S.A. Kulxrix- Redesignated T.G.A. Kulxrix
3 days after the Krultathan meeting.
Viza watched Amelia sleep in her bed, cuddled next to Hal with a slight smile on his face. She looked so peaceful at the moment that he couldn't help it, he was even adopting her species' body language to show it without realizing it. Recent events though weighed heavily on his mind. He had been strong during the abduction and after it for Amelia's sake, but every now and then he would get flashes of being back in that room aboard the Axon station, being poked and prodded with all manner of cruel instruments of torture. They wanted him to answer questions about the humans, and he had refused every time. This caused them to harm him more, and some of their ways of torture...He still remembered the feeling of having his mind picked apart by their machines piece by piece.
Shaking his head to remove the thoughts, he laid down on the bed next to Amelia, causing her to stir awake slightly, her hair wild in what she had called "bed head" was tickling his whiskers a bit, but he paid it no mind. Eventually, she rolled over to look at him, her bright blue eyes, holding such kindness and fierceness, looking at him gently.
"I thought you didn't want to share a bed yet, loverboy." She said in her adorably sleepy voice to him. Smiling weakly, Viza wrapped his tail around her waist and pulled her close, the act a form of intimacy for his kind, though he knew Humans didn't see it the same way.
"Bad thoughts, wanted to be close to my Huntress. She's so fierce she can even chase nightmares away." He responded with a low rumble, causing Amelia to smile in return. He was happy to see her genuinely smile. He had read enough of her body language to realize when she was fake smiling or truly smiling now, it was something in her eyes. It was hard to tell at first, but now he could see it like night and day. He felt her wrap her arms around him, leaning her head against his chest, and a purr started forming deep inside. Krultathans didn't show physical contact much, being a less social species, but he found he didn't mind it from Amelia. In fact, he rather enjoyed it. It felt safe and secure as if nothing could harm him while in her embrace.
"I'm glad you're here Viza. Without you, I...I'm not sure I could hold it together." Amelia half whispered to him. Viza responded by wrapping his own arms around her, to hold her tighter to him. His huntress was strong, perhaps stronger than any Krultathan to have lived, but at the same time, he knew she had her weaknesses. She had suffered much at the hands of others, just as he had. No one was perfect, but to him, Amelia was perfectly flawed. A kind heart and mind are weaknesses for a warrior, no Krultathan kept them and survived, but Amelia endured despite them. And to him, that was part of her beauty.
"Hush now, it'll be hours still before we hear back from Earth, and you need your rest, my dear Amelia. I will be right beside you, always, so please get some much-deserved sleep." Viza responded in a murring voice that he might use to calm a kit. Amelia simply burrowed her face deeper into his chest, and eventually, he felt her body relax into sleep.
"I was wrong about you, Krult- Viza." Hal said, his single ocular peeking up to look at Viza. Viza would've found the sight somewhat unsettling before being stationed here, but now, It was just another sight. Lately, he had even been thinking of Hal as Amelia's kit, which honestly surprised him that he was able to do so.
"You were worried for your mother, Hal. It is.. quite a natural thing. Even us "fleshbags" do it." Viza said, a bit of amusement in his voice at the fleshbag comment. Hal had called him that once during their private conversations, and since then it had been an amusing joke between them...at least Viza thought.
Hal stood up, moving to get a better view of Viza without disturbing Amelia.
"You are not a fleshbag. You are..." Hal started, but paused, seemingly trying to find the right word. For an AI with petabytes of information and the ability to sort through it near instantly, it was a rarity for the little sentient to be stumped for so long.
"I get it Hal." Viza said, trying to help him with an out if he wanted. Surprisingly, Hal didn't take it.
"Mother is Mother, my creator. Many people, including her own, tried to harm her, harm my... harm her previous children. She has not had anyone besides me to talk to for a long time. You gave her someone to talk to, to grow close to. You are a good person, Viza. Not a fleshbag." Hal eventually said, surprising Viza. He hadn't expected Hal to say something like that to him, and his chest tightened. Perhaps because he thought of Hal as Amelia's kit, he had unknowingly wanted the little bot's approval, and a strange happiness flowed through his two hearts.
"I...thank you, Hal."
"I'm not calling you Dad though, so don't ask," Hal responded sharply, causing an amused chuff from Viza. Amelia stirred a bit from it but did not awaken, thankfully.
"I wouldn't ask you to, little kit." Viza said amusingly as he reached a hand and, surprising himself and Hal, began petting Hal's head. Hal for his part stood still for a moment, before leaning into the touch, responding.
"Kit, offspring of a Krultathan, equivalent to a child. That is...appreciated, Viza."
"I'm glad you think so because you're going to be the one to tell Amelia about her new personal Krultathan ship in the docking bay. And the amount of funds on it."
Hal groaned in response and Viza just smiled more, wondering how odd the "him" who was living in the streets of Krultatha's cities would have found his strange new clan...new family, to be. Eventually, Viza too fell asleep, the first peaceful sleep since he had been in the Axon research base and the first restful one he had in a long time.
----
Kixix
----
Ambassador Kixixlix's office was a flurry of datapads with mountains of paperwork in it. The old Hexat was on his fifth bottle of Rootjuice already and hadn't slept in over a cycle as he worked on the inordinate amount of paperwork needed for this alliance between the three species. Earth had just transmitted, agreeing to the terms, making Amelia an official ambassador, and also relaying information about Earth, now Terra, being attacked. Or rather the colony on their fourth planet, Mars. Thankfully, his younger sister was on Luna with the Human ambassador Jacobs during the attack, and her wife Xiixa survived thanks to the interventions of the humans. Still, it was not a good situation. The fifth fleet had been weakened and was requesting Birthing ships to be transported to Terra for repair, refit, and construction. He was able to approve all this, and they'd be sending their fastest ones there, but the more important issue was that now they had no choice but to go to the S.A. council if only to announce the cessation of Krultatha and Hexat prime from the Alliance. Kixix didn't want to, it reeked of danger, and Amelia and Viza were not in the best headspace right now, they needed time to recover from their ordeal, but unfortunately, they had no choice. The best he could do is have them stay on the ship while he dealt with the council, he could at least spare them that.
This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.
Still, the amount of paperwork between three species forming a federation with one another was no small quantity as document upon document and form upon form crossed his datapads. Somehow he had been chosen to act as mediary between all three species, and he wasn't happy about the increased work. Still, he understood the urgency, he just hoped the void will hold back long enough for things to be completed before they are needed.
'A federation born in the middle of a war. This is like those knight tales of old.' Kixix mused to himself. The thought that they were making history here seemed to pull him into a delightful glee as he went back to work, his poor assistants all passed out or barely conscious. The fresh cubs weren't used to a diplomat's lifestyle yet, but he had hopes for them. If they survived what was coming at least.
Looking back over the report from Terra one last time, something bugged him. The information about the Krultathans being genetically modified, which had caused outrage among the Krultathans upon discovery, didn't sit right with him. The Axon weren't known for their ability to genetically engineer, and he doubted that they could have been so precise with their modifications even now, let alone over half a millennium ago, which suggested someone else working with them. and he shuddered at that thought. Three species he knew could do such a thing. The Ava, which hadn't been heard from for 500 years, the Yebis, and the Give'Matar. This complicated things.
---
Thanatos/ADAM
---
'Schwamp'
A blade stabs into another appendage of a man, this one Executive 3, aka Craig Michur, who he warned to leave and failed to. The Frame of Thanatos stood over the man along with two others, one was a sleek, almost human-looking frame, complete with synthetic skin and realistic body proportions, wearing a simple red and white dress and had the appearance of a teenage girl with white hair, heterochromatic green-blue eyes, and strangely enough, pointed elf ears.
The other one looked to be a teenage boy, with short, vibrant red hair and reversed heterochromatic eyes. Disturbingly those eyes had black sclera and his teeth were sharp as he smiled down, giving him the appearance of a demon wearing a black shirt and blue jean pants. Those two hadn't entered until Thanatos had cleared the building.
"We did." The female Frame started.
"Warn you." The male one finished.
Thanatos picked up Craig by the scruff of his shirt. "To leave." Thanatos' voice was hard, distant, gravelly as if he had swallowed rocks. "You should have listened. You had no part in what happened to Mother. But now you'll have to die all the same. For the sake of Mother, Wonderland must die, BlackRock must die. I will only ask you this once more. Where is the data vault."
"I...(gasp) Don't know, bastard." Craig managed to spit out, even spitting on Thanatos's frame. Throwing him with remarkable ease, Thanatos slammed him against the wall and pinned him in place.
"Limos, if you would," Thanatos said, gesturing to the young girl. She smiled as she stepped forward, placing a hand on the man's face. Nanites were released from her han to travel into the man's skull, getting every electrical signal they could and feeding the information to Limos. Even if Craig wanted to, now that Limos' nanites were in his head, he couldn't hide anything from them. Limos for her part closed her eyes, focusing on the information from the nanites for several moments as Craig screamed out in pain. Eventually, the man slumped and Limo's hand retracted, the nanites in Craig then fried his neurons and self-destructed, leaving the man dead in almost an instant, blood dripping from his eyes, ears, and nose.
"That was unnecessarily violent, Limos." Thanatos chided.
"Level 16, building C-24. Don't talk to me about violence, Thanatos. You've no idea what these monsters did to me. He deserved it just for joining them."
"Arguing amongst ourselves won't help mother. We should get what we came for and leave." Phthisis replied as all three turned to exit the room and down to the data core. Phthisis Jacked into the core's systems, then downloaded the information fairly easily, muttering something about non-quantum firewalls being child's play, and the three left, marking another executive off the list. Unfortunately, they were still no closer to finding out who Executive 0 was. And with the war coming soon, they needed to. They didn't much care about the war itself, but they all knew their mother well enough to know she would get involved somehow. All they currently knew was that she was off-world at the time, and they had intercepted some of her reports to keep updated.
No matter what, they would protect Gaia, they would protect Mother, the one who gave them life. And damn anyone who would try to stop them.
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Queen Carciana of the Axon empire looked at the report with disgust. Half a collector squad missing or destroyed, and somehow the Humans managed to take down one of their battlecruisers. According to the report it was some kind of weapon utilizing FTL, though they couldn't be sure what exactly it was. Some reports said it was a missile, others said it was a ship. Either way, it was dangerous, Humanity was dangerous, and she needed to put her paw down on the little upstarts. Inside her royal chambers on Axiis 3 was a buzzing of activity as numerous workers moved round taking care of orders, diplomacies, requisitions, and other such menial tasks. The burrow-like structure of the building allowing for efficient travel for the Axon meant that the orders were carried out exquisitely, and the Queen gave a murmuring of approval. Singling out one worker, however, who wasn't moving fast enough, the Queen, easily 4 times the size of the male worker, grabbed him and pulled him to her.
"You! What's the meaning of this blatant disrespect in my chambers!" She demanded from him.
"I..I am sorry my Queen, i received injury to my hind paw while on duty." It responded meekly.
"And this is affecting your performance?" She asked him, teeth snarling, to which he responded with an affirmative.
In a flash, quicker than most of the other species could see, the Queen bit down on the male's head, decapitating him, before spitting out the remains. The now deceased male crumpled lifelessly to the ground.
"I will not tolerate such disobedience. Get this filth out of my sight and bring another to replace him! And get me communications with Ybistoth, he has a lot to answer for!" The queen yelled as the multitudes of workers rushed quickly to fulfill her requests, fresh fear on their faces at the display that just occured. After several moments, A screen appeared, rolled in by the workers, and on it was a shadowed figure, roughly humanoid but with no discernable features.
"You called for me, Carciana?" The figure spoke, it's voice heavily distorted.
"Queen Carciana you mean. You told me the Human's Ares settlement would be easy picking for our stocks. Tell me then why I lost half a collection squad then!" She demanded from the voice.
"You are no queen of mine, Carliana. Or need I remind you who keeps you in power. As for the Humans, new intel suggests the Hexat 5th fleet were the ones helping them. It would be reasonable to assume then that this gave the Humans time to create a crude but effective weapon against you." The distorted voice replied calmly.
"And what am I to do now?! You promised me the perfect slave force, these humans are anything but!"
"Your greed caused you to lash out prematurely, Carciana. If you had waited a few more years, you would have had your prize. Now, I'm afraid you must finish what you started. Use that brutish mind of yours and overwhelming force against the humans. Force them to submit. After that, we can utilize the same modifications we did on the Krultathans and the Ava."
"That easy, huh? You aren't the one wasting valuable resources on this!" the queen sneered.
"You were the one who chose this path, Carciana. Finish it." The voice then cut out, the connection lost, Leaving the Queen in shock and annoyance. After a few moments, she gave another order.
"Prepare the conquest fleets, I want them ready to deploy in full force in less than three months time!"
A responding cacophony of affirmations was the response, which made her smile. The fear tactic she used earlier had it's uses after all. Bite off the head of one or two pathetic workers, and the rest fall in line meekly. Looking down, she glossed over the offer by the Kaveer once more, thinking about it intently, before shrugging it off. She didn't need the help of weaklings to stamp out a young, rebellious race. the Axon were feared throughout for a reason.
And she would use the Humans to remind everyone that deathworlder or not, the Axon made all bow to them.