Chapter 13
The view outside the windows was, as always, grand – the setting sun was sinking behind the planet’s curvature as Lieia slowly sunk into her chair. The flotilla was assembled and fully stocked, and whatever repairs Deliverance still needed could be carried out on the go. Her subordinates had their orders to carry out while she was away on a ‘personal tour of the borders’, as it were. As for getting the flotilla to their far-off destination, well… she had to fall asleep first. At least that’d be easy – she’d warded off sleep through liberal abuse of coffee and stimulants for the better part of this week.
…
The sounds of partying reached her ears as she looked around – the Alathari mountain range stood far in the distance to her left. A small collection of vehicles both wheeled and flying were parked near the old house where she’d lived for the best part of twenty years.
“A pleasant memory, is it not?” Lieia turned around, seeing Nell-Tiray walk up to her – the Asahi was lacking her wings and was wearing normal clothes, her eyes no longer glowed, but she retained the same wry smile. “In dark and testing times, we hold onto that which is dear to us. And this will keep our correspondence a secret. I hate to skulk in the shadows like this, but Denaros’s inactivity is… irritating, and my kin still have not decided on what they wish to do. But I have a debt to you, one that I intend to repay.” The Asahi tugged on the hem of her shirt before speaking again. “So, where exactly do you wish me to take you to?”
“Kaylsto’s Abyss. One of the Executioners ended up there somehow and I need a quick way to get there. It sounds far-fetched, but apparently there are space ponies who found it on their planet.” Nell-Tiray blinked for a moment.
“Well, I’ve heard of weirder things. But I appreciate your efforts to recover the mech nonetheless.”
“Well, it’s the least I could do, considering how much you and Alikera have helped me all this time. I do wish she was more subtle about it.”
“So says the woman who causes explosions at every possible moment!” The Asahi in question rounded the corner, holding a slice of cake in her left hand, donning a plain, simple-cut dress. “I can be plenty subtle, thank you very much. I merely prefer a show of strength before anything else, like a true warrior.” Lieia snorted at that, a smile tugging at her lips.
“Riiight. How’s that guy doing, anyway? Y’know, the one whom you mentally traumatized by doing the monster mash with?”
“He pitched the question to me to begin with. It’s not like you can blame me for accepting – I have my needs, after all.” The red-haired Asahi took a bite from the cake. “Wearing this mask of perpetual composure and serenity tends to wear one out, and I’ll gladly take any chance to let my hair down, as it were.” She smiled for a moment before continuing. “So, 'space ponies', hmm?”
“Myeah. Thought I'd finally gone off the deep end once I saw that recording. But, I'd very much like to have that Executioner back, so, y'know. Besides, if I have to sit through another 'Everybody Was Kung Fu Fighting' marathon across fleetwide speakers, I might just go full-on crackers.”
Alikera let out an amused titter at that before sobering up. “Well, I'll do whatever I can to maintain your territories' stability during your absence.” With that, the Asahi resumed stuffing her face with cake, strutting merrily around the corner.
“Sometimes it feels like I'm the only mature person in the Empire, truly.” Nell-Tiray sighed, letting out a tired chuckle. Lieia nodded, walking off towards the garage with the Asahi in tow.
“I can relate to that. It's like a goddamn kindergarten, except everyone has guns and warships.” The tall blonde opened the door, flipping the light switch as she went in – the lightbulbs flickered into life, illuminating the vintage muscle car occupying most of the space – the 2969 Selvar Thundercharge, painted in a dark, luscious red, accented with streaks of white and chromed tidbits. With a sigh, she leant against the side of the vehicle. “Before this uprising we organized, the Rebellion was kept together by the skin of our teeth. I've since long lost count of how many sleepless nights I spent, trying to figure out how to keep us in the game.”
Nell-Tiray looked around the garage, giving Lieia a sympathetic glance – she'd risen from being a simple soldier to the position few could ever hope to achieve. “I cannot exactly predict the future, but I am certain this war will not last much longer. I know you have the resilience to fight to the end – your actions most definitely are a testament to your willpower. You've only got to keep doing this just a little longer.” The Asahi's eyes glanced back out the door – a gesture Lieia noticed.
“I'll be fine. Run along, there might still be some cake left, if Alikera hasn't scarfed all of it down.”
“And here I thought I was being subtle.”
“Pardon me for saying so, Nell-Tiray, but you're not much of a liar.”
“True. I've never taken much joy at lying. But what I tell now is the utter truth. This bloodshed and division are going to come to an end soon.” The Asahi smiled warmly and stepped out of the garage, leaving the woman alone with her thoughts. Humming softly, Lieia looked down at her arms, sans the myriad scars that she'd accumulated.
Just a little longer...
“I resent what you said – about me possessing some sort of a singularity in my stomach. You humans have some interesting cuisine, that's all.” Alikera interjected, from the roof of the Thundercharge. “She's got her head on right, however. I can feel it, too – this war's not going to keep going on for much longer.” Lieia stared at the red-haired alien flatly, before giving a lopsided smile.
“I'll take your word for it.” Alikera grinned cheekily down at her.
“You do that, o' mighty Queen. Also, tell Celestia I said hi.”
“Yeah, sure. Wait, wh-”
…
Lieia yawned widely as she stretched out, her limbs popping from the movement – she felt better than she'd felt in a long while. Blinking sleepily, she stood up, turning to look outside the window – a collection of scout vessels were crowding around an Ortalian Voidhammer in the distance.
“Well, shit on a shingle. That was quick.” She muttered out to herself, mentally preparing herself for the day.
No rest for the weary, wicked, and the clinically insane, indeed.
Celestia sighed wearily as she trudged up the grand staircase leading to her personal quarters – she'd spent the better part of three hours explaining the impending arrival of the Rebel forces. It would be ill-advised to simply think that the situation would fix itself. Her doubts bugged her constantly, haunting her with images of Equestria on fire as Rebels tore their kingdom apart. Far as she was concerned, the only thing worse than a diplomatic incident with the Rebels would be if the Rebel Queen showed up wearing a maid's suit, calling Celestia 'mistress' in a submissive manner.
Oh, and now she really wished she could unthink that particular sentence. Great. Grumbling to herself, she cursed whatever higher powers had condemned her so and resumed walking.
The exquisitively-carved doors closed shut with a quiet click as Celestia practically threw herself at her bed, landing in it with a thump.
MECK
Her head darting upright a la alerted meerkat, Celestia bounced on the bed for a moment.
Meck~
Bounce.
MECK
The alicorn's horn lit up, and she dragged out a squeaky toy from beneath her mattress. Sighing, she tossed it aside – meck – and flopped back down on the bed, falling asleep in record time.
…
“AAAAAAH! WAKE UP, MISTREEEEESSS! WAKE UP AND HAVE BREAKFAAAAST! YOU NO GO TO WORK WITHOUT TEA, MISTREEEEESSS!”
...okay, in hindsight, that hypothetical Rebel Queen in a maid's get-up didn't sound so bad after all.
It had been six days since Executioner had received the message. Six tense days as Equestria waited with a bated breath for the aliens to arrive. Tensions were running high, and not-entirely baseless rumors spread around, concerning the Rebel soldiers – a good percentage of them were former pirates, convicts, mercenaries and criminals, lured in by the Rebel Queen's promises of full pardons once the war was over, and her regime could be described as an iron fist wearing a velvet glove, considering she had to enact some rather draconian measures to maintain order among her worlds. All of this and more had been written on scrolls and mailed all across Equestria to prepare the population for the Rebels' inevitable arrival.
It was very impatient at this point. The mainframe repairs were almost finished, with odds and ends left to catch up to. The only problem was that there were a lot of odds and ends to patch up – as the repairs progressed, improvements could be made, which required the self-improving software to make adjustments as required. With a bit of luck, the mainframe now could take a bit more punishment in the future before throwing in the proverbial towel.
It was jolted from its musings as a burst of data flooded its senses and it 'gasped', refusing to believe its sensors – the repairs had reached the point where it could retake control of its chassis! Databanks separated from the mainframe winked into life, bringing a wealth of information to it.
Khanartho. Its... His name was Khanartho.
With a sonorous blare, the monumental machine began to stride towards Ponyville.
Twilight grumbled to herself irately as she dropped the dataslate, prompting Spike to look up – the lavender unicorn was muttering something to the effect of 'Flappy Bird is the spawn of Discord.' A minute later, as she returned to her study with a cup of freshly-made tea, she heard somepony knock on the door. Spike could be heard as he went to answer the visitor, muttering something she completely failed to understand – the mysterious visitor was allowed inside and moments later, she heard a voice that made her heard skip a beat.
“We need to talk, Twilight Sparkle.” Though lacking its normal booming deadpan timbre, she recognized the Executioner's tone instantly.
Thus, she did what every other gone-batty librarian would do in a similar situation.
She whirled around, tossing the cup of scalding-hot tea into the alien's face.
“Am I to assume that throwing beverages into others' faces is a custom of your people that I do not know of?”
“Nerr nerr nerr nerr NERRR MNEH MNEH MNEH MNEH~” That was all the unicorn had cerebral capability for before her stack overflowed, fell down and went boom.
Khanartho looked at the unconscious pony before turning his attention to Spike. “How often does she do that, if you don't mind me asking?”
The drake stared at Twilight for a moment. “Far more frequently than I'm comfortable admitting to, dude.”
“I suppose we can wait until she regains consciousness, 'dude.'” The Xalathii let out a low chuckle. “If you wanted to, I could tell you an abridged history of my kind.” The prospect seemed to cheer the adolescent dragon up.
“That'd be pretty awesome!” Spike grinned, leading the bipedal construct over to the coach, both of them sitting down, the dragon's face alight with anticipation as Khanartho began to speak.
“Our history stretches almost twenty-four thousand years into past, when the first Xalathii gained their sentience. We were simple, crude creations back then, made by hands unknown. The world we inhabited was hostile to organic life, a cracked and barren lump of rock cast adrift in the middle of a nebula in its infancy – a clear indication that the star our homeworld orbited had died, erupting into a supernova, killing anything living in its way.”
Khanartho hummed for a moment as he let the words sink into Spike's mind. “We had no recollection of anything before emerging from numerous underground bunkers, our crude chassis struggling to deal with heavy radiation that permeated the planet. A prolonged stay there was out of question. We salvaged what we could, and left our dead homeworld behind, casting ourselves into the interstellar void aboard primitive rocket-powered vessels. Fuel and ore were our only needs as we travelled. Almost two millennia after our departure, we came across an Imperial patrol. The Asahi welcomed us among their people, and gave us permission to settle in their territories. There, we grew and evolved – peace and prosperity was what we experienced as we did our part to strengthen the Empire, helping with developing new technologies. It was everything our kind could ask for."
“But what about your homeworld? Didn't you miss it, despite everything?”
“An astute observation. We did long for it, and eventually returned with a fleet. Now, we were able to trod upon the dead planet's surface without fear of malfunction from radiation, and recovered what we had missed before our exodus. What we deciphered only brought more questions to us.”
“Really?”
“Indeed. The newly-acquired data spawned new questions on our origins – it was no longer clear whether we were simply creations of our predecessors, or simply a means for them to avoid the supernova. That topic is one of the few that the Xalathii cannot reach a consensus upon.” Spike nodded slowly at that, seeming to be deep in thought.
“So, uh, how do you make more of you? Do you just use an assembly line?” The sentence made the alien chuckle for a couple of moments.
“Not quite. It always takes two Xalathii to create another one – a union of their personal code takes place, which is also a sign of complete trust as data is shared and combined, the compilation of these random code snippets eventually gaining a mind of its own. Lo and behold, a new Xalathii has arrived in this world.”
“So, it's kind of like a couple and everything that a romantic relationship entails?”
“Hmm. Yes, that is an adequate analogy. You have a keen mind, young one.”
“Yeah, well, if you're living with Twilight, you can't help but learn some things.”
“Like throwing tea in others' faces?”
“It's just wet leaf water. I prefer coffee myself.”
At that, the unconscious unicorn mumbled out something to the effect of 'heresy.'
“...we should get her to somewhere more comfortable.” Spike piped up.
“Agreed.”
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Cake! An omni present addiction of the higher beings!
BTW. It is Heresy. Glorious Tea Master Race >>>>>> Dirty Water Coffee Peasantry.
4640830 *issues a vendetta*
I like both. Coffee is nice on its own and having it black with sugar is just nice while tea is really nice after a big meal.
Edit: Suffer from the niceness of this really nice comment!
4640903 how even
wat
but
._.
4640903
4640917
Well me and my mom like both....mixed. The taste is rather particular. It taste rather coffee-teaish.
Not bad though.
4640917
While I will apologise for using nice too many times in one sentence, I still don't see what's wrong with liking both! If ponies can live in harmony why not coffee and tea!
4641206
4641783
*head go asplode*
4642609
O_O
*hands a box of tissues over*
Got a lil something over your everywhere, you may need this.
4643386 *respawns* Neat.
Next chapter, first contact happens. Or would that be second contact, considering Executioner already is on Equestria?
4643539
Third if you count that little demon Luna took in.
4640830
Down with both filthy peasant drinks. I need no coffee to wake myself up in the morning! Tea is just leaf water that i cannot stand! Milk is king! Either that, or not-tea-flavored water.
4644545 Forget those filthy drinks! Ten cans of Coca-Cola, that acidic value will wake you up and strengthen your throat and stomach, unlike those *shudder* Natural drinks.
4643833
>little demon
6q4u.files.wordpress.com/2013/08/huehuehue-goose.gif