We float in the darkness between stars, the distant pinpricks of light the only evidence that we’re not alone. Countless worlds shine with life and while it’s distant, never before is the scale quite so clear as now, and I’m sure there are just as many dark worlds and systems out there as there are those burning bright.

It’s smart to hide from the monsters that fill this emptiness.

Monsters like us.

“You’re not paying attention,” Vii grumbles as I bump into her. We dance in the space between canopies and roots, floating in the bubble of air that fills the emptiness that expands far beyond us.

Ria sings far below us, on a stage prepared for the moment. Some others have taken up instruments to support her, but most simply sit about in a daze.

“Sorry, I’m still not great at this,” I admit. “I do most of my dancing with Eshya, and half of that is with her sword jammed in my gut.”

Vii laughs at that, but the sound hangs hollow in the air which is soon retaken by the music below. I turn my borrowed eyes to Eshya, but she’s still sleeping quietly just as she was when Arduelle delivered her back home.

“Come on,” Vii says, stirring the winds around me and guiding me into new movement. A distraction to keep us safe from the shadows that lurk in our memories. It was Ria’s suggestion, but we helped her to put everything together for it.

Some were still hesitant to leave the lower decks of the ships, but when blood started dripping through the deck it become a little easier. We were able to drag even the last suborn few away from the ships and bring them out here.

Though, I had to leave much of that to the others. When I look at these people who hid in the safety of the ship’s hold, I see the faces of those who died fighting instead.

I know that it’s not their fault that so many died, but I can’t help but think of them as cowards. I truly do wish that I could trade them for the brave idiots who stood up against the army, and I know that it’s not good to think that way.

It just stirs the rage inside and, at least for now, I can’t deal with it properly.

Keeping my mass light and moving myself with pushes of force magic, I float on the currents of air that Vii summons around me. She moves fluidly, while I stumble over my magic, and send myself flying out of control over and again.

“There we go,” Vii says, her wings fluttering wide before she pulls me into a spin just as Ria’s song rises to an end.

“It’s fun moving through the sky, right? We can just forget everything and float about and play. Nothing to worry about while we can just dance and move, you know? It’s good to just… not worry for a few minutes…”

I nod but as we settle back on the ground the weight of reality falls back onto our shoulders.

This has become the gathering spot for most of those we freed, some are crying, many are not. The silence speaks of the trauma that lasts even as we leave the battle behind, I just hope that they’ll find a way to return to a normal life because I doubt we’ll have the resources to keep them fed and in therapy without a large workforce.

We just have to do what we can.

“It’s going to be okay,” Vii says, smiling eagerly as she hovers by my side. “Look at what we have now. With this ship, we can go wherever we want and collect whatever we need. Things are better than they’ve ever been for us.”

I quietly nod, forcing a smile for her, but I can tell that it makes her feel no better than before. She’s flustered and bothered already by the situation and I can’t be dragging her down just because of my own dark thoughts.

“I’m fine,” I say finally. “Thanks for trying to cheer me up, I’m just coming to terms with the fact that I can’t save everyone.”

With a deep breath, I set aside the heavy thoughts and feelings, feeding them all into the furnace within my soul, the same place where my mana is processed, the whirling mass of fear and rage that defines me.

I’m afraid of losing people.

I’m angry at the world that takes them from me.

There’s no need for anything more complex than simple fear and rage. Depression would only slow me down, so let it become energy to push me through to the next fight.

A dark laugh slips through my lips as I free my mind of the trappings that would drag me down into despair and instead turn to the blessings that fill this universe. My lover, my empire, the people that I can save, and the world that I can still build. When I stop laughing it’s become something more relieved than villainous.

“Let’s go see what we can do,” I say, still smiling as I pull Vii along beside me. “There are a few people we need to pick up before we meet back up with my little empire.”

Clearing my mind and focusing on what needs to be done, and the future still ahead of us, I rush into the white halls that make up the larger expanse of this ship, leaving behind the crystal canopy above that shines with the light of ten thousand refracted stars.

“So we’re flying out to find some people?” Vii asks. “Recruiting for our proud little empire? Who are they?”

“Some soldiers, ex-soldiers, who stole that ship we were on a little while back. They’re lost and abandoned by their own people, I hate to see them suffering.” I say, turning some of my attention back towards the soldiers abandoned back on some backwater world.

“I know those guys, I’ve been looking in on them sometimes too, but Kyra, we can’t save everyone…” Vii says, her mind clearly turning to those we’ve lost. Countless people have died pointlessly in this stupid war, and I’m not just thinking of those who died on my side.

The enemy soldiers, the citizens who were deemed irreparable beasts, and everyone who was just caught in the violence. No one deserved to be part of this horrible war.

“We can save some people,” I say. “That’ll be enough.”

A small hole in the ceiling breaks open as a familiar critter slides into the hall before us. He slicks back his ears nervously as he jumps in to walk beside us.

“So uh, you’re the boss here now, huh?” He asks, his ears flicking all about as he tries to make conversation. “Never thought I’d see something like that before. You were pretty amazing.”

“Not really,” I reply. “It’s everyone else that’s amazing. The people who stood up and fought to live, even against enemies too strong to overcome and my infiltration team who saved the day, rescuing us all when I couldn’t keep us together anymore.”

“Right, right…” He slows a little before catching back up. “But you do know that this doesn’t happen often, right? You fought the Unified States and won.”

“A single battle,” I say. “There are wars yet to come. Many, many more wars.”

“We’ll be involved in all this?” He asks.

“If you want to be,” I say. “My hope is to grow powerful enough to fight and end these wars all by myself.”

“An… interesting idea,” he says, scratching at his ears. “So… we’re just free?”

“I’ll give you the basic rules of our society later, but so long as you’re not out there stealing and murdering your way through my town, yeah, you’re free. If you are a murderous maniac, or just don’t like the rules, you’re also free to leave.”

“Nice, nice,” he says, bouncing along beside me. “So… these collars?”

“I’ll take them off of you in a bit,” I say. “We still need to transfer control of the ship to people we can trust, then prepare what we need for the collar removal. It’s a rather painful experience without being knocked out.”

“Right, right,” he chirps happily smiling toothily up at me. “So… when would that be?”

“A few days?” I reply thoughtfully. “Sorry, I can’t be more precise with all this. We’re still figuring things out; this entire conflict wasn’t something we planned for.”

We arrive in the control room where Red and Adler are still overseeing the collared pilots. The room hasn’t yet been cleaned and the two don’t seem to see the need, though the pilots are clearly rather horrified that the officer’s blood still covers the room, pooling around her corpse.

“Excuse me, there are things that I have to work through,” I say and the big-eared young man nods in understanding.

“Adler,” I walk up to her, and she turns and charges across the small distance between us before embracing me. Her ears are flat on the top of her head, while her tail works back and forth in a mad pattern.

“Kyra, we don’t have enough people. We have about a dozen warriors capable of helping out, and over three thousand civilians breaking down from the stress, unable to even speak. We’re… what do we do?” She asks, shaking her head back and forth as she battles against the storm of ideas racing back and forth in her mind.

“First of all, we need to clean up,” I say, summoning some force magic and shoving the worst of the gore into the corner. Vii’s wind magic helps, but it’s Adler’s own water magic that rids us of the blood stains.

It takes but a few moments, but already it’s a little better now.

Adler is already walking back and forth in thought, there’s so much for us to do that she can’t settle down on one thing at a time. Nothing about today has been okay, but everything will get better from here.

“I know of a crew that I think we can trust to help us,” I say. “We just need to figure out how to get there, or get them to us.”

“Oh, I think I can help,” Vii mumbles to herself. “It’s just… yeah… no… wait… From his eyes, and that position. It should be marked but that’s not really useful for space magic, and we don’t want to land on them, or worse in them.”

“Can you help the pilots get us over there?”

“Yep, yep!” She chirps hopping up and over to the collared pilots. She expresses herself half with the waving of her wings and the stomping of her feet as she tries to communicate to them the direction we need to go.

“We can only shift a small handful of times,” Red says. “I’m not sure it’s advisable to use this ship for a small pickup job.”

“Then we’ll look at repairing a smaller ship for it,” I say. “We’ll shift this place to the dungeon where our small empire is when we’re prepared.”

I call Vii back, along with a pilot who seems to understand her. A young elvish woman, pretty enough to steal my attention any other day. Today, she just makes me think of Eshya sleeping in our bed.

“See what you can do about repairing one of the smaller ships, and we’ll head out on a rescue mission,” I say, sending Vii away with our rather nervous little pilot.

“When can we leave for the new world’s dungeon?” I ask.

“We need directions first of all, then we start getting the engine warmed up,” Red says.

“It’ll take a few hours before the magic is settled into the crystal tree and we’re ready to cast.”

“It didn’t take that long a second ago,” I note.

“It didn’t take that long because we rushed it,” Adler says. “We paid a high cost in mana for every hour we cut from the wait.”

“How much?” I ask.

“What you can store in your throne, by about a thousand,” Adler replies dryly.

“Ah, shit.”

“We don’t have much more mana left in storage,” Adler continues. “We’ll want to recharge when we can.”

I feel like I’ve stolen a modern battle tank only for my elation to be murdered just as I take it to the gas station. It’s still cool as heck, and I can still blast the cop cars to hell, but my wallet is feeling a little light and I’m wondering how many kidneys it’ll cost to fill up on ammo once I’m done with the fuel.

“How is this recharging usually done?” I ask.

“Well, the allocation of mana is sorted out by a certain logistics organisation. It’s all very complicated in detail but simple in process. Mana is directed towards the officers and any other groups that are deemed to deserve it, and using various oversized devices, it’s delivered into the storage vessel in the ship’s core.”

I assume she knows all this either because she’s spoken to the pilots, or just pulled the information out of them through our mind chips somehow.

“Can we do it ourselves?” I ask.

“We’ll need to develop technology of a completely new scale and mana farms of immense capacity. In a pinch, you could probably manually recharge it but…”

“It’ll be trying to fill a water tank by spitting in it?” I ask.

“I wouldn’t put it in those words, but only because that’s disgusting. Otherwise, yes, it’s rather accurate.” Adler rubs the side of her head as she considers the issue.

“So, we set this ship up into a defensible position and leave it there until we figure out how to use it?” I ask.

“Seems like it,” Red says. “It’s still a win for us.”

“Yeah, but I get the feeling that this place lacks the offensive capacity that a vessel of this size would usually need,” I say. “What do you think, Red? Will it stand up in a ship-to-ship battle?”

“Ah, you’ll have to find someone with naval experience to answer that one,” Red says, backing away at the question.

“Well, add that to the list. I’ll have to look into installing some of my annihilation crystals around the place when we have a moment.”

“Annihilation crystals?” Adler asks.

“Like my throne,” I say. “I can cast the mana stored within as if it’s part of my own mana form. Should be a good weapons system, at least until we can come up with something better at the very least.”

“Sounds reasonable to me,” Red shrugs, with a laugh. “Reasonable as any of this is. You’re a damn maniac, you know that?”

“You’re the ones who stole this ship,” I reply, shaking my head. “Hold down the house while I’m gone.”

I head back out the door and make my way out toward the vessel that Vii is working to repair, now bringing Ria into the effort. The enchanter wasn’t confident the last time she looked at them, but maybe the pilot will bring something into the question that’ll help speed things along.

Until Arduelle shows up to give us directions, we’re stuck here and we need help from some people who are at least healthy enough to do some cleaning and scrubbing…

Actually, isn’t it trauma-inducing enough to send people in to move corpses and scrub blood from the deck?

Shaking the useless thought from my mind, I turn my attention outwards, spying on the rebellious soldiers in their little camp on an alien world.

~ ~ ~ ~ ~

“I’m coming,” is the only message that she sends us, refusing to answer anything we send back to her.

“What is she up to?” Shrue asks, standing guard at the edge of the town, the edge of the crash site, the same thing really.

“I wouldn’t put any faith in it,” she says, running her hand down her bow. “We have a hell of a fight ahead of us if we want to make a life for ourselves out here.”

“Who’d’ve thought those dumb, fat, four-legged freaks would actually be a part of some civilisation. I thought they were just more scrounging beasts. I just thought they were food.” I grumble.

“They were food,” Shrue replies. “Scrumptious after Cook was done with them, but if we aren’t careful, we’ll end up as food too.”

“Shit, steak or stir-fry?” I ask.

“What?”

“Which would you rather be?”

“… I didn’t know you were that hungry,” she mutters, shaking her head in amusement.

“Come on, play along,” I say. “It can be tiresome standing watch.”

“I’d rather be melted down by some massive plant, not cut up and parcelled out by some butcher.”

“I’d rather be minced up and spread around into all sorts of meals,” I say. “I reckon I’d make a good burger.”

“Idiot.”

The night turns silent again for a while, beasts cry out into the night proclaiming their dominance. I recognise a few of them, but they don’t seem to be anything we need to worry about.

“It’s a mess,” I grumble staring up into the sky. “Ever since that mission went wrong our lives have become a complete mess.”

“Sure, I can’t deny that.” Shrue says, “But it’s nice in a way.”

“How?”

“We were walking a dangerous road, waiting for the moment that we’d slip. That was worse than any of the rest of it, and now… we slipped. We fell from the bridge and broke our legs.

“We’re healing and looking up at all we have to work towards,” she says, looking into the wilds around. “It’s nice to be looking ahead instead of down at our feet, struggling to keep from making a single mistake.”

“Yeah, I guess,” I grumble. “Still, I would kill for a bath.”

“Might have to,” Shrue suggests with a snort.

“Ah, up! Something above us!” I shout the warning the moment I notice the shadow falling over us. A patch of stars is darkened by something approaching us, something large.

~ ~ ~ ~ ~

I draw away from his mind, shaking my head as I become fully myself again. As interesting an experience that that was, I’m not sure I want to try it again. It feels slightly too limiting.

I step over the edge of the ship and fall through the sky, controlling my descent with my assortment of magics and abilities.

“Hello, you fella’s need a ride?” I ask, landing before the startled vanguard and the archer as they stand guard. “Want to get out of here before something decides to try and make a meal of us?”

~ ~ ~ ~ ~

Stats and Skills

~Mana Form:

Current mana density: 60,892 / 60,892 units

Current mana volume: 30,271 / 30,271 shards

Mana volume at crystallisation density (Max. mana volume):

Kyra: 30,271 shards

Kyra’s armour: 20,777 shards

Kyra’s throne: 1,109,298 shards

~Forms

Mana Canon

-Annihilation Heart (Adapted)

-Blood Fuel (Adapted)

-Bone Magic Storage (Adapted)

-Nail Shifters (Adapted)

Dancer

-Flash Nerves (Adapted)

-Quick Perception Mind (Adapted)

-Burst Reflex Muscles (Adapted)

-Layered Space Muscles (Adapted)

Turtle

-Rebinding Tissue (Adapted)

-Catalyst Sweat Glands (Adapted)

-Repulsive Skin (Adapted)

-Prehensile hair (Adapted)

-Fatty Tissue Blood Storage (Adapted)

Investigator

-Wide eyes (Adapted)

-Wide ears (Adapted)

-Sharp nose (Adapted)

Misc.

-Clean bowels (Adapted)

-Mana Drive (Adapted)

~Favourited Skills:

Magic:

-Annihilation Magic (Customised)

-Fire Magic (Functional)

-Space magic (Broken)

-Force magic (Functional)

-Ice magic (Broken)

-Wind magic (Broken)

Movement:

-Hand-to-hand casting (Functional)

-Mana surge movement (Functional)

-Stealth (Functional)

Senses:

-Eyes of an Empire (Customised)

-Combat Awareness (Functional)

-Watchmen (Functional)

-Hidden bug (Mastered)

-De-tagging (Mastered)

-Anti-stealth sight (Mastered)

Special:

-Spirit Transformation (Broken)

-Conformity (Broken)

-Training mana form (Functional)