101 - The Spark
Outpost 61 didn’t have a name besides its designation. A grand total of five people lived in Outpost 61, all five of whom were scientists there only as part of a research project. The universe they occupied had one very interesting property they called ‘planet-jumping physics’. The entire universe was uninhabited, but it was filled with planets and stars so close together people could jump from one to another. In addition, the cosmic bodies were so small that some could be walked around in seconds. How gravity could be so strong and yet so weak flew in the face of all common sense.
Which was why Outpost 61 was here. There were possible plans to colonize Planetary Proxima in the future, but that would only happen once the scientific research had gained an understanding of how everything worked so buildings could be built without fear of them flying into another planet.
The head of this expedition was an alternate version of Daniel Jackson who went by Danny. He was younger than the Daniel Renee knew, wore a labcoat, and had a dirty pair of goggles pushing up his messy hair.
Currently he was sitting in Outpost 61’s control room, annoyed at the uncooperative sensors. There had been a power surge and now he was getting inconsistent readings, which annoyed him to no end. He was so fixated on this he missed the beautiful sunrise – though admittedly this happened every few hours so it wasn’t that impressive even if the ‘sun’ was less than a mile away. Just one of the commonplace things in Planetary Proxima that would be odd elsewhere.
He fixed the sensors by crossing three separate wires over a magical power node. “Finally.” He sat up, taking a look at the readings. Most everything was normal, aside from a slight surge of dimensional energy. He would have looked into that, but there was another alert telling him something was broken. The reality anchor that kept their base from flying off when the inconsistent gravity of Planetary Proxima fluctuated wasn’t functioning.
He wasn’t particularly worried – the chances of a gravitational fluctuation happening were minimal, and even then Outpost 61 was designed to handle it. It was more likely to send anything not tied down flying uncomfortably into a wall or something. He supposed that might break a bone if it happened just wrong.
He got out of his seat, preparing to go to the basement and fix the reality anchor, but this was when none other than Aradia Megido, Maid of Time, appeared behind him. “You need to evacuate this Outpost. Now.”
“W-Why?”
“This universe doesn’t exist in an hour, that good enough?!”
Danny nodded profusely. “Just let me grab the data.”
Aradia accelerated him so he could remove the backup data core from the computer. Despite this, she felt the fabric of the universe start to shift around her before he was done. She fixed this by freezing time everywhere except inside the Outpost.
Danny stood up with a black box in his hands. “Done – wait, what?” He looked out the window. Instead of seeing the motions of planets, he saw a bunch of planets being stretched like noodles, but frozen in time.
“Analyze it later, I don’t want to chance that this can break through a time stop,” Aradia said. “Put out the evacuation order.”
Danny turned on the red alert. “All hands – leave the universe!” He watched the sensors – all four of the other life signs vanished, indicating immediate evacuation. He pulled out his dimensional device and did the same, leaping through with the black box. He looked back through at Aradia.
“I’ll catch up,” Aradia said. “I’ll be fine.”
Danny nodded, closing the portal. Aradia moved herself outside the base, standing atop its domed metallic structure. She allowed time to resume and watched as every planet, star, and other object within the universe began to coalesce into a single point, creating a brand new world of fire, earth, and unusual gravity.
She couldn’t see why this was happening. Nothing to indicate why this universe was collapsing in on itself.
She couldn’t stay any longer – the mass of that planet was about to become like a black hole, and those always did bizarre, unpredictable things to her Time abilities. She left the universe, entering the same world Danny had.
This world was a larger scientific outpost that Merodi Universalis had installed as a space station in an empty universe. The station carefully bent space around it so nobody would open a dimensional portal into empty space unless they were actually trying. The rest of Danny’s team was there as well – a Skaian Jade, a yellow Gem, and a pair of ponies that were either twins or alternate versions of each other.
All of them had already crowded around a public terminal, the black box plugged in. The Jade – notably without dog ears or god-tier robes – was moving her fingers quickly across the holographic display. “Found it.”
“Found what?” Aradia asked.
“What caused this.” She played a video file. “Right when the distortions started, the cameras picked up this.” The video showed a place between two planets. A ship corkscrewed into existence, sat there for a moment, and corkscrewed out.
It was shaped vaguely like a manta ray with two threads coming from the head and flowing over the back.
Aradia stared. “…That’s a Skarn ship.”
“…Skarn?” Danny asked.
“I need to tell the Overheads about this immediately.”
She told them a little earlier than immediately. Because she could do that.
~~~
The nameless Research Overhead robot finished giving the very brief report to the Merodi Overheads. The star-like lights on his smooth, featureless face flashed with red sparkles, indicating his anger. “Skarn attacked one of our outposts in order to absorb the universe’s interesting physics. It is only thanks to the Handmaid that no lives were lost, and only then because she received a tip through vague prophecy.” The Research Overhead glanced at all twelve of the other Overheads. “We had a fully functioning beacon in that universe, and Skarn and all his children know what those are. This was an attack.”
“Isn’t it possible he was just careless?” Celeste of Education asked.
“Does that matter!?” Renee blurted. “Even if it was careless, what if this happens again!? What if Aradia isn’t there to evacuate?!”
“It doesn’t make a difference,” O’Neill said. “Our universes aren’t safe from him.”
“It means he’s either completely apathetic about us, or he’s trying to get us to react,” Giorno said. “If it’s the former, he’s going to regret it. If it’s the latter…”
“How can we not react?” Jingle of Aid demanded. “We’ve just been attacked! If it happens once, it can happen again!”
“We can’t let this stand,” Eve said.
“Not that we want to tell you we told you so,” Renee muttered. “But we told you so.”
Eve put a hoof on Renee, indicating she should calm down.
Ava tapped her fingers together. “Who thinks we shouldn’t retaliate?”
Only Commerce and Cultural indicated their disagreement this time.
Ava nodded. “I move that now is the time to face Skarn. He has shown that he is a possible threat to us even without our aggression. There is no further reason to delay the inevitable. We’ve already discussed this once before, unless anyone thinks there needs to be deliberation, we shall vote now.”
There was no objections.
“All for retaliation?”
Eleven votes – including Maud and Ava.
“All against?”
Just Commerce and Cultural.
“Eleven to two,” Ava said, lowering her hand. “O’Neill, the responsibility for following this through falls mostly to you.”
O’Neill nodded. “I’ll need Expansion and Oversight on board as well – we need to erect defenses before we launch our attack. We can’t let any of our member universes suffer from reality anchor failure. Renee, prepare your teams, I may need some of your people if plan A doesn’t pan out. Eve, can you write up a declaration of war?”
Eve nodded. “Of course.”
“Giorno, I take it you’ve got more intel on Skarn now than we did last time?”
Giorno nodded. “Significantly more. I’ll transfer everything we have directly to your database.”
O’Neill nodded. “Everyone else, we’re about to be in a war. We’re sure as hell not ready as a society, as Cultural and Commerce’s reservations tell us. But our hand has been forced, so we have to get ready.” He stood up. “It’ll take a few days to erect the proper defenses. Giorno, is Skarn watching us?”
“We have not detected any actions in Merodi space prior to this incident.”
“This entire thing is fishy and reeks of a trap,” O’Neill said. “So I want everyone to be prepared for everything to go south. Don’t assume any of you are safe or have no responsibility in this war we’re going to get into. Everyone will feel it. Everyone.”
The Overheads nodded.
~~~
The Merodi Universalis fleet did not have hummingbird drives on every ship, simply because many of them were too big. Especially the protomolecule planetary monstrosities. However, because they had the protomolecule’s planets, they had bothered to create planet-sized dimensional gateways. One in particular had been built in the Gem Vein, and this was where the Merodi were planning to start the war.
Currently, the planetary gateway was glowing a deep red, indicating it was connecting to a universe more than one connection away. A brilliant, blue planet with vibrant tentacles passed through the portal, joining a few dozen other, similar planets. They were of varying sizes, but none more than twice as large as an Earth. All of them glowed an ominous blue, had a few of the rippling tentacles, and had truly tremendous engines embedded into their crusts. These engines operated on a mixture of protomolecule shifting and zero-point energy. They were the size of cities, but even with their power these planetary beings were still slow.
The good news was that they could hold a lot. The entire rest of the fleet could land on the surface of just one of them, and each of them were being retrofitted with dozens of reality anchors.
Only a few more needed to get into the fleet before they were ready. It had already taken a few days to organize everything, what was a few more minutes?
A lot if you were Yellow Diamond, frontline commander of the Merodi offense. She had been waiting for this a long time. Finally, she was able to do what she had done best back before the multiverse opened – wage war. She may have grown to understand and even respect the squishy little biological beings, but she had still thought they were too soft. That opinion might have been about to change… But she had to actually get to the fighting to be sure if they were really willing to go through with this.
She hoped so. She also hoped she got to be the one to kill that whelp, Skarn. He was too much of a moron to have Yellow Diamond’s respect. Conquering for the sake of art? Not making use of the power you have to increase your own? Even more asinine than conquering through the art of diplomacy and peace. At least that still increased your power, no matter how embarrassing it was.
Yellow Diamond checked over her fleet once again, examining the thousands of ships that had converged in this one universe. She had to edit out the protomolecule planets, for they dominated the view. Then she could see what she truly had at her disposal.
The Gem Armada was her pride even though she was sitting on the bridge of a Merodi joint-construction ship, the Andromeda. The Andromeda was just too boring for her tastes – sure, it was the most advanced ship in the fleet, equipped with just about every weapon imaginable and multiple Spectral Rods on board, not to mention a truly monstrous reality anchor. But there was just something about seeing the large hand shapes of Gem ships that made Yellow Diamond feel more in control of them. They would be effective at long range and magic resistance.
They had a lot of other ships as well. From Earth Tau’ri they had the bulky, hefty ships of the Tau’ri themselves, good for tanking damage. The Asgard ships were not as sturdy, but faster with more precise, effective weaponry. The Ori Reform ships were slow, but accessed high-efficiency spiritual-based weaponry that could possibly breach defenses other weapons would not be able to. There were even a few ships from a race Yellow Diamond did not know well, the Wraith, who were apparently space vampires who lived on their ‘hive’ ships. Yellow Diamond had no idea how many of these ships came from alternate versions of Earth Tau’ri; all she knew was that they made up a large bulk of the whole fleet.
Merodi Universalis’ only full member universe within the D-Sphere, Elemental Eight’s Heaven, had sent a full contingent of high angels, each of them glowing with the light of a star, ready to free the Congeries from a brutal tyrant. Galaxa Quadrants had sent their own ships as well. While not as expansive as Earth Tau’ri’s fleets, the strange disc-shaped ships with blue nacelles made great additions to the fleet. Yellow Diamond expected them to be nimble and precise, though they weren’t among the stronger ships in the fleet.
Then there were the Reapers. The Flat, unusual ships that would likely confuse Skarn’s forces with their unconventional dimensionality, as well as their indoctrination ability.
Some of the lesser Merodi allies had sent aid as well. Galaxa Immaterium still wasn’t even close to being part of the Merodi, but virtually all the races in that wartorn galaxy realized they owed the Merodi a lot, even if their universe was still in a near-constant state of war. The Emperor of Mankind had sent a full contingent of Imperium ships, including what he called “THE MOST MARY-SUE OF ALL MARINES IN EXISTENCE, THE SMURFS.” Officially called Ultramarines, they apparently had a penchant for winning. To everyone’s immense surprise, Tzeentch had given some of his multiversal holdings to the effort - nobody trusted him, but they had taken the help anyway.
Then there were the joint Merodi ships like the Andromeda which could not be classified, since each and every one was a little unique, designed out of many different varieties of technology smashed together into war machines and exploration vessels. Their names were as varied as the cultures that made them: Austraeoh, Yggdrasil, Nibiru, Pittacus, Eleven On High, etcetera. These ships were the ones that held the god-tier Skaians. There were nowhere near as many as there had been in the fight against the Combine and Horrorterrors, and they were no longer in a space specifically designed to their forms. Nevertheless, they would be some of the heaviest hitters imaginable, possibly able to turn Skarn’s shaping against him.
The strongest weapon of Merodi Universalis, John Egbert, had been left behind on purpose, against Yellow Diamond’s wishes. Apparently John had personally requested not to be involved in the war, and everyone had just agreed. They were all too afraid to use his power unless it was absolutely necessary.
Whatever. They didn’t need it.
Equis Cosmic’s ships were notably absent from the fleet, for they were the ones tasked with the defense of Merodi Universalis using Cosmo’s harmonic energies. Yellow Diamond was only a little disappointed she wasn’t going to get to see Skarn’s surprise at the defense plan they had.
But Yellow Diamond was on the more glorious path. That of conquest. She was going to depose Skarn.
The protomolecule’s Investigator appeared to Yellow Diamond. “All through.”
Yellow Diamond nodded. “They all understand?”
“No infecting civilians, and don’t augment our personnel without a life-or-death scenario or personal request. Don’t worry, signal’s great on those worlds, nothin’s going to go hoppin’ away and doin’ its own thing.”
Yellow Diamond noticed the bridge was staring at her. “It’s the Investigator,” she explained, fixing them all with steeled glares. “Open a channel to all ships.” She stood up tall, making sure to look as powerful and authoritative as possible. “ALL SHIPS! Move into near orbit around PM-Prime, and prepare to move with it through the ring! Dial the Congeries with the Ring! Tell General O’Neill we’re moving out! Prepare the declaration of war!”
The thousands-strong armada went into orbit around the largest of the protomolecule planets, the Andromeda at the ‘front’. The Ring flashed bright red and started drilling through universes – even with Giorno’s reconnaissance missions, they still had to cut through twenty different universes to establish a connection to the Congeries, and that took a lot of power for a portal this large. Enough power that not only did the Ring have to absorb energy from the black hole it was orbiting, but other versions of the black hole in other universes through smaller portals and zero-point energy mixed with magical accumulators. It was an impressive feat of engineering, but they were able to move the entire fleet at once.
They only had one god-tier Jade with them – the League’s ‘office dog’. She took it upon herself to shrink the protomolecule planets that weren’t the main one so they could be moved through the portal quickly.
PM-Prime fired its tremendous engine, passing through the dimensional boundary created by the ring to arrive in the Congeries. Jade came through with all the other planets and began growing them all to size.
“Cut power to the ring,” Yellow Diamond said. They had all the ships they would need in the Congeries – if they needed reinforcements, it would just be personnel, and they did not need a portal that large for personnel. “Take formation!” The entire fleet arranged itself like a spearhead, pointing toward one location.
Giorno had managed to obtain a lot more intelligence about the location of the Shaping Mechanism and the effective center of the Congeries. The knew exactly where it was and how ‘far’ it was, relatively speaking at least. They just had to get there and utterly destroy it. If they were lucky, Skarn wouldn’t have time to mount a resistance before they arrived.
But Yellow Diamond knew he would. She was hoping for it. A war could not be glorious if it were easy.
“Activate the warp field!” She ordered the fleet. The ships at the front of the armada twisted space around them to create an elongated warp field, burning all the power they could manage to encompass the protomolecule planets in the field. The fleet shot off in a shared FTL grouping to the center of the Congeries, passing through universe after universe physically.
It cost a lot less energy to create a smooth warp drive than a tremendous dimensional portal.
~~~
“Father, you need to see this,” Brell said, walking up to Skarn.
“Can’t you see I’m busy?” Skarn said, his hands on the blue globe he used to control the Shaping Mechanism, eyes fixated on the multicolored strands that showed him the creation of a new piece of art. An Earth where the same day kept repeating over and over, and everyone was aware of it, but they couldn’t step outside of fate.
“Father, we have unwanted visitors. They have a message directly for you.”
Skarn paused. He took his hands off the globe, making the strands lose their cohesion, no longer displaying anything. “What?”
Brell played a video. An image of Eve appeared on a holographic screen.
“Several months ago by our central calendar, one of our agents followed your son, Arthon, back to the Congeries because we were suspicious of the lack of information you shared with us about your home. This agent did not return to us, but the data she collected did. Her ship showed us the horrible things you create for the sake of art in your Congeries – entire universes nothing but clay to you for your own aesthetic enjoyment.
“A vote was cast as soon as this information came to light. Should we retaliate against the obvious crimes against existence, or simply cut you off to avoid a large-scale conflict? The vote ended in favor of the cautious route. We cut you out of our lives and refused to tell you why, so as to not prompt a response from you.
“Then the universe we knew as Planetary Proxima was… attacked by your Shaping Mechanism. That universe had a clearly functioning beacon that told you it was ours, and you ignored it. You have demonstrated that you either do not care about our claims, or that you wish to prod us for a reaction. If you wanted the latter, you’re in luck. This is Merodi Universalis’ formal notice of declaration of war on the Congeries. By the time you receive this message our fleet will already be in the Congeries, heading right for you.
“I am Evening Sparkle, Overhead of Relations for Merodi Universalis. End message.”
Skarn rammed his fist into a wall, forcing the atoms within to fuse and explode. Brell contained the explosion with her own cosmic powers. “Did you really attack them?”
“I don’t know,” Skarn muttered. “It’s possible in one of my fits of inspiration… They do have colonies spread out across the universes. One of them could have been nearby and I just didn’t know about it…”
“Father…”
Skarn sighed. “I know, the fact that I don’t know is just going to prove Arthon right. We have bigger problems right now, though. Tell Arthon to prepare the armies as quickly as he can. They did the honorable thing and let us know there was a war before it began, but they do have us at a disadvantage with the amount of preparation time they no doubt had.”
Brell nodded. “Of course.”
“I will respond to them, and then use the Shaper to do what I can. They would not have come here without defenses, however.”
Brell left, leaving Skarn alone. He growled and recorded a message of his own.
“Then let it be so! The Congeries reciprocate Merodi Universalis’ declaration of war! We shall meet you on the battlefield both here and on your home front! Do not think this will be a quick war, an easy war, or a war you will go through without heavy losses! You will be defeated, and you will become part of the cosmic art within my space! The only difference is that now you will be here by force, rather than choice! I believed you could be persuaded to appreciate the Congeries, but that is clearly not so!
“I, Skarn the Shaper, am disappointed it had to come to this. Even though I respect your decision to issue a formal declaration of war, I will not hold back against your forces. We will both fight with all our might! And you will discover that your might is not enough!”
Skarn let out a bear’s roar. “I ACCEPT THIS CHALLENGE!”
He sent the message. He waited a few minutes; just to make sure the Merodi fleet would receive it and be able to understand what it meant.
Then he placed his hands on the blue globe, extending his will into the outer Congeries…
~~~
Cosmo received Skarn’s declaration of war and knew it was time.
She sat on the bridge of her personal ship – the flower designed to amplify her own powers of Harmony. She had used it many times before. First to exterminate the alien aggressors of Equis Cosmic, later to fight Majora head on, and now as a purely defensive measure against the coming fleets of Skarn.
However, this time was going to be a little different. Normally the harmonious energies could only act on one world. But this time they needed to defend every Merodi Universalis member – a few hundred universes now. Admittedly, this did not count minor or distant colonies, which would only be receiving minimal defenses because they were low value targets. But all of those universes needed help from Cosmo’s control over harmony.
And they’d figured out a way to do it.
The entire fleet of Equis Cosmic was spread out in every universe over every major planet of Merodi Universalis. It was the only fleet large enough to do this, since Equis Cosmic was the only major universe that controlled an entire galaxy. This allocation of the fleet had left many of Equis Cosmic’s worlds less defended than Cosmo would have liked, but this was war – they had to take the best of all possible options, even if it left some people vulnerable.
Every ship of Cosmo’s fleet was equipped with a program that would open a series of wormholes and dimensional portals to connect every ship to Cosmo’s flagship, allowing her to spread her harmonious energy everywhere. However, strong as she was, that would be spread out too thin to have any major impact on the defense of the Merodi worlds.
Which was why every single Tree of Harmony or equivalent under Merodi space was going to add their power as well. While the ancient beings that were usually Stars rarely had versions that spoke, the Merodi had seers that could judge their moods. All of them were willing to lend their assistance to the defense of Merodi Universalis – ranging from Equis Vitis’ own Tree, to the Runes of Harmony that had once surrounded the Spectacularium in Lai, to the weakened but energetic Tree of Equis Concrete, to a large number of Trees that could be found in Esefem. They were all ready.
All Cosmo had to do was ask.
She took a breath, dropping her disguise, allowing her shimmering, skeletal self to be exposed to the few in the room with her. None of her close aides flinched – they all knew what she was and had learned to accept it.
She spoke. “Starlight, activate the harmony network.”
Starlight beeped from her position on Cosmo’s neck, telling all ships to activate. Every one of the network created dimensional portals and wormholes. Cosmo took a breath and surged her harmonious energy out of her flagship into these holes, straining herself as far as she was able. She strained – but then a Tree of Harmony augmented her network, taking the strain off of her, allowing them to stretch further.
The planets of Merodi Universalis were slowly surrounded by gentle vines of white energy jumping from ship to ship, creating a swirling cage. There were times when the network flickered or faltered, but another Tree of Harmony would offer its assistance. It was a graceful net of defense.
Cosmo strained. We’ll need to keep this up for a long time. I’m not sure we can do that…
“Incoming call,” one of Cosmo’s aides said. “For you.”
A version of Twilight appeared on the screen – one Cosmo recognized as the Grand Secretariat of the Sparkle Census.
“We are not going to risk our lives or our worlds to help you with your war,” the Secretariat prefaced. “But we have sensed that you are strained in your defenses and won’t be able to keep it up for long. We have a network of Trees of Harmony as well – and they wish to lend their power.”
Cosmo let out a relieved laugh. “Thank you.”
“If Skarn attacks us for this, we will retract our power instantly.”
“Then let’s hope he doesn’t find out.”
The Secretariat smiled warmly. “Wings crossed.” She nodded to her left. “Do it.”
Cosmo felt the strain lift off of her and her fellow Trees of Harmony. “Okay… We can maintain this. We are in your debt.”
“Repay us by freeing the people under Skarn’s control.”
“We will.”
The communication ended.
There was silence. Everyone was holding their breath, waiting for an attack.
It came. Cosmo saw a few blips appear over Equis Vitis and the Hub. Around Equis Vitis, the Tree of Harmony flashed, using its proximity to destroy the orbiting ships the instant they arrived. A few attempted to appear lower in the atmosphere, but the Tree of Harmony was on to them as well, taking no prisoners. The spatial distortions around the Congeries’ ships did nothing to defend against the pure light.
Around the Hub, there was no Tree directly, so the network wasn’t as effective in instantly destroying the ships. Luckily, there was only one location on the Hub of any concern – the Hub building itself, and it was armed to the teeth. The handful of ships that were able to dodge the harmony network were taken out by the point defenses of the Hub and surrounding ships.
More red dots appeared around Merodi Universalis, spread around most of the member universes but were focused on the eight founding worlds, the Hub, and Earth C – notably leaving Skaia’s Dream alone. Presumably because fighting ghosts on their home turf was just a bad idea. They had not found Celestia City yet, which was good – that was where O’Neill and most of the other military leaders were issuing orders from.
She noticed something odd – there weren’t very many of Skarn’s ships. They outnumbered them a hundred to one with just Equis Cosmic’s ships. And while clearly more of Skarn’s ships were continually arriving, if he had much more they’d be using a very different strategy.
This didn’t mean that they weren’t threatening – Cosmo had already lost a few dozen ships and a couple of lesser Equis Cosmic planets had been hit hard – but as it was now, it looked like Merodi Universalis had a tremendous advantage over the offense of Skarn.
If they don’t have that many ships, why send this many? Does he just have to fight us on our turf as part of his code of war? Are most of his ships busy with our offense? Or is this a ploy of some kind – hiding his numbers, or working on a secondary plan?
Cosmo sent out a message, telling the fleet that even though it looked like they were undeniably repelling the attack, it was likely a ruse. She knew it would set the armies on edge, but sometimes on edge was better than overconfident. They needed to be prepared for anything to prevent a disaster.
She checked the news reports. So far, the citizens weren’t panicking, and they were in support of the war even after the first few minutes. But they were scared. Skarn’s ships were more than willing to hit civilian targets. Even though they weren’t able to hit very many, the toll was going to tax the minds of the citizens.
Some people had already lost family and didn’t even know it.
~~~
One of the artistic works of the Congeries transformed into a giant anglerfish and tried to bite PM-Prime in half while it traveled past at FTL speeds.
The fish was shredded by the sheer forces between the subliminal space it occupied and the motion of the warp bubble.
“He’s finally doing it!” Yellow Diamond shouted. “Prepare for attacks from all sides and all angles of any kind!”
Skarn did not try the fish again – this time he sent a photonic construct the size of Earth’s orbit after them, having it pursue in a warp field of its own. The ships in the rear of the formation fired a mixture of arcane and spiritual weapons, since physical attacks wouldn’t be able to pass through the warp fields.
Yellow Diamond considered how useful it would be if they had Embodiment assistance in this matter, but Hastur had declined involvement, so they were low on eldritch power. That said, Tzeentch had sent his poster-boy, Ahzek Ahriman...
The idiot placed himself at the edge of the warp field. “You think you’re clever? HA! You are NOTHING!” He pointed his ruby-eyed staff in the being’s direction and fired.
The being of light teleported past the beam and wormed its way to the back of the formation, fusing itself with the warp field. This turned out to be its undoing. A single Skaian ghost floated up to the being the moment it entered – a strange, gray creature in the pink robes of Heart.
One of many, many lost players of SBURB buried in Skaia’s Dream that had come along to fight.
This particular one was a Bard of Heart.
The spirit of the being of light turned on itself, dividing into several different consciousnesses that saw all the others as invaders in the body. It writhed, dropping its own warp field in order to devote all resources to consuming itself.
The next shape Skarn sent after them had no spirit – it was a purely mechanical swirl of fractal patterns coming at them head on. It turned out nukes mixed with Ahzek’s Chaos beams worked pretty well on that option.
Skarn sent another shape, designed to withstand warp fields, soul manipulation, and nuclear Chaos explosions. This beautiful tree was disintegrated by a combination of Life Skaians, angels, and good old-fashioned laser weapons.
Yellow Diamond saw the pattern. “He has effectively infinite materials and space. He will be able to keep throwing stuff at us until something works. How long until we reach the center?”
“If we maintain our current speed, about half an hour,” came the answer. “We’re only going about fifty C due to the tremendous mass we’re carrying. Every attack slows us a bit.”
“He’s going to figure something out in half an hour,” Yellow Diamond grunted, watching as what appeared to be a cross between a banana and a raspberry entered the warp field and took a bite out of one of the protomolecule planets, only to get infected by the contagious blue material. Even then, we haven’t even lost a full percent point of our fleet. We’ll still be able to push through.
She watched as a tremendous squid made entirely of stars charged them from the side, only to discover the might of Space players combined with the impossible, slippery figures of the Reapers.
And then the warp field just vanished.
Yellow Diamond stood straight up. “What just happened!?”
“The warp field is no longer effective! He must have found a way to disable it!”
“That shouldn’t matter!” Yellow Diamond shouted. “We have reality anchors all over the fleet!”
“Well apparently he found a workaround. We’re not being shaped into a piece of art, but we’re not moving faster than light! About fifty percent C right now. Two days until we reach the center.”
Yellow Diamond narrowed her eyes. “And what’s attacking us now?”
“…That’s the thing, there’s no more shaped creatures. We’re just flying at fifty percent C through the Congeries. And- hold on. Look at the radar.”
Yellow Diamond had already seen it. Red dots had appeared on the edges of their accurate sensors – red dots that indicated ships. They had gotten close enough to detect Skarn’s actual defenses.
There were fewer than she was expecting. But she had bigger worries than the surprisingly small size of the enemy at the moment. “Figure out how they’re jamming FTL, now!”
“The fleet is already on it. Dimensional technology still works, so we still have a stable link back to Merodi Universalis.”
Yellow Diamond pressed a few buttons on her console, ordering the protomolecule planets to the front of the fleet. They would be able to take the most damage of any of the ships while protecting the craft with bigger, fancier weapons. The protomolecule planets were good at infecting and blocking – not shooting at range. Their gravity made installing surface-cannons a bit of a pain compared to just slapping one onto a spaceship.
She arranged the longest-ranged ships behind the protomolecule planets. Lasers dissipated after a certain distance, but missiles never did. They started firing nuclear and other missiles at the Skarn ships that were several minutes away.
The war had suddenly become a lot slower. Since Skarn didn’t seem to be shaping any monstrosities at them, both sides had multiple minutes to prepare themselves.
Yellow Diamond started tapping her fingers on her console. She would have said it was out of boredom to anyone who asked, but in truth, she was nervous. She really had no idea what would happen when the two fleets met.
They had numbers. They had vastly superior numbers. Even with this speed limitation, they should still have the advantage in this surgical strike. Two-day travel time or not, Skarn only had a limited number of ships he could send.
…She hated waiting.
Those geniuses back in Celestia City better figure a way to hurry this along.
~~~
Corona, your assistance is needed on Earth Vitis, Cosmo’s voice rang into Corona’s ear.
Corona mounted Lady Rarity. “Looks like they’re finally calling us out. Sorry Toph, Lai has to defend itself.”
Toph nodded, barely listening to them – instead carefully paying attention to the words of Terezi and her other military advisors on the state of Lai. With the Runes of Harmony in the Spectacularium’s cave, Lai was one of the better-protected worlds - Earth Vitis had no Tree of Harmony. Or, if it did, she was carrying part of it inside of Raging Sights as her empathy.
Lady Rarity and Corona skittered through a portal to Earth Vitis. What do we need to do? Corona asked Cosmo.
They’ve placed ground forces in numerous locations. You are going to the incursion just south of Canterlot – they’re likely after the magic sources there. It’s our best guess, anyway.
Corona cracked her knuckles. “Ground forces we need to take care of, starting with south of Canterlot.”
“Why would they need ground forces?”
“If I had to guess it’s because they don’t have that many ships.” Corona lit her hands and horn, enchanting Lady Rarity and herself with a whole buffet’s worth of enhancements. Senses, strength, speed, power, intelligence, defense, and many other attributes were boosted, in addition to reality anchoring and an aura of intimidation.
Magic circles spiraled around the two of them, the red light of Corona’s magic covering every one of their limbs and surrounding them in a barrier.
“Ready to be a two-person army?” Corona asked.
Lady Rarity nodded, hefting her hammer and sliding her helmet over her face. “As ready as always.”
They teleported to just south of Earth Vitis Canterlot. It took Corona less than a second to differentiate the standard Earth Vitis soldiers from the enemy. Those on her side were fighting with their standard projectile weapons, tanks, and helicopters with a handful of more advanced Merodi weapons. Every one of Skarn’s soldiers were human, but encased in milky-white armor that rippled with space and time around them.
Corona didn’t wait for anything. She spotted the enemy – and she unleashed her wrath on them. Waves of dark red magic flowed out of her arms, intending to seek and destroy every last one of the attacking soldiers.
Except most of them dodged. And all of them had started dodging before she arrived.
The ones who hadn’t dodged didn’t even try. It was as if they were resigned to their fate.
“WE MIGHT HAVE FUTURE SEERS!” Corona shouted with the Royal Canterlot Voice. “USE EXTREME CAUTION!” She opted to use a more damaging attack, one that couldn’t be dodged – a massive earthquake. She couldn’t be as precise with this one, and could only be really effective in locations where there weren’t any friendlies, but there definitely wasn’t any escaping the wrath of the Earth itself.
Unless you could fly. Which, apparently, some of them could, levitating into the air.
Lady Rarity dashed to the side, carrying Corona with her. Parts of the ground where they had just been exploded as if hit by a cannonball, even though there hadn’t been any visible projectiles. “Thanks,” Corona said.
“They pointed fingers and nothing happened. I reacted.”
“Keep us out of danger, I’ll keep shooting spells.” Corona narrowed her eyes – she needed to be more effective against these ground troops. Clearly, they were coming out of dimensional portals – and she couldn’t disable all those safely without interfering with the harmony network.
What she needed was to set up a cascade that would go through all of them, but she didn’t know enough about them to craft such a spell. They had an aura around them that prevented her scans from piercing their flesh.
“I need to capture one,” she told Lady Rarity. “This might get a little weird.”
“Just do it.”
Corona tried telekinesis first, but they just pushed it away. Teleportation was similarly blocked. She tried to punch one over to her with a powerful spell, but that just killed the armored soldier.
She ground her teeth – trying for a dimensional portal while Lady Rarity protected them from the invisible projectiles. The portal opened up beneath one of the soldiers and dumped him into a different universe. Corona took herself and Lady Rarity there – the endless forest – and faced off against the soldier alone.
He raised his hand, but one invisible bullet was enough for Corona to deflect with barely a thought. She registered that the attack was a carefully calculated folding of spacetime designed to shred through whatever it hit. She pulled back her hand, creating an unbelievably bright ball of fire intended to distract.
The soldier saw right through it – he blocked Lady Rarity’s hammer from the side without even looking and fired a few more bullets at Corona. She reflected them right back at him, and every last one missed.
“He’s good,” Corona growled. “Raging Sights, we need a precision attack with a guaranteed immobilization, not death.”
Raging Sights beeped. Lady Rarity continued pursuing the soldier while Raging Sights prepared the spell. The soldier must have seen the spell coming, because he stopped running and opted to punch Lady Rarity across the face, crushing her skull.
Or he would have, had Corona not been a Rogue of Doom. The punch reflected off Lady Rarity and into the soldier, knocking him to the ground.
“…Guess he doesn’t see everything,” Corona concluded. “Or didn’t look far enough ahead to see that a punch wouldn’t actually accomplish anything.” She dropped Raging Sights’ complex immobilization spell in favor of a simple paralytic. Enough force pushed through the dazed soldier's shields, locking up every bone and mechanism in his body.
Corona rubbed her hands together. Just in case he was rigged to explode in case of capture, she cast safety spells all over him.
“You’re being a little paranoid,” Lady Rarity said. “From what I read in Skarn’s psych profile, he wouldn’t rig his soldiers to explode. Too dishonorable.”
“Might be Arthon,” Corona pointed out. “He’d have no qualms with that.” She pulled off the soldier’s helmet to reveal a man with pale skin, white hair, and bright purple eyes. “Yeaaaah that’s not normal.” She touched a hand to his forehead… …and came back out.
“Well…?” Lady Rarity asked.
“Nothing…” Corona narrowed her eyes. “But I know he isn’t. He acts like a man, and even if all emotion and soul have been ground out of him he still had to have thoughts… Something about him prevents probing.” She performed scans – she could now detect a lot about what the armor did: protecting the occupant from blows, locally altering physics to increase effectiveness depending on the scenery they were in, and other similar things. There was communication in the helmet, but it was limited and reception only. She wasn’t picking up anything from it.
However, she learned nothing about the man. Every scan she undertook told her he was normal. Just a human albino with strangely purple eyes. Even when she scanned his brain without empathy – it showed a fully functioning cerebral cortex and evidence of a consciousness that was just knocked out.
But she knew he wasn’t normal. She had gone in, and come out without anything from inside his mind.
She narrowed her eyes. “Lady Rarity, you’ve been watching my scans right?”
Lady Rarity nodded. “Mhm.”
“They’re all saying he’s normal, right?”
“Right.”
Corona scanned her mind. Everything seemed normal. She scanned Lady Rarity’s mind, receiving the same. “…Lady Rarity, can I check in your head right now? I want to see if I can find something.”
Lady Rarity took off her helmet. “Sure. What are you thinking?”
“That something’s really off here.” She placed a hand to Lady Rarity.
A moment later she pulled back. “Guess I was wrong. Everything seems fine.”
Raging Sights beeped. “Message sent.”
Corona looked at the crystal on the back of her hand. “…What?”
Raging Sights was silent.
“Hello? Raging Sights?” Corona blinked. “Bring up message transcript. Agh, why are you acting up now of all times!?”
Corona, you’re being recalled for the moment, Cosmo said. Please return to Lai castle.
Corona nodded. “Right…” She hefted the soldier onto her back. “Might as well study this guy somewhere else…” She teleported back to Lai.
~~~
O’Neill had called a special meeting in the middle of Celestia City including Thor, Squeaky, Renee, Saxton Hale, Starbeat, Ava, and the robotic Research Overhead. “Right, so I’m going to be brief. This isn’t going to be a fast war anymore. R.O., care to explain why?”
The robot nodded. “Skarn has figured out a way to work around our reality anchors. Not in the sense that he can now mold our ships like clay – he can’t do that – but he’s completely disabled FTL travel.”
“Do we know how?” Thor asked, eyes narrow.
“He set an absolute rule for all universes of the Congeries within one light-day of the Shaping Mechanism. No FTL travel allowed. You are correct in assuming we have the ability to force our reality over his own in a bubble large enough to hold planets – but that bubble physically exists within the Congeries. We can travel at superluminal speeds within that bubble – but the bubble itself cannot travel at superluminal speeds.”
“This means it’ll take two days to get to the Shaping Mechanism at current speeds,” Squeaky said. “And anyone who’s been in war knows that when you hit the enemy, you get slowed down. Hard.”
“Current projections have us fighting for a few weeks to a couple months,” O’Neill said. “Normally that wouldn’t be much of an issue, the fleet would be more than willing to fight that long. But our homeworlds are currently suffering because of ground forces – Earth Vitis is getting hit the hardest. And we’ve recently uncovered why these ground forces are having such an easy time cutting through us.”
“Future sight, right?” Renee said.
“Wrong. That’s just the tip of the iceberg.” O’Neill pressed a button on his remote. “We received this audio message from Corona a short time ago, sent directly to Cosmo.”
A heavily-breathing voice of Corona met them. “We recording, Raging Sights? Good. I am currently hiding out inside Lady Rarity’s subconscious – don’t worry about how I can record a message like this, ask me later. We captured one of the soldiers and started studying him. They have white skin, hair, and purple eyes under the armor, if you can’t figure that out, and they have future-sight – but that’s only what they let you know. If you learn anything else about them, your memory is rewritten. This fragment of my consciousness is currently being hunted down by… I don’t know what. It’s not something I’ve seen before. All I know is that every time I scan the soldiers to learn something about them, I think they’re normal. But when I touch their minds directly I come back with nothing. Like everything they’re thinking is illegal information for my mind to know.”
She took a panicked breath. “When I come out of here, I won’t remember. I’m sending this on the off chance that maybe, if you’re not near one of them, you can remember things about them. Video data is corruptible since Raging Sights doesn’t remember either – but not physical copies. Raging Sights is sending this to you as I record it, which in mental terms means it goes really, really fast… I haven’t been able to learn anything about them in Lady Rarity’s head other than their status as what is officially called a ‘memetic hazard’. Ask Thrackerzod for more info. And if their power extends far beyond even this… Then you won’t be able to remember this part of the message. So…”
There was a loud noise on the recording. “Princess Cosmo, there is a danger in the war that might be us. When you get this, tell me to return to Lai castle immediately. When I get there with whatever I am carrying, sedate me and lock all of us up.”
There was silence. “Ponyfeathers, it’s right behind me,” Corona moaned.
The audio file ended.
O’Neill folded his hands. “Corona has been released since it was proven that, yes, there is an effective range on their memory canceling abilities. She does not remember making any of that, but she knows for certain it’s right. This memory power is so extensive that even the protomolecule cannot remember enough about their biology to take them over. Jotaro has been kind enough to smash several thousand cameras with Hermit Purple to provide us with physical photos of the soldiers. It is a slow process, but Giorno has been able to piece together some information for us. First of all, they’re slightly Aware.”
There were gasps around the table.
O’Neill nodded. “Nowhere near as Aware as the vast majority of Pinkies. We’re not sure they even know about ka or the story-nature of the multiverse, but they’re able to act on it. Their future sight is able to extend beyond events that are predictable – they’ve intercepted many Pinkies and hidden themselves from their Pinkie Senses. We have no idea how far this ‘knowledge’ of things goes, but it makes surprise tactics useless on any large scale. One of them is bound to notice any ploy we throw at them.”
“There’s more, though,” Starbeat said.
O’Neill nodded. “They appear as ordinary humans to every scan we have – even ka-based scans – but they certainly are not.” He gave them some Polaroid photos Jotaro had generated with Hermit Purple. One showed a soldier without armor ripping a human being in half. Another showed an armored one walking, and people falling dead around him. Another was walking through a sea of Merodi soldiers and none of them noticed.
The scariest one was of one’s jaw opening wide enough to devour her own severed arm.
Ava picked that last one up, wide eyed. “Holy shit.”
“That’s an understatement,” Starbeat commented. “What we need is a defense for these things. Which is why I’m here. Well, part of the reason.”
“That was the only reason I was aware of,” O’Neill said.
“You’ll be glad I’m here for more reasons.” Starbeat said, smirking. “Anyway, memory is unreliable against these soldiers. Ideally, you would train soldiers to react on instinct when facing them, but we don’t have that kind of time. We also can’t just alter physics to make them impossible because of their armor. And we don’t have enough god-tier Mind players to place at every location. So we’re going to have to rely entirely on ka for this one.”
Saxton Hale laughed. “Oh, I’ve been waiting for this day!”
Ava narrowed her eyes. “I thought the direct manipulation of ka was asking for trouble?”
“It is,” Starbeat said. “But you don’t really have any other options. And it won’t be like using John – that’s a can of worms that really can’t be predicted. The few primitive ka-manipulation devices I have created tend to have drawbacks built in to prevent buildup for later disasters.”
Squeaky sighed. “Designed with drawbacks? Won’t that negate their usefulness?”
“Depends on how desperate you are,” Starbeat said. “For instance, the most balanced one I have is one that you’re all going to balk at.” She levitated a small cylinder out of her saddlebags. It was made of a solid blue metal. “This is a Conjoiner. It has the very handy effect of killing whoever just killed you. It has the negative effect of killing you whenever you kill someone.”
“That’s atrocious,” Squeaky pointed out.
“It definitely is,” Starbeat said. “But don’t we outnumber them? And aren’t they normally killing more of us off than we are of them? This would actually save lives, in the long run. Though in the interests of being honest, if you put this on a soldier, you’re turning them into a suicide bomber.”
O’Neill put his hands together. “Not many are going to agree to that.”
“I’d suggest not telling them,” Starbeat said. “Of course the secret will come out later, but you’ll win the war.”
“Have anything else?” Renee asked.
Starbeat nodded. She placed a small computer chip on the table. “This is a Guaranteed Hit. Put this on any projectile weapon. It’ll never miss.”
“Drawback?”
“You’re now a bullet magnet.”
“Ah.”
“Are you sure you can’t remove the drawbacks from these?” Thor asked.
“Oh, I could. But that would create an imbalance.” Starbeat pondered this a moment, thinking about how to explain. “Think about it like this. If I manipulate ka to make something good happen, the higher ka of Karma takes notice, and decides that something bad needs to happen. This isn’t always the case, but manipulate ka enough and it’ll happen. If we have armies of people killing enemy soldiers with a Guaranteed Hit, and they don’t get bullets to fly back at them as part of that, the Karma builds up. Until, eventually, it all comes out in a giant cataclysm. Say, losing a planet or something.”
They stared at her with mixed expressions of fear and concern.
“Now, the Flowers have found a way around this,” Starbeat said. “No idea how they do it. My best theory is they’ve found a way to manipulate Karma directly and redirect it to some elder gods they have chained up in a basement somewhere. Or that redirected Karma goes directly on their Agents and it’s why so many of them are batshit insane and suffer mental trauma on a regular basis.”
There was no response to this.
“I’m just theorizing. I actually have no idea. Maybe there’s a back door to just get rid of the Karma. The point is, exploit something, it’ll come back to bite you if you aren’t careful.”
O’Neill leaned back. “We’re not going to deal with unethical war practices. We’re going to tell the soldiers exactly what these devices are.”
“I’ve got plenty of soldiers willing to die at the drop of a hat!” Saxton Hale said. “Just use them!”
O’Neill and Squeaky looked like they wanted to argue. But they couldn’t deny that Saxton’s mercenaries were in an exceptionally plentiful supply and generally had less care for their own lives than most other soldiers.
Ava nodded. “I think that’s an excellent idea.”
“As long as you tell them what’s going on!” Squeaky insisted.
“Oh, all the Pyros and Soldiers love a good suicide mission,” Saxton laughed. “And the others are all gonna see the Guaranteed Hit and want to tempt fate.”
“That won’t get us a decisive victory,” Thor pointed out. “The mercenaries, while in great supply, may not be able to be moved around quickly enough given the ships and Skarn troop movements.”
“It’ll buy us a lot more time, though,” O’Neill said. “All right, we’re doing that on the home front. Saxto-” O’Neill saw that he was already on the phone, talking to Mann Co. “Moving on to the war offense.” He brought up a hologram of the Congeries, specifically the area between the Shaping Mechanisms and the Merodi fleet – a distance a little under a light-day. The Merodi fleet was currently engaging with Skarn’s ships from a distance, trading volleys with each other.
“Reports are coming in that Skarn’s soldiers have started boarding ships in the fleet,” O’Neill said. “They have all the information we have, but unlike the ground forces here it’s highly unpredictable.”
Starbeat nodded. “My devices will be of little assistance.”
“Luckily it seems that the soldiers have a significantly harder time moving around our fleet,” O’Neill said. “Their numbers are smaller, so they make more mistakes. Unfortunately progress is absurdly slow as Skarn seems to be content with keeping us back. Yellow Diamond has begun sending speeder ships forward in an attempt to find the next ‘universe’ of the Congeries, so they can establish a direct dimensional connection between the two locations, but this is slow and dangerous work.” He turned to Starbeat. “What do you have to say about this?”
Starbeat smiled awkwardly. “Another idea you’re really not going to like. Regardless of what the fleet does, those smaller speeders need to be crewed by actual teams of people. We put our strongest, most powerful individuals on those teams and send them into the fray.”
“But so many of them will die!” Squeaky blurted. “We can’t lose that many heroes!”
“Which is why you use the Redshirt principle to protect them,” Starbeat said. “Assign only one or two heroes to a team, and have the rest of the team be what basically amount to ‘nameless soldiers’. Those nameless soldiers will die so the story of the heroes can carry on.”
“You’re right, I don’t like that,” O’Neill said. “But I agree with it a hell of a lot more than suicide cylinders. There are always cannon fodder soldiers and valuable leaders in a war – that’s just how it is. If you say simply surrounding the valuable leaders with cannon fodder makes them more likely to live, I’ll take it.”
“Sending lots of small teams in speeders right toward the enemy blockades is still a horrible idea!” Squeaky said. “The attacks are too focused! We have to spread the fleet out!”
“Each subfleet gets a protomolecule planet,” O’Neill said, looking at the Investigator that nobody else could see right now. “They’ll spread out and push forward with their teams, creating dimensional portals whenever possible to jump ahead. Skarn simply doesn’t have enough forces to come at us from all angles.”
“That’ll increase casualties for the fleet,” Thor said.
“But lessen the duration of the war,” Squeaky added. “And lower the casualties of civilians, like those happening on Earth Vitis right now.”
O’Neill turned to Renee. “Find your best soldiers, agents, and heroes. Everyone you can spare that’re willing to go fight. I’ll provide all the ‘Redshirts’ I can. I’m sure Yellow Diamond can scrounge up plenty within the fleet as well without much difficulty.”
Renee took in a breath. “All right. I’ll do it. This… this is war, after all. It’s not pretty.”
“Never is,” Ava said.
“I disagree!” Saxton Hale blurted, slamming his hands on the table.
Renee slapped him. “Just do your job.”
He had no response to this.
~~~
Pinkie, Nova, Flutterfree, Jotaro, and Vriska sat in Renee’s office, across from her desk. Daniel wasn’t there – he was down managing the rest of the teams, sorting out those who were going to be sent to the war and those who weren’t, aided by Starbeat and an ‘importance’ scanner.
Unlike most meetings the Primary team had in Renee’s office, there weren’t any smiles this time. And for the first time ever, Renee didn’t look happy to see them.
“A-are you going to tell us to go out there?” Nova asked.
Rene furrowed her brow. “No,” she said.
“Oh, thank the Tower,” Nova said.
Vriska folded her arms. “Yeah, I get that, it’s volunteer. I’m going though.”
“No, you’re not,” Renee said. “None of you are.”
Flutterfree blinked. “Renee…”
Renee closed her eyes tight and breathed in. “It’s because you all mean a lot more to Merodi Universalis than you give yourselves credit for, and I can’t just send you somewhere where one or more of you are likely to get killed. You are all very important to a lot of people for how much you’ve done.”
Jotaro looked Renee in the eyes. “You’re not doing this because of that. You don’t want to send any of us to our deaths. Even if we volunteer.”
Renee nodded. “I’m not going to lie. I don’t want to lose any of you. That’s why I’m keeping you here. But Cultural and many of the others agree for the other reason. Merodi Universalis can’t lose you five. Just like it can’t lose Eve, or me.”
“Corona’s going to fight,” Vriska pointed out. “She’s about the same, isn’t she?”
“I couldn’t stop her if I tried,” Renee said, a tear rolling down from her only real eye. “She wants to avenge Olivia.”
“You think you can stop me?” Vriska blurted.
“I think you’ll listen to me because you don’t have a personal vendetta,” Renee said. “Vriska, I don’t want you to go. Please don’t.”
Vriska twitched. “Renee…”
Pinkie lifted up a hoof. “Renee’s making the right decision.”
They all stared at her.
“I can’t see very far,” Pinkie admitted. “But I know we’re supposed to stay here, at least for now. I also know we will have our own role to play. Right now, that’s to stay out of the war. In the future… Something will change, and we’ll have something else to do.”
Renee let out a sigh of relief. “Oh thank Celestia. I was so worried I was making the wrong decision… That I was jeopardizing our safety… That… That…”
Pinkie pulled her into a hug. “It’s okay. We’re all under a lot of stress. But we’re not going to go fighting on your order. We’re staying here until something comes up for us.”
Renee nodded slowly. “…Thank you.”
Pinkie nodded, releasing her. She turned to the rest of her team. “We’re not going on any missions during the war. Nova, go spend time with Stardust.”
Nova nodded, teleporting away instantly.
“Flutterfree, try to relax.”
Flutterfree let out a breath of air, trying to force the stress out of her body. “Okay.”
“Jotaro, Vriska?” Pinkie said, looking at the two of them. “We’re going to start a recruitment drive.”
Vriska blinked. “Wait, what?”
“The best way to do something about the war without fighting – get more people involved.” Pinkie smiled. “We’re gonna get a lot.”
“Yare yare daze…” Jotaro muttered.
~~~
“Hey, Corona!”
Lady Rarity and Corona turned around to see Meenah, Feferi, and Rainbow Dash running up to them. They were on one of the larger ships in the Merodi fleet, the Austraeoh, currently being used to collect incoming soldiers from Merodi Universalis. Numerous portals were open as more and more soldiers flooded in. This ship consisted mostly of agents directly from the Expeditions Division, though given the presence of Meenah and Rainbow there were clearly a few others here as well.
“Oh, are you guys part of our subfleet?”
“Shell no!” Meenah said, pointing to a golden pin on her ghostly shirt. “I’m commander of the twenty-seventh subfleet, and these are my minions.”
“Meenah!” Feferi chided. “Don’t call them minions!”
“That’s kinda what we are, though,” Rainbow pointed out.
“It’s degrading.”
Corona pointed at her own golden pin. “Commander of the third subfleet.”
“Twenty-seven is bigger than three, sea-sponge.”
Corona folded her arms with a smirk. “Yellow Diamond has the first subfleet, and she wouldn’t let herself be at the bottom of anything. So she’s at the top.”
“Who’s in charge of the second?” Rainbow wondered.
Feferi pulled out her phone and looked it up. “Uh… Teal’c, Earth Tau’ri.”
“Ah, I remember him,” Lady Rarity said. “Good soldier. A little on the quiet side.”
Corona glanced at a clock on the wall. “We don’t have time to talk. The fleet splits in less than twenty minutes. I should get to my ship. You should too.”
Meenah waved her hand. “Gah, fine. Let’s move. C’mon Rainbreath.”
“Watch yourselves out there,” Rainbow said, ignoring Meenah’s nickname and giving them a salute.
“You too,” Corona said.
“WONDERBOLTS!” Rainbow called, turning away from them. “MOVE OUT! All our skills are going to be put to the test! Remember EVERY mission you’ve been on, EVERY show you’ve performed. You’ll need all of it! Let’s show these mindscrew albinos that a Wonderbolt won’t give them time to mess with us – we’ll hit them before they know what’s coming!”
“YES MA’AM!”
“She’s got it good,” Corona said, lighting her horn and teleporting to their ship. “Maybe I should give another speech?”
“You already did yours,” Lady Rarity said, leading Corona across the bridge to her chair. They were in a ship of nonstandard design – one of Equis Vitis’ solo projects made with more magic in mind than technology. The bridge was completely white and coursed with soft blue technological veins that seemed to flow like a liquid, though Corona knew it was just distilled magical energy.
She sat down in the captain’s chair, her magic interfacing with the ship. The blue veins suddenly transformed to match her magic’s naturally red shade. The outside of the pearly ship did the same. It was a small vessel shaped like a legless turtle, and had no standard weapons. What it did have were seven pointed spires of magic energy that now flashed, tuned to Corona’s power.
She let out a soft laugh. “Like I needed an upgrade in power… This tiny ship is going to be able to deal out some serious punishment.” She opened her eyes wide. “Have to stay safe though – the fleet needs a commander. Rarity, don’t let me just rush into danger haphazardly.”
Lady Rarity smirked. “I won’t. Don’t worry.”
The two fell silent. There were three other people on the bridge. Corona knew their names – Johenkins, Diorite, and Horuss – but she had only met them today.
She suspected they were probably her Redshirts, should her command vessel ever actually get attacked directly.
She would do everything she could to make sure it didn’t come to that.
Time flew. Corona had expected time to crawl forward, but before she knew it, the fleet was ready to split.
Yellow Diamond didn’t waste any breath. “THIS IS YELLOW DIAMOND TO THE ENTIRE FLEET. SPLIT!”
Each protomolecule planet split off from all the others, including Corona’s own – being significantly smaller than most the others, it would be able to move a little faster. The fleet spread out in all directions – up, down, port, and starboard – but always moving closer to the Shaping Mechanisms just under one light day in the distance.
Corona gripped the sides of her chair – they were going to be here awhile, no matter how well the war went.
Corona brought up a hologram of the fleets – all thirty-nine of them. She noticed that the forces of Skarn were focusing their fire on one fleet – the fifteenth, since it was the closest to where the forces had been originally and held one of the largest Earth Tau’ri ships, deemed a high priority threat. Their numbers were falling quickly.
“Release speeders.” Corona said. “Three.”
Three speeders shot out from a Wraith Hive, traveling at 99% lightspeed, nothing more than red streaks across Corona’s vision. Corona saw other fleets doing the same – even the fifteenth, despite its quickly degrading structure.
“Dimensional boundary crossed!” Diorite reported. “Connection established!”
One of the angels in Corona’s fleet already knew what to do – pouring her divine energy into a dimensional device after receiving the coordinates sent by the speeders. A portal large enough for Corona’s protomolecule planet opened, and the fleet went through it.
They were the first to jump forward a dimension. Slightly closer to the Shaping Mechanism.
Thirty three other fleets were close behind. Others were having difficulty with local terrain – or were the fifteenth and under heavy enemy fire.
While Skarn was focused on the fifteenth, most of the other fleets executed another jump, having passed many of Skarn’s forces.
Corona knew Skarn’s forces could dimensionally travel anywhere within the Congeries – they knew every dimensional coordinate – so the Merodi weren’t safe. But they were making serious headway. If they could keep this up it would only take a day to make it all the way to the center.
“Subfleet fifteen!” Yellow Diamond’s voice boomed over the command channel. “Your numbers have dwindled! Reassign your ships into other fleets!”
Subfleet fifteen began to do as asked – but the retreat maneuver left them open to attack. They had suffered heavy losses, and the protomolecule planet was unable to escape because it was too large and slow. So instead it just rammed the enemy fleets.
They did something to the protomolecule planet that blew it up, but the alien pathogen was nothing if not crafty. The pieces of crust that were blown into the space redirected their trajectories toward Skarn’s fleet, showering them with meteors covered in a very blue biological hazard.
It was at this point Skarn’s ships realized they weren’t being an effective roadblock anymore. If they focused on just one fleet, the others would make way too much headway. They fell back – appearing through their wormhole drive several light minutes in front of them, forming a new formation.
“Why that far back?” Corona wondered.
The answer came quickly: Skarn started shaping the universe again – not something he could easily do near his own ships without endangering them - producing a giant wall of interlocking sawblades ready to mince anything that approached it.
Corona narrowed her eyes, scanning the sawblades. “How many of our speeders think they can fly through that?”
A poll was conducted. Five responded with affirmatives. “Then let them go.”
All five of them shot out toward the spinning sawblades.
Four were blown up by point defenses that had been completely invisible to sensors – blasting everyone in them into oblivion. Loose projectiles hit a few ships within the fleet, but none exploded – the worst-hit had to crash land on the protomolecule planet to let the protomolecule repair their ship. The last remaining speeder made it through a gap in the saw wall – only for a sawblade to come from above and cut the speeder in half. They saw the tail end of an explosion.
Corona set her jaw. That was the wrong call – but she wasn’t about to let a wall defeat her. She began to order a direct bombardment of the construct…
…when dimensional coordinates came back to them from the other side of the wall.
A god-tier Kanaya’s voice came back. “I take it this is why these ships are staffed rather than automated probes?”
Corona grinned, giving the order to portal to the other side of the wall. “Yeah, I think so. How did you survive?”
“Mixture of luck, quick fingers on the ejection button, and Sylph of Space powers. …I am the only survivor.”
“You’ll be awarded, and they will be remembered,” Corona assured her. “You can check out, if you want.”
“Oh, never. There are other speeders that could use me.”
“Then welcome back.”
Corona smirked. Once again, they were the first ones through due to their small protomolecule planet.
Skarn was going to have to up his game if he wanted to stop them from reaching the Shaping Mechanism. She knew he would get creative with his manipulations of physics and his fleets, but right now she was sure he was beginning to sweat from the stress.
She hoped she was the first one into the Shaping Mechanism so she could face him herself.
Better yet, Arthon. Let someone else take Skarn, Arthon was hers.
He was going to pay.
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If I didn't know any better, I'd think this chapter would be Magic: the Gathering focused. Sadly, not that kind of spark.
Are they sure this isn't just a variant of he Mushroom World?
Yeah, still getting Super Mario Galaxy vibes.
Ah. Never mind.
Bold of her to assume beauty cannot also be functional.
There is something equal parts amusing and worrisome in a ship called the Austraeoh. There's a very, very long story there.
Pale precognitive memetic hazards? Did Skarn find the Worm Earth and weaponize the Simurgh?
Metafictional weaponry does open up a massive pile of moral dilemmas. This is going to be a very harsh, very strange war.
Well, that's ominous
Indeed.
Corona's command vessel concerns me. If Skarn can issue Seraphim-like dictates on physical laws, what's stopping him from declaring a null magic zone? Well, I suppose it comes down to how the Shaping Mechanism works and how finely he can focus those dictates. He's not going to sacrifice his greatest advantage.
Especially not when it lets him pull tactics I'd expect from I Wanna Be The Guy.
There's so much that could go wrong here, especially considering the next chapters are Regret and Conquest. No wonder you wanted a group-participation wacky fun time chapter before this. Looking forward to more.
9659977
The ships themselves have reality anchors on board, their INTERNAL physics cannot be changed through the Shaping Mechanism. That said, FTL doesn't work because FTL needs space to function. Reality Anchors can't exactly work at a distance of light hours.
-GM, master of humming.
That's a lot of chapters with a lot of words in them. Won't be be bored for a long while.
As a matter of fact, there is a very, very long story there. That good ol' GM has yet to read. He can't go around naming things without understanding the significance of those names!
Funny I'm saying that without having read the story, myself...
First: An abridged version of this? Should I wait ...
Second: Did nobody notice, or was this just ignored:
You know, the more books you put on the kindle, the heavier it gets ... :-)
Third: OK, lets say I want to take this an arc at a time, instead of the whole thing at a time. Where are the arc breaks? Hussie, for example, told us where act 1 was, where act 2 was, etc. And when it mattered, how act 6 was broken up into it's 7 subparts (as every story has 7 acts), and when act 6 wasn't nearly finished after A6A6, he turned A6A7 into more subparts.
Plus intermissions.
Where are your arc breaks?
9660397
Abridged? Hah, maybe eventually, but the story ain't done yet. Or, well, it is, it's just not published.
Each arc is precisely thirteen chapters. When you see a [BRACKETED WORD] in a chapter title that means it's the beginning of that arc. For instance, 001 is the beginning if [BREATH] and 092 is the beginning of [RAGE]. There are currently seven complete arcs, and the eighth arc is three chapters away from completion. There will be twelve arcs (plus a final chapter that serves as a 'thirteenth arc'). Early arcs are more episodic, but as time goes on the overarching stories become more prevalent.
-GM, master of UPPERCASE.
Thank you! Time to go from 1-3 to 1-13.
wooo austraeoh reference!
9653366
Yes because we are all crazy
ok btw great chapters GM , really great ...it took me like ...4 days to get through chapter 100 where normally i get through these in an hour or so ( I had other stuff to do, ok)but it was worth it. i was thinking: ok you REALLY tease the enire war thing. hopefully something will happen with that...one chapter later: This is Merodi Universalis’ formal notice of declaration of war on the Congeries.
well that happened fast. i like it!
9661647
Yes yes it is.
-GM, master of 100 is canon.
Yeah, Merodi starting to dip it's toes into meta-weaponry. This can get really ugly really fast.
Fellow readers,
I believe I'm not the only one who thinks GMBlackjack has created something special through writing Songs of the Spheres. That's why I'm putting out the call for folks to help GMBlackjack accomplish their vision for chapter 130. To incintivize donations for the completion of SotS 130, I will match all contributions made towards this effort over the next month. Upon the conclusion of 4 July, once GMBlackjack totals up the contributions he's received between 5 June through 4 July, I will make a matching donation up to $1500. Info on GMBlackjack's plan for Chapter 130 and how to donate can be found at his blogpost linked here.
With y'all's help to contribute towards this $1500 goal over the next month, along with my donation match, GMBlackjack should be able to reach the $4000 needed to make Chapter 130 awesome with some margin available. Let's do this!
V/r,
Zebulon
P.S. My social media presence is nonexistent - please help me spread the call for folks willing to contribute towards GMBlackjack making SotS chapter 130 amazing.
9663298
Unfortunately the majority of the people in in my circles are in need of money themselves. I'll give a shout out though, you've gone above and beyond.
Why is the Kanaya here stated to be a Maid of Space? Porrim is a Maid, Kanaya is a Sylph.
9674151
Fixed!
-GM, master of wrenches.
I see you have discovered Super Mario Galaxy.
11817898
..."Next two chapters", he went and said, completely forgetting that Skarn and the Congeries are still a thing to be dealt with.
Well, here we go.
*nerdgasms at combined Merodi fleet*
>Austraeoh
I c wot u did thar.
...Yeah, this is not going to be a fast war. Maybe there will be some time skips, but this is gonna drag on in some way.
Huh...what if, and hear me out here, it was wielded by someone who was at some time ago ♠️ka-negated♠️. Hmmmm?
Or that. Yeah, we could always just to that.
Ohhhhhh, here we go. This is where the absence of plot armor kicks in.
I let out a "HA" here at this one, but the humor was negated by the fact that I wholly expect that there will be a lot of heroes lost still.
I still hope for the best with Olivia but my darker thought are saying that if she is not dead, she'll be encountered by Corona as some twisted barely-alive piece of "art". Where she will then die, possibly as a mercy killing by Corona.
Still loving this.
...Good luck out there, Rainbow.
Oof.