(Last Weeks 500 stones Chapter)
~~~~~~Meanwhile, on the Other Side of the Portal, The South Pole~~~~~~
Leesa Kujo and Chall Acustica watched as a huge warship just flew over the whole base.
"Oh… that crest…" One of the soldiers commented
"The crest?" Leesa looked curious; she looked upwards. She saw two feathered wings, slightly reminiscent of Celestial Being; the difference was that these wings were on a shield, as they did in medieval times.
"Check the belly of the carrier. This warship is the flagship of one of the Empresses. More precisely, Leila Anaheim. The Empress of Logistics… probably one of the most influential women in the whole Empire." The soldier commented with a shrug.
"You mean to say that as his wife, she can have the entire fleet under her control?" Leesa looked baffled for a second by such information. They treat military assets like private property?
The chain of command… well, it was not what she expected as she comes from a 'modern' military.
"Indeed. It's Empress Leila's retinue, obviously not as big as his Majesty's retinue, as he has an entire armada."
"Armada?"
"Indeed, three carriers, nine light frigates, over fifty knights and of course the elites of G-Force, its entire Invasion fleet." The soldier sounded proud.
"Oh, wow, that's Andraste." Even the soldier looked surprised as he pointed at the winged mobile suit leaving the carrier, followed by several military transporters.
"It would seem she will be using the portal…" Leesa realised that there was no other reason for this woman to be here.
'I never imagined there would be a Gundam that has feathered wings…' The ex-Celestial Being commented to herself, now that's a 'Divine' Machine, it would strike like that to a common person.
"Probably…" The soldier didn't speculate as he continued to stay guard. He was here to make sure these two didn't wander where they shouldn't.
As the blonde Empress arrived, the pair simply waited there. They enjoyed hotel-level treatment with food and nice lodging, and waited for the portal to open, as Marcus had assigned them to the space fleet on the other side.
"You must be the two from the other side of the portal." A blonde woman dressed in travelling clothes asked. She had several royal guards behind her, and next to her was a blonde boy dressed in similar travelling gear.
"That would be us. I assume you are one of the Empresses." Leesa asked back respectfully as she, alongside Chall, stood up and walked over to her.
"Yes. I am Leila Anaheim. I usually don't deal in Marcus' business; he is the one who moves around technology and talent. I am the one who deals with budgets and all things related to that." She replied as she walked over and sat down on the empty couch.
The pair of them returned to their seats as they followed the blonde Empress lead.
"Trajan, come over, introduce yourself." The blonde motioned for the blonde boy to walk over.
"Hello, good day to you two, I am Trajan Anaheim." The boy slightly bowed as he introduced himself.
(A/N: His name was supposed to be Trajan, not Trojan. Idk why I thought it was that before…)
"Oh, he must be a prince?"
"Yes. Well, we are training our kids not to stuff their heads full of their status and all that. Empty pride is counterproductive in the long term.
If you want to be proud, then make sure it comes from your own achievements." Leila explained, motioning for one of her maids to prepare some tea for her.
"That is a good way to look at it when you are the literal rulers of a united world." Leesa was impressed to see how much the Imperial family cares about how people raise their kids.
She read enough to recall how the Princes and Princesses end up in such huge empires with so much privilege.
"Marcus's literal Imperial Degree. It's actual law." Leila deadpanned. It's literally against the law to pamper kids."
"In his words: 'No woman will pamper their kids under my watch!' Or something like that, it's years ago now." Leila pretended to sound like her husband.
"..."
"..."
"Is it… Even enforced by the police or military?" Chall looked a bit amused by such a strange law.
"In a way…" Leila had this pondering look as she tried to recall.
"Regarldess." She motioned for her child to take a seat.
"We are moving to the other side to see what the hell he is doing." Leila narrowed her eyes.
"Umm… is he doing something strange?" Leesa looked a bit worried; she could tell this Empress was pissed.
"Mother is concerned about how many new mothers I will have." Trajan casually commented as he pulled out a drawing board and began to doodle on it with a pencil. He almost immediately detached from them, as their conversations are boring to the Prince.
"..." The blonde looked at her son and sighed. To the boy, it was already normal to have several mothers!
"Oh…"
It took a couple of moments for the pair to understand what he meant by that.
"From what I recalled, Wang Liu Mei was one of his Fiances," Leesa recalled the ecstatic heiress and how giddy that black-haired girl was.
"I know that." Leila shook her head, it was not it.
"It's Euphemia and Marrybell." The blonde narrowed her eyes when she mentioned those two! She should have known that those could pull something like that.
"I haven't seen or heard those two before…" Leesa and Chall looked at each other.
"Those two are Princesses of the Empire, and his half-sisters." Leila clarified as she sighed once more.
Her reply caused the pair to have several strange expressions.
"..."
"..."
"And it's not even him. It's most likely him just accepting their outrageous ideas as the pair of them are getting spoiled rotten."
"...wait, but we just talked about…" Chall was confused. Didn't they just talk about a literal Imperial Degree against getting spoiled?
"It's not against the law to spoil one's wife. But kids, so that they wouldn't grow up spoiled brats." The blonde clarified.
"Besides the point. Those two never truly saw themselves as his half-sisters. Since he grew up far away from them." The Empress explained to the pair, he tone was a bit drool.
"That is why… I am going there. We are going to rotate with my fellow Empresses to make sure they don't go overboard because he most likely is spoiling them now that there are no Empresses there with him."
'It sounds like a wife is going to pick her husband away from the notorious Mistresses.' Leesa thought to herself.
"Is it… a bit… bad if his sisters are doing that. Won't it be a bad example for… the younger generation?" Chall spoke as she looked at the blonde boy sitting next to Leila.
"Don't worry. Officially, Mark only has one proper aunt." The blonde Empress commented. The Anaheim Imperial family made sure there were not that many connections between them and the now-defunct Britannian Royal Family.
"I see…" It was not the explanation she was hoping to hear.
"You will learn the details along the way. Our world is a bit complex."
"But on the genetics side of things. You shouldn't worry either, I suppose this is the real reason why they are not holding back anymore." The blonde frowned as she realised that this was mostly the reason why they stopped hiding their intentions and striking now.
They can finally have kids with them and not worry about how they develop.
"I see…"
'Even his half-sisters want him…'
The pair were speechless to say the least. Never could Ex-Celestial Being commanders imagine that something like this would happen in this day and age.
But then again, given the Emperor's sheer power, there is no other man with that much political power and influence.
Not that the pair understood it yet. The pair of Princesses never cared about his political power or influence. It's how well he takes care of them… the typical kindness.
~~~~~~On Other Side of The Portal~~~~~~
Marcus' rapid growth in the space industry was in full swing. Euclides' class moving factory that he got from Celestial Being was upgraded to utilise Anaheim technology.
The Military installed the GN Tau drives instead of proper GN drives.
Marcus moved the factory to the asteroid field, where it could mine the minerals for the growth.
In other words, he had the factory produce more Euclides-class factories. It's as simple as that.
Well, not as simple as that, as the mobile factory will make parts, and the legion bots will assemble the factory.
Now, the only issue with this design is energy: legion bots require power to operate. To address this, the Emperor went with several solutions: batteries and portable solar panels.
Among other things, there was even an idea to beam energy from Earth. But that was shelved, as it was a completely different technological field that would need time to develop.
One of the proposed ideas was Legion bot carriers with GN drives, powered by GN particles.
Well, that could work, as legion bots already have carriers. Not that Marcus has built any of that in this reality yet.
Not that he is planning to go beyond what is necessary. This reality was not his; while he will let his kid rule it, that doesn't mean he will give away all his Imperial secrets. He already united the world and humanity; there are a few stragglers, but they will cave in eventually, and he used his experience to improve the government. On top of that, he will leave Anaheim and what it achieved in this reality.
All he took from them was Celestial Being. In his opinion, that is a fair trade. He removed a terrorist organisation that was blowing up things.
'Speaking of Celestial Being. The portal should open soon. Those two should be returning. I need competent people who can help me with shattering the stupid bureaucracy.' Just thinking about paperwork and all of the stupid licensing makes the Emperor annoyed.
The Inventor continued to code assembly AI in the Euclides-class mobile factory. He decided that staying in space for a while was a good break from the politics he had to deal with.
This tinkering kind of work is way better.
[Your Majesty, Portal is opening in two hours. We detected an energy surge from the limestones.] Legion spoke to him through an earpiece.
"Understood."
He sighed as he floated out of the central room of the ship.
The factory was undergoing several upgrades, so it was operating at half capacity. But it's enough with how slowly things are going on the planet below.
The Emperor was adding Assembly lines to the hollow segments of the ship's containers.
With assembly lines in place and the assistance of robotic hands, the assembly process could increase several times. It would take him about half as long to finish as it does now.
As he was thinking of building speed, he floated to his mobile suit and got into the cockpit.
Once inside, the 360-degree screens powered up, and soon enough, the twin-drive mobile suit rushed towards the planet not far from his location.
The mech turned into a blur as it entered the planet around the South Pacific before flying lower towards the South Pole.
Before long, the Gundam was flying through a man-made ice cave and arrived at a massive cavern where Marcus' Empire built their base.
As the mech landed next to the hangar, it began to walk towards the parking area.
The place was quite empty as most of the Gundams were not here but in the workshop on the West Coast.
The moment he parked his Gundam, the mech assisted him to get out. He swiftly walked to the locker room and changed out of the space suit and into warm clothes.
Since he had around an hour and a half, he went to get some food and check the logs to see if there was anything new going on around the planet.
'Some radicals in Africa, and it would seem with Celestial Being gone, drug businesses are resurfacing.'
'I do need to finish my rifles, I can do some interventions myself. Official intervention.' Marcus chuckled for a second.
Though he could easily send military, it would seem the world doesn't know what kind of Peacekeeping force his army was.
After enjoying some snacks and watching a documentary about sharks, the Emperor was ready to receive the two assistants who would help him with military and logistical matters.
As he watched the massive archway lit up like a Christmas tree, the gateway manifested, and the first thing he saw crossing over was a very familiar Gundam.
"...Andraste? What the…"
"You have some explaining to do, my dear husband." Leila's voice came out from the mech as soon as the Gundam, several Cataphracts with Leila's crest, passed over as well.
"Ummm…" Marcus wondered which part she wanted an explanation for…