~~~~~~With Marcus~~~~~~
That little demonstration in the Super-Sized Entertainment Dome fundamentally changed Kallen's perspective on the whole situation.
At first, the girl was worried that Marcus and his interdimensional, time-travelling Empire were jumping from world to world, bringing chaos, destruction, and misery.
She never considered that this faction is so advanced that it could change the very foundations of how civilisations and societies work.
It opened her eyes and made her realise that with Marcus around, a true utopia could be achieved.
Seeing that he could do it, the girl decided to surrender her very existence to him. Before she reluctantly accepted what would happen to her, her goal was to become his wife and use the armies to bring happiness and freedom to her world and then to the rest of the worlds under his control.
But it turns out that she doesn't need to do any of that. Marcus already had all the answers needed.
With explanations out of the way, Kallen didn't question him anymore, and Marcus saw that the girl was happy with everything.
Even more so than Bronya, who was reserved about what she saw.
She took his explanations to heart and promised to make sure her people would not be affected by anything she saw in the village.
"Now that we are done with the essentials," Bronya stroked the device on her chest. She did what she wanted to do. To seal the deal. Now, she wants to see the outside world without the Eternal Freeze.
"Can we go out and see how my city is faring?" The Heiress asked him.
She wants to see if her mother is behaving better now that Eternal Freeze is history.
"Sure. We can go now." He nodded at her request before ordering his soldiers to secure the rest of the planet. Now that Enterprise overkilled with her mech and got closer to his new Fiancee, he doesn't need to hold back and can secure the planet's surface properly.
"I just ordered complete planet takeover. Soon, your city will control everything." He told her with a small smile.
Bronya looked at him for a second. There was a puzzling look on her face for some reason.
"Do you think we can find a river similar to that simulation?" She asked him hopefully.
Marcus smiled at how cute she looked. The girl was 'inspired' by that simulation in some shape or form.
"My Assimilator can shape the planet however you want, Bronya." He replied, making her ponder.
"Then we can select best places for future cities." She realised what this could do.
"Precisely."
He nodded at her.
"Good, then we can do that, but first, I need to see Mother."
"Then let's go."
~~~
Marcus took Bronya and Kallen to the hangars. Midway, his Ship-Girl Maid joined them. Elysia was very curious about the city, so she sneaked in, too.
Having two maids is better than having one.
"Whoa… amazing…" Bronya gushed as she saw that the clouds were completely gone! The planet was cloudless at this moment!
"We can begin with Terraforming work at any time," Marcus commented as they looked through gaps in the shuttle.
"I know, I just want Mother to see what is going on! The Supreme Guardian position has been quite stressful to her."
[The initial observation we have from your city, more specifically Supreme Commander's Headquarters, is that Stellaron was corrupting your mother, Cocolia Rand.] Aurora spoke through the speakers in the Shuttle.
"W-What!?" Bronya exclaimed with horror as she looked at Marcus.
"The signature matches with Eternal Freeze."
He confirmed with his HUD, but then he reassured her.
"It has sharply fallen after Enterprise crushed the Eternal Freeze hold on the planet."
The girl sighed in relief.
"Since Technocracy developed a means to crush it, then we can erase it completely, yes?"
"Indeed, you can do it yourself." The girl looked at him, wondering what he meant. But then her HUD reacted, and she got a notification.
Her eyes widened for a second.
…
…
…
As the shuttles landed in one of the city squares, the people of the city were confused and a bit worried about the latest activities.
Things are happening far too quickly to the residents, as it's only been two days since Marcus' Mothership arrived. They all saw with their eyes how insanely rapidly his numbers are growing.
That massive T-shaped object is printing warships at absurd speed; by this point, an entire armada is in the air.
Just passively standing there would he one thing, but many of these ships enter the lower orbit and begin to bombard…something.
The people realised that these guests were waging war with the Eternal Freeze.
Such a thing helped them cool down, but many were… skeptical as they wondered why these guests were wasting manpower on them.
Surely… they are not doing this for one girl, right?
They tried to comprehend that!
But then, the shuttles arrived, and people finally saw their Next Supreme Guardian.
As the shuttle doors opened, the group left.
"Follow me." Bronya motioned to follow her. The girl began to lead them towards the Supreme Guardian Building.
Elysia and Kallen looked around. They were in an Alien world, and they did feel that! The building's style was unique.
"Miss Bronya!" The Guards looked relieved to see her.
Though they had never seen her in such attire before.
"At ease. Is my mother inside?" The girl calmed down her guards.
"Yes."
"Good." She then looked at Marcus and the rest.
"Follow me."
The girl is feeling invigorated to deal with all of this, finally.
"Lead the way." Marcus slightly smirked at her, making her blush.
The girl quickly realised that he was having fun by letting her take the lead; it made her self-conscious!
Bronya quickly walked inside, followed by an amused Marcus and Elysia. The pink maid smiled at how cute this girl was with her behaviour.
Inside the Palace-like building, the group could see all sorts of relics and paintings on the walls. It was like a time capsule with items from the Era before the Eternal Freeze or its early days.
It was interesting to look at these things.
After seeing this, Marcus wondered if he could restore the planet to its pre-catastrophe state, as it seemed right to do that instead of creating a new ecology.
A couple minutes later, the group arrived at a double doors guarded by Silvermane Guards.
"I am walking in," Bronya said to the pair of guards. The pair nodded as the doors opened, and she stepped inside.
"Mother."
The girl spoke, but there was not much reaction. She looked at her, and her HUD reacted, showing her that blue particles of some sort were latching on her.
'It is Stellaron…' She didn't want to believe it but what she saw made her realise it was the truth.
'In that case…'
The nanites surged and rushed to her right hand, forming into a handgun.
The newly created weapon had all the scientific achievements of Technocracy, meaning that it had a built-in cartridge revolver system.
The cartridges inside rotated and selected a very specific loadout. Once ready, Bronya lifted her weapon and pointed at the aimlessly sitting Cocolia.
The blonde woman with purple eyes had an aimless look. She gazed at…something.
The ash-silver-haired girl struggled for a second before pressing the trigger.
The blue beam of energy slammed into the blonde woman.
The effect was immediate; the particles that were around the lady burst like bubbles.
""Miss Bronya!""
The guards rushed in. After them, Marcus and his group entered; only Marcus knew what had happened.
Before the guards could say anything, the blonde woman spoke.
"...Bronya?"
"Mother." The Heiress lowered the weapon, turned it into nanites and returned to her.
"What happened? How did you…" Cocolia wanted to ask how she stopped the 'voices'.
But first, she noticed the guards were about to arrest her daughter.
"At ease. She saved me."
The guards looked shocked to see Cocolia behaving normally!
"Y-Yes! Supreme Guardian!"
The guards saluted before leaving the office, leaving only Bronya, Cocolia and Marcus' group.
"I suppose this is related to the newcomers." The blonde looked tired, but she saw that she had guests from outside. That was something she didn't expect to see in her lifetime!
"Yes, they come from beyond the stars!" The girl began to gush as her mother finally returned to her.
Cocolia smiled for a bit. It would seem her city will get some help after all.
"That is given; there is no other city here."
The Supreme Guardian looked through the window. Her eyes spotted something… concerning.
There were ships… a lot of ships there.
"...Bronya, can you explain what happened when I was… incapacitated?"
"Of course!"
"Bronya, catch up with your mom. I will come to see you tomorrow." Marcus quickly realised that he needed to give them space.
The girl turned around and looked at him. There was a smile on her lips, as she knew what he was doing.
The girl swiflly walked over to him and kissed him on the lips.
That was something the blonde Supreme Guardian didn't expect to see!
Now she was curious about this man surrounded by girls.
After the kiss, Marcus stroked her cheek briefly before turning around and leaving the office.
…
…
…
"...Who are they?" Cocolia asked, as she was concerned for her city.
"Interdimensional, timetravelling Empire." Bronya replied with a straight face, leaving Cocolia speechless!
The blonde needed to wait for a bit to process this. At the same time, she wondered if she was hearing things! You know… Stellaron had been in her head for a while, so she might have misheard what her daughter had just said.
"..."
*Deep Breath*
The Supreme Guardian took a deep breath and composed herself to listen to what her daughter had to say.
~~~~~~Meanwhile~~~~~~
Marcus had around 24 hours of 'freedom'...
'What to do, what to do~'
The Inventor pondered as his group got back into the shuttle.
"So what now?" Elysia asked him curiously. Now that Bronya is away, she wonders what he is going to do.
"We are going to explore. There is a whole universe of things to check out." He turned his head to the side and looked at the maid.
"Oh, okay~"
The pinkette smiled back. This was a great time for her to move in, too! If they were going on some sort of day trip, she could show him how amazing she was!
Her only competition is Kevin's distant descendant!
As the shuttle rose into the orbit, it flew into the massive opening hangar. The group could see the length of the Dreadnought, Marcus' flagship, being prepared for launch.
'Righttt… I should drop the casual ideas…' the girl imagined for a second that they would be using something simple, like exploring the icy planet.
Elysia was even preparing to use herself as a heating source! Cuddling could help!
But no! They will be taking massive warships to explore!
"It's the same design as Sirin's ship." Kallen noticed that it was an identical ship.
"Yes, the same design, Solomon-Class Dreadnought, a seven-kilometre flying city. It has everything someone would need for a trip." He explained to her as they landed in the pier area not far from the warship.
The girls could see battalions of knights leaving the Dreadnought.
It seems they are leaving to make space for the warship… is he thinking of taking something?
As the gunship landed, the group of four began to walk towards the ship. They were greeted by the Royal Guards and the leading knight without the helmet.
"Sir, 01 is getting ready for departure."
Marcus grimaced, hearing that the ship had no name yet.
"We need a name for my Flagship. It was easy with Confiscator, as I went to confiscate stuff for the greater good." The Inventor quoted a famous wizard from a famous book.
"...You named your previous Flagship Confiscator?" Elysia looked at him with a bit of amusement. It sounded like a gag to her…
"And my submarine Scavenger as I scavenged sunken warships." He shrugged at her question.
His reply made Elysia look at Belfast, who was standing next to Marcus with a small smile.
"...I see. Then why not name it Traveller?" Elysia suggested to him.
Her suggestion made him remember Destiny for a second; it was an interesting game, at least initially.
"Nope, sounds lame. It doesn't have that edge.
"Maybe Devastator, considering it has the capacity to blow up planets." He casually suggested, making Elysia grimace. Funnily enough, Kallen had no reaction.
Which made pinkette wonder what happened to the Maiden of Schicksal.
"But you are not planning to blow up things…for now?"
"Yes, so maybe name it Discovery or Pathfinder…"
He motioned to walk with him as the group followed him. Each time they passed Royal Guards, they joined them at the back. By the time they were at the entrance to the ship, they had a small army following them.
"...Maybe Explorer?" Marcus continued his suggestions, making Elysia join him in this weird competition. If Sirin or Athena had been here, they would have stopped them, but it was Elysia; the pinkette is natural at inflating such things.
And Kallen with Belfast is not even trying to calm them down.
Thankfully, they arrived at the hangar and boarded a train to the centre lifts.
"Well, we can shelve this for now." He said to the pinkette, who pouted at him for a second. She was having fun!
"Do you have any idea what we will do?" Kallen asked him.
"Well, one of my ideas is to get a moon for the planet, " he replied to Kallen. He was quite honest with his idea.
"...A moon?" The girl blinked a couple of times.
"...Can you even do that in a day?" The girl didn't ask if he could, but if he could do that in such a short time.
"It's not hard. With Space manipulation, I can shrink even celestial objects like a moon. Planets with life are a bit different and more complex." He replied as he looked at a far emptier warship. It didn't have half the army it should have; instead, it had more aerial craft for exploration.
"...I see…" Even if Kallen nodded at his explanation, the girl was still unable to understand how he could do it.
Seeing her out of words like that made Marcus smirk for a bit as he pulled his newest pet closer.
"Relax, leave that stuff to me," He whispered to her. The close contact made her blush. This time around, Kallen is far more self-conscious. The girl has a certain amount of feelings for him.
He impresses her to the point that she feels like worshipping him.
"O-Okay…" Kallen stiffly nodded as she was feeling stuffy, but at that moment, a certain pink maid got closer.
"Moh! Don't ignore the cute girl!" Elysia got closer to him.
Marcus looked at her for a second.
"For a maid, you are quite naughty." He pointed out her un-maid behaviour.
"Maybe I am, but even maids need attention from their Master," The pinkette said as she hugged his hand with her bigger assets.
One thing for sure is that Elysia's is more developed than Kallen's.
"Oh, is my maid trying to seduce her Master? It's quite an opportunity, is it not?" He joked as he realised that none of his fiancees were here, encouraging the ambitious maids.
"...Maybe~" The girl didn't clarify as she smiled at him.
Marcus smiled a smile that made her tremble. He leaned into her a bit before beginning to show certain images in her head.
Elysia's eyes widened for a bit as her cheeks began to heat up.
The longer she saw them, the more vivid they became. Before long, her breathing heated up, and she felt bothered.
However, it was so sudden that she took several steps back.
'W-What is this!?'
"What will happen to you, darling," Marcus replied to her.
The pink maid's eyes widened for a second. She recalled that he was an esper. The girl read all she could about him! One thing she didn't expect was that he could access her mind so casually!
"Don't look that surprised. You need someone of similar level to me to be able to protect themselves from mental probes."
'You should give the girls some privacy!' Elysia complained to him.
"I will when they want it. But you clearly want me to do things to you. Since you insist on being played by me."
He showed her how he would slam her against the wall before having his way with the pinkette.
The girl shook her head as she tried to push aside such an image!
'Y-You are quite a naughty boy, aren't you?' Elysia stopped trying to lose these images. Instead, she tried to communicate with him.
"I do know what you all want. With my mental perception, I pick up all of the intentions." He then showed her what she was thinking.
Unlike Marcus, her intentions and execution were far more vanilla. While quite stale to his images, it was enough for Elysia to know that he knew everything she was planning.
That made her puff like a hamster; being seen like this made her feel naked!
"You are trying to seduce an Esper, and I am giving you a chance, so why such a face?" She could feel his smugness.
'You know that it's not fun!'
As she replied to the complaint, their train stopped at the centre point where the lifts to the bridge were.
The group walked out of the train and got to the lift, which only lasted a couple of moments.
Once on the familiar bridge, Marcus postponed his little games with Elysia. Instead, he walked closer to the balcony and summoned THE MAP.
"Aurora, show me this universe map."
[As you wish]
A hologram of this branch of the tree manifested before him. It was in the shape of a branch. If one could zoom in, they could see a cluster of galaxies of all shapes and sizes.
Elysia and Kallen looked intrigued as they walked closer to examine it. Only Belfast didn't care about this stuff. She stood at the back and let her Master do his thing.
"When did you figure out all of this?" Elysia asked him as she understood the scale!
"From the beginning, my base has built an enormous observation dish outside the time flow.
We track timelines itself, which means something like this." He pointed at the universe." Is childs play to map out."
Marcus zoomed in at their location and began to check the local cluster.
He looked for interesting solar systems, but most of them were basic.
The inventor looked for nice moons, too, but all of them looked basic. In his opinion, the night sky would look average. He can't give his fiancee an average night sky!
"...That is impressive." The Pinkette maid looked truly impressed as she looked how he was zooming solar systems before zooming out.
It looked like he was checking products in a supermarket.
After checking the local clusters, he went to the neighboring ones. When he checked there, he stopped at one of the solar systems.
He found traces of intelligent species activities.
That intrigued him, and he began to check the solar systems closest to the one where he found traces of activity.
"Oh…wow."
Marcus couldn't stop himself before he exclaimed at what he found.
"...what is that?" Elysia looked at the solar system, which was full of debris and corpses of some strange bugs. It was a graveyard.
The whole solar system was full of corpses and wreckages of mechs.
It was quite a sight. One needs to consider how big a Solar System is. Without proper propulsion technology, travelling from one side to another could take a human a lifetime.
So, seeing a solar system full of corpses like this is absurd, to say the least.
"It appears I found where I want to go." Marcus pressed on the solar system he had just located.
"We are leaving."
He said to the crew as he pressed on the coordinates of this solar system.
[E.T.A half an hour, sir.]
"Hmm, we will be leaving the reality and position for re-entry. How long would it take with regular Bifrost?" He asked her.
[Sir, our space-travelling technology is considered primitive compared to our Time Engine.]
Aurora compared those two.
"I know. So, what is the estimation?"
[Calculating distance.]
[With the current Bifrost speed, we could arrive there in approximately 123 years.
We are, after all, travelling to the other side of this Galaxy.]
Marcus nodded a couple of times to himself; this was embarrassing to the Inventor.
He did invent the Graviton propulsion system, so travelling through a Solar system is quite fast, but what about the distance between stars?
That is still huge. That means he needs to upgrade Bifrost to MK2, as punching out from reality and then returning to another location feels…like cheating?
"Is it easier to leave reality than travel to another solar system?" Elysia heard the conversation, and she was in disbelief at how weird this faction's technology was.
"I delved further into time than space, " he said to her as he dismissed the map and looked at her.
"...I'm sorry, but I'm not Mei… how does it work?" The girl looked uncomfortable to admit that she was a dummy when it came to this.
"Easy enough. Imagine a river; its size is the space, and the water is the time flow.
If there is no water in the river, it becomes easy to walk around it, doesn't it? You can walk to one side or another without effort.
That is why it's easy for us to leave and enter: we can effortlessly move from one side of the river to another."
"But won't that mean space is easy to navigate? If you leave and enter the river, then won't it be easy to stop in the middle?"
The girl quickly caught up on what he meant.
"In a way? Imagine doing cannon balls into a swimming pool; you can splash in, but then you have to leave to do it again."
"Oh…" The pinkette realised what he meant.
"Our tech has something called an Anchor for the time slips, which means we attach them to a specific place and allow the time to flow around us," He explained to her.
"However, if we do that, we are stuck in one place." As he commented, he began to think about how to improve this specific technology.
"Aurora, what if we anchor to a specific timeline instead of a place?" He proposed to his AI.
[A possibility, but we need to study this once we are in the base.]
[We need to observe timelines from outside the time flow to weave them in such a way that we would not slip from one to another.]
"Yeah, I was thinking the same thing." Marcus nodded to such an idea before walking to the throne and sitting it down there.
He then motioned to Kallen, and his psionic field wrapped around her and brought her to his lap.
The girl almost squeaked from such abrupt actions, but she quickly controlled herself as she ended up in his hands.
"As my pet, you need to know when you are doing your duties~'" He teased as he saw her look. The girl didn't expect to end up on his lap in such a place.
He quickly ended up hugging her as she was facing him! The way she was sitting was quite intimate!
"Umm… I don't mind… but… isn't this…" the girl looked around. Only the maids were on this balcony, as the bridge's staff was on the lower levels.
"Relax, this is what you will be doing~" He whispered into her ear as he moved her around and made her sit properly on his lap.
"I saw you struggle to understand that map, so I will explain it to you in more detail." He explained to her as he got comfortable in his lap.
Moments later, a smaller map appeared before them as he explained how this worked.
Meanwhile, the massive Dreadnought pulled out from the hangar and flew out from the planet's gravity well. It was followed by two Star Destroyers, who were the escort.
The three ships positioned themselves for the Bifrost construction as they were ready to leave.
~~~
A large green magic circle manifested on the outskirts of a nameless solar system. The circle pulsed several times before three warships blasted out from it.
"...look at that!" Marcus looked at what was before him! What a sight! It was the biggest graveyard he had ever seen in his life! As far as he could see, even with his augmented vision and his psionic range, it was corpses of bugs and wreckages of mechs.
"...God…so many…" Kallen was speechless. This was a monumental-sized conflict. Just who fought here!?
"..." Elysia didn't even comment as she looked at this with sad eyes, whatever this was… the civilisation that was in this system couldn't have made it.
The amount of debris would block the sun, and life would end without support from the sun.
"Begin scouting. I want all of the ships to be mobile, including the docked Confiscator; its smaller size allows better mobility in this debris field."
Marcus instructed the crew. The girls began to send orders. One by one, the Starscreams began to launch.
Followed by the Confiscator, who was docked at the bottom section of the Flagship. The Inventor's old flagship was reduced to an escape shuttle.
There is a hole in the bottom of the Dreadnought where the 250-metre-long spaceship can dock; in fact, several of them could do it.
For now, it has moved out and begun launching its Starscreams, too.
The fighters began to scout this unique star system.
"I want some of these wreckages and the bug corpses to be brought in. We need to figure out what these guys are." Even if Marcus said that, he already had an idea.
He only needs to confirm them.
"Understood. Ordering a retrieval." The captain nodded at his request.
After hearing the confirmation, the Inventor motioned for Kallen to get up as he needed to stand up.
"Let's go." He motioned to follow him. " Time to solve the mystery of this solar system size graveyard."
"...Right."
"...Okay…"
The pair were not as excited as he was.
By the time they arrived in the hangar bay, there was a small mountain of wreckage of grey suit-like mechs in all sorts of condition and a pile of frozen bug carcasses.
"Begin scanning," Marcus commanded with his hands in his pockets.
[Beginning preliminary scan]
Blue beams began to bombard from different angles.
It only lasted a couple seconds as holographic windows popped up before him.
[Sir, you should see this.]
Aurora highlighted one of the windows. Showing what she found.
"Are those… like us? People? Is this solar system Earth?" Kallen looked in disbelief as she saw human bodies inside of these mechs.
"Wrong, they are 2.3% different." Marcus quickly clarified to her.
In the next second, he highlighted five DNA strands at once.
"These pilots are artificial life, clones." Certain parts of the DNA strand were blinking.
"From immune system to rapid aging, these guys were expendable." The Inventor didn't look happy at what he saw.
"As someone who had artificial soldiers and staff, I am dissapointed how casually these people were treated by their creators." He explained to the three girls.
"Indeed, as your creation, I know that I am superior to the majority of lifeforms." Belfast smoothly complimented him.
"There is no need to go that far, Bell. But, yes." Marcus looked at her with a strained smile. His ship girls can be arrogant when they want to be.
"My opinion is that they were designed to fight these bugs. Cloned warriors grow fast, especially with accelerated growth. They tried to keep up with these bugs' rapid breeding" The silver-haired maid said her part.
Something Marcus agreed with.
"Indeed, that is the gist of it." He looked at the clone pictures. The Inventor could see two girls and three guys. They seemed very familiar to a certain very destructive girl from Star Rail.
To think that he found the world from which Firefly came from.
His look was something else.
"...I see… so they were created differently than normal people?" Kallen, who had never seen such life before… as she never knew who were under the helmets of Marcus' army. Now that she knew, she was a bit scared.
"They grow in glass containers in an artificial womb. It's far quicker, and they can regulate how these pilots grow."
Marcus explained this to his pet before checking other data.
He was intrigued about the suits.
"One thing that is very interesting is their suits." He highlighted certain parts in the DNA.
"They are inside their bodies, Bio-tech, a tech completely opposite to my technology."
He mentally pressed a couple of hologram buttons, and the group saw the armours envelop the five clone pilots.
"Where did they come from?" The pair looked at them. Elysia wondered if it was some sort of form similar to Herrscher's clothes, which are created from Honkai particles.
"They use life force as energy to fuel the manifestation, making their lifespan even shorter, such use is manifest another fault.
He showed how these pilots deteriorated. Cracks appear on their skin before they burn away like a moth close to the fire source.
"...Their life must have been horrible," Elysia commented. She felt an urge to hug these poor boys and girls who suffered like that!
"That much is a certainty."
Marcus agreed. Now that he has seen them in person, the Inventor needs to find Firefly.
The only remaining member of the Iron Cavalry.
~~~
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