“So, knowing about these aliens is worth risking the safety of all on this ship?” Asked Heimdal, questioning the motives behind Jvorg pretty much bringing us into the middle of a battle just to sate his curiosity.

“We are not at any risk.” Responded Jvorg, grinning slightly. He turned to me. “Is that not right, Revy?”

“We aren’t.” I said, sighing slightly. “Easy to handle, maybe.”

“With Revy here, these attacking vessels will not be able to touch us.” Continued Jvorg.

“Are…you t-that powerful?” Asked Isis, speaking up. There was some curiosity behind her shy eyes.

I shrugged. “Define power. Can keep us safe.”

“S-shielding user?” She asked, looking slightly intrigued. I simply shook my head.

“No, she is something else. Would you mind, Revy?”

Shaking my head, my power flooded our ship and the space around us, then fled further afield, reaching out, out, far away and tapped on the hulls of enemy vessels. A slight twist in perception was enough to subtly change a pre-destined outcome.

“W-what was that?” Asked Isis in astonishment, obviously noticing my actions, even if not understanding what I did.

“What was what? I did not feel anything. Would someone mind explaining?” Said Heimdal, who was looking around in confusion.

“Magic.” Said Isis. “Not…very well controlled, but p-potent and pervasive. S-she created a domain.”

“A domain?! What sort of domain did she create?” He asked in astonishment. Domain abilities are fairly rare to come across, only becoming more common up at the 12th divide.

“Illusory.” I responded with a slight smirk. “Reality is under my bidding.”

“Revy is an Unbound Illusionist.” Clarified Jvorg. “Her brain was never clipped, so she is able to superimpose reality with illusion instead of the normal mental illusions.”

Heimdal looked at me, slightly horrified.

“So, if she wants….”

“Yes, she could force us all to see our own deaths, and slowly torture our minds to collapse. I am also fairly certain that she has already reached the realm where our perception of time can be freely warped and twisted by her. The only defense would be having a mental capacity equal to her own, and a willpower capable of shattering the illusion.”

I nodded. “Big secret. Let out for trust.” I know that them finding out about this will only make them more wary towards me, but it's something needed. Isis and Heimdal already know I'm Odin, might as well let them in on this as well. And if it turns out that they aren't quite that trustworthy, I'll regret it then. For now, let's just try and help as much as possible, right?

“Her illusions are most potent when the enemy does not know about them, yes? As was said, knowing is half the battle.” Said Jvorg, attempting to sooth Isis and Heimdal's nerves.

“I can see the truth in that. You have already lost when not realizing an illusion exists. So, what are you doing to these supposed alien ships, Revian?” Asked Heimdal, shooting Jvorg a nasty look with the last bit. Apparently, he doesn’t appreciate the coopting of the ship to investigate something risky.

“Nothing. Shifted own ship slightly.”

Rather than doing something big, small and easily missed changes are what defines a good illusion. I could make it so that an entire fleet of Federation ships appears in front of these enemy vessels, scaring them into surrender. But there’s the chance that communication networks are being monitored, and they know the fleets are all otherwise occupied, or the captains of the enemy ships decide to fight anyway, and go out in a blaze of glory.

There are a lot of ways an illusion can be discovered, so it’s best to keep things simple. In this case, I only shifted our ship’s position in space a kilometer or so to the side. And, unlike a purely mental illusion, the fake version of our ship registers on their sensory equipment. A secondary illusion hide the real ship, pulling a blanket of empty space over us. Thankfully, a kilometer is still close enough that the ship’s apparent movement would barely register as a blip on any equipment, especially with the enemy’s being rather far out, still.

This illusion won’t do anything offensively, but it will protect us in the case that they decide to simply destroy our ship. And if they decide instead to board, there are some other nasty surprises I can show them.

“So, our ship appears to be in a different place to others?” Asked Heimdal, who wanted clarification. I nodded.

“What a frightening ability. Truly, it is at the level of being able to decimate fleets and scatter armies.”

“Only if needed. Prefer peace, quiet.” I said, waving his opinion off. Any further conversation on the subject was forestalled by the arrival of those who had been in cryo-sleep.

All my friends stumbled out of their rooms one after another, weak on their feet and still looking slightly nauseous. They appear to have bounced back on their feet fairly quickly though, already being able to walk after all that vomiting I heard. Heimdal noticed the same thing, and commented.

“Resilient little warriors, are you not?” He chuckled, while Jvorg also laughed.

“I remember the first time having to go through cryo-sleep. I could not stand for the next hour. Being able to move after a few minutes is quite the accomplishment, no?” He said.

“Ugh, I don’t know about that.” Said Sabrina. “I just want to curl up into a ball and forget everything, but these sirens are telling me that’s not very possible.”

“Same for me—Wouldn’t be out if it didn’t seem urgent.” Commented Godard, his face going an alarming shade of green while talking. “E-excuse me!” He said, before running over to the nearest trash chute and heaving up into it. This, of course, caused a chain reaction that had all the others running to the nearest empty container as well.

They walked back on unsteady legs, and Kormic asked the question surely on all of their minds.

“What the hell is going on?”

“Well, someone saw fit to route our ship through a possible battle between a Federation ship and a group from the fringes of our society.” Said Heimdal, again shooting the one at fault a look, to which Jvorg just shrugged helplessly. “Because of the spacial disturbances, we were kicked out of light speed, and dumped in the middle of this mess. It does not look like we are in any danger though, but we will have to stick around for a while. Go ahead and take advantage of the break, and stretch your legs a little. This situation should be handled with some time.”

While my friends didn’t look quite satisfied with such a scarce explanation, they weren’t exactly in any shape to ask a bunch of questions. Rather, they all went to sit down and repress the nausea felt after coming out of cryo-sleep.

I felt bad for them, really. But it’s also kinda funny what they’re going through. It makes what I experienced while the ship was going light-speed feel a little less worse. Seeing other’s suffering takes your mind off your own, or something like that.

Anyway, not long after my friends surfaced from their misery, Athena also made her reappearance, looking much worse for wear. It really warmed my heart seeing someone so arrogant being placed back down on the level of mere mortals.

I mean; we are gods in name only. There are plenty of ways to kill us, or hinder our progress, and it’s not like we have omnipotence. We are just have a bit more potential than normal people, and start out a little more powerful. That’s all. Taking in the ideals of humanity doesn’t change a person that much. We are still mortal, no matter how much the Pantheon likes to think differently. They take up the names of the gods personified, and I think that’s a mistake. Forgetting ourselves takes away the foundation of our selves, which in turn create some issues with the psyche.

Anyway, Athena came out looking much worse than my friends, and I felt even better since she’s a right stuck up bitch.

“W-what’s going on?” She asked, slumping down into a seat like a sack of potatoes. I couldn’t help but let a smile slip onto my face. She noticed, and shot a nasty (if still rather queasy) look in my direction.

“Nothing right now. We managed to find ourselves in the middle of a battle, and now are just waiting for the enemy vessels to make a move.” Explained Heimdal.

“In the middle of a b-battle? How the fuck are we going to be okay?! We’re in an unarmored freighter! In fact, where’s the crew!?”

Heimdal looked perplexed at the last question. Apparently, that’s something he didn’t think of either.

“Good question.” He said, pressing a few buttons on his console. Abruptly, a frown overtook his face.

“Well?” Asked Athena, impatiently.

“It…would appear that our stalwart crew has decided to use the escape pods.”

I smiled again, having already felt the pods traveling quickly away from out position with my illusory domain. The crew apparently decided that this was something we could handle alone. They didn’t have trust in our abilities, Pantheon or not, and booked it anyway. One has to admire their resolve, immediately following through a course of action which would maximize their chances of survival—or, what they though the best actions would be.

In reality, the safest place in the entire quadrant would be right next to us. I am slightly insulted that they chose to jettison the remaining pods as well, likely as a distraction to the enemy ships so that they might slip away unnoticed before sending out a distress beacon for the nearest allied ship to pick them up with. This, of course, leaves us on a ship without any escape pods. To them, they essentially decided to leave us for dead. Again, not a big problem—after all, I’ve already elicited karma for their actions.

“Ah, it looks like they have started firing their weapons.” Said Heimdal, watching his screen. On it, shimmering bolts of blue light bolted through space, hurdling in our direction. Athena let out a little squeal seeing the energy projectile, convinced this was the end. Her squeal trailed off uncertainly when a few moments passed and nothing happened.

“They have completely fallen for it.” Said Heimdal with some incredulity. “Right now, they are approaching, likely to sift through the wreckage and pull out anything useful.”

“Mhh.” I nodded, already knowing this. As the energy projectiles impacted our ‘ship’, it splintered apart quite convincingly, beaming glowing red from the shear heat and friction of everything falling apart in the wake of their weapons. To those ships from the fringe, there was no question of whether this was real or not. There simply was no way to discern otherwise, unless someone significantly stronger than me was present.

~

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“They’ve been hit!” called out an unruly looking man into the communication device by his side. It crackled, before the cool and restrained voice of a woman responded.

“Are you sure? We’ve already let the remaining Federation vessel go. It would not pay to become any more careless than we already have.”

“Please, I can see with my eyes, woman. The glowing slag a pretty big giveaway that the shots hit. This makes up for some small Federation patrol ship. I mean, what is that thing even gonna do? Tell it’s friends that somebody whopped it’s ass and wiped out the rest of the patrol group? This ship, though, is bigger. More stuff. Even better, we didn’t even have to fight for it! The idiot crew even drove their escape pods right to us! I’ve never had easier shooting!”

A long suffering female sigh came from over the communication device’s speaker, before a different voice spoke.

“Now now. Niner, forgive that hot-headed idiot. Bad at tactical decisions he may be, but there is still no equal shot on this side the fringe.”

“Shooting will only do him so well. I’d like to see what he’d do when surrounded, outnumbered, and staring death in her lovely face.” Replied Niner coldly.

“Why, I’d spit in death’s face and take as many of the bastards with me as I can.”

“See, that’s what I’m afraid of. When that happens, I’ll make efforts to be as far from you as possible.”

“Aww, what happened to my loyal girl? We all die one day, I’d like to do it in a way that gets me remembered, dammit.”

“I am not your girl. Just a member of your group. Remember that, Deuce.” Responded the girl bitterly.

“Both of you, behave.” Said an older and more mature sounding man. “I would like to check out the wreckage of that ship and get out of here as soon as possible. Something doesn’t feel quite right.”

“Aye aye Alpha.” Came the calls of at least 4 more people who had, up until this point, remained quiet.

There were eight of them in total, with two to a ship. The ships themselves weren’t anything pretty to look at, but as the Federation patrol found to it’s dismay, they were quick and maneuverable. Apparently, there was some new engine the ships had which made them quicker than they had any right to be, but only Alpha really cared about that. It had to be kept a secret, he said. The rest of them only appreciated the speed brought on by the engines. It allowed their little gang to ambush patrol ships, take on merchant vessels, and get out of the area before anyone else arrived. It made a life of piracy much easier, and the acquisition of new materials and moneys a triviality.

As it was, the patrol group they jumped earlier didn’t know what was happening until they’d already lost three ships, with a fourth already limping badly. With only one out of the original seven making it back, the advantage their engines gave could not be apparent enough.

“I’m approaching the freighter” called out Deuce carelessly, maneuvering his ship among the small debris field created by the destruction of the ship. Most of it lay intact, the large bulk of the ship mostly keeping the central sections together. It was a bit of a task getting the pirate ship close enough without damaging it—even though it was a smaller vessel, it was still about 30 meters long, and 8 meters wide. Slotting such a ship through all the floating bits of metal was not mean feat, though Deuce could hear swearing from the engine compartments whenever he brushed up against small bits of debris, his partner not wanting any scratches on his precious ship.

A particularly large thump sent a torrent of abuse out the foul-mouthed fellow’s mouth, while Deuce shifted in his cockpit, trying to see what hit them. It would be a problem if it were anything dangerous.

Turning directly around, he paled.

Certainly, something dangerous had made its way to his ship. Because, behind him, standing atop the freshly painted red craft like some god of old, was a man glowing a gentle blue with a long spear clutched in hand, the void of space not deterring him in the slightest.

Seeing that Deuce had spotted him, the man smiled amiably before plunging his spear directly through the shielding wrapped around the ship, and into its hull.

There was a small popping sound as the entire vessel burst open like a tin can, power from the spear rupturing it and exposing the two pirates to the harshness of space. And unlike Heimdal, they were unable to survive.

The three other pirate ships noticed that something was terribly wrong by this point, the communications device from Deuce’s ship suddenly going scarily quiet. He blipped off their sighting devices as well—disappearing from the radar, as it were.

“Deuce, come in. Do you read me?” Called Niner over the comms. She had a concerned look on her face, feeling that Alpha’s prediction had just come true.

This was further validated when suddenly, the ship next to her own seemingly imploded, sending her flying out of the pilots chair in fright.

“What’s going on out there?” Called Alpha from behind her. He liked helping the newer members of the crew, showing them the ropes so that they could become fully competent pilots, gunners, and crew members. Niner was the newest among them, so he was riding with her for the time being.

“I-I don’t know!” She squeaked out, watching the last remaining ship besides her own waver like a mirage before hearing brief, terrifying screams from over the comms. Then they cut out, and the ship careened off into dead space.

“I am terribly sorry about this, but please do not panic.” Spoke a calm, unknown voice right next to her. She turned while feeling a scream build up inside, before darkness overtook her.

The last thing she saw when conscious was death’s pleasant face looming behind her.