NationStates Jolt Archive

You know you have a glutton of time on your hands, (ninety plus years of vitural peace does this..) when you can take your family on, essentially, an RV trip through the stars.

No better else place to do it than through the Milky Way Core Galaxy, where a certain wildness still exists among these former stars they once called home.

"Are we there yet?" (+1)

The viewports of once familiar stars plying across the Treeship's said visual optical, give continued pause whereever they stop for such moments.

"Are we there yet?" (+2)

To share such moments with family, taken away from responsibilites and workloads, lessening the burdens and weariness of boredoms of past years, with the knowledge meeting their eyes.

"Are we there 'yet'?" (+3 daughters)

Tsunami yells back from the piloting port, once serene looking at the helm of Sele`nta, her Key unit hovering between her slender hands. "I'll TURN this bucket around seven hundred million light-years, I swear!"

Isarra, Diana and Sirrana all just giggle their minior triumph of tweasing. Aleaic meanwhile leans up from further forward on the grassy deck of the Treeship bridge, wringing his left ear. "Don't think Earth can still hear you from this far out love."

Tsui just eye daggers Al, as Jennifer and Arashi come in from a lower deck teleporter, holding some plain Terran style fashions, looking reather plain comparied to their worm royal garments and robes. "I still say the Tokyo summer fashion will do, we dont need to stand out." Lady Arashi quips for the hundredth time this trip.

"I like Parisian, so there." Jennifer counters, having a minor spat again over fashion sense, for the garb the family will wear once they reach earth, and ply as normal tourists for a few days.

Meanwhile Tsunami and Sirrana trade playful raspberries as Sirrana heads over to plop down next to Aleaic, the King playing lazy bum. "Can I ask why Earth all the time lately? We could just go through the Gate between Jurai`alheim and Tokyo Palace you know.

*muttered* And I could still be doing fleet work better considerate."

Aleaic just plops back down on his back. "The Fleet will still be there when we get back. All my toys will be there as well. Besides, your mother likes to shop there for 'cool garb', for some reason, so I wilt to their will."

Arashi suddenly looms over Al's head, shadowed over from a halo projector unit behind her head, giving a nice, if ominous haolic effect to Al's view. "And someone likes to play with cattle, dirty boy. I could live with another Risa trip instead, you know." ..she finishes by leaning down strikingly at Aleaic.

Aleaic just nods. "Uhuh, yup. One on me then." ..he puts in a hardly convinced tone, one Arashi could just stomp him all over with there and then. Sirrana take cue and is about to scoot away a bit, when Tsunami calls. "Okay okay kids, were here."

For Fold travel, taking most.... all, of the suspense of long and laborious travel, hopping from one place to another is simult despite the attempt to make it sound they were taking a long time to traverse great distances. It makes what Tsui quips another fanciful family quip, if nothing else.

A Fold pop into normal space around a random M-class system world, announces their arrival to anyone that cares. "One more Fold to go, time for pictures."

Aleaic instead gets up and pecks Arashi on the cheek. "And time for me to assure Seto we are safe and well." ..leaving Arashi to blush a bit in his wake.

---

*October 28, 3389 - Treeship Sele`nta, Sagitarus Arm, Milky Way Core Galaxy*

With only a couple of weeks left before the 200th Anniversary of the Foundation of the entity know known as the Ascendancy Sphere and Confederacy Alliance, the Core Royal Family takes a last jaunt on their own before the end, nearly all of the Sphere suspects, of a long ninety-five year era of peace of unprecidented prosperity.

This moment of eery calm has an great underlying along the edges, just barely hidden of several immense events, about to finally transpire.

One, the unknown state of the Eternal Treaty, the bulkwark of the Eternal War, preventing it spilling back into the Alpha Universe as a whole. Another, the status of the Dark Eternals, and worse, the Dark Ascendancy. No word has been heard of much from in all this time.

More, the Ascendancy is ready to expand once again. Peace has been underlaid with a massed number of diplomatic, all kept hushed for the most part, from the rest of the cosmos, as well as silent placement of assets to assume the expansion of the Guardianship, at the proper time.

Finally, the far more open and emphasised 200th Celebration, with the enactment of the Grand Startica, a celebration that will deliberately overemphasise the excesses the Sphere commands, in a gluttony of happiness and pride of accomplisments. This has been deliberately plyed upon, for more than one reason, as much as the obvious too.

But at the moment, a quiet trip precursors all of this, as the Family heads to Earth to enjoy a last moment of true peace, as well as to ensure the next step in the evolution of the Motherworld finally begins. Aleiac takes the moment of personal supervision of this seriously, as much as he does the chance to have the family all together, alone, for once.

His daughters command the Exploration assets, 12th Fleet Home Guard, and the respect of the Confederacy Alliance enwhole, Isarra, Diana and Sirrana respectively, and respected all the same. His wives take these moments of away time seriously too, though the daughters seem a tic more focused on work presently, hence why Aleaic all but dragged his family away like this.

Hardly resentment, more a lack of the wanting of their pride in the work they do, replaced with an enforced vacation or sorts. Something the kinseths still need reminding of, that work is not all there is to the multi-verse.

As they orbit a supposedly plain M-class world, the family simply acts like tourists, dispite anything that could stand in their way.

All the while being hawked over by Lady Seto, from said titanic distance, hence when Aleiac comes back from another update report on the safety of the Family enroute, holding his head.

Jennifer sees and giggles. "Still has hard arsed as ever."

Aleaic nods. "If there was a way to kill a god, Seto would do it, if we get harmed. My head for sure from her glare alone."

The rest of the family laughs for a bit at his expense. =^^=

--

((OC - Decided on a light-hearted start to my return. Anyone is welcome, and no actual limits really, though realize the consequences of such. essentially tis time to have fun, with my renewed return. =^^= ))

((OC- Thought of a nice plot twist.... ))

---

"What is 'that'?"

Aleaic turn around from a cuddle moment with Jennifer to look back at Tsunami, a holoscreen hovering in front of her spot at the pilot port, with a strange blip echo appearing and vanishing on and off in an erractic pattern. Aleaic and his female enterouge approach on instinct, as Tsui points out. "Something is at the planetoid belt in this system, something big."

"1.2 million kilometers from here." Diana adds. "Must be big, but doesnt show any power readings.

How are we picking it up?"

"There's extra-dimensional energies seeping out. Like it was a ghost or something."

Arashi asks... "A ghost ship?

Aleaic chuckles despite. "Appropriate for the current date." ..and gets a nudge in the shoulder for it from Jennifer. "Might as well take a look."

Isarra smacks her melon, ala fatherly like fashion. "Dad, don't you ever watch those dumb horror films where a ghost ship os haunted with blood sucking vampires and all that, when the hapless curious board it?"

Aleaic looks back at his first daughter. "Told you those things are pointless. Besides, what could go wrong."

"Everything... ...all six ladies chide in simult, about making Al cringe like a petulant child.

Tsunami then blinks. "Something is sending a weak signal from it. See that?" ..startling everyone. A weak radio pulse is moving out in a small bubble the Treeship's sensors can visualy track.

Aleaic speaks in a more serious tone. "Okay, something is there, or something knows we see it.

Plot a course so we can be sure there isnt any stranded."

Isarra turns around and skitters away. "I have a bad feeling...." ..but is preempted by Tsunami. "Ploting a sublight course, eta fifteen minutes."

Aleaic at that moment has a vision of the worst of his family, and wonders if Isarra is right. At the very least if Seto finds out..............

---

*A dark planetoid field....

....a grave, with eyes that still see.

....and has been waiting for so long......................................*

((OC- :headbang: ))

---

Traveling at high sublight tends to make a large enough signal to warrant attention, since the echoing signal would be hard to detect from the planetoid field.

Especially when it happens to be a directed one. Something... indeed....

Course a ship that could Fold away on an instant of thought isnt too worried about being attacked anyway, so the focus isnt stealth. Course the Gaians are here to see if anyone remembers them. Ninety plus years is a long time away. Something the Sphere tried very hard to keep secreted away with.

Wounds need time to heal. All wounds.

The last ones are what familiarity breeds and heals, the wounds of loss.

It was about to become a theme as the Treeship approaches the planetoid field.

One of Draconic Order's larger shipyards was crippled by a combination pirate attack and asteroid collision. Hidden within the asteroid belt, it was only detected due to a weak distress call and fluctuating power supply. It protruded out of one of the larger asteroids, integrated with the core mineral to give it more structure. The base flickered in and out of visual and electronic detection as the cloaking shield was malfunctioning. All around the station was wreckage, a graveyard of different ship types that were the remnants of a large space battle. There was no indication on how long it would be until the DO sent ships to investigate.

((Hi Ascendancy... We meet again.))

(( OC - :fluffle: sweet.. =^^= ))

---

Something about female pilots mkae the journey safer. Well actually anyone with half a mind would take the next few hundred kilometers very carefuly, since traversing spinning and gravity evershifting planetoids tend to err to caution.

Diana, despite her fleet military rank, is the most edgy, as Tsunami gingerly pilots the living vessel through the morass of space rubble for the next few minutes, the vessel deflectors handling even decent sized chuncks.

Despite the chaos, the family can tell the field has been artificially worked over, as the sight of many scarred planetoids due to mining is evident, and even some that are grouped together more than they should. (From masters of planetoid xeroscaping, Gaians can easily tell such things.)

"Someone 'is' here... or used to.... be?" Sirrana quips, looking about the eery sight of orbiting grays and browns. the sound of hissing from space dust and small planetoids evaporationg off the deflectors gives a slight humm to the background, just above the vessel drive engines.

Aleaic adds... "Worse, something happened here.

Raise the shields." Tsunami does so at whim, and Aleaic heads over to the tactical bridge section, and brings up the high resolution scanners, as well as the communications arrays. Diana does the same over at the weapons consoles.

After a bit of detailed scanning and expert consideration, Aleaic informs. "There's been a battle here. Ion spectrum is frazzled the hell here. Heading 207.88 is a high concentration." Tsui keeps on top of things, and the reward is soon not quite worth the sight.

Rounding a large chunk of rock, the treeship suddenly comes upon the source of the signal, and the sight still takes even these war hardened types back a good deal.

"By the Goddess." Jennifer whispers.

Approaching from a nadir approach, the treeship takes it's time to make inital surveys via scan, as well as ensure no one else is around. At least as much as the background radiation and ion interference allows.

"Try to access any kind of signal node off that signal here, see if we can learn who's this all is." Arashi takes cue and takes up a spot at the comm console next to Al and begins pinging for a datalink.

"Cross your fingers." Arashi quips.

The distress signal came in weakly, filled with static, and in a language not heard to the Ascendancy since the war with the dark ones.

<Nomeno... ui Talos Shipyards calling Fleet... Meage... Yth re onureth... lowd... ini rebel forces... Fris...>

The family hears this after Arashi notes it. After a few moments of digesting. "Hope they dont mean us." Diana comments. Aleaic then hears from Arashi. "Something's wrong with trying to connect to any data ports, might be as much a language barrier as it is techinical problems."

Aleaic nods. "Kay, get Aeo Tree with us onboard to start a language translation matirx as fast as it can, and find a network node to connect with it. And try to get a signal out to fleet command, in case we need backup."

He looks at Tsui. "Plot an emergency Fold jump, just in case this goes sour. I really dont want Seto on my case here." ..he half jokes.

He then openly calls out, activating a comm signal openly. "Calling anyone within range of this signal, this is a Gaian treeship vessel, calling for assistance to an emergency situation. Anyone acknowledging this signal, please respond."

...and the wait.....................

The translation comes in slowly as the language was encountered before, buried in the historical archives, but there is a bunch of static scrambling between the data stream.

<This... is Talos Shipyards calling Fleet... Order... We are under... attack... by rebel forces... Send...>

Just as the signal repeated, half a dozen energy signals sparked on the radar. The treeship was caught in a trap. Pirate ships hiding in the graveyard flared as they moved out of their hiding place.

"One of those days." Sirrana comments. Aleaic actually only chiuckles as Diana points out. Six vessels, probably privateer in origin.

"Doubt they're here to trade Karlgeele nut clusters." Arashi blandly comments. Aleaic then adds.. "They better kill us then, since Seto will me, if we live."

Aleaic then silently commands his tree to deploy the Angelhawk Wings, on defensive instinct, the penta-tent set of five gleaming wings of white featherly energy and majectic flow stetch from unseen subspace outport ports, in concert with the standard Dimensional Shield array.

Aleaic then comments. "If they get past these, we deserve to die." ..and he didnt just mean just his family, his entire civilization was part of the comment. "Pilot for the debri field, on my command."

The next move was the pirate's. To their own good or ill, rather than the Gaians.

((Just so I am clear... since my knowledge of your technology is somewhat lax. What exactly is an Angelhawk Wing?))

((OC- If you've seen Tenchi Muyo, you get the idea, since they are like the Juraian versions of the wing shields, except these are infused with angelic energies and far more durable.

They in essense more in graphic, the ones seen in Tenchi GXP, espeicially later in the series seen on Seto's Treeship and also like the ones on the Jinv mecha Seina piloted. All lacy and gorgeous to look at, as much as they are near indestructible to normal forms of weaponry.

I did a couple of threads about the whole Hikari Tree Network and all it's numerous powers, and the Angelhawk is merely a surface hint of the iceburg.))

((I haven't seen those episodes... But thanks for the info.))

Explosions peppered the angelic shields as missiles and lasers tore through the ether and slammed into the energy fields. A few moments later there were strong build ups in their forward weapons array before small particle beams lanced outward at the treeship.

((OC- Tsk tch tsk... ))

---

Standard to form, the Wings shuddered as they absorbed the kenetic energies leashed, spreading the splash damage of the initial volleys through the primary shield array, absorbing the energy into the charging capacitors within the vessel secondary weapons array.

Everyone held on as the first volley hit. Tsunami didnt wait to see what the beam volley would bring and hit the dampers and thrusters via the Tree Link in simult and corkscrwed from a standstill, down 90 degrees and then shot off to the port, and made a beeline for the battle wreckage.

"They arent very neighboorly." Jennifer shouted out.

"Charging the Ionic array." Diana calls out, Aleaic need not bother with orders now, everyone was on the ball. However he looks over at Tsunami. she quips back. "Nice vacation you planned dear."

He just raspberries her back, then looks to the tactical holo-globes now popped up all over the consoles.

It seemed the pirates had thought of that stategy, or perhaps they were meant for the DO salvage ships, but they seeded mines, and they began exploding around the treeship as it headed into the graveyard. The pirates followed on their tail, back far enough to not be caught in the hellfire.

The shields were impeccable, as much as dimensional technology could make it. Despite, the shields were bombarded enough to allow some damage through, and the whitesteel, living wood hull were splintered and scortched, as Tsunami worked hard to move the vessel away from the clever trap.

"Not having fun on this RIDE!!!" Isarra screeches out, as they manage to clear the minefield just enough before damage became problematic. However they were leaking plasma, and the self-healing systems would need a minute, and the shields were being taxed to prevent effiicent energy transference for the healing functions.

Aleaic realized they were in a pickle in a roast sandwhich. And as much as Aleaic loved sourdough pickel rubens, he didnt care for 'this' taste.

"FULL DEAD STOP AND POSSUM IT!!!"

Tsunami reactively gave an incredulous look, but over two hundred years of trust took over a moment later, as she orders the Tree to comply, despite IT giving objection. The Trees were smarter than their quasi-mortal Partners, and knew better about taking risks.

Which is EXACTLY why the Trees were in such a Partnership in the first place. Sele`nta suddenly looks like it drops to a dead stop, even blowing a plasma conduit to complete the effect.

Energy signals look like the Treeship is having a power faliure.

Aleaic uses that to divert the energy feed to the weapon array, underneath the erractic eenrgy readings being falsely sent out, all this with no words or thoughts exchanged.

Aleaic programs with exacting detail the firing pattern he wants, he also 'accidentally' hits the comms open and blurts in a decent tone, into open space. "Someone must be lucky today to get the Ascendancy Royal Family as hostigaes. Really lucky, lotta gold in it for them...."

The others held their chuckles in strictly.

---

*White Diamond Homeworld, 700 million light-years away.

Palace Tree War Room.*

Lords Utsutsumi and Azusa kept a 'healthy' distance back from the central holopod projector, as Lady Yurika and Lady Seto looked on, the latter with a none very much bemused look on her facade.

"I'm gonna murder that kid." ...she comments with a vicious sneer visible.

Even the Trees relaying the data from the Sele`nta are cringing within the Great Link.

The 'wolf pack' closed in on their 'prey' spinning through the debris. They were probably chuckling with victory as they made their way out of the graveyard, their hulls dripping with burn marks and space dust.

Their scanners went haywire as a much larger ship tore itself out of subspace right between them and the Ascendancy treeship. The vessel powered to full quickly after moving out of the jump tunnel, lights bristling along the hull. Before the privateers could veer away, the lead corvette was cut in half by a beam of coherent plasma, splintering to join the debris around it. A wave of strikecraft followed the beam and went after the stragglers, as the void was lit up with plumes of laser blasts.

The DO had arrived.

((DO specs. (http://forums.jolt.co.uk/showthread.php?p=8381392#post8381392) The new ship is a Verthica, the 'wolf pack' is made up of corvettes.))

The family chuckled as providence came, in the form of a good sized standard starship with escort support. The pirates were quite visibly in dissarray. Aleaic chuckled.

"So much for a flashy counterattack."

Just then a beep over comms is heard, and Arashi noted to her chagrin.

"Our mutual mother is on the phone." Aleaic gulps. "Can we get those pirates to come back and finish us off then, fast?"

Just then however, one of the fleeing pirate ships, seperate from the others, suddenly acts severely erractic in one sudden moment, due to an outside influence beyond anyone elses scape of vision or senses. Aleaic senses this, alien, force take form in his mind as an angry child, all but slamming against the mind of the pirate ship crew that was fleeing.

"What the light?" Aleiac whispers suddenly, and look out away from the battle quite deliberately.

((OC- I got something else planned, if you dont mind. =^^= ))

((Go ahead, a twist would be fun... I'll be leaving for a while.))

((OC- Ahh, blanktasticomatic... now I have to another thread, I dont wana leave here yet. Been ages since I felt this way about rping. =^^= ))

((OC- Ahh, blanktasticomatic... now I have to another thread, I dont wana leave here yet. Been ages since I felt this way about rping. =^^= ))

((Why haven't you put up your twist?))

((OC- you're supposed to respond first. I need to work things from such things. I know better about overempowing things too far, and i need to keep patience for others. =^^= ))

((Fine...))

There was chaotic warping of the corsairs' minds. They began seeing things, seeing their fears, hearing their friends turn on each other. The ship became a coffin as the crew began slaughtering each other; the walls became bathed in blood and intestine. The hull of the pirate vessel shuddered and seemed to physically dull and warp. Sections depressed and atmosphere was leaked as spikes jutted from the pieces.

The other pirate ships tried to retreat from the weird happenings, thinking that maybe the capital ship had done something. They broke like a school of minnows running from a shark.

((OC- See, wasnt hard. =^^= ))

----

It had to flush it's anger, after seeing what was going on around it and them. So many dying from those of greed, so many that felt the same from that day when they to felt the same wrath of sin upon them.

It was a backlash they enacted upon, and she couldn't take it happening to one(s) that could feel too smiliar, even if there was no link between any of them. They took their wrath blindly despite the arrival of the Draconic vessels, a just measure upon pirate that never showed them any mercy either.

She was still only a child in her ether dream, she felt the anger through others she couldn't find, and the drifting hulk that was the coffin. The dull thuds of dead space alitter made the cold eternity beyond mere extistence in a void.

She felt with those she couldnt find, though know she knew where they were, tourtured in the knowledge. Sad fates never are whole, and anger festers upon those they can make vengance upon, desptie the violations it causes.

The wracked pirate vessel, was all the wrath could do, the spirit was too weak to enforce more. But it also knew it was sad to do this, there would be those that would fear from it, and that could drive away those she knew possibly could help.

As soon as they entered the system, after the pirated attacked this gathering of other lesser 'evolved' beings, to push a term needed, she knew someone had arrived she could commune with, and possibly, aleviate this cold existence.

Despite all this, echoes were not enough to gather attention in this. Something more would be needed.

Almost a drastic one....

----

"We only took damage to the superstructure, The plasma conduit was simply discharged, not damaged. Repairs are underway."

Aleaic nodded to Tsunami, as the family took a moment to recover their senses. Isarra commented. "Guess the quiet times are over, if this is an indication of things to pass."

Tsunami nodded. "Nothing remains static, simple as fact."

Diana meanwhile kept an eye on the end of the fight, while Aleaic kept an eye on something else entirely. Sirrana meanwhike began to try and contact their apparent saviors (and hopefully not cause another problem...)

The translator picked up the same dialect as those used on the pirate ships, but the markings were different.

<Unidentified vessel, you are in violation of Draconic Order space. You are cleared for docking. You will be escorted in for questioning. If you try to resist, you will be fired upon.>

As the transmission replayed a second time, the returning strikecraft formed up around the treeship.

The infected pirate corvette was dead in space. Sparks, fires, and carnage filled the space inside. No one remained alive. Bodies were fused to the walls, floor, and ceiling where the warping took place.

Aleaic half frowned upon hearing this. "Peachy."

"I wanted to stay and work on fleet efficiency, but nope, we had to do this." Diana complained. Aleaic only shrugged. "The same could happened on Terra, mugging and all that.

Just make sure we are not seperated at any time."

Arashi chimed.. "Not even by death will that be so."

The Treeship was ordered one last order, just in case, and then Aleaic replied over open comm. "The Ascendancy Royal Family will agree to be your guests for the short term."

They approached where ordered and prepared to disembark.

They were meeted in the hanger by a small contingent of soldiers, who didn't do more than become the walls of a corridor for an officer to walk down the middle of. He wore a pressed grey uniform without a hat and few adornments. They all looked like a cross between a lizard and a human, taking on the story book appearance of dragons. The dragonoid commander walked up to the disembarking 'guests' and ran his eye across them. His right eye had an patch of grey material over it, probably covering some form of war disfigurement. He spoke clearly with a darkened tounge.

"A royal family all alone in a graveyard... On a tiny vessel without weapons."

He gave a slight chuckle.

"What kind of civilization gives that little regard to their ruling body?"

As the family met their guests, the dragonoid was met with a curious mix of... well.. curiousity and touristy interest. Diana even put in a pointed finger with a... "Cooooooooooool....."

Aleaic meanwhile looked over their impressive host and only smirked, refraining from a hundred thousand reasons and examples of why this situation turned out like it did. Of course if they wanted to be all blustery like this, it would be poor form of the actual truth.

Instead Aleaic just offered. "Our thanks for a timely arrival. Rescue I doubt was the perogrative for your arrival, nor was invasion on our part here. Were simply low key tourists that stumbled upon the scenery here despite.

So we know, the pirates were not of United Mankind type or such trash were they?" ..this as his wives and daughters kept a close clister to each other in a half circle behind their husband/father.

The creature seemed to ignore the interests of the young woman. He watched Aleaic as he gave his account.

"Indeed... Those pirates were remnants of a fallen time."

As he finished his trip down memory lane another dragonoid ran in and whispered something to the commander, his head turned slightly to the side to hear what the messenger had to say. His head swiveled forward again as he looked at the others of the family group once more before he turned around and shouted a command to his guards. They dispersed and left the hangar. Afterwards he turned back to face the family, a small data pad in his hand.

"Ah... The royal family of the Gaian Ascendancy. Yes, it has been some time since our people stood side by side."

He handed the data pad back to the messenger.

"You are free to go. I apologize for the detainment."

Aleaic nodded.. "Yes, well it's been some time since we stood by the side of anyone in this dimension at all, save for specific areas of our focus. We took our chance of peace near religiously, especially since were hardly religious at all, rather spiritually replete.

We are appologetic for the losses your people have suffered here. If we may offer any assistance in any recovery operations, do please ask."

Just as Al finishes this though, 'something' causes a skip with everything, There seems to be a stand still moment, then everything resumes normally. Aleaic also resumes the bow he was goiong to take anyway.

To the draconic commander, it was like looking at a film reel suddenly stop for a split second, then jump forward normally again.

----

So much just occured in that split second to the family, that not even 'they' realize what occured.

She no longer feels the cold ice of lonely agony, but the first ray of hope instead in what probably 'is' eons......

"Are you all right?"

The draconian commander asked as he watched the skip.

Aleaic looks up from his bow. "Um... fantastic actually... *cockeyed look* ...why?"

Meanwhile Tsunami is looking around a bit confused like all of a sudden. "Wasn't this that cafe..... no were bac.... what the?"

Isarra looks over from Tsui's left. "You okay mother?"

Some wierd realization of 'something' is coming over the family there and then. Some wierd... violated.... feeling.."

The commander turned around again and barked another command. The group of guards from earlier appeared through the doorways into the hanger. They were escorting a smaller group of medical uniformed draconians. They surrounded the family and began forcing them onto stretchers.

"Quarantine them. They might have brought a disease onto this ship."

She sensed this, having made a tenuous meld of sorts, or rather each of them did, despite each other.

Her mind started focusing on the draconic ones she was uncomfortable with also...

---

The draconic attempt, while in their minds reasonable, wasn't so in the Excellency's own. Nothing irrates him more than seeing his family being imposed upon so brashly.

As it's equal for all seven of them present, and each of them with the powers not meant for normal mortals. (Living past two hundred years is a miracle alone, much more looking like ageless types..) All of said such gives a reason why the Gaians are normally reserved about doing what happens next.

Being showy is not their style. Protecting who they love instead IS.

Aleaic sees what is starting to occur and at first tries to use only his voice above the obvious objectioning shouts. Almost comical actually. Jennifer's voice above the vocal din with.. "DON'T YOU GET PUSHY MISTER.. ER.. MISS.. er.. WHATEVER... ??... HEY! DON'T TOUCH ME THERE!!!!"

...above which Aleaic thunders.. "~ LEAVE MY FAMILY ALONE!! ~"

Whether it's listened too or not, determines the next response, a far more visual one...

---

...if she doesn't act first...

One of the draconian guards from earlier, while trying to restrain one of the female Gaians, grasped his head and crumpled to the ground. The dragonoids around him spread out as the creature scraped at his scales, fighting an invisible force within his head. The commander turned in each direction, ordering the hanger quarantined.

"It has begun to spread. Seal the hanger! Let no one leave."

The guards stopped their attempt at restrainment and just kept the family surrounded. While the doctors began scanning for signs of the illness.

The one aforementioned, Diana in this case, 'feels' the disruptive influence, as something similar she is feeling from that bad aftertaste in the back of her mind.

Aleaic looks over and see the draconic tech doubling over, then the next few moments of what is happening around them all. Something about all this indeed felt familiar, from a while ago, what happened to that pirate ship..

....but....

----

.....what?

She didnt mean to hurt them, just stop them. She didn't understand. None of them did. being alone so long made for one forgetting manners, and even mere restraint of wanting.

She just........ they hates this loneliness beyond all rational reason.

It stopped there and then.

---

As fleeting as Aleaic felt it, it vanished like a ghost. The king pushed past the medics surrounding them and to Diana and the dubled over medic. "What is it, what do you feel? I need to know."

"Father?" Diana asked in a strange tone. She was starting to feel actually scared some. Not of the medics, but of her own father for just a moment.

"What is going on?"

The commander asked.

Aleaic refrained from answering for a moment, and waited for Diana to answer. He didn't fully expect what he heard next.

And actually in another, he 'did'...

"You... you know that time when I was five, and we went to that amusement park on Seint II on that vacation... I mean, you know when we 'really' had fun? I... I don't know.... why, but I felt like I was back there at that moment, when I really loved being with... you... father." ..she stopped with a look on her face, knowing exactly what she meant, with the 'same' look on her face she had, he remembers so clearly.

He remembers, her fifth birthday, and a suprise family trip that went about as perfect a day could be for someone, and seeing that same face, almost as if he could transpose Diana's five year old face with her current one.

Aleaic softly knew something was up there and then. "I know... I felt the time when I first met your mother, when I was a child myself, back in Big Timber, Montana, back on the Motherworld. After we moved there from Florida. I never remembered much about the trip at all, I was barely five myself at the time. I think it was just after I met Tsui when she was a child back then too at the time.

Everything was a blur, but I remember Jennifer's face back then, as the most comforting thing I had seen, at a time when everything was so convulted feeling.

Strange my nanny would become a wife one eon later or something similar." Jennifer hears this and make an 'ahem' grunt.

In fact all of the royals realize they had something similar occur, from a moment in their pasts that they remember beyond all else. Many to choose from, so they each had a random moment apparently relived in their minds for a few moments, of an eternity relived in slow motion.

Aleaic uses this as an anchor, and holds a glowing hand over the medic's assaulted mind, and finds some form of apparent cause, shielding it with his Hikari Power with expertise of a quasi-dimensional being only can.

A moment later, with a far more confident smile on Diana's facade given to her father, the Lord Excellency stands and finally gives the response the draconic commander seeks.

"It's not an illness of any kind. Were not alone, seperate of Draconic, pirate and Gaian alike." ..he walks up calmly... "But someone.... or thing... is alone out here."

"Bring me the seer."

The draconian commander told one of his guards after he learned that it wasn't a disease, but something immaterial. He turned back to the father.

"Explain."

Aleaic shrugged.. "Well.. for lack of a better term... ghosts. Something exta-dimensional anyway."

"Something that can make memories feel with tactile realisism, as if I was touching that first cookie we shared." Lady Tsunami adds in, rather directly. "Something with a great deal of psychic force to accomplish this too. Breaching into a Hikari mindlink to do it isnt done by any mundane sentient."

Aleaic nods. "Agreed. And it's not very far away either." ...he turns to the commander. "Did you ever do a full survey of this planetoid belt before emplacing the drydocks here? Wonder what was here beforehand."

"That is none of my concern."

The draconian replied just as a man in hooded robes was escorted in. His robes were of purest white, like a dove, reflecting the lights within the hanger like a mirror. His face was covered, but thin strands of silvery hair peeked out from under the hood, dropping down to his chest. The robes had lengthy sleves, hiding his hands from view. The commander was alerted to the presence of the seer.

"Ah... now we will get results."

He said as he turned to face the seer.

"What do you see Makalis?"

---

The seer spoke from under his heavy robes.

"I sense... a presence..."

His hands sweep from side to side.

"Everywhere she wonders..."

He stopped as if struck by something.

"Yes... she searches for companionship... an end to her loneliness."

He brings his hands to his hood, revealing another dragonoid head, blinded by the same white material. His eyes were bound by cloth, his vision stemming into the beyond. His hair cascaded from the scales of his head.

"She is in the void... but here among us at the same time."

His talons came out of his sleeves to bring to his ears.

"I can hear her... calling... singing a song of longing."

Aleaic bows when the seer arrives, and takes his word very seriously. However Isarra adds... "That's strange, I felt a 'he' more than a 'she' in my vision. That day I left the Academa to work under Uncle Rara at the Space Commission. Back then anyway. When you and mother looked so proud of me.

I felt a male presence making me relive that."

Aleaic starts wondering further. "Only one way to know for sure. We need to find whatever it is that is out here."

Arashi jokes. "There goes the shopping trip at present." Al just flusters a hand at her playfully. He then turns to the commander and seer. "We better find this thing, whatever it is, before something else happens.

How good are your scanners in an asteroid field?"

"They are some of the best in the universe. Many things rely on our ability to use a belt to our advantage... besides all those blasted pirates."

The commander replied after the seer went silent once more. He pressed a button on one of his gauntlets and called for a full sensor sweep of the asteroids.

Aleaic just responds.. "But of course." ...he waited while the initial scans are compiled. He also wondered what would react to this.

---

Did you feel that? They never did this before.

Oh no, they're going to be mad at me. If they find us, they'll be mad at us again, just like before. It'll all be the same as before, they might even destroy it, we'll drift in the cold, never to be found.

Why does everything have to be so horrible.

But what if, like those memories.

They'll be mad too, no one likes to be bothered like this.

No one that happy stays mad for long.

Those other ones, the... alien... lizard things... they aren't unlike the murderers so long ago. they will be.

No, one was different from the rest, we need to give them a chance too. We 'have' to try and trust someone.

---

Just then, the sensors pinged across something, only because it was actually looking for something this time.

---

Did you feel that? *Terrorized fear* Oh no....

---

Aleaic felt something too at that moment, such a sad and terror filled fear that it actually backlashed in his mind, and nearly made him collapse, with only a deft catch from Tsui and Jenn saving him from a hard welt to the head from the deckplates.

"Dear?!" ..the two shout, as Al regains his senses.

"I... I think we found it."

"Report."

The draconian commander called into his communicator.

When the coordinates were given, the Family remained onboard the Draconic warship, and took to it's bridge to examine further. About 700,000 orbital kilometers from their current location in the same planetoid belt, along it's broken ring, hidden in the shadows of broken cosmic debri.

Along here, the space rocks seemed to cloister beyond natural compensense, rather to the force of something ill instead. The reason was foiund after a difficult advance through the dangers of mountains without a planet's base.

A finger pointed upon deft observation. "A new grave."

Wedged between, almost absorbed into a triad of rock, even almost a single large planetoid, a ship was noticable, hinting it's ancient surface in the distant light of a star, aided by the DC vessel's own light array.

"Looks like a transport.... a huge transport."

Aleaic adds to Jennifer's assesment. "More like a space cruise ship, almost cliche looking."

"How long has it been gutted like that." ...was the nay question from Isarra, as the near six mile long vessel, one every much like a large, fat cruise vessel, had gaping holes from untold eons of tearing and bombardment from the planetoids around it. But the seemingly ageless scars of an attack untold years, possibly centuries ago, are still readily visible along great gaps of it's surface.

The vessel quite visibly did not come here of it's own accord.

Aleaic somberly comments... "...and what mysteries lay begotten in the shadow of black and star of light, still not know to the living."

---

If you are to be correct, where and whence who remain, this is our chance.

...I will nay trust further than this if all fails.

The cold seemed to chill beyond just mere Kelvin tempratures of ice.

"There are more than a single essence."

The seer begins speaking again as the warship neared the crater.

"They plan something... unforseen."

"Little is revealed prior, err to the nosy." Aleaic then asks.. "Humor me, and see if anything could possibly be alive in that thing."

"Not a thing." Tsunami says a split second later. "Still I feel no absence."

A moment later, sensors suddenly registers a small portion of the ship, capable of sustainable atmosphere. Near a common deck, in a barely affected section of the vessel.

"That would...... qualify...." Aleaic gulped.

OOC: By the way Gaian check your TG’s as I have sent you the info on the new war.

((OC- Saw it..))

"Perhaps some technology can be salvaged from that vessel."

The commander pondered.

"Prepare a bording party."

"Bring the seer as well. We may need a reality check if it comes to it." ..Aleaic offers, the family more than curious about what could be over there. They waited for the DC vessel to begin docking.boarding maneuvers.

"Very well."

The boarding party was assembled and met in the hanger bay. They boarded a shuttle and a wing of interceptors met them in space to escort them to the damaged, but functional, ghostship.

The Royals simply followed the draconic lead, the Treeship was left to act as a comm beacon if needed.

It wouldn't be needed here.

The airlock held, but was underpowered and fused together, and had to be cut through when the shuttle attached itself to the cruise ship's hull. The soldiers spread out around the door when they streamed out into the only part of the ship able to sustain life. The air was stale.

If it could be called air, after untold years like this. This came to Tsunami's mind as she sniffed the alien air. "I fear to ask what we are actually breathing."

"There's no contaminates." Aleaic blurts out rather unscientifically. "...I feel no ill in this air at all." He said, looking over to the DC Commander. "Make no aggressive moves, I feel a worry here if not an ill."

Before Aleaic can take a step, Arashi grabs his shoulder. "Whoa there mister. If something is here, let's not get too ahead of ourselves." ..to which a king smiles to one of his queens. "Very well." ..he utters.

---

I have but only one thing to truly ask of him....

"But we can learn so much from each of them. Maybe we can escape this coffin at last."

A mind of ethereal shakes a nay. There is.... no need to be that which we suffered from.

I have a better idea.

---

Cautiously they begin to enter the decrepit vessel, breathing air from even a world long since dead as well....

"Whispers... whispers in the dark."

The seer began suddenly as they moved a few meters in. His hands went to his head again.

"I... I can hear... So clear now... Yes, they are in debate... In meeting over us."

The commander of the boarding party told his soldiers to keep alert. The commander from earlier was on the bridge of his warship, listening to the boarding party through their comms channel.

The Gaians kept a close cloister at first, as they moved through the cold interior, moving through sections that lost even hints of life long ago, but the vacumm of space preserving everything, save.. for some reason.. any bodies.

Ancient furniture of strange formats, some apparently made for more than three legged beings even, some looking like sloped tables with curved gullets, facing toward where one would sit.

Very little seemed familiar to the humanoidesc eye, for seating choices. However there was apparently enough familiar two seater types or antique make, that they could have been made on 18th century Terra.

Draperies and finery made it look like a common cruise ship, along the walls and remaining intact dishes and wierd looking silverware.

At some point though, wandering seemed to start breaking up groups when an apparent lack of ghostly, or anything wise, contact was met.

"Nothing..." Tsunami noted, as she ended up being closest to Al, the others wandering a bit, but not far. "...what are we feeling then?"

As they rounded a corner prior to a large hatchway, Aleaic only shrugged. "Probably the obvious..."

They came up on the hatch, and Al placed a hand on the metal surface, wondering it it would open...

...all too easily, as the hatch buckled away and was thrown out into open space. Despite the shock, Al was suprised there was no decompression. Only a view of a long gutted room that was shredded into open space and the stars and planetoids beyond.

"Do not enter..." Al joked to Tsui, and looked to her, only to see she was suddenly gone...?!

"Love.....? Love?!" Al said, starting to severely feel his heart in his throat. He stabbed a look at the stars and feared in horror of the worst.

A wordless scream was about to form when his mind turned white in that moment, everything of his senses seemed to leave that place, and enter another's.....

--

She was thinking the same thing, and then she didn't see him there! She started to panic also, when her mind flicked into the mind of another's...

All over the ship, the group became a set of individuals, no sense, or even sight of even the ones next to them, replaced with inital shock emotion, and then a mind for each of them, connecting, wondering...

...judging.....

The draconic members were in disarray from being severed from each other. However the seer was the first to recover. He reached out, trying to contact the others.

"Minds lost... individuals become... brought into harmony with the void."

He began to chant then, arcaic words of the seer's order. His hands together in prayer. Thin blue strands of energy began filtering in from around him, twisting like serpents around his form. He pried, trying to foce the entities from hiding, trying to call them.

The seer instead found his mind finding a long cherished memory being impuned upon, but not violated upon.

It was like reading a page from a book one realled wanted to read. The problem was of whom..............?

For each of them, a book was read from their souls, as the unknown wanting found the Gaians rather curious, not as sure of the draconics, depending on what they called 'cherished', for memories.

Of course, almost on plot cue, Aleaic's memories were found rather striking. a nigh mortal god that did not want to be, and even to this day, still felt the same, if he could rid himself of his responsibility.

The memory chosen from his many, linked with his family in so incredibly many good ones, was of one that was of a severely lonely moment of change.

His vision kept looking of a white halo of a sunrise all about him. Trying to find voice of even mind was not there. Hard to believe that someone of such power could be brought to this state by mere ghosts?

Curiosity about this was replaced by what the unknown being(s) chose for his page to read from.

A feeling to look to his right found the start of an ancient memory, one where a (strangely) late afternoon day near a large building, with two forms, all fuzzy in the light, stood together for some unknown reason.

The more the vision clears, ethereal in feel and look, the more he recognizes what it is.

...not just any memory that could be chosen from, and why 'this' one to look at, when it was as much terror, as it was wonderment, where the format is the change of all life altering events, not only for him, but for the moment the Ascendancy would begin to actually exist.

This is when................................. ...he finally heard his shocked thoughts.

The seer saw his 'gift of sight' ceremony. His friends and family, as well as many local community members were around him. The 'gift of sight' happened naturally when a draconian lived past a thousand years and reached maturity in the eyes of the society. During the time of military build up, he was chosen to undergo an unusual ritual to grant him the 'gift of sight' when he was only in his early hundreds. Those that had the 'sight' had sat and chanted around him. Pouring a little of their own souls, their own magic into him. He was barely six hundred years old now, but had lived with the 'sight' for decades.

"(( ~ You are such a child.... ~ ))"

Through a haze of white, the sight of his own form and face, stood next to a teacher he still does not understand to this day, as A large courtyard before a large school building in Japan, on a late afternoon day in late summer time waned to the sight of the moment....

"You keep being bossy." ...he heard himself retort back, exactly as on that day.

Lady Creation stares back. "(( ~ A teacher usually is. Especially when the child lacks backbone.

This grand vision of yours can't make itself. Mind trying if finally? ~ ))"

Aleaic saw himself reply back, the boy that still did not fully comprehend what he was supposed to do. Despite proddings, Al's mind wasn't fully allowing himself to just do as Lady Creation was trying to teach him.

After all that running, the hiding from the truth, the price of what was intended a one way ticket from the States to Japan, all so he could avoid what his Grandfather said of him he would become.

All so a pushy goddess could track him down from out of nowhere, first in dreams, and then in broad daylight a little while ago, and then impose on him exactly what he was avoiding all along.

It all never mattered, since first off his girlfriends Tsui and Arashi tracked him down anyway, and whence his guests kn ew the whole truth soon after. It was kinda of hard to hide when his all 'too' proud wives to be made sure the residents of this island knew it all.

Now he was being brow beaten into trying to use a focus of his powers, so he could actually see this new world he was gifted, all as an exercise of using his power effectively, rather than by accident when it manifested despite his best efforts to ignore it.

"(( ~ The powers of the Powers Representia won't stay under lid this time. When that old crotchet of a king said you had no choice, you 'don't', so so us a favor and get a mortal pair, and start learing your place above us all?

I got better things to do than teach wimps, when I can teach gods instead. ~ ))"

"Don't call me a 'god'." Aleaic head himself seethe back. Lady Creation only rolled her eyes. For every time he was saying that, that he could instead be demonstrating responsible uses of same instead..

...the goddess ended up kloncking him on the melon again. "(( ~ I'll call you cosmic dust if you don't knock that off. Now do it before I knock ya where the galaxies don't shine. ~ ))"

Aleaic had to chuckle at his own memory, it was something to watch, when the person he was looking at was so much more innocent looking, at that time.

What two hundred years can do....

He however noticed something off the side of his vision, as a third figure was standing off to the far rear...

....wait.... that old butler guy was there too? Up there on the high steps?

Wait a minute, they saw it all too? I never saw them at all!

We see more than you know you did. But to see what you did as important a time this ended up...

Aleaic sensed the presence of someone else this time. Not 'of' the memory at all. But his attention was riveted back to the scene before him. One where his younger self seemed to finally listen, after....

"(( ~ Know this pup. Your power can be either as difficult as punching a wall bare handed, or as easy as swiming it through plain air. Your power is derived from what you want to make of it. If you want to be difficult, you will always feel everything is..

..if you want it to be easy, you 'can' make it easy. Doubt is only in your mind, and can be easily pushed aside if you want it too.

This is for anything you want to do. Making a gateway to your new world is no less here. ~ ))" ...the goddess then leaned forward and essentially.... "(( ~ Common, I dare you to prove me wrong. ~ ))"

Aleaic heard himself respond... "Doing nothing at all will prove that for me."

Lady Creation about tore his ears off (literally) with that one.

Aleaic still feels his ears got extended a milimeter that day. (He even grabs at them reflexively...)

((So where do you want to go with this?))

((OC- Up to you, this is sorta like that Tenchi Universe episode with that ghost girl on the space cruise ship that became lost in space. Kinda using all this as an exploratory thread for things in the Family's respective pasts before a poinant ending.

But I can spice it up some. ))

---

It was only a matter of time before Lady Seto had had enough and came to find out in person what happened to her most cherished. She had been against this trip at this period in time from the start.

Thus as the last signal origin was hours old and no return queries had been recieved from the Sele`nta, the near roaring entry of the Mikagami into the DC controlled planetoid belt was not a calm or peaceful affair.

Seto was standing on the grassy bridge beside herself in a plethora of worried and angry emotions. Her booming voice ripped across the airwaves of space in short order.

":: ~ This is Lady Seto of the Ascendancy. I DEMAND to know where my most precious ones have gone off to.

I have no patience today. ~ ::"

Even her own crew was cringing away from her. Lady Asashi next to her wanted to be in the Plotar Quasar about now.

The warship, retaining its position on the outskirts of the asteroid field sent its reply.

<Ascendancy vessel, those that you seek are investigating an old, abandoned starship of unknown origins. We have lost contact with the boarding party they were accompanying. If you wish, you may send a shuttle to investigate.>

Seto slits her eyes so tight, they could cut many various things. Diamonds and throats come to mind...

"Oh you 'know' I will..." ..she seethes back over comm. Asashi meanwhile coughs lightly.. "Um, should we maintain a modicum of proper milady? We didn't come here to...."

Seto just sidelong looks back at Asashi with a glance Asashi regrets bothering speaking suddenly from.

"Sorry, I'll can it milady."

"Good child." ...she then turns and heads for the Mikagami's docking bay. If that dumb king wasn't dead, she may actually kill Aleaic. =oO=;;;

---

Her vision was of the day before the day at the mall. She didn't realize this day meant so much, since it was the last day, some two hundred years ago plus, she was actually a single person.

She had just blown off Aoshima's advances again, and was having a dour time when her grandmother came to the house after a lonely day, Seto had come to offer her usual advice.

It was striking looking at her own memory that what a radical shift in mindset change one day would make, against the next one when she met him again.

"Again... I remember... years ago at that lakeside KOA. *giggle* Where things start from, and then where they lead to."

She rememberd that despite being strong willed enough to be a popular type amongst her friends, she felt somewhat alone since those ancient days on that summer long lost. What was it, some fifteen years or so later? Maybe thirteen.

"All that matters is the heart you keep, not the heart you show. Don't just give it to anyone. But don't miss the chance to give when the 'real' time comes."

Seto did say that didn't she? Tsunami almost forgot. She never had to wonder about that, when she essentially stalked Aleaic that next day at that mall.

Not one day since was ever regretted. That one day before was the most regretful. Even when she agreed with her pen pal Arashi to share their unknown future husband, no amount of light regret there of the selfish compared to the last day she was ever truly alone.

I envy. You hold so hard onto something so fleeting. Not one day regreted in turn of note either.

She knew another was watching a memory that seemed very small in the scale of things, but too large where the scales of grains of dust to the mountain are concerned.

She only spoke of regret for only one thing.

"How long I had to wait to chresih such a long time afterwards.

Now who are you to show me this anyway?"

The apparition upon her memory suddenly shook in felt fear. Tsui acted fast in being passive. "Wait! I don't mean I'm angry. Rather.... curious.

Like you are."

The unknown spirit was hesitant.....

Subspace fractured once more as a small convoy of supply and repair vessels, bearing DO markings, entered the system and made for the broken shipyards. The battle carrier that met the Ascendancy warship moved away from the ghost ship to patrol the graveyard and asteroid belt, having received new orders. They left their boarding party to the Ascendancy. They would return to the spot later as part of the patrol.

The boarding party was mystified as they were forced to view their memories and experiences. Battles fought, people loved, times with the family, and even political ambition flashed through their minds. They were paralyzed.

Lady Seto meanwhile reached a spot to make a forced docking port, near the other vessel's docking port. She explodes from the forced hatch almost on top of the explosion itself!

"ALEAIC! WHERE are you!!" ..in her wake as a second boarding party follows a short distance behind. No need for them to get hurt.

One Angel-God whispered to another... "Isn't this a bit overboard?" ...another saying nothing as Seto about starts to tear through the ancient bulkheads.

---

The Second Lady Excellency saw her own writing on a letter scroll, shortly before she left Japan for Coral Springs. She rememberd how much of a suprise it would be for the person she had never met.

She was so glad to finally get away from the threats of arranged marriages, for something that felt much better. Instinct was all she remembers from that time, and Arashi never regretted that....

---

...it wasn't that long ago from the Exodus year. Jennifer rememberd the child she once thought she knew, become perfection in her eyes. Logic was not wanted there at that time.

She knew what to ask the guest attendant of her memory soon after.

---

Aleaic was shivvering, he saw himself, as he realized he was being watched, as he performed the opening of the Gate for the first time. He saw himself, and saw the others, Wataru and a number more, as his powers manifested in the memory form of a stargate like device, though it was almost entirely made of crystalized energy, with many part floating slighty apart from each other section.

He felt his own fear and awe again as he saw his own work, from sheer will alone.

That's a lot of power for so little effort.... ..he sensed his host inform. Someone knew what he did from a different aspect than what the witnesses of that day thought.

Aleaic only thought back.. "I didn't even expend a fraction of a breath's worth in comparison to the energy used. Apparently I made a similar gate on the Homeworld on that day, to a world I have never even seen, except in that Holocron.

I broke about every law of logic and physics that day. No wonder I still fear myself."

He heard laughter. The image stopped. It was not mocking, but a child that felt relieved in some way instead.

For one that made so much around oneself, fear is not what I would use as a description of you, corporeal one.

Aleaic snickered. "I keep my own checks and balances in my heart. That memory is exaclty why I do so. Foundation was not a day where an empire was born.

It was a dream come life, and a heart made responsible. In the end, I had to keep things in check, and not let others see that."

The king watched the memory swirl to one at that First Day. The volunteers gathered at the secret area, the ones knowing Earth was no longer a world of home, but a womb left behind instead.

Those first days, on new ground soon after.

I'm sorry..............

Aleaic felt his mind suddenly freed, but he didn't let it all fade back to normal yet. "Wait..." ..he felt his normal voice say.

Something turned back and responded.

....we were alone so long. It's been rare to have a moment not to be in solitude. We meant no harm.

He saw the young girl, whisp upon light, a child of a world long since dead. He sensed all too clearly.

"Then we have things to learn from each other first.

King's perogrative.............."

She had hoped this. To meet someone that could free them all. She even cried tears long since lost in the cold.

Okay. To amends then.....

Aleaic smiled.

----

Seto was busting through a hatch here and there, as if the ship didnt need more damage, when she was suprised when she suddenly saw.. "EH!? ISARRA!??!"

Isarra jumped as well, having 'just' returned from..... "Seto?!?" ..in eek like form.

Seto sputtered... "Wha... where is... who where..!?"

Isarra then notes one of the DO guards suddenly appear back. "Oh...?"

Seto looks back at the draconic and jumps. "If that's supposed to be Al..."

"What's the commotion?" ..comes Jennifer as she appears from a seperate compartment further down. Seto just stands there with an eye twitch.

"Boy you people....." ...she growls....

Aleaic felt the sadness almost throughout the entire ship all at once. His heart suddenly felt very heavy. "Dear goddess..."

We lost our names long ago. Time lost all meaning, and with it, all familiarity of what and who we even were. All we remember, is that one day along a journey not unlike what you experience of norm, our lives were cut short by tragic acts most foul.

The emperor suddenly was 'shown' a memory alien to him. The lifeforms were just humanoid enough, but far alien to be recognizable from any current race of the current era.

What 'was' recognizable, was the greed and avarice shown upon these victims, as they went from pleasant enjoying cuise ship passengers, to victims of a horrible pirate attack.

He rarely was so shaken, as he 'knew' the eyes he was being shown through, was that of a, of equivalent note, a young girl. Too young to be subjected to what he saw occur next.

The screams and pleas were muddled in greed and sounds of murder, and even worse. He felt her mind calling for parents that were no where to be found. He felt the sudders as alien pirate vessels showed no mercy whatsoever.

He then saw passengers subjected to things no fit for horror vids. It tore at him, where words were not needed, as the mind saw what happened to the young girl he looked through.

He saw one of 'them' see her. He wished he didn't see what happened next. And it was not a slow event either.

It wasn't even close to any definition of release when the end finally came. Time again lost as much meaning here during it all, as the time that currented long long after the ship was left ahusk.

Aleaic only felt himself collapse in a rare fit of sobs. Who could have done no less.

He couldn't even say anything that would be worth a damn in the face of this terrible lesson of history.

The darkness of the cold that embraced was understood now. He felt such a rare hatred for those that raped all he sensed. He knew why the shennetai were here now. Alien and ancient to all time for untold eons.

He understood....................

Thank you... that was all we ever wanted. Someone to understand. Something 'so' simple.

Aleaic felt himself blurt out... "I am.... not worthy.... to accept that. I have no right at all to do so."

The eternaless girl did not impress to the same.

For a long moment, Aleaic only shared a unknowing hug with a being that finally could do so.

Eventually, after he felt time had passed enough, his mind decided...

"There 'has' to be a way..................."

"Who are you?"

The DO soldier asked as he materialized to see Seto.

Seto just blandly looked back. "A manic grandmother. What's it to you?""

Tsunami appears a hallway down from them all, to their rear. "Holy light my head hurts."

Seto sees Tsui and about stomp shakes the old ship apart as she approached her. Tsui just teardrop smiles. "Oh.. ah... hello Lady Seto..."

Tsui's suprised when Seto stomps right by her. Tsui spins around and calls out.. "Please leave him at least one appendage."

Isarra comes up behind her mother. "Um, where 'is' Father, Mother?"

Tsui looks back and blinks. "Uhhhhhhhhh..." ..in rare tone.

The soldier looks on confused. More of his team materializes in different areas as the "beings" release their hold on them. They look around as they get their bearings before trying to find each other. They dodge out of the way, each in turn, as an angry mother they haven't seen before stomps past them.

Seto ends up reaching near the same ruined chamber where it all started a while ago, when she turns to look to her left and suddenly is seen ZINGING out of the busted room. "WHAT THE FRACK!?!?"

Tsui and Isarra rush up, probably with a few tag alongs. "Grandmother?" Tsui asks quickly, as Seto actually looks like she aged a century just then and now. "What the heck is he!?"

Tsui and Isarra look and blurt.. "Love?!?/Dad?!?"

Before them, a ghostly appirition of the same Lord Excellency is seen. for his part Aleaic acts just as suprised from fear after seeintg Seto suddenly appear. As if he felt he was about to die 'because' of her, he then sees himself and yelps.. "AW GAWD, SETO KILLED ME... I KNEW IT!!"

Seto just points and barks back. "You 'wish' it was me that did this. I wanted to do it!" ...she anime cries from a comic missed chance.

Isarra cocks an eye. "Feels alive to me actiually." Tsui nlinks and nods. "I feel the Network still."

It's a comic moment as Seto and Al just point and bark at each other anime like for a bit. Tsui and Isarra just teardrop.

The host of draconic soldiers were now reformed and are standing at the 'doorway' between rooms, watching the exchange. The commander of the expedition steps forward to break the anime exchange. He addresses Aleaic.

"What happened to you and who is this woman?"

Aleaic sees the draconic commander and offers.. "Oh, this loverly lady is my first wife Tsunami's eternally beautiful grandmother Lady Seto. My Foreign Advisor on the Council as well. (Though sometimes I wonder..)" ..the last part he mumbles, and gets a small, crumpled up part of the hull bonked off his melon.

Nevermind the hull was still harder than steel and Seto crumpled it like a wad of paper. (And that Aleaic is hardheaded anyways...) "Knock it off estranged grandson of mine. You promissed nothing would happen to my grandaughters." ..she was more mentioning of Isarra, Sirrana and Diana. (Protective grandmotherly type.)

"Mind telling us why you look like what I should be doing to you 'now'? This isn't a Christmass Carol you know."

Tsui offers.. "He does make a good Spirit of Xmas Past." ...to which Isarra laughs too. The rest of his family arrive in short order and hear as Al whines back.. "Man, I was busy trying to help these guys. I had to become corporeal with them to communicate my powers better."

"Communicate? Whom with...?" Seto asks just below the tone of seething.

Aleaic sighs.. "We have a fully ethereal/coporeal Shennetai class Five grave portal here."

Tsunami reactively gulps. "Peachy, ghost ship."

Sorry.... ...to which suddenly a small ghostly spirit of a little girl appears, one with two normal eyes and three smaller ones set where the eye brows should be, but otherwise a normal looking humanoid girl. ...we meant no harm.

Seto reacts to this by suddenly glomming onto (somehow) the little ghost girl as if she was a normal cuwte child. =^^=;;;; "Oh, She so CWWWUUTTEE.

Can we keep her?"

Aleiac just falls over anime like. Tsunami just nervously giggles. "Uh... grandma?" ..while Isarra behind just blinks a few times.

"We are in no further danger."

The familiar voice of the seer flows into the room. The draconic commander turns to the seer as one of the soldiers’ whispers something in his ear.

"Then I shall take leave. We'll leave a guard for you seer, I will report back and await your appraisal."

The dragonoid issued his orders. Three soldiers were assigned to the seer, then the commander walked with the majority of the guard back to where their shuttle was docked.

"From what I can tell from the Universal Memory, they all were of a civilization that once lived in the same era as the Eternals and Ascendants at their hieight.

Hundaine, Salozat, Remonet. These and many other civilizations in a once strong and ancient realm not too unlike our own Confederacy Alliances. The pirates that once attacked this cruise ship were quite much like pirates of today. Apparently greed spans the Eons no matter what the civilization."

Aleaic explained this as Seto seemed to cuddle the child as if she was truly physical. Despite, the child replies to this with... I remember I had a family, we were on a long trip for fun. I was having a good time before the pirates came.

They were so brutal, the pain so bad, I remember it all even when I long knew I was dead. Beyond the obvious, I never knew anything else beyond that, except lonliness.

The child sighed and added.. I also knew there were many others, and we all were trapped on this ship, not being able to ever truly see each other, but knowing we were together, knowing we could hear each other just enough.

Tsunami concluded... "It's like prisioners trapped forever in a cell, knowing there are others nearby, but never seeing them even once.

No wonder."

Seto glumly put... "So what now? I don't remember ever knowing how to deal with stuff like this."

Aleaic responded.. "That's why I assumed this form. I'm figuring out a way to sever whatever anchor is present between this ship and the spirits trapped here.

We need to release them, their era is over, and so should the suffering."

The child seemed to actually smile, who knows in how long. Seto however slitted her eyes at Al. "All well and good, but do we even have expertise to accomplish such a thing, without further harm caused.

Let's not kid ourselves in think we are all knowing and magical."

"She's got a point love." Tsui accents, Isarra nodding. Al just dryly looks back. "Your confidence is overwhelming.

I think we can get help, if we bend a few rules."

Tsui slaps her head, knowing where this is going. "Just because I have goddess powers doesn't mean I like using them any more than you like being a king.

I've barely used them at all in the past hundred years. And that's mainly been for romantic foreplay, primarily."

Isarra blanches a bit. "Too much info there mom."

Al chuckles. "But three goddesses, a child king and a seer should be a good start.

Sele`nta core docked outside can help, but we'll need the spirits to be willing to all of them be released, or we can forget trying. The rope needs to be held at both ends you know."

The girl nodded. I can try and gather attention with more help. The memories we accessed was done by seperate spirits per person here. With enough commune and a way to find out why we are anchored here, we can be released.

Seto blandly remarks. "Make it sound simple why don't you."

Al notes in return. "It's a positive learning experience, even if it's 'simple'." ...and then looks at the draconic seer. "If you don't mind assisting us that is."

The seer nodded his head. He removed the cloth that blinded his eyes. His eyes had no pupils, the whole width of each eye stained with color, color that shifted like a prism.

"The spirit realm is open to those that 'ride the ethereal winds'. We have much insight into releasing those which are bound. I see many that need saving."

Tsunami smiled to the seer, but then turned to her love and asked.. "Okay, how do we find what the anchor is.

I imagine that's the problem here."

Aleaic sighed and rubbed his ghostly head. "That's why we'll need to go back into their dreamworld or such, to find out. We need to see their world on their terms to understand it all.

After, we may be able to learn what keeps them here, and how to remove it."

Seto hardly looks pleased hearing all this. "I dare say you work in insane circles Lord Excellency. If this harms...."

"We'll take the risk." Tsunami responds before Aleaic can. Seto gives an alarmed look, and Tsui replies to that with.. "I know I couldn't live like what these beings endure. We have to end it. I agree with husband on that part."

"Agreed." Arashi calls from behind Tsui and Isarra. "We have to help."

Aleaic nods. "Then we'll begin once we find a proper chamber."

A few moments later, the entire group are brought aboard the Sele`nta, and to the Core Chamber of the Treeship, where a small, think sapling tree, glowing as bright as all Heaven, and as clear as crystal, sits in a clear blue pool or ultra-pure water. The rings and connecting beams of living wood of the treeship, all white and gleaming like whitesteel, all also equal a part of the Tree Core as it's empowered branches throughout the hull of the vessel, also have technological points easily noted amid the living wood.

The green lush grass between some circle platforms around the Tree Core Unit give comfortable space all about the Tree for a whole gathering of a hundred. The chamber's immense size attests to the subspace domain the Tree commands. Beyond this chamber, it seems a whole mountain range in the middle of perfect Spring exists as if a whole world was within the Treeship.

Here the Seer and his own guards, as well as Aleaic's nominal party arrive. The Tree greets them all with tiny sparklets of light, bouncing off the blue crystal water.

"Hello again. Are we about ready?"

The Tree sings out more beams of light in response. Aleaic nods. "Very well. If we all can gather on the grass around the Tree, we'll begin the summon of the prominent spirits of the vessel adjacent.

We'll take it from there."

As if on cure, the blue daylight sky around the chamber begins to dusk, as if evening was suddenly approaching. Shadows creep all around the gleaming chamber.

The seer watched in a sort of wonderment at what was happening around him.

Very quickly after the evening scene set in full, moonlight from an alien moon, Aleaic leads the inital act by beginning to pray before the Tree, the other female Gaians in the chamber taking suit and linking their vast powers to the Tree. This fusing of Hikari Links gives a powerful beacon signal that Aleaic in his continued ghostly format, uses to echo to the spirits waiting.

For their part, the ghostly girl managed to gather attention of seven others, and that is enough for the Tree to project them out from the ghost ship, and onto the waters before the glowing Tree.

Wha...? what? Where are we? The ghostly child reacts in shock. She hasn't be away from the ghost ship in eons, and this is as alien a moment as it gets.

Jennifer remarks from nearby. "Welcome to Ascendancy territory."

Aleaic reacts next with.. "We need you guys to keep calling to the others, as many as you can. After we have enough spirits here, we can find the focus of the anchor trap.

We need excess 'targeting' energy from all those spirits to focus with. And hurry, we don't know what may come of this we cannot anticipate."

The girl however responds first back with.. Thank you.. ....and then tells the others.

The seer watches with 'eyes wide' as the ceremony begins. He motions for his guards to form a triangle around him. They each stretch out their free hand to the seer, holding onto him as his arms reach out to the tree. Lights, prismatic, spheres of ever changing color begin to rise out of the nothingness at the their feet and rise to hover at their heads. The seer extends himself, tapping into the tree's energies, 'seeing' the strands, the bindings that have brought the ghosts here to the waters. He follows the strands, looking for the connection points. His 'sight' shows him something, faint and ever growing as more are brought together in the waters... perhaps that was the anchor they were searching for. It was still too weak to 'touch'.

To the Seer, making such a connection with the Tree feels like something akin to feeling a solid brick of glass, through a silk sash. The Tree gives this as a reaction to a foreign contact, before it grows accustomed to the alien link.

Arashi helps soothe the Tree down through the Link, as Aleaic monitors the slow trickle of more spirits becoming prevalent. He also notes the ripple the Seer senses and tries to use it as a possible source. Somehow he expects something darker, but honsetly does not know what to really look for.

"It's complete guesswork. We need more." ..Aleaic almost complains, wondering if he made a mistake.

"Calm yourself dearest." Tsunami chides back and 'looks' back to the growing crowd.

Crowd in fact as more spirits are 'lead' to the Treechamber Core. The more spirits that appear, the more the sky outside the chamber seems to grow into a strange haunted landscape. Even the distant mountains seem to turn ethereal.

In their minds, they see the lost minds, trapped for so long, reliving all kinds of memories, more from that horrid day than any other.

The more this continues, the more that ripple seems to start feeling more like a spiderweb of 'anchors', making it all far less easy than it seems. The web seems like a bunch of echoes, almost like the spiritual plateu was shattered...

Jennifer blinks first.. "Is that what could have happened?"

"A matrix of anchors has formed..."

The seer said as the power seemed to overwhelm him; he would've slumped to his knees, if it weren’t for the soldiers keeping him up.

"I can... see!"

His mind exploded in light. His mind became fractured by the strain. But in the brief moment before he went unconscious his sight was transferred to the Gaian Tree, filling the vision of those within the Link. They saw a way of linking all of the anchors together to form one that was breakable, to free all at once... but they needed to wait until all were present, or none could be free.

The new sight offered by the Seer was most helpful, save for one problem. One tiny one..

"If this is correct, it's all so huge. How many people are trapped here in all of this?" Sirrana asked through the Link.

"Then we need to offer a reason for more to come." Aleaic suggested. The ethereal child returned with... We saw your memories when you all first came. It those fleeting moments that barely kept our existence from a total maddening state. We replay such moments over and over when we can.

It was all we had.

Tsunami composes a solution. "Then we have many memories to offer, if we cascade it all into this ethereal mess. If that doesn't bring them all, nothing will."

Aleaic nods. "They want memories, we have 'got' memories."

This was a whole truth. Between the two hundred years of the Sphere's existence, and the normal life beforehand, plus the twenty year Foundation period between Exodus from Terra and Revealing Day, there was a vault of memories to share just from the Gaians alone.

And a ton of them were happy to the point of cavity forming, such as how the Gaians lived everyday life.

With the letting go of mental barriers for a few moments, ages of memories became a manefested flood into the minds of the lost.

Make it, and they shalt come, would apply here. Even the little girl was overwhelmed with so much happiness and interesting memories, she totally forgot she was a spirit, and actually remembered...

"I was called..... Halanaa. Was I?" ..came a physical voice.

Isarra responded back to the momentarily physical spirit. "Works for me."

The soliders watched as they held the seer.

There was the time Isarra went to that NIAS Ball, and that romantic night...

....the time Seto caught the boys in her 'parlor'...

.......Arashi taking Aleaic to that school in Edo, and all that mess...

.........that soccer game against their High School rivals....

.......so many movie nights, and even once 'in' one...

....that victory fight that ended the fourth swordmasters tournament...

Even some of the more than 'R-rated' types leaked through, since being lucky works along the same lines. It was so many good memories, and learning from bad ones that made the Gaian's lives replete, and as the more these came across, the more the spirits were drawn in greater droves.

Eventually the entire 'countryside' in the beyond view from the Tree Chamber was filled, with what seemed as thousands of wayward souls. It was incredible to take note the scale of the travesty those ancient pirates caused, to have so many souls trapped like this.

Even Seto was shaking with this realization. "How could... anyone... cause this?"

"I think we have them all. I can't sense anymore." ...the being called Halanaa announced. Indeed the Tree reflected the lack of new entries in the chamber.

"We can't do it. Not like this..." ..Aleaic nearly cries out. "For every one of them here, that spirit web becomes a near infinite spiderweb of fractures.

I can't focus anywhere at 'all'!"

His voice rattles even Tsunami and makes all three daughters scared to near death. It really sounds like this will all fail.

"I'm not going to have to call on 'her' help, am I?"

Aleaic snaps out of his demeanor. "Uhh... I can calm down. better than having 'her' come and remind me why I should be a god instead of mortal. man she's annoying."

Tsunami smiled. "Then believe what you wanted to accomplish. especially for someone that could move galaxies and all."

"I could 'focus' on moving galaxies. That's not a problem when I know what to focus on. This is like trying to work a perfect stained glass window, blind and never having done it at all before in the first place.

I just don't get what caused that much spiritual fracturing. It's like the pirates even made a spiritual attack or something."

"Could it be like that stained glass thing you said, if something fractured it like this." Sirrana considered loudly. "Could it be then..."

"A foriegn body or object is wedged into it." Jennifer finishes..

Aleaic cocks a ghostly eye. "You mean something is physically still impaled into the hull of that ship? I.... I don't get..."

Arashi speaks on her own epxerience on the supernatural, concerning her old shrine maiden training in Edo, long before she even met Aleaic in Florida. "Some types are so abhorent, that they curse through objects into the bodies that they wish to torture, not only at the time of death, but for ages afterwards.

If these pirates were 'that' henious. It could be then something on the hull, or deep inside the cruise ship is still here, and is possibly not only the cause, but the continuation of all of this."

Aleaic understands in some form, and nods. He then turns to the Tree at the center. "Extend sensors at full battle power. Scan every last tidbit of that derilict vessel, inside and out. Anything at 'all' out of the nominal ordinary compared to the vessel itself."

With the draconics and spirituals looking on, the Tree suddenly FLARES at full power and diverts about 80% of vessel power, to the entire sensor array, including the deep subspace Hikari array, one that was meant to detect Infernal warship in deep Infernal space.

The scan is so powerful, the visible hull at points where the sensors bounce off actually radiate a soft visible light. Even for the large mass of the vessel in question, it won't take very long.

Onboard the Treeship, everyone waits very nervously....

The seer's mind, though fractured and barely concious, continued to hold the web together similar to how a doorstop keeps a door from moving. Every anchor thread was visible still, but the splinter in the toe of the connections would have to be removed before the healing could begin. The soldiers looked on, watching the tree with slitted eyes, as the light was very bright.

...the scan found something akin to this 'splinter', as it scanned where the drive engine center should have been. The scans suddenly ping off a strange, 'dark' echo, as if the scanners cause the splinter to reverberate with a darkish reverberation, like a dark side alergic reaction.

The Tree reflects this with the surface rippling across with a dark purple band. All the Gaians suddenly shiver visibly. The spirits react by collapsing in various balls, Halaana about losing her physical coherence in one stroke, but managing to remain...

"Think we found it..." ..Isarra coldly joked, even though it sounded lightly amused.

Aleaic looks at the Tree with a cocked ethereal eye. "What kind of pirates 'were' these anyway? Something's wrong here."

"Energy spike detected."

The sensor's officer reported onboard the draconic warship as it neared the first checkpoint. The shuttle had returned a few minutes ago with the information that there were ghosts that the Ascendancy wanted to free, releasing them from their prison of undeath. The captain ordered the ship to set a course that would bring the ship within striking distance of the aft section of the ship. He ordered a recon drone deployed.

"So now what dad?" Sirrana asked bluntly. The said Father just looked back. "How do I know? It's like the pirates were ancient Sith or something."

Seto stands, suprising everyone with.. "One can only know up close and personal."

Aleaic cocks an eye, then smirks. "Got you into all of this I see." ..but then is grabbed by his ghostly cowl and yanked in Seto's face. "Remind me to talk about 'that' later boy."

After enduring teardopped looks of 'saw that coming' from his daughters/wives, Aleaic stands and considers.. "Wasn't that portion of the ship still exposed to open space? We'll need Exo-Mecha to reach it."

Seto guestures behind her towards the chamber hallway, with all those eyes watching. "After you then, boyo."

Aleaic rolls his eyes and calls out to the Tree command protocols. "Two Exos at the Launch Bay please." ..before they both walk out, the wonderment of the dead actually following them.

---

.....now they did it. It hadn't been aware ever since that day he was betrayed, before he could go further. And now he sensed a new threat.

He had to wait and see who they were. In person....

"Recon drone on approach vector."

The sensor's officer reported.

"It will begin scanning the anomalous section of the derelict in a three minutes."

((OC- Wow, I got a response today finally.. =oO= ))

---

Out from the underside docking bay of the Treeship, two grayish-white Exo suit mecha emerge, the new Angelic mecha among the Sphere military, was essentially crystalized matter, almost like the grown matter of the Treeship they launched from.

Aleaic pilots his Exo in tandem with Seto's, approaching the same area the Draconic probe.

":: To think this vacation could have been only about shiny beads and sunsets. ::" Al jokes, to which Seto just eyes back over the comm. ":: I can plan a funeral instead if you want. ::"

Just then holo-data comes across Al's sensory inputs. ":: Got a probe from those draconics, looking interested in that same area. Give it some space. ::"

":: Acknowledged. ::" Seto says, and moves to a position behind the probe's approach.

---

Either way, it's getting him more agitated by the moment. All his suffering fed to him is replaced with a cold hunger.....

"Scanning initiated."

The probe swept a wide beam across the 'infected' section. The twisted metal reflected the light of the nearby star.

He felt them looking again. Those ugly lizard things that were as bad as the rest of that pathetic alliance, all those soft targets he always liked to spite as much as he could.

He sent his message 'back' as soon as the probe beam panned across 'him'.

--

About two seconds after the probe beam plays across the foreign object, embedded deep in the enginreering section of the derelict, it 'splashes' back a heavily disruptive signal that messes with 'all' electronics in the area.

Standard and Hikari alike. Even the Treeship feels it again, and momentarily loses ship-wide power. Several of the spirits are suddenly lost completely! The wails are lost in the void, to the Gaian's horror.

The two Exos are no less assaulted. ":: What the hell?!? ::"

":: I ca... steer th..s bu..cke...t! ::" Seto yells over broken comms, before losing control and careening past Al's Exo and towards open space and the planetoids and wreckage beyond, where all sorts of jagged edges await!!

":: Grandmother!!! ::" Al shouts, helpless....!!

"We have temporarily lost main power, switching over to auxiliary."

The warship was close enough to catch the tail end of the disruption. The lights along the hull flickered and turned dark. The captain ticked his talons against the rail near his chair.

"Weapons control, arm tubes one through four. Launch on my command."

Small ports opened along the front of the warship as it slowly turned around an asteroid to line up with the aft of the wrecked vessel.

"Fire."

The disruptions halted just in tome for Seto to regain nominal control of her Exo. However it still impacts on a jagged planetoid chunk, and pierces her Exo hull, and even stabs a small bit into her left abdomen, all before she can avoid it completely.

The pain is bad, and a bit of blood and escaped oxygen seeps out, before the Exo self-heal system seals the breach, right up to her wound. ":: AUUGHRGhh... damn it all!! ::" ..she curses over comms.

Al calls over.. ":: Are you okay? ::"

":: Not really, I took a jab to my side. I need to get back to the ship. ::"

Al's worry however shifts to a klaxon warble from sensors picking up the approach of four tordedoes. ":: Ah, crap. They're reacting the worst way. ::" ..he then activates comms mentally.. ":: BELAY THAT ATTACK! We're Still connected with that shipwreck!! Your Seer is on board!! ::"

He then shoots his Exo to intercept the torpedoes if he has too.

Seto meanwhile is in too much pain to react to any of this. The Exo begins admistering pain reducers, but it'll take time for her to make it back to the ship, if there 'is' one at all!!

"I thought you said that the seer was on the Gaian ship."

The captain questions his comms officer. The comms officer replied that the seer said he was on the Gaian ship. The captain couldn't risk bringing harm to the seer, assuming he was still on board the wreckage. He barked at the weapons officer.

"Stop those torpedoes!"

Several explosions filled the void about a kilometer away from the derelict vessel as the missiles were remotely detonated. The small shockwaves from the plasma detonations dissipated quickly.

The detonations occured just as Aleaic drew a bit too close to the outer range of the missles, and ended up tossing his Exo all about like a pinball. After a few moments of this and a few curse words over open comm...

":: Dang nabbit. The Seer is on our ship 'yes'. Our ship is connected to the derelict!!

And blowing us all up won't solve anything anyway. We got active spirits from that derelict onboard our vessel too. ::" ..he said, as if the spirits were living crew in the first place as well.

Aleaic turns away from this rutcuks to see where Seto ended up. He sees the wavering Exo trying to get back to the Treeship, slowly. ":: Seto?! Answer... ::"

":: I'M... *ughn...* CHAINING YOU down at the Palace when this is over... ::"

Al comes back quickly and latches onto her Exo to help her back. ":: I might help ya by then too. ::" ...and they make it back to the Treeship without further incident.

The first attempt failed rather badly, it seems. The Gaians ask the DO commander to come aboard the Sele`nta for a spell, before anything else happens first.

---

He was growing tired of this. He had seriously hoped the attack would get all of his missing fodder ruined beyond salvation. He has long resigned the fact he could not escape this fate.

Taking them all down with him seemed perfect injustice. It was why he used those wimps as a cover to destroy that pirate ship that was attacking, since he could mess with another pirate's mind so easily. He used to command legions of them, and seeing others alive he couldnt command was excrutiating.

He would get back at them 'all', living and dead alike.

He just needed the perfect patsy. 'Someone' among the stuipd living here. They just gave him one excuse to destroy the shipwreck.

He could find another easily.

"Prepare a shuttle, I will be attending to Ascendancy matters."

The commander said as he began walking toward the hanger.

During this whole time ships from DO kept pouring in as they tried to reestablish their foothold in the system and repair the damaged station.

While waiting for the DO contingent to arrive, the Gaian version however were already attending to a nearly fallen.

Aleaic and Tsunami stood in front of the Sele`nta active Medi-Bay, and the Genetic Refabrication Unit, holding the currently unconscious body of the Prime Foreign Advisor.

A few of the wayward spirits were around looking, making more filled a room that really wasn't.

It felt very empty. More than chamber of mention.

"Bode ill tidings I feel of this." Al commented, rarely seeing one of his family so injured, at least not since the Eternal War a hundred years prior. It made him question his presence in many things once more, all words held under tounge.

"She'll be fine." Tsui soothed back. "A light puncture with minior blood loss. A few hours in the Unit will be all needed at most."

Al felt her hand on his ethereal shoulder, and he placed his ghostly own on her's of his right. "I know."

"Will she alright?" ..Halaana asked, Al looked at the strangely genuine expression of concern on the long deceased girl's facade. He nodded simply. "Yes, of course."

He considered for a split moment the merits of attempting refabrication on the long dead spirits, for the whim of it, before Diana came in just then.

"That DO contingent will be here shortly father."

Al thanked his daughter and replied added.. "Better time to bring them up to speed. Les we see another situation we can't control."

The king looked at the Unit, at Seto through the plassteel opening, and turned to head off. Tsui and Diana, and then many of the spirits soon after. Headed for the docking bay.

---

Meanwhile Mikagami moved to a relative position near the objective breach, and kept a more wary eye on the DO warship, in case they fired another volley for unknown reasons.

Things were complicated enough.....

Within the hour the DO commander was among them again.

"I'm listening."

He began. He had not seen the condition of the seer yet, nor the guards that held him as the seer held the spirit anchors on the material plane.

The Gaians greeted the commander back, then explained the 'whole' situation to the DO commander, in exhaustive detail, including the fact the Seer was linked to the Tree still, as well as the fact of the spirits that littered all about the two contingents. Halaana kept near Diana, as Aleaic explained...

"If you forgive a most unscientific theory to what we both were subjected to. The Tree Core seems to think we're dealing with a 'seperate' spirit of some form, inside the breach we both scanned."

Tsunami added.. "It feels malevolent. Possibly a former agitator that caused the disaster outside."

Halaana offered.. "We heard about a powerful pirate lord that was all over our information nets long ago. The name is lost to us, but he was a hateful being.

My mind seems more able to realize this with time, than my childhood one was. I don't know why, but I feel that this is true."

Aleaic nodded. He held his ethereal right hand to his equally ethereal melon. "Like things weren't complicated enough."

"I always did feel that we had to 'avoid' something, for a long time. Every time one of us trapped didn't, something cold occured.

Very cold. It made us all but insane, I can't understand how it is so, other than what I mentioned."

Diana clutches the semi-physical form of the alien girl. "We promise you we'll fix that."

Aleaic sighs however. "This all still feels out of my league." ..he then looks at the DO commander. "My appologies for what happened to your ship. We were hit all the same too. But we can't simply allow the shipwreck to be destroyed yet.

All the same, you should warn your troops to watch out for anything strange, even behavior. We need to control this as much as we can, this may take awhile to figure out." ..he then bows his head to the DO commander.

The DO commander gave his nod in agreement and passed the word onto his first officer onboard the warship. He then turned back to the Gaians.

"If you believe you need more assistance, we could send word to the homeworld to bring a seer council here to settle this matter. Troubled spirits are nothing new to them."

Aleiac nods. "That would be beneficial. To be honest, I'm not as expert in such matters as I possibly should. Seem to deal with more straight up death and life, and ressurections than this in between stuff.

We can wait until they come if you wish." Al turn around.. "It's been a long day anyway. The wreck isn't going anywhere."

Diana rolls her eyes. "Great, a sleep over next to a ghost ship. Better get the coffee going."

Al cocks a bewildered eye. "I 'think' we can forgo the kooy comments there daughter."

Tsui giggles. "Now we won't need the ghost stories, just ghosts telling their own."

"Hey, not funny... HEY, we're not done here. HEY... HEY... walking away doesn't help me here!!!"

Said ghost king and DO contigent are left alone. Al just quips over, half jokingly.. "Don't suppose you wana trade families." ...and then groans.

"I have enough problems with my dozen."

The commander replies with a sigh, understanding the pain of another father.

The call for a seer council goes out from the warship as it circles the slowly stabilizing shipyards. The response was that it would take a day or more to call a council together, then another two days or so to transport them to the shipyards in the system they were in. Three or more days until the council showed was relayed to the commander, who was displeased, but understood that their expansion would delay all.

The Gaians decided to wait out the three days, in patient fashion. They had to wait for Seto to heal from her injuries, and then wait out the soreness, while enduring her constant complaints from it all.

Sirrana was Seto's main accompanyment, as the two chatted from eveything between old family stories, fashions between Gaian and Terran versions, and advice about diplomacy and men.

Aleaic avoided the latter, and was more attentitive to the spirits that kept also constant company about Sele`nta. The Gaians learned slowly, a great deal about the civilizations the lost souls once represented, and began to fill in holes the Ascendants hadn't given formal thought to, hard to believe. Tsunami and Arashi in particular hung around Halaana a great deal, as the spirit child began to remember many things from her past.

The Gaians even learned a couple of very ancient recepies, thought the ingredients were somewhat different between the Eons. A small feast with the DO officers already present tried to relive old revelry with the spirits, as much as meager fun could be found in the thin veil of sorrow ever present.

The few days that passed kept away from the problems at hand, until the proper time.

It also gave the Excellency a chance to consider how to help the DO.

---

A few hours before the DO council was to arrive on that final day, Aleaic asked the DO Commander to meet him at the Treeship forward observation deck. A interspaced deck of whitewood, whitesteel, white diamond, and spiderglass melded in circular bands, in patterns where blue, green and even white grass was lain in between, in large carpets. A few treesaplings branched out from the same melded bands, where the living Treeship hull wood was exposed.

The upper view of spiderglass and crystalsteel beams with glassteel panes banded well past below the edge of the deck as the viewport was actually not physically attached to the observation deck, giving a spectacular view of space, and therein the planetoid field beyond, as one stood at the edge of the deck. Safety repulsors kept the foolhardy from trying anything stupid, and the Tree itself knew better anyway.

It was here where Aleaic waited for the DO Commander, with more than a few spirits littering about.

"I must say..."

The DO captain began as he walked into the lavish room, stopping to feel a flower's petal.

"The old stories of the Gaians hardly does them justice."

He smothed the thin white hairs sprouting from his head and chin scales.

"So, what do you wish to discuss?"

Aleaic waited for the DO Commander to speak after he entered the room, knowing the vessel architecture would garner attention for a moment. After Aleaic did hear the DO officer ask of him, he spoke of his usual eliquence, meant to engender basic trust.

"Well, seeing as I'm the nominal leader of my realm, and I see a chance to talk shop with a representative of another realm, I thought you would help me in maybe starting initial threads for a tapestry we can both become fruitful from.

I know not enough of your home realm at present, thanks to our Long Calm, the period we hibernated away after the end of the Eternal War. But I could be trusted to know enough a chance of our two realm helping each other."

Aleaic waved a hand as he spoke.. "You know, the usual trade and cultural agreements and such that could help us both in our mutual needs and ways. I note you could use a bit of help against pirates in this area of the Milky Way Core Galaxy. That and some assistance in repairing the space dock array here in this planetoid belt.

But I wanted to forward at the very least, our willingness to help, if nothing else. I wanted to offer that much beforehand your leaders arrive."

The Emperor clasped his ghostly hands behind his ghostly back. "Something to mull over after this situation is cleared up. It's good to be a king, and offer such at the very least, you know." ..he finishes, feeling a bit of internal pride for being able to offer real help where it could be offered.

He waited for the DO Commander to respond, looking out at the natural formations the planetoids outside the viewports took, as they floated by, influenced by gravity emitted by the nearby ships.

"The universe hasn't changed since you left..."

The DO commander began, staring intently at one of the many flowers adorning the walls and floor.

"There are still many wars between the system nations. We have also had our share of the conflict. Our own civil war, House Ordus and Kazecistan, and the current pirate activity of the fractured Galaxy's Hand that started our civil war."

He sighed. He removed his hand from another flower.

"Our way has always been the way of pride. Trade and alliances with other nations was never looked upon well, by most. Only the Ordus are accepting of others so they can expand their power by trade. Though they still are distrustful."

He turned to Aleaic.

"Generous though your offer is, I'm afraid my people will reject it. We will rebuild as we always have, by our own."

He turned to leave.

"However, our old friendship has not ended."

With those words, he walked out.

Aleaic watched as the DO Commander left. He then only shrugged, and turned to look out over the scenery upon black.

He was caught off guard when Tsunami's arms suddenly wrap around him from behind. "Nice try dear."

Al smiled. "The idea was to make them think of possibilities. To garner that, is enough for now."

Tsunami didn't completely buy that. "But for later to try again I expect."

Aleaic sighed. "That depends on the coming war. And how we finish this affair here with these wayward souls."

Tsunami nuzzles in on his ethereal left shoulder. "If you won't doubt, then I wont."

Al just smiled and both stood there for awhile.

--

Not long after, the Gaians were ready for the DO council to arrive, waiting at the Treeship docking bay.

--

He was wondering when they would try again. He was bored, annoyed as well.

He wanted to see what they tried next.

The transport ship arrived, bursting forth from subspace at the edge of the asteroid field. It made its way to the docking bay of the Gaian ship and had landed moments later. Five dragonoids, dressed in the white of the seer, floated across the floor over to the DO commander. Pleasantries were exchanged before the DO guards escorted the seers to the tree room. They knew what happened to their peer even before they stepped into the room. They surrounded the unconscious seer.

Fear. The essence of the council rippled the space around the derelict vessel. The undoing of what had been tainted was near.

The Gaians led the way, explaining what details the Councilors hadn't discerned outright. They also explained the presence of all the spirits on the Treeship, as the Sele`nta was acting as the focal for all the spirits trying to be freed from their prision.

They also explained the problem at hand.

"We need to find a way to remove the threat, and restore a spiritual balance, while not losing any of the spirits in the process. Personally speaking, I deplore the thought of the innocent being through any more than they already have."

Aleaic breathed calmly. Lady Seto was finally next to his left, still lightly wincing a bit, but essentially back to full ability. She adds.. "Trying to simply destroy the derelict vessel is an option we'll not accept. We need a more calculated approach."

The Tree then glowed some to depict the current situation in all present minds, as the Spirits watched. Halaana standing near Diana, waiting.

The leader was more human looking than the rest. Her face shone as a human woman with soft features, almost angelic looking. Her eyes were a solid white, milky color. No pupil could be seen in those two blank orbs. Her draconic heritage was shown by a fine layer of scales on the sides of her head, coming down around her ears and disappearing down her neck. Her warm hand touched the Gaian family faces, each in turn, while looking into their eyes. She said nothing, but the movements were clear that she understood.

She turned to the others of the council. They nodded, as if hearing unspoken words. They formed around the broken seer and raised their arms to the 'sky'. A song began to form on their lips; it flowed like water around the room. It was sweet to the ears, like the music of a majestic songbird, and all seemed to lull in the enchant. The water around the tree rippled and sloshed, water droplets rose like little balloons of sapphire and diamond. Light bended around them, plunging most of the room into darkness as the sources of illumination only shone on and around the council.

The words were archaic, old, and forgotten to most, but they had a celestial ring to them that the Gaians may have recognized. The spirits could feel a tightening in their bodies. They could feel? They were drawn to the waters by invisible strings, the strings that bound them to the tree, pulling them. The strings slowly became more visible, threads that could be seen as easily as themselves. Around the tree looked like a giant spider web with many small flies trapped in it.

As the spirits began to feel physical form take shape upon themselves, Aleaic was in absolute rapture of the seer's mystical song. It sounded a lot like Angelic data codesets as it was being processed by the Intracel Epochcomputers, as much as it was plain singing by Angelic System Administrators, goddesses as they could be called on the mortal planes.

The others watched the ethereal spiderweb take shape about the spirits, though to Aleaic it looked more like plasma filaments from one of those glass globes one puts hands on to cause plasma arcs. The device name escaped Al's processes presently, the scene as much majesty, as it was an object lesson to be learned by the Power Representia.

He realized he had a long way to go to be this Universal Power in practice, if these seers were so much more adept at all of this than he was.

He even commented.. "So much different than moving galaxies around."

Isarra however suddenly pointed towards a far 'corner' of the scene about the Tree core. "What the light is 'that'?"

The far area of the chamber, representing the fractured spiritual fabric apparently through the singing of the seers, where most of the 'web' was lighter in color, reflecting Al's current spiritual state, the indicated area was far darker, and even felt colder to the eye, much more the senses.

The entire thing even looked like it was tugging at the web, the pattern looking like it was causing the rifts seen.

"That's 'it'." Seto literally seethed out, the representation obvious to all.

"Indeed."

It then looked like 'whatever' it was, suddenly noticed it was seen, and the next thing everything in the area felt, was a 'cough' wave of cold shivers.

Aleaic however recognized the beginning of trouble when he knew it. "Think this party is getting started again."

Seto snapped in reply.. "GOOD!"

The circle broke as the council turned toward the tree and lined up behind the unconscious seer, their song slowing. They each placed a hand on the seer and the song stopped, becoming a long drawn out note. It was deep and rhythmic, like the growl of a great beast. They were pointing toward the rift, the hole that had tried to cause trouble. A mental ping came from the leader of the council, directed at the Gaians.

"Lend us your power."

As the sounds reverberated in their heads, the bodies of the seers became indistinct, almost formless, filled with white light. The light focused through the unconscious seer and lanced out like a particle beam into the black void. Pain and defeat howled out from the darkness as the light began traveling outward into the web. It spread slowly, much to slowly.

Seto replied with a steel tone. "You heard them!"

The eight Hikari Users, with their two Trees on both Treeships nearby, Sele`nta and Mikagami alike, suddenly open up a literal can of enlightened whoop arse.

The Gaians join the glowing display, as the Seers experience the power of the Hikari Power Network at full force. The two Tree cores just a bare dust tip of the mega iceberg, the opening of the Network shunts a tremendous amount of power, in layers at first the Treeships and Trees in the MWCG, and then another layer of Trees and Treeships, and Partner Users external in the Archonis home realm. As the Network is indeliably interconnected, the power all but pumped through subspace at the command of eight of the primary masters of the Hikari Power itself joins the power of the DO Seers without question.

It also ends up allowing most of the Users and Trees to see what happens next.

---

It did 'not' like what was happening to him. The waves of attacking light was worse than what those Hawks did to him once. If not for that wretched alliance and all that...

....HE WOULD FIGHT BACK!!!

---

And moments after the Gaians release their power through the Seer incarnated web, the cold wave of hate suddenly turns into a raging torrent that fights back like an animal, as much as a tidal wave crashing back into the throes of the light attacking It again.

"It's mad." Jennifer needlessly yells, just as the 'wave' of hate, actually causes the Treeship to shudder off level axis for a moment.

"I'm more furious." Aleaic growls and shoves back with the Hikari Power.

All at once, two spiritual waves of Dark and Light are in harsh conflict. The Spirits meanwhile react to all of this, by phasing in and out of visual acuity, as much as from in and out of physical form.

Halaana holds on hard to Diana, though at times she loses the ability to hold at 'all'.

---

The conflict sends vast psychic waves, radiating out into nearby local space for light-years around.

The ships in the asteroid field rocked back and forth as the waves ripple across the cosmos. The hulls of the DO vessels were visibly shuddering under the stress. The crews try to keep their ships out of harms way, but there was nowhere to run to. The asteroids are knocked out of their normal courses and begin crashing into everything around them. The shipyards become one of the main targets as they are pelted with space rocks. It was becoming less salvageable every minute.

The battle within the treeship was even more intensive. Light and dark were fighting on almost equal terms, even though there was more backing the light; whatever was giving the dark its edge was very strong.

Usually when two equal, opposing forces conflict like this, a neutralizing effect occurs. Many examples both of science and morality occurs in this way, more than what can be explained easily. It's one of those unexplainable times that occurs now, with the Hikari Users and the Seers facing a strangely powerful force of almost pure hate.

It was like Aleaic was looking at a different version of Mulhorand or something else just as angry.

As this was occuring, the combination of spiritual, and space time took a drastic and rather unscientific turn, as the minds of the side of the light merged with the mind opposing them, for a split moment of eternity.

--

For a moment, Aleaic was forcing more Hikari Power at the unknown foe, then the next he felt his mind connect with the foe. In that moment, another age suddenly shown in all the other minds connected.

He saw the Pirate Lord Zagato conducting that 'very' attack on the space cruiser starship, the joyous souls suddenly trampled under the foot of one that was trying to use this as an excuse to prevent a mutiny.

He felt the dark, twisted mind on the bridge that day. Having to recover from the pasting his pirate fleet took from those damn birds and the allies the enslaved. At least he saw the alliance as an enslavement, to the stupid ideas of hope and equality they spouted, like so much propoganda. It kept Zagato from his birthright as powerful lord, making all subject to 'him'. No one else would take that away from him, and his retribution was for the weak and easily raped of all things.

He was leading that raid that day, joyous in actually slaying even mere children, it made his lust more savory. It was the way all things should be, and it repeated it's sick echoes in his mind over and over, as did his blade and pistol shots into the begging. The smell of cindered and scortched flesh pleased him, as smelling flowers did for a lover.

Aleaic saw all this and grew into shakes and fits of anger. However it all suddenly changed on the pirate, as the minions suddenly turned on the master, as the entire endeavor reached the vessel power core.

"This is it. The way to send the message to those fools that thought us dead and defeated." Zagato said, standing amid a few supposed loyal pirates and the gouged bodies of the bloody dead, alien every one of them. He chuckled with barely controlled sane emotion, with an insane intent. "We set the core to overload, and wait for the Ascendants to come, and when they do, we kill every last one of them.

Perfect justice for the so called Just."

He laughed just a bit too long however to not see the electroblade that made cold work upon his alien spine, severing it with hoped intent. Zagato never even got to see the assassin, but knew the voice of what was supposed to be the most loyal left.

"Sorry, but we've had enough of playing politics with the Avians. We'll pay enough for all of this killing, but enough to get what we wanted anyway.

Loot, and you gone fool."

Zagato slumped, his hate the only thing he could feel as his body grew cold. He felt them slam and strap his bleeding body to the engine core, then saw it set on overload anyway, with Zagato left to be the last victim.

Somehow he felt the ship explode, he 'felt' his trators try to escape and soon after die at the hands of the Hawks, instead of them all going together, as Zagato secretly intended.

Somehow he felt it all, and then began to feel the ones he slew, his name becoming lost in the cold spans of time, and the original fear he felt of his supposed avengers, trapped with him, slowly become fuel for his black mind. The longer time passed, the more he realized he could still rule over, and gain strength from the very spirit of the hate he engendered. He never understood why this occured, just that he seemed to be more powerful in death, than in life. In time he lost sense of everything outside the ship, and more over the souls trapped with him.

In time, his nameless spirit of malice felt others come and go, the Hawks seemed to dissapear, and other meager races came and went. They never found the ship, and in time he didn't want anyone else to 'find' the derelict anyway. The vacumm of space kept intact the moment of the core overload detonation, and his selfish eternity didn't want anything to change.

He was finally all powerful, as far as he cared. He had fear feeding him, and he forgot caring of anything else. As long as he kept the others fearful, he could rule like this literally forever. And forever did come...

...and then these things, smelling and feeling all too much like the Hawks came, like a price was being paid he didn't intent to give.

He felt awsome rage after eons of control over lack thereof, and vented it at the strange beings attacking him. It was at first amusing, but now he saw he could show 'why' he was feared over thousands of galaxies once.

He would show them ALL!!!!!!!!!!!

---

Aleaic's mind was snapped out of the connection, as the sound of his family rang out in one voice of warning. ":: ~ WATCH OUT!!! ~ ::"

Aleaic saw up in time, an 'actual' form of a dark being leaping out from the dark zone, and trying to physically attack, psychic or otherwise, at the DO Seers!

The unreal moment shocked back to a real moment, feeling the attack flood across the entire reigon of space as one POWERFUL psychic attack of dark hate, in physical form.

Instinct took over, and Aleaic commanded one of the Angelhawk Wings about him into a bare sword, and intercepted the attack in experienced stride! The impact for a moment floored everyone and everything in the Tree core.

The connections wavered and broke. The seers began to scramble to their feet to reestablish the link. They thrusted their hands toward the tree and chanted words that were similar to the arcane words of their angelic song. Their hands glowed with prismatic fire as they tried to repair the damage of the interruption.

Aleaic meanwhile managed to throw back the black, ethereal assault, and kept it at bay as the Seers reworked their abilities.

Tsunami yelled out. "We'd make more progress by removing the offending object that is in that engine core."

Aleaic shouts back admist the shuddering rutckus. "Last time we tried that, the thing actually attacked our craft. We'll need to keep the offender occupied this time."

Seto about BITES Al's ghostly head off with.. "Then occupy the bloke!!" ..she then points at the DO Commander. "HEY YOU! Get something over to the area we originally probed and get rid of whatever is in that engine block!"

Jennifer looks at the gathered Seers and Gaian present, through the flares of light and dark waves. "We have to maintain that web at all costs then until the offender is removed."

"I'll order the Ibuprofen then..." Sirrana jokes before the spiritual form of the Lord Excellency suddenly 'leaps' at the dark corner of the web, with great force.

He meanwhile was trying to find a way to escape before he was destroyed. This couldn't be the end. He HAD to find a way out.

"You heard her, send a message to extract that damned thing!"

The guards in the room rushed out to the shuttle bay to contact the DO warship. The warship confirmed the request and began to move at full speed to the archaic cruise ship. When it got into range it powered up its tractor beams. A half-dozen would be enough to shear the offending power from the vessel.

Meanwhile, the seers were desperately trying to re-establish the web with the help of the Gaians.

As the DO vessel began to move into position, Zagato's furious spirit realized it was being cornered in completely. Worse his actual 'space' was actually being metaphysically invaded by this 'person', knowing things had become too far, he being too unprepared!

Aleaic managed to transpose through the space in the Tree core, and follow the web at the spiritual anchor that Zagot had been residing. A sharp series of parries with his Angelhawk Wing sword pinned the demon down, long enough for his family to reassert the web the Seers established.

If the DO could pull out the offending object inside the wreckage, it was over. Zagato was too distracted to do anything now, even react.

The offending object soon was located, a warped ball of what was once the cruise ship power core, warped by the spiritual hate in to a thing with metal 'veins' wrapping all around it. It tried to resist the DO tractors, but Aleaic was doing his job too well to have anything fight the DO beams.

During the distraction, the evil hold on the web faltered. The seers exploited the crack in the defense. Using the anchors of the seer, the council re-asserted the force of their song back into the web. The light spread back through the web quickly with the help of the Gaians.

The tractor beams on the DO warship ripped the orb of darkness from the craft, tearing the focus of the pirate's power from his grasp.

In the alternate plane, the illumination flooded in and chained Zagato. Powerless to resist, he was held in a space of white and blue, with Aleaic looking on.

...and all through it, a horrid, tortured scream of angry agony, the lungs of death ripped open to the ear in full fury and force, but very quickly very little substance, as the offending object is sundered from the derelict.

On the literal spot that it is ripped away, the web suddenly, and quite audibly, snaps, making ears ring for a moment (or whatever accounts for earlobes amongst them all. This all as the web is 'finally' freed after millions of years, as the ethereal fabric is spread back to a pure state, the siphoning utterly ended.

Halaana for a moment is flesh and blood, if only, as a spiritual version of a cold wash floods all senses, before a slow warmth returns, one still 'cool' as the notice of death commands, but nowhere near as cold as before.

A great number of relieved and even incredulous gasps from the freed are heard all around. The Tree reflects this by glowing ethereal as well, having been connected so long to the dead, though utterly removed from the necrochromatic.

Aleaic meanwhile kept to the fore as he saw the leach begin losing the last tendrils of sanity, reacting rather sadly to it. Such hate was beyond logical reason. He saw too much of Mulhorand in this thing called Zagato. How the universe allowed such things to exist was unfathomable.

If one ignored the cold fact of the Balance.

Held in this strange enchainment, a king looked at another fallen one rather coldly. "It seems the past finally catches up to your just reward."

Between wretched screams of anger, trying to claw for his old leachings... "~ What would you know of it! I smell the Hawks of you, come to finish their games of power as only a SLAVE can!? ~"

Aleaic only sighed. "To explain it to 'you' is pointless. But you won't have chance to mull over it. This is how we close the book on this sorrid affair."

In short order, rather than think of it all, Aleaic immediately orders Sele`nta to extend Holia weapon prods from the hull, and charge to fire.

Before Aleaic has the vessel fire.... "~ The Hawks died too, so will you 'all' as my final curse!!!! ~"

Aleaic rolls his eyes, backing off from the ethereal prison. "Sorry, I don't deal with empty threats."

External wise, the Treeship's firing volley shoots out as five thin beams of light, shot downward, before angling twice at forty-five degree angles, and stabbing at the offending object dead through.

The explosion was as stunning as it was supposedly lethal.

The last sight Aleaic had of what was once Zagato, was of him literally disintegrating into a mixed void of light and dark swirls. The anger only slowly faded from his ears in time, longer than comfort allowed. Eventually sight returned of the Tree core chamber, a fitting end of a chapter.

"Father?"

Aleaic looked over at Sirrana, and smiled... "It's over..." ...his normal voice suddenly returned.

"Halaana?" ..came Diana's voice suddenly, as the Gaians feel something also losing cohesion. That short moment of life Halaana experienced, unfortunately has no anchor.

My body...?

"... Returns to the mists once more."

The leader of the council spoke as she saw the child begin to fade. The DO soldiers began carrying the unconscious seer out to seek medical treatment elsewhere. The council, save the woman, fell into line, the precession leaving the room of the tree.

Lessons are hard, especially for those that thought themselves the masters of defeating death, even looking it in the face. Almost two hundred years of beating evolution at the game of the great cycle still can't prepare for the cruel reality that occurs before the Gaians.

Diana tried to grasp Halaana, but found no substance to retain texture beyond pure tactile memory. Diana realized this to a cold shock that was as equal to the one the spirits originally had when they died as they did.

Aleaic looked around, as did the others, when the spirits began to fade one by one, finally released from a terrible prison no destroyed.

"Wait..? They're free but..." ..Isarra started to spout out in equal realization, one the more experienced adults, capable of realizing how horrible a truth it all was.

Halaana and a few others, the first to contact the Gaians, manage to remain the longest, as Diana tears at losing a truly close friend, the time duration not a damn thing to her. Diana looked with screaming eyes, but no words, at a father that 'knows'.

"No.... telling how long they were dead, there's no material or anything to consider our technologies, to infuse anew. The demon was the anchor, that we cannot be.

No matter the pain."

Diana just collapses below Halaana's, to be frank, swirling form, one less of sorrow, and one of mixed relief and sadness, Halaana the ghost that is free.

A goodbye not wanted.

Seto and the three Lady Excellencies stand and silently watch this goodbye. One by one, the spirits vanish, until only the last seven remain.

Aleaic sees Halaana look with a smile at Diana.

I am not sad. Thank you for giving me your heart. If I can remember anything, I will remember that much.

Diana only nods, a last hug that finds nothing in return, and in moments, the last ones fade into the unknown. Diana after the end rushes over and clutches onto a patient father. The tears and sobs are allowed as long as wished.

It's not the only ones.

---------

Space turns more empty, a shipwreck now just a hunk of metal, now truly dead.

---------

Sometime later, things begin to settle down. All of the event taking less than a couple of hours, even if it seemed flat out straight forward, Aleaic, back at that same observation deck, mulls over the fact how much things change, when they pretty much haven't.

This time however, despite the life the natrual grown deck usually has, without the spirits, the ship is very much more empty.

Something however, difficult to peg as tangible, is missing now. The king wonders if this is a truth he's been avoiding all of this time. Facing losing a loved one, and not being able to save them, the kind that used to rule the fears of his kin before the Foundation, is something to be honest in his soul, not faced.

The burning thought of such a thing is what has been a core reason he allowed such things as genetic refab units, angelic co-existence, even things as simple as family, to rule more than even the power of a commanding empire, even more than actually accepting darkness has an equal place in all things.

Whispering... "All light is greater...."

"You know it's not true."

Aleiac looked back over a shoulder at Seto, and sighs. "Allow a foolish king to keep one tenant, even if it abhors in the face of reality. I 'swear' death has no place in an evolved civilization.

The lessons are worse than paper cuts."

Seto sighs. She took it on herself at the moment of Founding, to be the realistic anchor that kept the benevolent king in check. Even benevolence could turn into a malignance if not kept in Balance. Beyond that, words were not a harm to speak, if only to bear things openly.

"Even paper cuts heal, scars a reminder of mistakes. At least we have the rare chance to rectify even after death, thanks to magics many see not only as unfathomable, but even as much amoral and dangerous to various ideals, both simply conservative, and those of pure destruction."

Seto walks about behind Al, being a philosophical instructor again. Aleaic sighs as...

"But there 'does' come a time we can't save all things. If I remember your GrandFather correctly, he was mortal as well. The nature of a Power only goes as far as mortaility can be stretched. All that god-likeness is still filled with veins of blood, warm life that 'can' still die in the longest of all terms.

We are 'not' all powerful, we are only better learned. Idealisim is pointless without factual base. There's always a reason for the Balance, the sky is more dark than light, but the light is more stunning to the eye, as much as it is mysterious.

All the same when it fades."

Emperor-King groans. "The Intracel sky is white, the stars there are only a shader less than the pure. They seem to manange fine without the shadow.

Seems fact enough to me."

Seto grumbles, then states. "They've been at it untold Ages before this Universe even existed. Try to compare us to that kind power at this stage, and I'll disown you."

Aleaic looks back actually a bit incredulous. Seto completes...

"Evolution is 'not' complete in only two hundred years. The Ascendants are billions past that number. The Angels represent part of what made us 'all'. The Infernals too.

Death still exists, and we better learn the lesson we need. We can't be there for everyone, and not everyone wants the same for 'us'. We are a beacon, but one that learns it's own lessons. Besides, you the 'human' should know the truth without needing reminders.

But one is before us. Learn it, and we'll do the same."

Seto stops, and wipes reflexively at her robe, as Aleaic nods. He does however interject... "Seeing my daughter's tears were enough. But it also wants me to keep that from happening to her ever again.

My kin are so pure, it's foolish to subject them so, even if reality dictates otherwise.

Such a duality in all things, and the illusions we create to combat them."

Aleaic then looks up. "Still, we 'can' do something to close this out."

Seto nods. "I already asked for one of the Seers to come here. Are you going to try and persuade them to things you mentioned to that Commander?"

Aleaic pauses for a moment, but shakes his head. "If they aren't going to want our help, we won't impead. I'll only offer a simple trade." This makes Seto smile. She didn't need to ask what would comprise the trade.

Aleaic turned back and waited as before.

"Diana is troubled by death..."

The leader of the council's voice glided into the room with her, the room where the pair was standing. Her body seemed to be half-there, like smoke.

"... As are those who encounter their own mortality for the first time."

She said as she stopped to admire a flower, just as the commander did earlier.

"However, I believe our talk has shown her... the natural way of the universe."

She turned to Aleaic and Seto. Her eyes were shrouded in the white blindfold of their order. Her right hand rose to point towards them.

"I see that you two are also contemplating on such matters, which is why I brought it up. But I also sense questions regarding us in particular."

Aleaic turns back to hear the Seer in the eye. Seto sits on a morphed bench she mentally commands near her from one part of the deck hull beams, as if it was a fast growing plant, one she sits upon.

"It may be a natural way, but my own truth has denied me seeing more of this than I should be hidden from. Even with all the lives we ressurect after battle, even from mere genetic scraps and angelic mindweave reintegrations, death finds a hard lesson to impune in, save for one area alone."

Aleaic turns fully. "My daughter sees life no less than any other, but has seen death so little. True death, the one where cherished things are lost. I see many other empires and realms throw their peoples, clones and droids, to a grinder with somewhat 'removed' regard of the things lost to peoples that don't have our gifts.

When one loses a life in this universe, it's cheap. When one loses memories, that is the 'real' crime.

When we see both lost at the same moment, it's hard to accept. Even for all my sins of wars led, nothing hurts more than learning to live with a loss you 'can't' recover anything from. Lessons should be lived to be learned from, by those that paid for them, not for those that question furtively after the fact.

That's why I strive for the evolved need for lasting life. You can't learn if you are still dead. No one else can learn from you. How will we learn what the Spirits had in their prime, now 'that' is all lost?"

Al turns around again... "Can there be a guiltless repentance for the eyes of your own child, knowing what they learned as a result."

Aleaic stops and looks to his left, the shipwreck in view off the viewports. "I'd like permission to make a trade, one of our vessels of current make, in equal proportion, tonnage and of our last generation technologies prior to current, in exchange for the right to salvage the shipwreck intact, to bring to our homespace.

A mere Battlestar or Warship of Capital Class would be small price for what can be done to close this chapter for all our hearts."

Seto smirks and looks at the lady Seer. "I'll second that as a formal offer. Parting with one advanced warship would be of small consequence, outside from a Treeship. I even have a good place in mind for a resting place."

Aleaic turns and looks at Lady Seto. "Damn, I was going to do that."

Seto really smirks. "I'm still older and craftier than ye are king boy."

"Too true."

"I have heard of those that would throw life away without thought, we have encountered them on numerous occasions. It is quite difficult for even me to comprehend why they decide thusly."

She shook her head.

"But as to your proposal, I believe that it is a generous exchange, as I would believe the others to agree. Your technology is sought by many."

The lady seer continued.

"To commemorate the dead is a noble goal."

She smiled.

"However, the spirit is never truly gone... Those that are close live within all of us. So, communication is possible... The dead can still teach us."

Seto nods. "Then we'll have one appropriate Warship delivered to the place of your choice. What you do with it is not of our concern afterwards. Just 'try' to be honorable in intent with it.

We'll have one small fleet squardon with appropriate support in the area in a day or so. They'll be on call for local defense if your repair efforts here need support, until after the derelict is removed.

Lastly...."

Aleaic turned and interrupted.. "Lastly, thank you and your kin for all you have done. We'll be at your call if your needs ever turn truly dire."

"Mind if I mention the dock-yard first?"

Al blinks at Seto.. "Oh..."

Seto explains the expandible dock-yard station that can act as a second space dock for the short time while the extraction of the derelict proceeds. Aleaic just laments if it should have been Seto that got the king job.

Seto just tells him to shut up.

The two jab back and forth in old Gaian fashion to the open view of the DO lady Seer. A sign things are being put behind them all now.

"I see that our business is concluded. I will leave to see to the preparations."

The lady seer bows before exiting.

Life begins to return to normal as the shipyards receive around-the-clock attention as the DO tries to re-assert itself in the system.

The two Gaian Treeships remain around just long enough to oversee the arrival of the extraction team, a quartet of Ascendant warships and a slightly modified Hikari Shield Tree, the near SSD sized Tree Platform set to project a Fold envelope through it's Angelhawk Wings, instead of using them to protect as per normal doctrine.

The DO had to honor of seeing the oldest Shield Tree in operation in the Hikari Treeship Grand Fleet. Several small corvette and frigate sized Treeships patrolled around, and one standard expandable dock-yard, perfabricated as a mobile Fold on the spot support docks. It would end up being left behind for the DO to use, as was a Corona Class Battlestar agreed upon.

Afterwards the Gaian Royals bid their goodbyes, and left behind a most unique adventure. Another four days later, the small Sphere operation slowly Folded the derelict away to be left actually intact as it was, to float within a orbital prisim cage above the polar orbit of White Diamond/Sapphire, above the A-SSD docks.

A new reminder of the pitfalls of what the Sphere strove admist. The story of the spirits, the DO seers, all of it became a new legend among the Sphere populace ar very large. In a few short days, a number of Sphere based messages arrived in DO coffers, akin to a small fan following, lasting for a short while.

Gaians knew when to give thanks.

---

The Royals arrive on Terra, and spend their Vacation (http://forums.jolt.co.uk/showthread.php?t=506799) under Seto's supervision this time, though the Lady Prime was focused on Gaian influences of technology and such admist Japan. The Royals otherwise took advantage, moreso than intended, the fun of the moment they went for.

With the knowledge of the Counterattack War (http://forums.jolt.co.uk/showthread.php?t=505244) coming soon, the Royals took all the such chances they got.

Things wouldn't last like this forever.

=========================

*............................amid the darkness......*

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..he had lost all sense of time again. Now he lost the last vestige of sanity, not knowing where and what he was anymore. He tried to find semblance of thought of what happened after that last strike. At least that much was still fresh in his disintegrating mind.

Having been a controlling spirit demon for so long, it was that same hate that somehow managed to keep him from dissapearing from all view outright. He thought it was funny they all forgot him as if he never existed.

Somehow Zagato would make them all 'pay'....

"{{{{~ My sentiments 'exactly'... ~}}}}"

Where did 'that' come from?!? The voice was actually 'colder' than his own was! Who was.....?!?!

The dark essence had seen everything. That oily black hate present for another purpose, saw one so unlike all the rest in this Lightverse. "{{{{~ To think one finds trinkets most wanted, when never looking. ~}}}}"

Where WAS it coming from!? The darkness had no form anywhere. It was driving him beyond last vestiges of the word 'madness'!!"

The darkness with only one name to the Dark Lord chuckled where only the darkness could hear it. Somehow the fabric unseen.... shivvered.

"{{{{~ Yeeeeeeeessssssssssssss....

...feel the tenant of my Key to dominion over this sad Existence. The putrid smells of life and those that think darkness is a tool to power.

At last I have my needed tool to a different definition.

*Reaching out with the darkness as the Hand.* ....at last indeed! ~}}}}"

Zagato couldn't still see, spitirual or otherwise, but the cold 'did' grasp him, in a vice of clasping hands of a wraith finding 'exactly' what is needed all along.

If he could have screamed, it never would have gotten out in time.

===================

*Seven days before the start of the Counterattack War*

By the time the Royals finally returned, the Sphere was already reacting to the summons of the need of the Anvil and the Hammer, the Eternal call of help after the Dark Eternals invaded the Eternal Empire.

In a few days, the Sphere would leave the Second Long Calm utterly behind.

Aleaic was pacing as a worried king should at a time like this. The unknown becomings of that which to come, and who would be lost because of, tore at his psyche.

The needs of expansion for Operation Harvest (http://forums.jolt.co.uk/showthread.php?t=508215), and the vengance campaign that Operation Paladin (http://forums.jolt.co.uk/showthread.php?t=508427) would bring, were almost cancelled out in his mind by the cost that was sure to come.

He wondered if at that moment, he was betraying the principles of the Gaian cause, in acting more like other combative realms that spouted high ideals, all in the name of replacing one power with another in the cosmos.

He wasn't comfortable at all at that moment.

Only after a moment from finishing this thought, did he realize he wasn't alone. He turned and saw... "Father?"

Terrai Kerensky just waited patiently. He didn't interrupt the mullings of a king that held more responsibility than he realized he gave up before Aleaic was ever born. As such, he was another moral compass, not a traffic light now along this road. When Aleaic did see and reply...

"May I attempt a moment to lighten your mind some with?"

Aleaic cocked an eye, and turned away from the vast window frame looking over a part of the high canopy of the Palace Tree in the white light of day. "Actually... please do."

Aleiac fell in step as Terrai suddenly turned to head somewhere. "Apparently something that occured recently came to the notice of the high Powers, they were impressed with the way you and our kin handled that recent spiritual event."

Aleaic waved a hand. "A chance event, and I must inject, not the thing to bring up at this time father. My appologies, but the long dead need not impune on the coming dead of my own mistakes to come. This isn't the time for..."

Terrai coughed enough to make Aleaic stop talking. Something a respected Father still had over a more powerful son. "From my point of view, it wasn't a matter of dead I was reffering to."

Aleaic really gave a sidelong look. "The light does that mean?"

Father ended up leading a somewhat impatient son on a long hallway, parts of that affair coming up and not really giving Aleaic more of an answer, other than something was alive?

Finally as they approached a large meeting chamber, Aleaic stopped.. "Okay, what's up here? If I didn't know better..."

Terrai only stopped long enough for... "You should, you apparently met her already." ...and then proceeded into the chamber. Aleaic threw his hands up in annoyance and followed.

He entered and saw, of familiar import, Ladies Belldandy, Arashi and Washu, afar back Caladeni and Ifurita. Also one of the Angelic Arch-Lords was present. A small startle to the king alone enough, but the last figure in the room, a small figure hidden mostly by the shining sunlights of the two suns, into the chamber crystal window panes.

Aleaic peered past the light and saw some strange recognition. He walked in and after exchanging looks with the others in the chamber, noted on closer inspection...

"By all....."

A short moment of recognizing silence, and Aleaic nodded with a smile. He didn't quite question how yet, seeing too much miracles of the ascended does that after long enough. he just simply took one more step forward and bowed.

"Greetings, I am Aleaic Kerensky. Milady.....?"

A giggled curtsie returns and.... "I'm Halaana. Nice to meet you again sire."

Aleaic just chuckled lightly, few others didn't, in fact at a moment of tension, no one actually dared to 'not' laugh some. After enough of this, the refreshed air is pegged with... "Mind coming with me for a bit?

I have a daughter that you would love to meet."

A smile most ghostly...................

((Are we done with the thread? Or do you want to keep this thread alive, but change the players. For the DO's part is over at the moment.))

((OC- Nope, that's it. Got another plot involving the MWCG going to start here soon. putting in lead tie ins to the DA War is good enough for now. It's done. =^^= ))

((OC- Nope, that's it. Got another plot involving the MWCG going to start here soon. putting in lead tie ins to the DA War is good enough for now. It's done. =^^= ))

The DO took control of the two GA technologies and began to ferry them back to the homeworld for research.

((Had fun. Cya around.))