Magus the 1st’s arrival at his clone’s Core was, for the most part, hidden from the public. There was no broadcast, no parties, or even any press conferences to address the growing concern of that abuse of power by members of the Magus clone line.
Why had Magus the 1st cloned himself in the beginning? It had been a military strategy initially developed in case other alien species had discovered a vulnerability inherent in cr. A total of 18 clones were created for Magus the 1st, a modest number compared to some political dreadnoughts who cloned themselves upwards of 50 times out of fear. Those politicians later regretted those actions when their wealth and power were fought over by their replicas within the courts.
Magus the 1st had been more strategic in the development of his clones. He had created a power blockage system within his clones that would not allow them to ever usurp his Authority within the System. This had created clones that served their purpose, to spread out and to get away from other clones higher up on the Authority ladder who could dictate, to some extent, what the lesser clone was allowed to do within their domain.
Magus the 2nd had tried to suppress the growing unrest which resulted in a word of mouth wildfire across his Core’s neighborhoods. There was a growing lack of trust in his ability to run a safe and viable commercial Core. He was just beginning to accept the fact that many of his more wealthy Citizens would end up migrating away from his Core when someone whom he never thought he would have to see again showed up literally inside his personal domain.
-Authority overridden by Magus the 1st-
All of the decor, furniture, digital items, and generated media vanished from around Magus the 2nd’s mansion as a grand-looking travel disk was created in the middle of his living room. How badly he wanted to rage and insult his uninvited intruder when his chair that he was comfortably reclining on instantly sunk into the floor, leaving a quickly spreading pool of expensive Melisium wine in its wake, and making Magus the 2nd have to stand and collect himself for his guest. He ignored the slowly spreading wine at his feet and locked his eyes on the travel disk. Only one person he knew had spent time delving into the code to augment their personal travel disk and that was his 1st.
The Tela avatar that materialized on the travel disk did not bode well for Magus the 2nd when he realized what species his creator had chosen to take on for this encounter.
Two of four eyestalks locked onto him while the remaining two began to study Magus the 2nds personal documents that began to rapidly appear in the air before him. “Hello M2. I see that you have not managed to escape that pet name for you entirely.” Magus the 1st commented as he went through his clone’s System sector by sector.
Another travel disk materialized, willed into being by Magus the 1st, and soon deposited another clone, this time inhabiting an Alpha avatar onto the expanse of empty floor. Magus the 2nd was already wishing that he had invested in real furniture inside his living room rather than using furniture as a power play against select visitors.
“Legio the 8th, I should have known that my clone would have contacted an underbelly black marketer as yourself.” Magus the 1st addressed the startled and flustered new arrival.
“I have no idea what you are talking about. I am here on legitimate business with a client…” Legio began to say, making Magus the 2nd wish that he could break through his creator’s Authority lock to shut Legio up.
An eyestalk swung back to look at him along with a rumble of amusement at his clone’s visible frustration. “You are free to speak your mind M2.” Magus the 1st said before going back to his delving through the data.
“Legio, he has access to everything. Just remain calm and answer his questions.” Magus the 2nd said as he tried to get comfortable during this ordeal, reclining back on his double-jointed legs.
Alpha’s were unique to many other species of aliens in that their bodies were very similar to fractal designs. Imagine a cauliflower. If you break off a smaller segment of that same cauliflower and look closer it would appear as if you had the original vegetable, just smaller. This was how it was with the Alpha species which made using it as an avatar to be highly beneficial for many different professions. You could physically be in multiple places at once simply by toggling between your segments. The main segment of the body held the soul or individual of the whole, the root of the Alpha. This main segment was the part that Magus the 1st had managed to summon with the traveling disk.
“Legio, have you managed to acquire your target yet?” Magus the 1st asked as he concluded his investigation into the archives of his clone. He had all the information that he needed to investigate the location of this “undisclosed citizen”, he just needed to cut off any unneeded players.
“Target? Do you mean the alien hacker who managed to create a guest account? I am actually approaching the location of his tracking beacon now.” Legio said as he took on a faraway look for a few moments before coming back. “No can do buddy, it looks like he is in too deep. It would take ages to reach that depth and back out with that level of fatigue.” He said as he and his bulbously repeating body shrugged apathetically.
Magus the 1st didn’t get upset, he had too many years of existence and actual combat experience to let something as simple as distance or time rile him up. He would achieve his goals regardless of others' failings.
“Continue to the second tracking beacon’s location and retrieve its occupant. I need to speak with this Regeth individual.” Magus the 1st said to Legio, knowing that his commands would be followed. He simply held all the Authority here.
“Sure thing,” Legio answered and went about retrieving the second tagged and disabled harvester way faster than should have been possible. It became clear to Magus the 2nd that Legio had not been acting in good faith, choosing to send his Alpha duplicates to both secret locations without Magus the 2nd’s express permission. Legio, it seemed, had been going to retrieve both of his prisoners for his own profit.
“Um… you both are not going to believe this,” Legio said when he found and pulled the harvester body out that was missing all of its limbs. Magus the 1st brought up the feed and displayed it on a large window to the side.
“Bring it up here and let's talk to this Regeth. I need to find out all that he knows about this alien named Kevin.” Magus the 1st said before offhandedly saying. “Also, to find out what creature tore his cr legs off.”
While they waited, Magus the 1st had already contracted a team of miners to begin retrieving Kevin’s harvester body from the depths of the star. The alien was all that was important and once the miners could manage to grab ahold of the body, each miner would use their limbs to create a bucket chain method of delivery to the surface. Their escape from the fatigue was not important to Magus the 1st, he had plenty of cr to burn to pay their salaries until they escaped.
“So M2, let me see if I got this straight.” Magus the 1st started to say as the mansion around them began to crumble away. Only the occasional fused wall remained around them. Magus the 2nd was so thankful that his Leva offspring pools were on the other side of the sector. He knew how Magus the 1st liked his environment to be, as lifeless as possible for miles. It was an old military habit that had become part of his personality, to wipe the battlefield clean of all life and enemies, leaving only him and his army.
“You discovered within your grasp a lifeform that somehow discovered an interdimensional creature, yet unclassified or fully studied, where no other Tela had thought to look…. for over 10,000 actual physical years.” Magus the 1st said, cutting off his last three words in an angry tone.
“He stole data from me! He also hacked my System and simulated an attack by an alien that appeared to resemble the one that he “just happened to discover”.” Magus the 2nd couldn’t help but shout back. Both Magus had nearly the same temperament and neither were ever incumbent to back down when provoked.
“It is true.” Magus the 1st said as he let data appear and float in the air around them. “A sizable chunk of data just happened to vanish from your System… something that I will look into in more detail later.” He said with a flick of his hand, adding a different colored block to counterbalance the slight of lost data.
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“So what did you do in return? You stole all his CR and tried to claim his habitat as your own. Both actions are criminal if the data that was stolen did not match the value of the CR or priceless habitat.” He said as the first block of text was crushed by the larger newer block.
“As for the hack and show… nothing was lost or changed to the status quo. Citizens simply got a VR show across your Core.”
“He took a relic book from my Core.”
“He legally was loaned a book from a private collector.”
Magus the 2nd locked his jaw shut, knowing that he would only seem pitiful and pathetic if he kept this line of dialog going any further. Luckily for him, it was at this moment when one of Legio’s Alpha came rapidly flying towards them from retrieving the damaged harvester's body. Legio’s Alpha flew up and deposited the small octagon next to Magus the first for study before stepping back towards the root Alpha and becoming part of the whole fractal patterned alien again.
Magus the 1st ignored the harvester's body and covered Legio in a lockout dome, blocking his sight and hearing as to what he was going to say next.
“What you missed most importantly of all was an Event.” He said as he displayed a recording of the Wräth as it punctured through the shell of the surveying pod with ease.
“This creature is capable of defeating our armies and defenses without contest. This creature should have been the sole focus of your existence when you looked through the files and noticed that Kevin, the insignificant alien, had seemingly and randomly discovered something that, if our enemies obtained before us, would mean the death of our civilization!” Magus the 1st was practically frothing at the mouth in rage and adrenaline as his body began to morph, being covered by armor from his old military days, showing the internal battles playing out inside his mind. This was what he lived for, the energy of conquest and dominion.
Magus the 2nd kept his mouth shut, knowing that interrupting his 1st while like this would most likely spell his erasure from existence.
“Not only that but this… what did you call him? Irrelevant and a schlub? Somehow demonstrated to all the Citizens of your Core what could happen if that creature were mobile enough to attack us. And you had the great idea to sell him to a lowlife like Legio the 8th?”
Magus the 2nd was too busy staring at the floor in rage and dejection to notice that Magus the 1st had reached out and interacted with the damaged harvester body on the ground and instructed the cr to release its occupant into a smaller Tela avatar body that he had formed out of cr.
“Well, what do we have here?” Magus the 1st said when the transfer was complete and he identified that the new occupant in the room was not Regeth the 51st at all but rather his 15th clone.
It was apparent that the lower Magus was actively using his Prime Speed Control key to think of the best thing to say, now that he found himself in the presence of his 1st and his boss.
Before Magus the 2nd could say anything Magus the 15th attacked and spoke keywords that could only be spoken to the 1st if the clone knew they would succeed.
“My First I request the Right of Succession and that you secure your 2nd in a lockout dome.”
“Now wait for just a second!” Magus the 2nd shouted, stunned at the audacity from his lesser brother.
“I will do this, but you had better truly impress me.” Magus the 1st said before sealing off his 2nd under a perfect dome cell of cr.
“I know how to harvest all cr from a star.” Magus the 15th said, knowing this would allow him to replace Magus the 2nd if he could prove his claim to be true.
“So you are the “Undisclosed citizen”?” Magus the 1st asked, clearly puzzled by these developments.
“I don’t know what you are talking about, my First. I encountered a monster by the name of Kevin who… well, you might as well just see for yourself.” He said as he relinquished his records to Magus the 1st to watch.
Magus the 1st got to witness Kevin’s transformation into a spiked and terrifying alien creature before rapidly damaging and disabling Magus the 15th’s harvester body.
“His mouth is like the mouth of the Wräth monster…” Magus the 1st exclaimed as he watched the brutal takedown of his underling.
“He perfectly, with a few strikes to my harvester body, disabled my ability to command cr as well as my ability to transmit, thereby locking me inside the body of the harvester.” Magus the 15th said. He had taken plenty of time while using his Prime Speed Control key to think up all the things that he knew would tick the boxes in his First’s mind. Magus the 1st was all about combat and violence. It would serve Magus the 15th best if he kept his focus on these traits and on recovering or going off to fight this Kevin monster while Magus the 15th took over mining operations of the stars. He just had to make sure he sold it all perfectly.
Magus the 1st had gone into a trance, using his own Prime Speed Control key in bursts while he mentally went over the attack over and over again in his mind. The strikes were too perfect, too knowing of Tela technology. They punctured and damaged the key components with ease while leaving the host occupant undamaged. This, including the decisive nature of the monster, without fear or question, was making Magus the 1st excited for blood again.
“There is more my First,” Magus the 15th smiled internally as he showed the speeds at which Kevin could obtain while he carried Magus around the star.
“That… that is incredible!” Magus the 1st could only utter as he watched the footage.
He bought it! - Magus the 15th exulted in his mind before he was startled with a question interrupting his reverie.
“Explain to me how you say you can harvest all the cr from a star.” Magus the 1st commanded as his military mind began to search for any options available to fight this new threat before him. They would need more research into cr, to develop more powerful weapons, and to reawaken the ancient host of war again.
Magus the 15th played the brief conversation that Kevin had had with Geth the miner.
“A stick with a basket? Such a simple idea and yet… if you scaled it up, the returns would be total.” Magus the 1st muttered to himself as the concept took hold. He was not one with which time and generations had made to degrade his imagination.
“Your Right of Succession is granted.” He said as he renamed Magus the 15th to Magus the new 2nd and lowered the former Magus the 2nd’s title and rank all the way down to Magus the 18th or better known as Magus the Last. The last and least of all the clones.
“This Core and its resources are now yours to command. Demonstrate your ability to completely harvest this star of its cr and to feed the results into my war efforts.” Magus the 1st commanded, his mind already elsewhere as he released the lockout domes from the two in the room.
Magus the… Last wanted to rage and threaten his old lesser brother. Of all the vile audacity to steal his position from him! He was unable to utter a sound however as Magus the new 2nd flexed his Authority and kept him silenced.
“It will be as you command my First.” Magus the new 2nd said with pride leaking through his voice as he watched his First create his personalized travel disk and vanish back to his ship.
The sound of laughter filled the empty expanse as Magus the new 2nd reveled in his triumph. The laughter lasted for quite a while before he remembered that he had company.
“Legio, your contract has been deleted. Consider accounts settled.” He said as he began looking through his old 2nds records. He paid the cancelation fee required to keep Legio in his good graces and released his Authority keeping him hostage.
“Thank you, Magus…” Legio said, trying to come to grips with the sudden change in power around him. “It is a pleasure to have done business with you.” He said before leaving rapidly on his travel disk.
“As for you and your stupid obsession to copy our First’s accomplishments of making a Solar Citadel.” Magus the new 2nd said as he brought up feeds of the Leva offspring before opening up the massive containment doors into space.
“My dreams will dwarf your own and not require these dumb wyrms as beasts of burden.” He said as the Leva younglings quickly noticed that their cage was open, allowing them to blast bursts of photons outward into the depths of space.
Magus the Last was forced to watch, raging inside, as his work of millennia slipped out of his perfect cage and into space before reuniting with the mother Leva.
“And there they go.” Magus the new 2nd said as the Leva and its younglings raced away. “They sure didn’t like being here with you.” He said with a chuckle before banishing Magus the Last out of his domain and to a travel center, giving him only the option of leaving the Core that no longer belonged to him.
“It is time to reap my destiny.” Magus the new 2nd said as he began making incredible scoops out of all the cr that his old clone had amassed throughout time as overlord of this Core
The harvesting of the star had begun.