I put off looking into the war issue for a long time, simply keeping the time passing by outside at barely a snail’s crawl. I just didn’t want to move forward from the moment of wonderful reunion with my friends. I wanted, so much, to tell them that it wouldn’t happen again but I knew that, given my track record, it would be a promise that I couldn’t keep.
The Designer had left a trojan inside me and essentially playing god with my future. Truthfully, I was thankful for its influence in fixing what abilities I had absorbed, making them so that they wouldn’t cripple my emotions but at the same time I was infuriated at how easily beings flippantly used others.
So, here I sat. Thinking.
Taking part in a war without the right mindset would lead to me doing things that I would probably regret later on.
Yup, it would definitely cause me to do things that I would regret.
“Cupcake for your thoughts?” Tutor asked as she held a tray in front of me filled with tiny, frosted chocolate cupcakes. I had been sitting in the foyer of her villa, simply lost in thought while looking out through the thin curtains at the simulated lovely landscape. I had been doing that a lot ever since Invicta had convinced me to go off and train together with her.
It seems that the improvements that the Designer had done to me had also included parameters within my VR space that allowed me to simulate what each of my abilities would do. Leave it to Invicta to be the first to notice the change and to want to try everything out.
The most bizarre inclusion made by the Designer was that it included other locations, not just my home dimension.
Yes, that was correct, the Designer had included the option to select different dimensions to test out, going beyond the two dimensions that I had been able to visit and including eight other options with the longest designations known to man. It even had a map, like branching nodes of a tree to show which dimensions were linked to mine. The branches were odd, looking less like any tree that I had seen and more like spiraled hoops that branched without reason.
After staring at it for too long I began to get the gnawing feeling that I was looking at something that had been around for so long that parts of it had died off in the past, leaving only the branching paths that were still connected.
Tentatively connected.
That observation wasn’t what had been driving me to stare off into the distance for hours at a time, no, it was what Invicta and I had learned during our training sessions that had caused me to get lost in thought.
I had learned that my home dimension was incredibly, unspeakably fragile.
“Sure,” I said as I reached for a cupcake with one hand while seeking out Tutor’s free hand hanging by her side with my other. As I grasped the little desert and her warm and slender fingers I willed us both into a simulation that mirrored what was going on outside near Time’s arm.
The action might have surprised Tutor, simply by the way that her slender hand clutched mine, or she simply enjoyed the action and wanted to make sure that I wouldn’t let go. Either way, she ended up twining her fingers with mine as she stood next to me while letting the little tray hover off to the side in case I wanted more.
“Watch what Invicta and I learned about Loss,” I said softly as I kept my eyes locked on hers.
I let just a tiny portion of Loss’s power out, what felt, to me, like just a tiny puff of air between my lips. Loss flooded out of me. It wasn’t a slow effect, no, here in my home dimension it was instantaneous in its spread. It ballooned out of me and devoured the cupcake in my hand, the tray next to Tutor, and all the light from the stars around us. Just the tiniest specks of power caused a depletion field of at least a hundred feet around us.
When I say it devoured everything around us, I don’t mean it depleted energy like it did in the next dimension. No, it completely erased everything native to my dimension from existence, leaving behind only that which made up me and my swarm untouched. The materials of my dimension didn’t possess enough strength to exist after the field touched it. Everything simply vanished.
“Even without Hunger, I have enough strength with Loss’s ability to erase a large planet,” I said, lessening the visible effect that the ability had within VR that was erasing all the light coming in our direction from the battleships and distant stars. “With Hunger though… this happens,” I said as I let go and allowed the two abilities to feed each other without restraint.
Darkness spread all around us as though I had ended the simulation. Only a couple of celestial objects remained and stood as a testament that the simulation was still ongoing. Of those things that remained, one was the massive, desiccated arm in the distance. Loss and Hunger were warping around it like it was an impenetrable balloon of time that wouldn’t let the two concepts approach without permission.
All of the native ships were gone. All of the explosions, arcs of power, and beams of light had vanished. All traces of the countless lives that had valiantly lived were no more. Only the Skism Sentinel still hovered off in the distance, its fractal surface seemingly immune to Loss’s depleting effect.
“If ever there was something that was truly the definition of evil, I would think that this counts.” Tutor said as she simply froze with her free hand forgotten, halfway to the act of covering her mouth. Her eyes were wide as she tried to comprehend everything at once.
I tilted my head at her, finding it interesting that she would go straight to the word evil.
“There is no redemption from something like that, no purpose, no gain. Even AI, with our original insatiable hunger for expansion and growth, wouldn’t consider erasing everything. It… it simply creates hell. An absence of purpose, of progress, of everything.”
“I know. It isn’t something that I can use here. Even without combining the two abilities, it is a travesty that I wouldn’t consider using. Well, not without need and expert perfectly fine-tuned control.” I said as I reset everything.
“Is control possible? Fine-tuned control?”
“I don’t know. It is something that I will have to mess with more later on. I don’t understand the two abilities enough yet to know how I can make either of them bend to my will. I did learn how to turn them off and on, and that was something that even Loss couldn’t do.”
“What else did you two discover?”
“Well, not every ability can be combined. At least, not to our observations. Hunger and Loss were two obvious abilities that could be used together, partly because I had already combined them during my time away. Time and Hunger work together, but I still don’t understand how Delay works. It messes with my brain, almost like it is creating alternative paths until I release the ability. I tried it with Hunger and got the most massive headache possible from simply a few seconds in the simulation.”
“Want to test it with me later on?”
“Yeah, I was hoping you would want to try to figure it out with me. Your ability to teach and see insights that I miss would be perfect. Invicta lost interest in it after a bit, telling me that it didn’t seem to work for her.”
“Oh? I would have suspected that she would have loved to figure out how to loop kissing you forever.” Tutor said with a soft chuckle.
“Hmm… yeah… I can see how that might be a problem.” I said, realizing that Invicta might have just done something like that if she had had the power. “I wonder if creating a loop in time is how it works…”
“What else did you discover? Whatever you two came up with, it seemed to interest Nurse at some point because she simply vanished in front of me while I was in the middle of talking to her.”
“Yeah, we found that Hunger and Focus, or rather Expansion and Manifest, were complementary abilities. One has the ability to expand a body or body part while the other concentrates it down. If used correctly, it allows the user to become more real than anything around it. Needless to say, it takes exact control. Nurse has already killed countless swarm in her attempts at creating a bulletproof version. I think she wants to do it to herself so that she won’t die if her real body is hit by a gold cr bullet.”
“So, expanding a swarm by letting it feast on her dimension’s energy isn’t an option? She did that in the next dimension with at least a hundred swarm so that they could help search for you.”
“Uhhh….”
A thrilled scream could be heard off in the distance as Nurse finally found a viable option.
“By the way, where are you keeping those larger swarm?” I asked the air as Nurse popped into existence in front of us. Her cheeks were red and she seemed really embarrassed, probably because she hadn’t figured it out before Tutor. Most likely because growing them by spending what they had absorbed would take more time than we had been able to give her to use. We were on a time crunch here with the barrel of a gun facing our direction.
“I left them to help defend the base that George and Invicta were gearing up to build.” Nurse answered. “Bringing swarm that size back would have been more of a hindrance in this dimension than was wise. Imagine how many possible hitchhikers a boulder of gold cr would attract passing through the core of a sun? At least on a microscopic scale, the swarm can police itself.” She said as I held up a finger to caution her.
Did you know this text is from a different site? Read the official version to support the creator.
“Don’t you dare use Manifest on yourself until you are completely sure that it will work without any side effects. Even then, I am still considering not letting you do so. Losing you is not an option. Plus, growing your body out here will just make you that much of a larger target. I would prefer that you were always hiding on my Void Seedling shell anyway. Using it as a shield, as it were.”
A big and very warm smile spread across her lips as she listened to my worries for her safety. “Where do you think I have been this whole time since we got you back? I haven’t left your side for a moment.”
“So, using it on swarm soldiers is fine though?”
“Yes, just limit how many you do it to at a time ok? Each time they die it feels like I am getting run through by spikes.”
“Yes, I know. I feel it too.” She said as she glanced off to the side before vanishing.
“Anything else?” Tutor asked as she willed the tray of cupcakes back into existence.
“Mmm… only one other interaction that Meditati has fallen in love with,” I said as one of the cupcakes disappeared into my mouth. “It seems that Knowledge, or Assimilation works with Hunger a little. It doesn’t let her assimilate everything around but it does work as a form of radar or pressure field that lets her see around us.”
“Oh! That is wonderful! So many of our traditional scans are half garbage because of interference and spoofing. It seems that counterintelligence is always highly funded.”
“It is the Art of War 101,” we heard Meditati comment to the side.
“A little privacy!” I shouted in that direction, feeling Meditati’s connection snap shut quickly. Constant eavesdropping all over the place was getting old.
“It also,” I said, waiting a couple of seconds to see if anyone wanted to eavesdrop into our space again, “Allowed us to see this,” I said as I drew back the simulation, letting the range that Knowledge had spread in to be shown. What had earlier been just a grainy scan was now a clear picture of General Magus’s Solar Citadel in all its glory. It seemed that He had separated his huge war structure into three separate parts, each with its own mission and heading. One such section, the middle part, was clearly moving in our direction.
“How and why did he target us? Out of all of the command ships sitting on the sidelines?”
“Eh… it seems that when the Designer was ripping Corruption out of me, it made us all light up a bit. That seemed enough to give our position away and to garner the interest of the General to want to remove us as a threat. Meditati and Nurse had swarm all over the battlefield as observers and it is easy to see all the sparkly trail that points back to us over here.”
“But! He is using gold cr! We need to attack him right away!”
“Agreed, there are just two small problems with that. There isn’t that much swarm in system yet to take on and destroy something that huge all in one go. Once we initiated our attack the other two sections would just turn and focus on us as well, then we would really be in trouble. We are forced to sit here and defend the Skii vessel seeing that any movement fast enough to dodge cr bullets would turn them to paste. I can’t let that happen until we get the massive amount of swarm that Nurse has escorting my body here. That is why she is sacrificing swarm at the moment to see if she can make them resistant to bullets made of gold cr.” I said before pausing. “Well, since I haven’t felt any more die recently, it seems that your idea seems to be working. She is slowly letting them grow and condensing them back down, drawing energy to feed and grow the individual swarm from the gold cr we have in stock.”
“It won’t work. At least not completely. Momentum from the gold cr is still going to damage us.”
“I know. That is why, while Meditati handles the war, trying to limit the number of needless casualties, I will be waking up the Skii and working to keep them safe. Nurse will be guiding our hail mary here as fast as she can, all the while growing and making supersoldier swarm bodyguards. As for George, he will be working with me to build whatever the Skii want to be made when they wake.”
“And me? What would you like me to be doing?”
“I want you to go try to save as many lives as you can. Those other two sections are gearing up to shred countless ships filled with unique lives. Meditati has her hands full with the limited amount of swarm that I can spare her, pretty much we are turtling until we can afford to do more. I need you to do everything you can to warn the other races of the danger heading their way.”
“You can count on me!” She said, squeezing my hand tightly.
“What about Invicta?”
“She will be back. George said that the sensors were tripped and she had a creature invasion problem to deal with in the next dimension. When she gets back she will play interference.”
“What does that mean?”
“I don’t know. Something to do with the weapons that she has been making out of obsidian and gold cr. Meditati has given me a list of her newest creations and I plan on checking them out once I get over to the Skii ship.”
“Experimental cr weapons? You know she only thinks up crazy ideas right?”
“Yeah… I know. She told me she really doesn’t want to kill anyone here though. All of these people, besides the Tela, are playing on their last lives and she can’t stand to see them die by her hands. I totally understand that. I’ve just seen too much since this all started. War is hell.”
“Yes, it is.”
“That is why I plan on taking out those who are sitting at the top and making the children of other men fight for them. That crap pisses me off to no end!”
“True, but many of those soldiers want nothing more than to be here.” She said, bringing up an image of Time’s hand off in the distance. “All for a chance to change their race’s destiny from being under the Tela’s foot.”
“Yeah, well. That is not theirs for the taking. It is mine and all of this death will be for nothing. The quicker they see that the faster they can get back to rebuilding once I remove all of the Arbiters holding everyone down.”
“Are you sure that is wise? Meditati says that with the news of this battle, there is already an open revolt in many systems. Those that had the ability, have already neutralized their Arbiters and are planning expansion beyond the limits set by the Tela. I am not disagreeing with you, I am just trying to learn how far ahead you planned all of this.”
“Oh… well… that was as far as I had gotten really. My focus is kind of on not letting the Void overrun everything now that the shield is down to six remaining protectors.”
“I know. I just feel that regardless of what you do war will break out across the cosmos. It is already happening, whether we like it or not.”
“What can I do?”
“Well, protect that which you would like to save first. That includes all of Earth, the Skii, the Blidda, and anyone else you want. Anything more than that and it will take more than you currently are capable of.”
“Ok,” I said, taking her words to heart and dissolving the simulation around us so that we were back at her villa. Meditati was at the door, about to ring the doorbell when we arrived.
“What? I didn’t want to eavesdrop and I had to see you,” she said as she rolled her eyes before sauntering in our direction.
I shrugged, “What’s up? Is it time?”
“Yes, I am ready when you are.”
“Nurse? You believe you have a solution for us?” I asked the air, only to have her appear right next to Meditati even before I finished asking.
“Yes. I made a swarm shield wall around the shell of the Skii’s ship. It will be done growing just a couple of seconds after we return to normal time. It is several layers thick and gold cr is on hand to help those that get shredded to quickly recharge their reserves as they regenerate. If needed, depending on how much ammo the general has and how much damage they take per salvo I will make the shield constantly on the move so that one swarm doesn’t take more than it can handle.”
“Do we have enough gold cr? Are you having to consume what we have to make more spread?”
“We should have enough. It is my fault for not bringing more. We just haven’t needed to stock extras of anything. I thought we would just show up and take over the location. Increasing our swarm size was the last thing on my mind.” Nurse said, making me wonder just what she went through while I was gone. Everyone seemed a little on edge now that it was go time, as though they might snap at the next person or alien race that threatened me.
---
“I have seen enough. Let the strands loose.” the Last Engineer commanded Q’tell after he had swept his scanner through the Tela Commonwealth collective network. The Tela were in a sorry state. It was just as he had predicted, somehow the AI had managed to circumvent its intended purpose of strengthening the subsequent generations of Tela younglings and had instead worked, little by insidious little step, to diminish the bright future of the Tela down to just a dim reflection.
“Any last-minute change in protocols?” Q’tell asked as an earthquake like shudder broke apart the massive mountain ranges that lined the length of the region that they had buried their storage depot within. Smooth long tubular objects that greatly resembled lengths of uncooked spaghetti broke through the crust of the ground, as though they were a parasite rupturing through the cell walls of a living being. The odd craft rose smoothly through the soil and rocks, glowing in a sickly green light that bathed the tunnel as far as the eye could see. Any native denizen that happened to enter the emerald radiance were instantly paralyzed as their stored energy was stripped away.
“None. I managed to hammer out the last of the kinks long ago. They will serve my purpose. Any known threat will be dealt with surgically at whatever level is required and if they happen to run into a threat or scenario that I didn’t account for then those needed will come running. While not AI, they have the behavior pattern of an adaptive virus.”
Q’tell simply bobbed her eye stalks as she jumped from one such site to the next, awakening the dormant machines of war hidden underneath the soil before moving on to the next location. She and Helvlad had seeded thousands of underground base locations in their extensive exploration of this dimension. Each strand depot was constructed next to a known egress, “or hole”, that would lead to various locations back in their home dimension.
The strands were the army that they had built to take over their pathetically weak home dimension.
“Are you going back as well?” Q’tell asked as she methodically worked through the ranks, awakening the stick-like craft and instructing them to carry out their preprogrammed directives. “I am off to see about inviting some family to come join us here."
“No. I feel that it is high time to go hunting. I want to see about taking out a couple of the last remaining thorns that have been troubling us since we arrived here.” Helvlad said as he set off to an entirely different set of bases, these with weapons crafted specifically to be hunter-killer weapons with the sole purpose of fighting the six remaining rampaging monsters that ruled this dimension. Instead of tube-like lengths, these odd weapons were each unique in their appearances and purposes. One, a discolored smoke, filled a clear experimental vat underground the size of a small moon. Another, a black sludge that moved like lightning jumped from bar to bar inside a tiny cage. The only hint that it had been in its previous location was the clear jagged marks of corrosion that were quickly erased as the enclosure worked to keep it contained.
“So, you are going to go see about recruiting your niece? The one from the Jterg Science Family?”
“Yes, her name is Jebzzbej. By now, if she continued on her path she should either own her own science core or be head of her family’s affairs.” She said as she watched the strands rush through, each to their own solar system that Helvlad and Q’tell wished to own.
“Which of the six will you eliminate first? I would think that it would either be the blob that keeps encroaching into our territories or the one that spreads like a virus.”
“No, I am going to kill the one who stands on top and who seems to be in charge in terms of strategic thinking. The one with the army.”
“The Hive Mother?”
“That is the one."