by armed drones. How is that not a ghetto full of second-class citizens?"

Eyeball sighed, and laid his prosthetic on the table. After a moment, a map appeared; showing La Famiglia highlighted in green; then a series of other islands highlighted in yellow. "This place was never meant to be a real island nation. It was a tourist resort and a tech hub. A flashier, less restrictive version of Vegas and Silicon Valley all wrapped up into one neat package. We're slowly pushing all of the refugees onto the Salvage, Reclamation, and Expansion teams. Once the influx of refugees stops, we can dismantle the outer ring, get things back to normal. We've purchased Hawaii, a chunk of the Baja California peninsula, claimed every island in the pacific... these people are going to be living in much nicer, better, cities than they ever had before, if they're willing to work for it. And if not... they can go."

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Loki smiled. "Ahhh. Going to pull the old capitalism thing all over again, have a massive class of working poor, fed with false dreams. How... American. Still. Not as bad as I thought."

"The gentleman in charge of the Expansion project would probably take offense to that. Anyone willing to work will be better off with us than with any other nation on earth. If you have questions on how it'll work, ask the Engineer. Preferably after you help me."

Loki sighed. "Fine, fine. I won't be as much help as you think, though."

Eyeball steepled his fingers, resting his elbows on the desk as he leaned forward. "Why not? Alien shapeshifter, born somewhere far off in the black? Weren't you an Imperial citizen when you were born? Don't you know about them?"

"My parents died long, long ago I was a refugee. Adopted by Odin as a child. I don't recall much of the other worlds, aside from a few brief adventures with my adoptive siblings over the years."

Eyeball frowned. "Well. Back when the Jotun were crushed, we got quite a bit of intel out of them... especially from the Chain of Ascension. I already talked to your dad about it; that the Emperor didn't know Cronos was dead, until just recently. That he would likely be coming after us. Soon."

Lok rubbed his eyes with his hands, kicking back, propping his feet up on the desk. Eyeball noticed the boots... were split, like gloves. Four toes? Each of the four arms seemed to have four fingers, as well. "Ugh. Maybe, I guess? Look, the Emperor wouldn't want to admit Cronos scared the hell out of him. Jumping here the moment he learned would make him seem weak. And that assumes the Jotun could keep it a secret that long, you think he'd have been here a long time ago."

"..The Jotun didn't find out he was gone til the scouting force came. The one Lightning and Valkyrie did the lion's share of crushing. The one where people learned you were real, and your dad. That's why the whole invasion happened; it was the earliest they could reasonably get the fleet together after the scout fleet discovered the Titans were gone. If the Emperor learned about it at the same time as the Jotun, how long would it take him to get here? How long if he learned when the king died?"

The six-limbed deity made a few gestures. The hologram became distorted. An image of the solar system appeared; a series of rings representing the planets and their orbits. It snapped out. Showing nearby stars. Again. The rings showed distances in light-years, as it kept expanding.

"The Jotun. Their drives, they move perhaps ten, twenty times the speed of light. Their ships, their signals? They go into another universe. One where distances are smaller. Signals go same distance. Best-case scenario, one-way trip from their worlds is fifteen years. The Emperor's fleets... faster, but not much. Nearest real Imperial fleets, it would take thirty years."

An enormous starmap stretched out; with a few dozen worlds glowing blue, others in yellow, orange, all surrounded by a massive white halo. "The Emperor himself, though... Well. He could be here in a week if he wanted. Maybe a day. He's... well. There's a reason everybody's scared of him. The Empire has... relays. Once the signal reaches one of their worlds or their fleets, the rest will know within days. If a message was sent to him the moment the scout fleet learned the truth... he could have reached us before the Jotun. If it was sent when the Jotun lost the war here? He'd find out in five, maybe ten years. If... and I do mean if... the Jotun sent a signal to him, he could, if he wanted, be here within a week of finding out. So... King's been dead a while. Worst case, Emperor could be here in another couple years."

Eyeball frowned. "Ahh. Well, fuck. Engineer tells me that if we put one of those Jotun drives, the big ones, in a smaller ship, he can get us up to a hundred times lightspeed. Which... wouldn't get us close enough. So, even if I wanted to hunt the Emperor, he'll probably be here. Killing the earth. Before I could reach him."

"Hunting the Emperor is stupid. Leave you dead. I doubt he would come here. And if he did... we'd all be dead too."

"If Cronos could kill him, why couldn't we? We've got titans. What could he be that me, Spike, Valkyrie, couldn't take him?"

Loki blinked; waved his hands. The illusion faded. The map of the islands reappeared. "Okay. So. Valkyrie can crush, and crush, and crush. And turn a whole bunch of stuff into Neutronium. Stuff that's so durable, so tough, even she can't crush it anymore. Stuff that can actually survive when she punches it. Literally the most dense matter can possibly be."

After a moment, a new image appeared. An obsidian octopus; a roughly ovoid body with dozens of long tendrils dangling down.

"An adult Rikk. The sole surviving Rikk. These monsters all had the same sort of power as Ambrosia; they suck the life out of other things for themselves. Make themselves stronger. Got them in alot of wars. The last one left just one survivor. The Emperor. In the last few hours, as his race died... he consumed all of their power for himself. And then... flew out and ate the entire species responsible. Hundreds of worlds. Tens of billions of citizens."

He showed an image of a human-sized figure; Eyeball, of course; tiny compared to the enormous squid. "The more life they absorb, the stronger, more dense they get. When he finished his great feast.. his skin was as dense as neutronium. His internal organs, the same. He weighs as much as a small planet, and he has some sort of telekinetic ability; he can move things with his mind, redirect projectiles, move himself faster than any starship... if he fought Valkyrie, she couldn't take him out with a punch. He would just grab her... and throw her into a star. He couldn't live in a black hole... because the event horizon would trap him in time, forever. If Spike turned into one? He could trap him for however long he stayed that dense. Maybe. Assuming he wasn't just crushed instantly."

"...How was Cronos able to scare off something like that!?"

A sudden flicker. The squid was gone. A human figure appeared... almost. He was wearing a long, golden robe, and his face seemed... off somehow. "The general theory is that Titans somehow pull mass, energy, from other universes. Its the only thing we can think of to explain what looks like impossible, infinite amounts of energy. Before Homo Sapiens, there was Cronos. He could focus on an object and make it bigger or smaller, at will. When he made it smaller... some of its mass vanished. For living creatures, this... is bad. For a rock, a bit of carbon is as good as another. For a brain, if he shrunk you to half size, half your neurons just left. If he did it slow, a bit at a time, they might still be alive, and sane, but... stupid. If he did it fast... poof. Instantly brain-dead. And everything else dead, too. On the other end of the scale..."

He showed two figures. One massive, powerful, well-muscled; the other the same inhuman in the golden robe. The powerful one threw something. Moments later... the sky seemed to have a new moon, vanishing into the distance. "He couldn't just kill something like the emperor by shrinking him. He could kill an entire fleet. Solar system. Galaxy. By creating something so big it would collapse into a black hole... and just keep going. Out of all the titans, he was the most... ridiculous. And after he ate Ambrosia, and used his powers on himself to make himself bigger, a maniacal dictator, and ruler of the world. If the Emperor had pissed him off, Cronos could've just launched off a barrage of black holes in every direction... and just wiped out our galaxy in an expanding wave of death."

He snapped his fingers. "And we killed him, his wives, and his friends. Its how Odin and Zeus got to be titanslayers, like you. So. When I tell you that even if you did have time, hunting down the Emperor would just lead to your death... you can trust me. I know what I'm talking about."