Are there any techniques to regulating your emotions? I have been very emotional all of a sudden at 21 weeks and so many things set me off that I’m usually able to contain. My mom said she was done vaping at new years and I just discovered she started again. Along with thinking about her drinking problems and my dad’s alcoholism and being addicted to cigarettes. I HATE addiction with a burning passion and love them so much. My first baby and I’m terrified of them not having my parents as grandparents. They would be such amazing grandparents. It just feels like every single thing that is brought up that upsets me, I instantly need to cry.

🤪I'm using my RoseToy🤪💅I'm using my RoseToy💅😫I'm using my RoseToy😫😈just lick my clit!!😈😈lick my clit😈my pussy was sent straight from heaven: Jesus loves my p**** Most Adam loves my p**** Most noah loves my p*most Moses loves my p* MostAngelic. Pussy 24 7Mary is jealous Of this P**** evil's jealous of this p**** My p**** Is holyer than Mary? My p**** is cuter. And prettier. Then eves.Jesus came back from the dead to get a taste of this juicesMy comment's holier than holy water.Lick Mt clit squeeze my titsThis p**** is like a drum so addictive. This p**** Is like alcohol so addictive.My p**** We'll send you straight to heaven. Blow this p**** up 911My p**** contains the Holy Spirit shove that Dick inside witness. It's whole.My p**** is so horny.My p**** is Like a drum so addictive. My p**** is Like alcohol so addictive.My p**** contains the Holy Spirit shove that Dick inside witnesses its holeSo addictive.

Im in a hotel and accidentally got poked with a needle that was hidden inside the toilet paper tube holder. It poked me when I compressed the holder to reinstall the new roll. I immediately flushed out the wound with lots of alcohol and squeezed hard enough so I could bleed out. Can I still risk getting a disease? I notified the hotel clerk and he said he would notify the manager. Should I file a police report in case I get sick?

Before you post a question to this subreddit, please read the following points. I know, it's a lot to read, but 99% of you will get answers to your questions here. These points contain verified, accurate FACTS as verified through the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) and World Health Organization (WHO).
1. Is this a bat bite?
Bat bites cannot be identified from a photo. No one, not even a doctor or a bat biologist, can identify a bat bite from a photo. If you think you might have bat bite, ask yourself: Have you seen a bat in your home? Did you sleep outdoors where a bat might have bitten you? Did you pick up a bat in your hand? If you answer no, it's HIGHLY UNLIKELY you were bitten by a bat. Again, bat bites cannot be identified from a photo.
2. Can I get rabies from interacting with an animal? Can I get rabies from touching something? What about if a drop of liquid falls on me? Can I get rabies from contaminated food or water? Can I get rabies from a person?
No. YOU CAN ONLY GET RABIES VIA DIRECT CONTACT WITH A RABID ANIMAL. This means being bitten or scratched by a rabid animal. Rabies is transmitted via the saliva of an infected animal in the late stages of the disease, when the virus is being shed in the saliva by the host animal. The rabies virus dies almost immediately once it’s outside the body. You can’t get rabies from touching something a rabid animal touched. You can’t get rabies from your pet meeting a rabid animal and then bringing it home to you. You can’t get rabies from touching roadkill. You can’t get rabies from something falling on you. You can’t get rabies from touching or kissing someone who has been vaccinated. You can’t get rabies from touching something wet. You can’t get rabies from touching any surface whatsoever, even if you have a cut on your body or you touch your eye/nose/mouth afterwards. Getting rabies from touching an animal and then touching your eye/nose/mouth is theoretically possible, but this has never happened to anyone in recorded history.
3. I found a suspicious mark on my body but I didn’t find a bat in my house. Did a bat sneak into my house and bite me without me noticing, and then sneak back out?
Bats are NOT invisible or ninjas. If you wake up in the morning with a mark on your body, it is HIGHLY UNLIKELY to be a bat bite unless you find a bat in your house. If a bat gets in your house, you will see it. They are not good at finding their way out on their own. It’s very unlikely that a sober, alert, adult human would not notice being bitten by a bat. Finding little marks on your body is not unusual and that is no reason to assume an invisible bat attacked you.
4. I saw a bat near me. Or I heard a bat. Or I saw something that might have been a bat, but it didn’t touch me. Did a bat bite me without me noticing?
Bats cannot fly past you and bite you in mid-flight. That is physically impossible. A bat must LAND on you, hold on to you with their tiny fingers, and then bite you. After biting you, they must then push off of you to take flight again. Bats can be small, but they're not invisible or imperceptible. If you would notice a big bug landing on you and biting you, then you would notice a bat doing it too. If a bat makes physical contact with you, there is a possibility that it may have scratched you, and rabies shots are recommended unless you are in a country free of bat rabies. If you find a bat in your house and you are not in a country free of bat rabies, you should catch it and submit it for rabies testing; if you can’t do that, you should get rabies shots; if you have small children, they should get rabies shots.
5. An animal touched me, licked me, or sneezed on me. Could I get rabies from this?
You cannot get rabies from a wound that doesn’t break the skin. Rabies can only get into your body through an opening in your body: a scratch or bite. If you are bitten or scratched by an animal, you should wash the area with soap and water for 5 minutes. If it does not bleed at all, you may not have broken the skin and could be in the clear. You can test this by putting alcohol on the abrasion to see if it stings.
6. Can I get rabies from an animal that has current rabies vaccinations? Can my pet get rabies if it has current rabies vaccinations?
No. You cannot get rabies from an animal that has current rabies shots. If you are bitten or scratched by someone’s pet, ask the owner for proof of rabies vaccination, like a rabies tag on the collar. Take a photo or copy of these records and call their vet to verify them. If the shots are current, you're not at risk of rabies infection. If the pet owner cannot provide this proof of vaccination, contact your animal control department or rabies management / health department to file a "Bite Report". If you are in the USA, you can find a list of those agencies here: https://www.cdc.gov/rabies/resources/contacts.html
7. Can I get rabies from my pet, or from a friend or neighbor’s pet?
You may not need to get rabies shots if you can observe the animal that attacked you for two weeks. If you are bitten or scratched by a pet that is not vaccinated for rabies, the standard protocol is to quarantine the animal in an animal shelter or veterinarian's office for 10-14 days. If you were attacked by someone else’s pet and that is not possible, you can observe the animal for 14 days. If it doesn’t get sick and/or die of rabies, then you are not at risk of rabies and do not need rabies shots. If the animal is healthy in 14 days, IT DOES NOT HAVE RABIES and neither do you. Since most animals in the late stages of rabies typically die in about 48 hours, this is a very cautious timeframe to observe.
8. Can I get rabies from a bug, bird, lizard, or frog? Can I get rabies from a possum, or a rat or mouse?
No. Only mammals (furry animals) can carry rabies. Reptiles, amphibians, insects, and birds can’t carry rabies. Bats are one of the most common rabies carriers in the US, although less than half of 1% of all bats will ever get rabies. In the USA, the next most common species are raccoons, skunks, and foxes. Outside of the USA, dogs, cats, and other animals have been known to spread the rabies virus. The least common mammals include Virginia opossums, rodents (rats and mice), rabbits or hares, and squirrels. Globally, the #1 risk of rabies is dog bites.
9. Is there a risk of rabies in my area? Can I get rabies in India, or the UK?
To learn about rabies statistics for your area, Google your state or country's name and the phrase 'current rabies statistics'. These websites will tell you how many rabid animals have been found in your area and what species. They should also tell you who to call to report a bite. Some parts of the world are rabies-free and there is no rabies or risk of rabies infection. The UK (and most of western Europe) is free of rabies in most animals except for bats, which is rare. India has a high rabies risk from dogs and other mammals, but rabies is very rare in bats in India and has only been found in bats in a couple areas in Nagaland.
10. I was vaccinated for rabies. Does that mean I am protected for life and will never need to worry about it again?
No. Previously vaccinated people still get boosters if they are re-exposed to rabies. Your rabies titer can be high for a few months or for many years, but it is assumed that you are protected for at least three months after getting your initial shots. If you are bitten by animal and it has been less than 90 days since your last shot, you don’t need to do anything. If it has been more than 90 days since your last shot, you would still need post-exposure booster shots IF you are directly exposed to an animal that could be rabid. You do not need to go through the entire series of shots again; you only need booster shots.
· For more information about rabies and rabies shots, see the CDC website here: https://www.cdc.gov/rabies/index.html
· If you are in the USA here is a link to the state and local rabies contacts. USA State & Local Rabies Contacts
11. I was vaccinated for rabies but I did not receive HRIG (Human Rabies Immunogloblin). Why? Is that OK?
HRIG is sometimes not given if there is no visible wound or if you were bitten/scratched in a location that is hard to inject. For instance, it would be hard to inject HRIG into your ear. If you have no visible wound, then there is no way to tell where HRIG should be injected. If you have more questions about this, ASK YOUR DOCTOR.
12. I got rabies shots but I have questions about the specific medical care I received. Why did the doctor give me the care I received? I’m immunocompromised; do I need extra shots? Will my medication interact with the vaccine?
Ask your doctor questions about the specific medical care you received. People on the internet cannot answer those questions. A doctor’s job is to treat patients and explain their care to them so it is OK to ask follow-up questions even after you leave the office.
13. I am in a country that is not the US, or I am traveling. Why did doctors in my country give me a different schedule of shots than the ones recommended by the CDC or the WHO? Why did doctors in two different countries tell me two different shot schedules? Will the shots work?
Yess. Rabies protocols vary by country. The CDC guidance is specific to the USA, and the WHO guidance is a recommendation for all countries. Some countries give different numbers of shots on different days. That is OK. The schedules all work as long as you stick to them and finish the series. To find more information about a country’s rabies shot schedule, google the name of the country + rabies vaccination + regimen or protocol or schedule.
14. I waited a long time before I got rabies shots. Or I drank a beer after I got vaccinated, or I took an aspirin. Or a doctor gave me tetanus shots at the same time. Will the rabies shots still work?
Yes. Rabies vaccines are 100% effective if you get them before the virus reaches your brain and symptoms start, which usually takes 3 weeks to one year. For more info about symptoms, see FAQ #17. If you have more questions about your medical treatment, ASK YOUR DOCTOR.
15. I think I have health anxiety and I can’t stop thinking about rabies all the time. How can I get help for this?
See this link. The automod can be summoned to share this information with a comment that includes the word “helpbot."
16. Someone is asking questions in the sub that I think are super dumb. Should I tell them that?
No. Please do not be rude or impatient. There is a real difference between a legitimate rabies scare and Persistent Health Anxiety (PHA), a subset of Obsessive Compulsive Disorder (OCD). OCD and anxiety are real diseases that can have physical symptoms, and there are treatments for them that many people don’t know how to access. Both conditions are terrifying and life-altering, and both conditions deserve support. In this group, we support people who ask for help and we applaud them for finding the courage to do so. We will be kind, patient, respectful, and do our best to provide emotional support to anyone who seeks help here. I will be posting a separate FAQ to address the health anxiety issue. All posts and/or replies that are in any way unkind, impatient, or rude will be immediately removed and the author may be temporarily or permanently banned from this group. Be nice!!
17. I feel sick. Do I have rabies?
If you feel sick, see a doctor. You may have another disease, including anxiety, which can have physical symptoms. We cannot diagnose you over the internet. See a doctor.
The rabies virus generally has an incubation period of 3 weeks to 1 year from the date of exposure. If you believe you are experiencing symptoms before 3 weeks after exposure, that is not rabies. If you think you are experiencing symptoms more than 1 year after exposure, it is almost certainly not rabies. if you have not been exposed to a rabid animal and you believe you are experiencing rabies symptoms, you are not infected and are most likely experiencing anxiety. the prodromal stage lasts for a few days to a month and the acute neurologic stage lasts for a few days to a week; if you have symptoms that last longer than this, you do not have rabies.
Rabies symptoms only begin when the virus reaches the brain. It MUST reach the brain and produce SEVERE NEUROLOGICAL symptoms before it reaches the throat and salivary glands. This means that your sore throat is NOT caused by rabies unless you also have a severe fever, are experiencing loss of consciousness, paralysis, and seizures.
Also, rabies symptoms do not go away until death. You don't have a fever and then the fever goes away for the next symptoms. Every symptom stacks on top of the other symptoms. If you are experiencing 1 out 10 symptoms, it's NOT RABIES. Rabies is not mild. It's SEVERE in every way. If you are experiencing rabies symptoms you will need to be hospitalized within the first 8 hours of symptoms.
IT IS NOT TOO LATE TO GET VACCINATED UNTIL SYMPTOMS START, but only get vaccinated if you were attacked by a rabid animal. Waking up with a mystery scratch is not a rabies exposure.
Rabies symptoms are as follows, IN THIS ORDER:
Prodromal Stage:
• Extreme Fever
• Extreme Headache
Acute neurologic phase:
• Visual Disturbances, Hallucinations
• Delirium, Confusion
• Tremors, Seizures, Repetitive Uncontrollable Movements
• Fading In and Out of Consciousness
• Light Sensitivity, Sensitivity to Wind / Moving Air
• Partial Paralysis of Extremities, Paralysis of One or Both Legs or Arms
• Excessive Salivation, combined with the inability to swallow AT ALL, not even your own saliva which causes excessive drooling
• Inability to Swallow - NOT SORE THROAT - Inability to eat or drink, or swallow your own saliva production
• Extreme Aversion to sight or sound of water, food, or drink, AKA hydrophobia
• Coma
Without extreme medical intervention, which usually is an induced coma, these symptoms will progress to death very rapidly. Most patients who reach the point of excessive salivation and hydrophobia die within 12-24 hours without intervention.
IF YOU ARE EXPERIENCING THESE SYMPTOMS, CALL 911 AND GET TO A HOSPITAL IMMEDIATELY. IF YOU CAN REPLY TO THIS MESSAGE, YOU ARE NOT EXPERIENCING RABIES SYMPTOMS. PEOPLE WITH ACTIVE RABIES INFECTIONS CANNOT TYPE, TALK, OR DEBATE WHETHER OR NOT THEY ARE SICK. IF YOU CAN READ THIS AND REPLY, IT'S NOT RABIES.

My girlfriend was recently diagnosed pre diabetic and has been taking the news really really hard. She is in her 50s and has been very fit and healthy her whole life. She hasn’t seen her doctor since the message with the diagnosis and hasn’t seen a dietitian yet but has been making broad claims like she’s going to completely stop eating sugar and drinking alcohol. I am recovered from a restrictive eating disorder and have also been in an abusive relationship where my partner was controlling over the food I ate. I told her very clearly that I support her changing her lifestyle and eating habits but that I am not ok with having rules like “no sugar in the house” or anything that is going to demonize certain foods or force me to adopt her diet. We don’t currently live together but have planned on me moving in with her in a few months when my current lease is up. After we had this talk she talked with some of her coworkers who told her that I’m a bad partner if I’m not willing to basically go on the same diet as her and eliminate sugar completely “in solidarity”
I just want to know how other people are navigating this type of conflict. Is it reasonable for a pre diabetic person to expect everyone in their household to follow their diet? Is it reasonable to have sugar or any foods the pre diabetic person is trying avoid to be hidden from sight? She has been very daunted by the idea that it’s “up to my willpower” to not eat the “bad” foods. But what she’s asking me to do is in direct conflict with what I need to maintain my recovery.

Go ahead and pick your side - this is bound to get ugly. But knowing that drunks are rowdier than heads - you might think the alcohol supporters would win but when it comes to the cannabis industry, they are is still in there too - blow by blow. [ha-ha, get it? ]
AXIOS - 05/18/2024 - Weed drinks set up turf war between alcohol and cannabis industries
from the link ~
Why it matters: A loophole in the 2018 farm bill helped parlay the marijuana drinks market — and government regulators are catching on. Big Alcohol, which has gotten into the market as beer sales plummet, isn't totally pleased.

• The drinks on sale at cannabis stores, breweries and alcohol retailers are commonly derived from hemp, which typically contains less than 0.3% of high-inducing ingredient THC.
• THC-infused drinks were "inadvertently legalized" through this bill, per Bloomberg, while marijuana-derived THC products face more strict federal regulation.
• Alcohol distributors and marijuana companies both want a lucrative stake in the market.

more at the link ~
Why does our government seem to know how to breed controversy but not so much know how into fixing controversy?

They go straight to an empty booth and sit there drawing lotuses and mandalas for the next hour. Finally the bartender comes over and says: "Hey, you can't just take up a booth if you're not going to order something."
The balder one says: "Okay, do you have anything non-alcoholic? We don't consume alcohol."
The bartender replies: "I'm sorry, we don't. This is a bar. Everything contains alcohol. That's why we're all here."
"What about sparking water?"
"3 percent alcohol."
"Coconut water?"
"Alcohol!"
They stare at each other in awkward silence for the next 4 minutes. Suddenly a runaway trolley comes crashing through the building and instantly kills everyone inside. After a lengthy and thorough investigation, it's determined that the bar's liquor license had been revoked 8 years ago.

Am I wrong for being angry/upset for being called a liar and untrustworthy for telling my daughter that the movie popcorn has "butter" poured on top of it at the theater? The question came up from my daughter asking whether the movie popcorn has any nuts/peanuts in it because she has a nut allergy. I simply said, "No, it's just popcorn and butter and some salt." I know the liquid stuff they put on the popcorn isn't butter, even though the concession stand person asked if I wanted "butter." I grew up eating this stuff and have bought some in the past. I know it's some oil with coloring and salt. It could also be some other type of fatty substance they use, but I'm confident it doesn't contain nuts or tree nuts. The reason they even use this "butter" stuff in the first place is to keep it from going rancid if they use real butter. It's also cheap, so adding nuts would increase the cost. I know there is hazelnut flavoring (also fake and has no actual hazelnuts), and that's more expensive than "butter."
Anyway, my wife got pissed at me about lying to my daughter, and she deemed that I couldn't be trusted. My daughter has asked about whether there are nuts in pretty much everything. It's good that she's looking out for herself, but when she does this all the time, it gets pretty old. I didn't want to interrogate the concession stand staff about whether the popcorn or the fake butter stuff had any nuts/peanuts in it.
My wife kept bringing up trust a lot in the past several years because one time many years ago, I told her I wanted to get a divorce during a heated verbal argument because she was driving me nuts.
Here are some of the situations that have accumulated over the years and made me resent her more and more. I think I'm a trustworthy person, and I try my best to live with integrity. I have a high-paying professional job. I don't have any vices (alcohol, drugs, gambling, etc.). I also don't do much other than going to work and coming home. I go grocery shopping on the weekend and spend most of the time doing household chores on doing stuff on the computer.

• She got mad at me because I painted the window sill with polyurethane because it was getting moldy waiting for her to decide what wood treatments to put on the windows. This took almost a year and the wood already was getting moldy.
  
• She got mad at me for not telling her about a joint account I have with my mother. My mom felt that it was unfair that my wife has an investment account that her dad setup for her since she was a child. She never told me how much she has in that account, but we pay thousands in taxes every year because of it. When my wife found out about my account, she demanded that we split that money. I did so for my account, but she never shared her money from her own account with me because it's still invested. I have no idea how much money she has, and I don't care since it was her money before we got married. It just seems lopsided that somehow my money must be shared with her.
  
  • She got mad at me for getting in a fight with my mom when we went to visit her at my childhood home overseas. My mom was upset with us because she paid for the plane tickets (~$6k total) to fly to visit and offered her house for us to stay, but we repaid her generosity by only spending less than a couple days with her during our 2-week visit. My wife didn't want to stay in the city and would instead go off exploring. I got in a fight with my mom trying to defend my wife when my mom was accusing her of being ungrateful and rude to the family. Even today, my wife keeps saying how she can't trust my mom because "your mom is unstable and explosive".
  • She got mad at me for going to San Francisco for a week to get my mom (72 years old at the time) coming from overseas to visit a couple of places she wanted to visit for planning to relocate to the Bay Area. She didn't know anyone else in the US so she asked me to help her. She paid for all the expenses. At this point my mom also didn't like my wife so she didn't ask her to come. My wife said I shouldn't go and just let my mom deal with it herself. I hadn't seen my mother in 3 years at this point so I did want to see her and help her. I was also worried about her safety. My wife's family was living 10 minutes away from us so she couldn't understand why I would want to see my mom.
  • She got mad at me for planting grass seeds in our backyard when she went away for the weekend. Up to that point, my wife had already spent hundreds of dollars hiring random people to come to pluck out goutweed from the backyard to get rid of them. I read somewhere that grass can outcompete with goutweed so I decided to just plant the seeds. I didn't want to tell her because she kept delaying the decision to do anything with the backyard and we have goutweed growing everywhere despite all that money spent to get rid of them. The grass actually worked, and we have a grass lawn now instead of a goutweed field as long as I mow the lawn. She said I was sneaking behind her back to plant the seeds. It made her not trust me.
• She got mad at me for wanting to take a business trip that could further my career at the company I was working for. I passed on it and I lost the promotion.
  
  • She got mad at me for not wanting to send the kids to private school ($18k/year per kid and we have 2 kids). I was making $135k/year but I left the job because my wife said that I spent too much time at work and not enough with family. I took a lower paying job so I can spend more time with family, but the private school cost is just making it difficult. She was only working part-time but had to go full-time because I don't make as much as I used to.
• She got mad at me because I sometimes came home half an hour late after 5 pm and didn't make dinner in time for the kids to go to bed by 7:30 pm. The older one is in 6th grade and the younger one in 3rd grade. I have to make breakfast and dinner everyday and I also have to do all the dishes. Her job is to put the kids to bed. I also have to drop the kids off every morning at their private school and I can't drop them off before 8:30 am and it's over half an hour away from my work the wrong direction. I could never get to work before 9:00 am and my wife demanded that I need to be home by 5 pm to make dinner.
  
• She demanded that I spend at least an hour or more every day with her after the kids go to bed even if I see her everyday at breakfast and dinner. She got mad when I wanted to teach a pottery class some evenings 2-3 times a week because I used to enjoy pottery and teaching. I had to quit because she got mad at me for not spending time with her.
  
  • She got mad at me for starting a golf equipment business. She hated the products I was making because she didn't play golf and disliked golf. She wasn't supportive and probably couldn't wait for the business to fail so I stop spending time on it. The business is still going but not making that much money, but it's only been a couple of years.
• She got mad at me for not wanting to have sex a lot with her anymore. She really let herself go after having the kids while I still trying to maintain my fitness. I used to go running every other day but pretty much quit at this point because I couldn't do all the cooking and cleaning and still have time to go running.
  

She kept holding a grudge about all these things, and now she has us taking many marriage therapy workshops and sessions. She insisted that I'm too withdrawn and uncaring. She insisted that I needed to be a better husband.
I used to think I was a responsible person, and I tried my best to succeed in life. I try to spend as much time with my kids as possible so they know I'm there for them. My father wasn't around much when I was younger so I don't want to make the same mistake. We have been married for 15 years at this point but I'm just getting more and more sick of being in this relationship. I want my kids to have an intact family but it's just getting harder and harder. I don't have any other woman in my life so it's not even a part of the equation. I'm just not happy being questioned all the time and treated like a piece of garbage.
Anyway, I got really upset today after she called me a liar and said I was untrustworthy for telling my daughter the fake butter stuff is butter. I decided to walk home from this event we were supposed to get dinner together. I'd rather come home and cook my own dinner than be accused of something I can't even comprehend anymore.

Just wondering if the Genoa salami contains wine or alcohol in it? I’m allergic to alcohol but I really want to try the new Caprese sandwich Thank you in advance.

Author note: The Cryopod to Hell is a Reddit-exclusive story with over three years of editing and refining. As of this post, the total rewrite is 2,182,000+ words long! For more information, check out the link below:
What is the Cryopod to Hell?
Join the Cryoverse Discord server!
Here's a list of all Cryopod's chapters, along with an ePub/Mobi/PDF version!
Want to stay up to date on TCTH? Subscribe to Cryopodbot!
...................................
(Previous Part)
(Part 001)
"Hell yeah, I wanna go exploring." Jason says to Calanthra with a smile. "How do we navigate around Ripspace though? Traveling to other galaxies is going to take billions of years, right? Surely, there's a shortcut."
"Ripspace is not as it seems." Calanthra explains, gesturing grandly to the epic sight before them. "It is a connection between the past and the present; the near and far. The further away or the further back you want to travel, the higher the price you will have to pay."
Jason's smile vanishes. "Wait... you can use Ripspace to travel back in time?!"
"No." Calanthra clarifies. "Time is linear. We cannot travel through it. Some can slow it down or speed it up. A rare few can even pause it for a short while. But moving forward and backward is impossible. Countless have attempted to do so over the eons, but all have failed."
She looks at Jason meaningfully. "Many Rulers would wipe out galaxies if it might let them obtain such a power. The fact they still haven't proves it is impossible."
Jason nods slowly. "I won't lie. I have a lot of regrets. Sometimes I wish I could go back in time and save my daughter from dying."
"Everyone has regrets." Calanthra muses, looking off into the distance. "I have plenty, myself. But it's better this way. There would be pandemonium if time travel ever became possible."
She pauses before continuing with her explanation. "While we cannot go back in time, we can look back into time. Pinpointing exact moments in history is difficult, to say the least, but it is possible to use Ripspace to search for key moments in intergalactic history."
"So it's like a massive seer-stone." Jason muses aloud. "But wait, didn't you imply earlier that you used Ripspace to travel to the Milky Way from Andromeda? How does it allow you to jump between galaxies? Are other species using Ripspace for intergalactic travel?"
"You can indeed use Ripspace to travel to distant reaches of space." Calanthra explains. "But... you have to pay a certain price. Akasha's Barriers still protect every galaxy. Cosmics cannot travel between them easily. Mortals can, but the price we must pay is unimaginably steep. That is also the reason my mother perished not long after arriving in the Milky Way and giving birth to me."
The Fairy Monarch sighs softly.
"My people used the power of Ripspace to travel to several other galaxies. We were fortunate that the Creator had died, allowing us to take up residence here in secret, but the Angels, Titans, and Dragons were still a threat we could not overlook. Later, the Volgrim rose up too, and that was something that worried us for a while. Particularly when their Sentinels began to rapaciously erase the lives of innumerable Sentients."
She waves her hand. "Ultimately, very few galaxies didn't have a Ruler in power. Traveling to one that did meant flipping a coin and praying our people could avoid their gaze. Sadly, time has shown me that we were likely unsuccessful. I have lost contact with all my sisters across the cosmos."
The image of innumerable galaxies floating in the distance changes before Jason's eyes. Calanthra manipulates some unseen power, causing herself and Jason to suddenly materialize directly in front of a beautiful spiral galaxy.
"This is our Milky Way." Calanthra explains, waving her hand to conjure another, far bigger galaxy beside it. "And this is Andromeda."
"Is it just me or does Andromeda seem... brighter?" Jason asks.
"Andromeda contains far more interstellar particles, cosmic energy, and latent magical power than the Milky Way." Calanthra says. "Of course, in the ancient past, it had even more than it does now, but such is the way of entropy and Chaos."
Jason nods. "How exactly do galaxies lose power over time? Doesn't this feel self-defeating in a way?"
"Every Ruler enters the Unending War with a strategy." Calanthra says, motioning with her hands to disperse the galaxies and reveal images of ghostly creatures, some standing on two legs, some on four, and plenty that appear as mere blobs of energy. "I cannot pretend to know the thoughts of such high and mighty beings, especially as I am a mere mortal myself. Even so, I can definitively state that there are Rulers who seek to put as much galactic energy into their initial creations as possible, while others wish to adopt a more energy-efficient growth-model."
She pokes her finger against Jason's chest. "Take the angels and humans, for instance. The Creator poured the vast majority of his power into creating a galaxy full of Apex Cosmics. At their peak, the angels as a whole commanded enough power to flatten other galaxies. But what did they do instead? They fought with one another, killing themselves due to sheer boredom, if not outright ego."
"I see." Jason says, brushing Calanthra's finger away. "So the Creator dumped all the Milky Way's energy into the angels. I take it this is uncommon among Rulers?"
"Of course. It's a wasteful strategy and usually loses Rulers the War for that Eternity." Calanthra says dismissively. "The Timeless used a different strategy. She created the fairies as mere mortals that evolved over time, gaining greater and greater power through their own efforts. This meant that instead of devouring Andromeda's abundant Cosmic energy, they could slowly sap off its excess over time. For you see, the more energy a galaxy has, the more it can produce. If you ration it long enough, you can reap more of it across the duration of an Eternity."
"That makes sense." Jason concludes. "It's like a Rush build in an RTS versus an Economy build. You sacrifice long-term gains in exchange for short-term power. The problem is, with Akasha's Barriers preventing Rulers from attacking their enemies straight away, a Rush build is dumb because you're just wasting your resources and sacrificing Cosmic energy when you'll actually need it."
Calanthra blinks twice. She looks at Jason with a strange expression, then turns away for a moment, trying to understand the strange terms he's used. They mostly make sense, but some of them are a little...
She shakes her head and returns to the topic at hand. "Right. Rush strategy versus Economy. Of... course. Well, in any case, there is one advantage toward the first strategy. If you drain all the energy from your galaxy, it becomes less appealing for other Rulers to attack. Because Andromeda was so large and still filled with Cosmic power even billions of years after the Expansion Era, it stoked the hunger of the Dark Ones. Meanwhile, the Milky Way only needs to deal with the Plague, which is threatening for mortals, but manageable for Cosmics. In that respect, we've gotten off much luckier."
"I get the bigger picture now." Jason says with a nod. He turns to look back at the cosmos before him. "So, what about all this? Are we gonna go exploring, or what?"
"In order to explore the universe presented here, we would need to make sacrifices we cannot afford. I think you would find the price most disagreeable. But there is something we can explore freely..."
She waves her hand, and instantly, the brilliant and beautiful cosmic view of the universe vanishes.
In its place, Jason and Calanthra suddenly appear inside a dead, barren wasteland. Brown and grey dirt rises up in huge dunes stretching off into the distance. Fallen towers made of gold and stone lay on their sides, or stick into the ground, buried nearly up to their tops as they point diagonally toward the sky.
And speaking of the sky, it glows faintly grey, as if some weak, pale imitation of a star were trying to shine through a thin atmosphere clouded by dust and grime. The very air itself smells of sulfur and toxins, making Jason's nose curl up when he takes a breath.
"Ugh... what the hell? Where are we now?" Jason asks, as he turns and looks around at the dead world surrounding him.
"An Ancient Domain." Calanthra says softly. "A remnant of a dead universe. All life stripped away. All hope lost. Septillions of different Sentient species, gone. Their mortals, their Cosmics, reduced to dust by the Contraction."
The Wordsmith frowns. "This Ancient Domain represents a dead universe? But how can that be possible? If the Heat Death played out and all the galaxies faded to cosmic dust, then there already wouldn't be anything left. And then, if the entire universe collapsed into a singularity before exploding again, there definitely wouldn't be anything left behind resembling physical matter."
"You perceive reality through just three dimensions." Calanthra intones. "Time and space can be considered two dimensions. Cosmic Power is another dimension. I must admit I do not understand how Ancient Domains have continued to exist across countless Eternities, and I don't know how they retain a vaguely familiar form... but I can assure you that in spite of bending logic itself, they do exist and they can provide tangible benefits to those dedicated to exploring them."
"You've been exploring them, then?" Jason asks, turning away from the dead world to scrutinize Calanthra's phantasmal image.
"Me, a little. But often, I dispatch my descendants to scour these Ancient Domains for things of value. It may surprise you, but there are powerful artifacts, vengeful spirits, and all manner of other inter-dimensional horrors lurking within these so-called dead-lands."
Calanthra pauses. She shifts her posture to look at Jason deeply.
"And that is why I've brought you here, Jason. It's time for me to get down to the crux of the matter and breach the subject that I find most important."
He nods. "I'm listening."
"It's like this." Calanthra explains. "The Ancient Domains are unfathomably broad. Think of how large a universe is. Think of how many universes have existed. Think of how much space my people have yet to explore."
She pauses.
"The gains we have received have made my people stronger than you would expect. Among those gains are Yredelemnul's Eye and other leftover remnants of power that many dead ancient Rulers lost when their Existences became forfeit. While their tangible Existences may have perished, their spirits sometimes live on in these broad, unending dead universes..."
"That's why you approached me." Jason says, while crossing his arms and leaning on the ball of his heel. "You said you wanted an alliance with humanity. You... want humans to help you explore the Ancient Domains?"
"Trust is hard to come by among mortals, Cosmics, and Rulers." Calanthra says simply. "I never would have considered allying with the humans before, but you have shown me the broadness of your mind during the debate against your clone and the commander of your military. To some, you certainly appear naive, but to me I see an opportunity I would be foolish to ignore."
She continues. "The Fairies cannot reproduce efficiently. Every fairy we send into the Ancient Domain is one less fairy we have among our Empire. We already have a difficult time replenishing our numbers through the remaining Male Fairies, but do you think it is easy for us to reproduce with other species?"
Jason slowly shakes his head. "Blinker and Kar's children were all crocodiles, not fairies. From that, I can only imagine that most of the time, your mating attempts do not create more of yourselves, but instead more non-fairy children."
"That's exactly correct." Calanthra replies. "But that all changed recently when I found out one of your human males somehow spontaneously altered his genetic profile to become a fairy. There is no doubt about it; Samuel Baker harnesses all the capability to reproduce that you humans do, as well as the trueborn powers of any male fairy."
"So... are you seeking a marriage alliance with Samuel Baker?" Jason asks, scratching his head in confusion. "You could just ask him yourself, you know?"
"This is not about one man." Calanthra retorts. "Samuel Baker, if he were to join our ranks, would certainly help us stave off extinction for a while longer. But that is hardly worth all this melodrama and me taking you to the Ancient Domain in person..."
Jason's eyes widen in realization. "I see! You... you're thinking that if my magic could make one male fairy, I could surely make another, and another..."
"Yes, precisely." Calanthra says, revealing a beautiful smile. "Additionally, if humans were to assist us in scouring these Ancient Domains, we could make great gains together. There is plenty of room for another species to join ours in locating powerful artifacts and other items capable of Uplifting us."
"You want to become Cosmics still." Jason muses. "You haven't resigned yourselves to your current fate."
"Quite the opposite." Calanthra says. "The curse placed upon us is unbreakable by those beneath the realm of Ruler. As I said before, the fairies have lost this Eternity's war. However, while we cannot Ascend any longer, that does not mean the humans are subject to the same limitation. If we could groom a human into becoming the Milky Way's Ruler, we could finally break free of our shackles by virtue of having a powerful ally."
She pauses, looking meaningfully at the Wordsmith.
"If the Demons or the Volgrim were to become our Ruler, we would not enjoy such a benefit. At best, we would only maintain the status quo, and at worst, they might eradicate us out of fear of having an unsightly tumor in their midst."
"Haha." Jason laughs. "So you brought me here to show your sincerity. I get it. Well, I'm definitely not opposed to helping you. Blinker is my good friend. If she were to ask me, I'd definitely say yes to just about any request."
Jason turns away. He walks a few feet off to the side and pauses, standing to gaze out at the Ancient Domain and its endlessly rolling plains which stretches off into the infinite distance...
"Here's what I can do." Jason says. "My people are already working on laying out the options for humanity and where our fellow men and women will depart over the next few weeks. Some will travel to Maiura. Some will go to Sharmur. Some will stay on Tarus II. It's no trouble at all to put Pixiv on the list, especially as I was already planning to do that. I even have some other places I'd like to include, too..."
"Such as Camael's Cube?" Calanthra asks with a smile. "Or do you perhaps mean Chrona and Hope's Hall of Heroes?"
Jason nearly jumps out of his skin. He whirls around to look at Calanthra with shock in his eyes. "What?! How do you know about Chrona? How do you also know about where Hope has been hiding?? I don't even know that much!"
"For those who are talented in magic, it is possible to see through many lies and deceptions." Calanthra says calmly, unfazed by the alarm on Jason's face. "Your Spynet Sphere isn't so different from the many options I have at my disposal. I have many means to keep an eye on the galaxy. And while Diablo does not know exactly where or what Chrona is, he certainly knows of its general existence."
Her smile turns cold. "I would advise you not to take Unarin lightly either, Wordsmith. That ancient creature is more capable than you can imagine. He is hiding a great many secrets from the galaxy... secrets he does not know that I am aware of. If he were to learn of the true extent of my information web, I fear that he would dispatch a handful of High Psions to eliminate the fairy species tomorrow."
Calanthra's words truly rock Jason to his core. All along, he assumed the precautions he put on Chrona, precautions that fooled even Hope, would make his hidden dimension impossible to detect.
But how could he be so naive?
As the daughter of an Apex Cosmic, Calanthra must have her means, and that likely means Unarin and Diablo aren't too far behind either.
"Shit." Jason curses, lowering his head as a flicker of anger smolders in his heart. "I was too complacent. Chrona isn't secure, which means it's only a matter of time before more Cosmics learn of its existence. How long before they can find its exact location and invade it?"
"Calm yourself, child." Calanthra says soothingly. "The situation is not that dire. After all, Chrona still exists within a highly accelerated timespace. Any biological entity that wishes to travel there could suffer severe after-effects. Furthermore, the entities born inside will be too adapted to living within a higher dimension, so they won't pose much threat to the creatures of realspace."
She waves her hand. "Let's move on, Jason. I want to discuss other matters before dying of old age."
The Wordsmith cools himself off. He inhales deeply, then returns his attention to her.
"Alright. What next, then?"
"Fairies are not the only Sentients capable of entering Ancient Domains." Calanthra explains. "There are others who rarely appear inside here. That is why exploring these domains can be dangerous. The good news is that Cosmics have little need to enter these barren lands, as most of the heritages, treasures, and other such gains you might find inside are only useful to mortals. There are exceptions, but they are so rare as to be a needle found within ten million haystacks. A waste of effort better spent simply progressing one's Cosmic power the ordinary way."
"So what you're saying is, when you send fairies into an Ancient Domain, they can die as a result of crossing paths with Sentients from other galaxies." Jason concludes. "But if you had an army of humans to enter with you, your people would be a lot safer."
"Safety in numbers, yes. And you humans are... uniquely advantaged in Ancient Domain exploration." Calanthra says mysteriously. "Before that, though... do you know what the Power of Imagination is, Wordsmith?"
Jason raises an eyebrow. "Imagination? Like the mental ability to visualize stuff in your head? Yeah. It's not that complicated to understand."
"Ah, that's where you're wrong." Calanthra chides gently. "Imagination is the key to magical power. Imagination, Conception, Visualization, these are all key capabilities powerful maguses and sorcerors use to uplift their capabilities! And as it turns out, most Sentients are actually quite terrible at conceptualizing thoughts into imagery."
She gestures grandly. "Just take the Volgrim! You may think they are a powerful Sentient species, but in fact the Volgrim have terrible imaginations. They are stodgy, dull, and lack a great deal of creativity. All the gains their Technopaths make through technology are developed via brute force. They slowly improve their technological prowess by minute fractions over long periods of time, eventually resulting in a large and cohesive buildup."
"At the same time, the Psions Uplift themselves through meditation and sitting motionless for thousands of years at a time. Can a species capable of such incredible feats of drudgery also possess limitless imagination? I think not."
"Maybe the reason they're able to sit still for so long is because they live in their imagination?" Jason posits. "In which case their power of imagination should be quite formidable, right?"
"Possible, but unlikely." Calanthra says with a wave of her hand. "Never mind that. The point I'm trying to make is that humans have an extremely high affinity for magic. If your people were to ally with mine, we could teach you our ways. You could help us through your Wordsmithing and superior genetics, creating more fairies and humans alike. This would create a recursive cycle that would continually bolster both our species to greater and greater heights!"
She lowers her voice back to normal. "An alliance with humanity would have other benefits. You humans are equally adept in technology and magic both. You are versatile, capable of learning any skill provided you have time to devote to your studies. The bursts of inspiration you receive also allow you to make large jumps in capability as well, which could mean that in a relatively short period, you might even be capable of challenging the Volgrim."
Jason nods. "That does sound tempting, Calanthra. I'm willing to help you, but I won't demand my people join the fairies. It would be better if those who were the most interested did so instead."
Calanthra playfully twirls a finger through her hair. "Well. My daughters are all beautiful. Perhaps you should make mention that the fairies are... aggressively interested in copulation?"
"COUGH COUGH!" Jason wheezes, taking a step back as he asses her bold choice of words. "Yeah! Uh, I can probably- I'll let everyone know about that too. Obviously!"
Calanthra chuckles. "Such a cute boy. Well, it seems I've accomplished what I wanted. Let's return for now. You can always pay Ripspace a visit later."
"I will." Jason says, nodding seriously. "Waypoint."
Calanthra raises an eyebrow. "You think you can return here without a Ruler's power?"
"Won't know unless I try." Jason smiles back.
...
Not long after, Jason and Calanthra emerge back into Realspace. He shivers as he feels the Eye of Yredelemnul fixating on him from behind, but Calanthra quickly reactivates the Formation of Light, sending the sliver of a Ruler back to the shadows so it can no longer interact with the physical world.
"You know, Jason." Calanthra says. "You are a Candidate. You have the capability to become a Ruler someday."
"I am?" Jason asks, before thinking back to a conversation in the past. "Oh yeah, someone did mention that to me before. But... eh. I don't know. Becoming a Ruler sounds awful."
"Awful?" Calanthra asks. "How so?"
"It seems... lonely." Jason says, his voice softening. He looks at the space between the four statues, where Yredelemnul's Eye has disappeared. "Imagine all your loved ones dying, but you're stuck behind, living through the end of an Eternity, which takes trillions of years before Heat Death finally eradicates everything. Then comes the next Eternity, where you can remake your species again... but it won't be the same. Even if you remake your loved ones, it won't really be them."
Jason lowers and shakes his head. "That sort of life doesn't suit me."
"I understand why you'd think that way." Calanthra says. "In fact, you are suffering from the same affliction that plagues all Candidates who began their Existences as Biologicals. We have too many ties to the mortal world, so the majority of Biologicals who ascend to the rank of Ruler... fall to their non-biological opponents."
"As for the things which are not biological..." Calanthra says, looking at Jason with disgust. "You should already know what they are."
"Highly evolved Artificial Intelligences?" Jason guesses.
"That's right." Calanthra affirms. "There are several tiers of power a superintelligence can possess. The Volgrim have taken great care to prevent anything above a Beta Core from forming in the Milky Way, but once, a long time ago... they made a huge mess by accidentally creating the Milky Way's first Alpha Core Synthmind."
Calanthra chuckles. "The stupid fools didn't only create an Alpha Core, they gave it autonomy in the hopes it would be able to stop the wars between their factions. They built indestructible bipedal bodies for its splintered intelligences, and called them... Sentinels. Luckily, they were able to defeat the Alpha Core before it ascended further, but countless other biological species have failed at that juncture, creating an Alpha Core that ultimately devoured the full power of their galaxy for itself."
A chill trickles down Jason's spine. "You're saying the vast majority of Rulers are actually Alpha Core AIs? AIs that control entire galaxies?!"
"No, Jason." Calanthra counters. "Alpha Cores can defeat advanced civilizations. But there is one Existence higher than an Alpha Core, a tier that can only be reached once it has swallowed the power of a galaxy."
"That would be an Omega Core. a sentient artificial intelligence that has become Ruler over one or more galaxies. And in Akasha's game, more than 90% of all Rulers are estimated to be these superior lifeforms."
"It is for that reason that these highly adaptable entities are known as The Evolved."

"Hell yeah, I wanna go exploring." Jason says to Calanthra with a smile. "How do we navigate around Ripspace though? Traveling to other galaxies is going to take billions of years, right? Surely, there's a shortcut."
"Ripspace is not as it seems." Calanthra explains, gesturing grandly to the epic sight before them. "It is a connection between the past and the present; the near and far. The further away or the further back you want to travel, the higher the price you will have to pay."
Jason's smile vanishes. "Wait... you can use Ripspace to travel back in time?!"
"No." Calanthra clarifies. "Time is linear. We cannot travel through it. Some can slow it down or speed it up. A rare few can even pause it for a short while. But moving forward and backward is impossible. Countless have attempted to do so over the eons, but all have failed."
She looks at Jason meaningfully. "Many Rulers would wipe out galaxies if it might let them obtain such a power. The fact they still haven't proves it is impossible."
Jason nods slowly. "I won't lie. I have a lot of regrets. Sometimes I wish I could go back in time and save my daughter from dying."
"Everyone has regrets." Calanthra muses, looking off into the distance. "I have plenty, myself. But it's better this way. There would be pandemonium if time travel ever became possible."
She pauses before continuing with her explanation. "While we cannot go back in time, we can look back into time. Pinpointing exact moments in history is difficult, to say the least, but it is possible to use Ripspace to search for key moments in intergalactic history."
"So it's like a massive seer-stone." Jason muses aloud. "But wait, didn't you imply earlier that you used Ripspace to travel to the Milky Way from Andromeda? How does it allow you to jump between galaxies? Are other species using Ripspace for intergalactic travel?"
"You can indeed use Ripspace to travel to distant reaches of space." Calanthra explains. "But... you have to pay a certain price. Akasha's Barriers still protect every galaxy. Cosmics cannot travel between them easily. Mortals can, but the price we must pay is unimaginably steep. That is also the reason my mother perished not long after arriving in the Milky Way and giving birth to me."
The Fairy Monarch sighs softly.
"My people used the power of Ripspace to travel to several other galaxies. We were fortunate that the Creator had died, allowing us to take up residence here in secret, but the Angels, Titans, and Dragons were still a threat we could not overlook. Later, the Volgrim rose up too, and that was something that worried us for a while. Particularly when their Sentinels began to rapaciously erase the lives of innumerable Sentients."
She waves her hand. "Ultimately, very few galaxies didn't have a Ruler in power. Traveling to one that did meant flipping a coin and praying our people could avoid their gaze. Sadly, time has shown me that we were likely unsuccessful. I have lost contact with all my sisters across the cosmos."
The image of innumerable galaxies floating in the distance changes before Jason's eyes. Calanthra manipulates some unseen power, causing herself and Jason to suddenly materialize directly in front of a beautiful spiral galaxy.
"This is our Milky Way." Calanthra explains, waving her hand to conjure another, far bigger galaxy beside it. "And this is Andromeda."
"Is it just me or does Andromeda seem... brighter?" Jason asks.
"Andromeda contains far more interstellar particles, cosmic energy, and latent magical power than the Milky Way." Calanthra says. "Of course, in the ancient past, it had even more than it does now, but such is the way of entropy and Chaos."
Jason nods. "How exactly do galaxies lose power over time? Doesn't this feel self-defeating in a way?"
"Every Ruler enters the Unending War with a strategy." Calanthra says, motioning with her hands to disperse the galaxies and reveal images of ghostly creatures, some standing on two legs, some on four, and plenty that appear as mere blobs of energy. "I cannot pretend to know the thoughts of such high and mighty beings, especially as I am a mere mortal myself. Even so, I can definitively state that there are Rulers who seek to put as much galactic energy into their initial creations as possible, while others wish to adopt a more energy-efficient growth-model."
She pokes her finger against Jason's chest. "Take the angels and humans, for instance. The Creator poured the vast majority of his power into creating a galaxy full of Apex Cosmics. At their peak, the angels as a whole commanded enough power to flatten other galaxies. But what did they do instead? They fought with one another, killing themselves due to sheer boredom, if not outright ego."
"I see." Jason says, brushing Calanthra's finger away. "So the Creator dumped all the Milky Way's energy into the angels. I take it this is uncommon among Rulers?"
"Of course. It's a wasteful strategy and usually loses Rulers the War for that Eternity." Calanthra says dismissively. "The Timeless used a different strategy. She created the fairies as mere mortals that evolved over time, gaining greater and greater power through their own efforts. This meant that instead of devouring Andromeda's abundant Cosmic energy, they could slowly sap off its excess over time. For you see, the more energy a galaxy has, the more it can produce. If you ration it long enough, you can reap more of it across the duration of an Eternity."
"That makes sense." Jason concludes. "It's like a Rush build in an RTS versus an Economy build. You sacrifice long-term gains in exchange for short-term power. The problem is, with Akasha's Barriers preventing Rulers from attacking their enemies straight away, a Rush build is dumb because you're just wasting your resources and sacrificing Cosmic energy when you'll actually need it."
Calanthra blinks twice. She looks at Jason with a strange expression, then turns away for a moment, trying to understand the strange terms he's used. They mostly make sense, but some of them are a little...
She shakes her head and returns to the topic at hand. "Right. Rush strategy versus Economy. Of... course. Well, in any case, there is one advantage toward the first strategy. If you drain all the energy from your galaxy, it becomes less appealing for other Rulers to attack. Because Andromeda was so large and still filled with Cosmic power even billions of years after the Expansion Era, it stoked the hunger of the Dark Ones. Meanwhile, the Milky Way only needs to deal with the Plague, which is threatening for mortals, but manageable for Cosmics. In that respect, we've gotten off much luckier."
"I get the bigger picture now." Jason says with a nod. He turns to look back at the cosmos before him. "So, what about all this? Are we gonna go exploring, or what?"
"In order to explore the universe presented here, we would need to make sacrifices we cannot afford. I think you would find the price most disagreeable. But there is something we can explore freely..."
She waves her hand, and instantly, the brilliant and beautiful cosmic view of the universe vanishes.
In its place, Jason and Calanthra suddenly appear inside a dead, barren wasteland. Brown and grey dirt rises up in huge dunes stretching off into the distance. Fallen towers made of gold and stone lay on their sides, or stick into the ground, buried nearly up to their tops as they point diagonally toward the sky.
And speaking of the sky, it glows faintly grey, as if some weak, pale imitation of a star were trying to shine through a thin atmosphere clouded by dust and grime. The very air itself smells of sulfur and toxins, making Jason's nose curl up when he takes a breath.
"Ugh... what the hell? Where are we now?" Jason asks, as he turns and looks around at the dead world surrounding him.
"An Ancient Domain." Calanthra says softly. "A remnant of a dead universe. All life stripped away. All hope lost. Septillions of different Sentient species, gone. Their mortals, their Cosmics, reduced to dust by the Contraction."
The Wordsmith frowns. "This Ancient Domain represents a dead universe? But how can that be possible? If the Heat Death played out and all the galaxies faded to cosmic dust, then there already wouldn't be anything left. And then, if the entire universe collapsed into a singularity before exploding again, there definitely wouldn't be anything left behind resembling physical matter."
"You perceive reality through just three dimensions." Calanthra intones. "Time and space can be considered two dimensions. Cosmic Power is another dimension. I must admit I do not understand how Ancient Domains have continued to exist across countless Eternities, and I don't know how they retain a vaguely familiar form... but I can assure you that in spite of bending logic itself, they do exist and they can provide tangible benefits to those dedicated to exploring them."
"You've been exploring them, then?" Jason asks, turning away from the dead world to scrutinize Calanthra's phantasmal image.
"Me, a little. But often, I dispatch my descendants to scour these Ancient Domains for things of value. It may surprise you, but there are powerful artifacts, vengeful spirits, and all manner of other inter-dimensional horrors lurking within these so-called dead-lands."
Calanthra pauses. She shifts her posture to look at Jason deeply.
"And that is why I've brought you here, Jason. It's time for me to get down to the crux of the matter and breach the subject that I find most important."
He nods. "I'm listening."
"It's like this." Calanthra explains. "The Ancient Domains are unfathomably broad. Think of how large a universe is. Think of how many universes have existed. Think of how much space my people have yet to explore."
She pauses.
"The gains we have received have made my people stronger than you would expect. Among those gains are Yredelemnul's Eye and other leftover remnants of power that many dead ancient Rulers lost when their Existences became forfeit. While their tangible Existences may have perished, their spirits sometimes live on in these broad, unending dead universes..."
"That's why you approached me." Jason says, while crossing his arms and leaning on the ball of his heel. "You said you wanted an alliance with humanity. You... want humans to help you explore the Ancient Domains?"
"Trust is hard to come by among mortals, Cosmics, and Rulers." Calanthra says simply. "I never would have considered allying with the humans before, but you have shown me the broadness of your mind during the debate against your clone and the commander of your military. To some, you certainly appear naive, but to me I see an opportunity I would be foolish to ignore."
She continues. "The Fairies cannot reproduce efficiently. Every fairy we send into the Ancient Domain is one less fairy we have among our Empire. We already have a difficult time replenishing our numbers through the remaining Male Fairies, but do you think it is easy for us to reproduce with other species?"
Jason slowly shakes his head. "Blinker and Kar's children were all crocodiles, not fairies. From that, I can only imagine that most of the time, your mating attempts do not create more of yourselves, but instead more non-fairy children."
"That's exactly correct." Calanthra replies. "But that all changed recently when I found out one of your human males somehow spontaneously altered his genetic profile to become a fairy. There is no doubt about it; Samuel Baker harnesses all the capability to reproduce that you humans do, as well as the trueborn powers of any male fairy."
"So... are you seeking a marriage alliance with Samuel Baker?" Jason asks, scratching his head in confusion. "You could just ask him yourself, you know?"
"This is not about one man." Calanthra retorts. "Samuel Baker, if he were to join our ranks, would certainly help us stave off extinction for a while longer. But that is hardly worth all this melodrama and me taking you to the Ancient Domain in person..."
Jason's eyes widen in realization. "I see! You... you're thinking that if my magic could make one male fairy, I could surely make another, and another..."
"Yes, precisely." Calanthra says, revealing a beautiful smile. "Additionally, if humans were to assist us in scouring these Ancient Domains, we could make great gains together. There is plenty of room for another species to join ours in locating powerful artifacts and other items capable of Uplifting us."
"You want to become Cosmics still." Jason muses. "You haven't resigned yourselves to your current fate."
"Quite the opposite." Calanthra says. "The curse placed upon us is unbreakable by those beneath the realm of Ruler. As I said before, the fairies have lost this Eternity's war. However, while we cannot Ascend any longer, that does not mean the humans are subject to the same limitation. If we could groom a human into becoming the Milky Way's Ruler, we could finally break free of our shackles by virtue of having a powerful ally."
She pauses, looking meaningfully at the Wordsmith.
"If the Demons or the Volgrim were to become our Ruler, we would not enjoy such a benefit. At best, we would only maintain the status quo, and at worst, they might eradicate us out of fear of having an unsightly tumor in their midst."
"Haha." Jason laughs. "So you brought me here to show your sincerity. I get it. Well, I'm definitely not opposed to helping you. Blinker is my good friend. If she were to ask me, I'd definitely say yes to just about any request."
Jason turns away. He walks a few feet off to the side and pauses, standing to gaze out at the Ancient Domain and its endlessly rolling plains which stretches off into the infinite distance...
"Here's what I can do." Jason says. "My people are already working on laying out the options for humanity and where our fellow men and women will depart over the next few weeks. Some will travel to Maiura. Some will go to Sharmur. Some will stay on Tarus II. It's no trouble at all to put Pixiv on the list, especially as I was already planning to do that. I even have some other places I'd like to include, too..."
"Such as Camael's Cube?" Calanthra asks with a smile. "Or do you perhaps mean Chrona and Hope's Hall of Heroes?"
Jason nearly jumps out of his skin. He whirls around to look at Calanthra with shock in his eyes. "What?! How do you know about Chrona? How do you also know about where Hope has been hiding?? I don't even know that much!"
"For those who are talented in magic, it is possible to see through many lies and deceptions." Calanthra says calmly, unfazed by the alarm on Jason's face. "Your Spynet Sphere isn't so different from the many options I have at my disposal. I have many means to keep an eye on the galaxy. And while Diablo does not know exactly where or what Chrona is, he certainly knows of its general existence."
Her smile turns cold. "I would advise you not to take Unarin lightly either, Wordsmith. That ancient creature is more capable than you can imagine. He is hiding a great many secrets from the galaxy... secrets he does not know that I am aware of. If he were to learn of the true extent of my information web, I fear that he would dispatch a handful of High Psions to eliminate the fairy species tomorrow."
Calanthra's words truly rock Jason to his core. All along, he assumed the precautions he put on Chrona, precautions that fooled even Hope, would make his hidden dimension impossible to detect.
But how could he be so naive?
As the daughter of an Apex Cosmic, Calanthra must have her means, and that likely means Unarin and Diablo aren't too far behind either.
"Shit." Jason curses, lowering his head as a flicker of anger smolders in his heart. "I was too complacent. Chrona isn't secure, which means it's only a matter of time before more Cosmics learn of its existence. How long before they can find its exact location and invade it?"
"Calm yourself, child." Calanthra says soothingly. "The situation is not that dire. After all, Chrona still exists within a highly accelerated timespace. Any biological entity that wishes to travel there could suffer severe after-effects. Furthermore, the entities born inside will be too adapted to living within a higher dimension, so they won't pose much threat to the creatures of realspace."
She waves her hand. "Let's move on, Jason. I want to discuss other matters before dying of old age."
The Wordsmith cools himself off. He inhales deeply, then returns his attention to her.
"Alright. What next, then?"
"Fairies are not the only Sentients capable of entering Ancient Domains." Calanthra explains. "There are others who rarely appear inside here. That is why exploring these domains can be dangerous. The good news is that Cosmics have little need to enter these barren lands, as most of the heritages, treasures, and other such gains you might find inside are only useful to mortals. There are exceptions, but they are so rare as to be a needle found within ten million haystacks. A waste of effort better spent simply progressing one's Cosmic power the ordinary way."
"So what you're saying is, when you send fairies into an Ancient Domain, they can die as a result of crossing paths with Sentients from other galaxies." Jason concludes. "But if you had an army of humans to enter with you, your people would be a lot safer."
"Safety in numbers, yes. And you humans are... uniquely advantaged in Ancient Domain exploration." Calanthra says mysteriously. "Before that, though... do you know what the Power of Imagination is, Wordsmith?"
Jason raises an eyebrow. "Imagination? Like the mental ability to visualize stuff in your head? Yeah. It's not that complicated to understand."
"Ah, that's where you're wrong." Calanthra chides gently. "Imagination is the key to magical power. Imagination, Conception, Visualization, these are all key capabilities powerful maguses and sorcerors use to uplift their capabilities! And as it turns out, most Sentients are actually quite terrible at conceptualizing thoughts into imagery."
She gestures grandly. "Just take the Volgrim! You may think they are a powerful Sentient species, but in fact the Volgrim have terrible imaginations. They are stodgy, dull, and lack a great deal of creativity. All the gains their Technopaths make through technology are developed via brute force. They slowly improve their technological prowess by minute fractions over long periods of time, eventually resulting in a large and cohesive buildup."
"At the same time, the Psions Uplift themselves through meditation and sitting motionless for thousands of years at a time. Can a species capable of such incredible feats of drudgery also possess limitless imagination? I think not."
"Maybe the reason they're able to sit still for so long is because they live in their imagination?" Jason posits. "In which case their power of imagination should be quite formidable, right?"
"Possible, but unlikely." Calanthra says with a wave of her hand. "Never mind that. The point I'm trying to make is that humans have an extremely high affinity for magic. If your people were to ally with mine, we could teach you our ways. You could help us through your Wordsmithing and superior genetics, creating more fairies and humans alike. This would create a recursive cycle that would continually bolster both our species to greater and greater heights!"
She lowers her voice back to normal. "An alliance with humanity would have other benefits. You humans are equally adept in technology and magic both. You are versatile, capable of learning any skill provided you have time to devote to your studies. The bursts of inspiration you receive also allow you to make large jumps in capability as well, which could mean that in a relatively short period, you might even be capable of challenging the Volgrim."
Jason nods. "That does sound tempting, Calanthra. I'm willing to help you, but I won't demand my people join the fairies. It would be better if those who were the most interested did so instead."
Calanthra playfully twirls a finger through her hair. "Well. My daughters are all beautiful. Perhaps you should make mention that the fairies are... aggressively interested in copulation?"
"COUGH COUGH!" Jason wheezes, taking a step back as he asses her bold choice of words. "Yeah! Uh, I can probably- I'll let everyone know about that too. Obviously!"
Calanthra chuckles. "Such a cute boy. Well, it seems I've accomplished what I wanted. Let's return for now. You can always pay Ripspace a visit later."
"I will." Jason says, nodding seriously. "Waypoint."
Calanthra raises an eyebrow. "You think you can return here without a Ruler's power?"
"Won't know unless I try." Jason smiles back.
...
Not long after, Jason and Calanthra emerge back into Realspace. He shivers as he feels the Eye of Yredelemnul fixating on him from behind, but Calanthra quickly reactivates the Formation of Light, sending the sliver of a Ruler back to the shadows so it can no longer interact with the physical world.
"You know, Jason." Calanthra says. "You are a Candidate. You have the capability to become a Ruler someday."
"I am?" Jason asks, before thinking back to a conversation in the past. "Oh yeah, someone did mention that to me before. But... eh. I don't know. Becoming a Ruler sounds awful."
"Awful?" Calanthra asks. "How so?"
"It seems... lonely." Jason says, his voice softening. He looks at the space between the four statues, where Yredelemnul's Eye has disappeared. "Imagine all your loved ones dying, but you're stuck behind, living through the end of an Eternity, which takes trillions of years before Heat Death finally eradicates everything. Then comes the next Eternity, where you can remake your species again... but it won't be the same. Even if you remake your loved ones, it won't really be them."
Jason lowers and shakes his head. "That sort of life doesn't suit me."
"I understand why you'd think that way." Calanthra says. "In fact, you are suffering from the same affliction that plagues all Candidates who began their Existences as Biologicals. We have too many ties to the mortal world, so the majority of Biologicals who ascend to the rank of Ruler... fall to their non-biological opponents."
"As for the things which are not biological..." Calanthra says, looking at Jason with disgust. "You should already know what they are."
"Highly evolved Artificial Intelligences?" Jason guesses.
"That's right." Calanthra affirms. "There are several tiers of power a superintelligence can possess. The Volgrim have taken great care to prevent anything above a Beta Core from forming in the Milky Way, but once, a long time ago... they made a huge mess by accidentally creating the Milky Way's first Alpha Core Synthmind."
Calanthra chuckles. "The stupid fools didn't only create an Alpha Core, they gave it autonomy in the hopes it would be able to stop the wars between their factions. They built indestructible bipedal bodies for its splintered intelligences, and called them... Sentinels. Luckily, they were able to defeat the Alpha Core before it ascended further, but countless other biological species have failed at that juncture, creating an Alpha Core that ultimately devoured the full power of their galaxy for itself."
A chill trickles down Jason's spine. "You're saying the vast majority of Rulers are actually Alpha Core AIs? AIs that control entire galaxies?!"
"No, Jason." Calanthra counters. "Alpha Cores can defeat advanced civilizations. But there is one Existence higher than an Alpha Core, a tier that can only be reached once it has swallowed the power of a galaxy."
"That would be an Omega Core. a sentient artificial intelligence that has become Ruler over one or more galaxies. And in Akasha's game, more than 90% of all Rulers are estimated to be these superior lifeforms."
"It is for that reason that these highly adaptable entities are known as The Evolved."

I'm pissed off at the so called justice system and need to rant and I figure plenty of other pod listeners have experienced what a bastard it is and might relate. Feel free to share your story in the comments and we can all commiserate and bitch together.
I work the front desk of a motel and I love it. The owner pays a living wage, and I'm not required to smile in the face of Karen nonsense.
For the most part, the property is safe and quiet, but we have been having issues with this one particular loiterer for a few years now. In general, we really don't want people who are not guests or here with guests to be hanging around the property. He did more than just hang around though. He actively bothered guests, trying to bum money, cigarettes, alcohol and rides off of people while stinking drunk. He'd bother anyone but women were his favorite. He'd hit on them and try to get their numbers, even staff members. It didn't matter how many times he was told to leave, he'd keep coming back. Usually this happened at night, but he'd show up stumbling drunk during the day as well.
He's not homeless. When we figured out his name, we were able to determine he lives in an apartment complex a stone's throw away. We learned his name after an employee saw his mugshot, and that he'd been charged with trespassing and indecent exposure at a nearby business. Looking up his past criminal history, he's no stranger to run ins with the police. Criminal Mischief, False Imprisonment Of Child Under 13 Yoa, Child Abuse, Battery, Possession Of Drug Paraphernalia, Disorderly Conduct, Trespass In Occupied Structure, Possession Of Cocaine all from one encounter with police. Others include another count of indecent exposure, assault on a female and breaking and entering.
When we learned all this, we realized he was more than just a nuisance and we needed to try harder to get him to stay the hell away before he hurt one of our guests or a member of staff. Then he ended up being gone for awhile anyway. Jail? Another state? We don't know and I'm not that good at reading court records.
But he came back with a vengeance toward the end of 2022 and started zeroing in on our night auditor who was a very pretty but naïve girl which I guess he took as an invitation. When we learned about this she was told to just call the police whenever he'd show up so we could finally get him trespassed. I'm sure it will come as no surprise to any of you that the police never showed up in time to get him on the property, so they kept saying they couldn't do anything about it. Months later the planets aligned and he was finally trespassed.
This kept him away briefly. The night auditor left and a new one was hired who was not aware of the loiterer. Unfortunately for her, he took an even bigger shine to her, escalating to very sexual comments. We hadn't seen him for a bit, so we foolishly thought having him trespassed would work and hadn't warned her about him. One day last summer she is telling me about a guy who keeps coming around on her shift, and she doesn't think he's a guest. As she's describing him I realize she's talking about the loiterer. I tell her next time he comes around, just call the police.
To make a long story short (too late), by November he'd been arrested on our property three times for trespassing. And one time for communicating threats when he came screaming at the night auditor demanding to know why the general manager was at the hotel in the middle of the night. Clearly having him trespassed was not a deterrent. We kept being told to just keep calling because it would build a stalking case against him. Private security options around here are a joke, so instead the night auditor's boyfriend was given a free room during her shifts because her stalker would stay away when her boyfriend was around. But he would watch the property from somewhere because if her boyfriend went to run an errand or was away from the desk long enough, guess who would come creeping?
Don't worry, we finally got stalking charges against him though. Early November I was working a 16 hour shift because I'm a workaholic and I like OT. I was also pet sitting for my parents so as my day drew to a close I was absolutely running on fumes. Guess who turns up on the property bothering our guests again? We do the same song and dance where I call the police and they don't show up on time. The night auditor he likes was working that night and she arrived without her boyfriend, long story but he couldn't be there.
I desperately needed to get out of there because I had to be back in 8 hours and also needed to take care of the dog, but I could not in good conscience leave her by herself when I knew her stalker was prowling around. Sure enough, as I'm about to leave we see him on the security cameras heading toward the desk. The lobby has big glass windows and he walked by them, presumably looking to see if she was alone, but he kept going because I was here.
Something in me snapped. If the law wasn't enough to deter him from coming around, we'd have to find alternative methods to discourage him. I grabbed the pepper spray we have because of him and went outside to confront him like a lunatic. I shouted "hey!" to get him to turn around and I pepper sprayed him in the face as he was eating a cheeseburger and then I did it again. I got his face and his cheeseburger and he was so drunk he kept eating it as he cursed me and called me a crazy bitch, which is a fair thing to call the crazy bitch who just pepper sprayed you even though you deserved it.
I had dialed 911 on the way out the door, so they got to hear me yelling at him and told me to stop following him and I lied and said I wasn't following him, I was just yelling at him. In reality I was doing both though I only followed him to the edge of the property. The reality of the situation hit me at that point because I absolutely just attacked him and called the police on myself. My biggest concern in the moment though was the fact that my parents were out of town and there was no one else to take care of their dog.
Anyway, cop shows up like ten minutes later to take our statements and whatever. My eyes are stinging because I'd walked through a cloud of pepper spray, so I recommend gel not spray because it apparently doesn't do that. Fortunately I did not get in trouble and the cop was like huh, if your reaction to seeing him is to just immediately pepper spray him, perhaps we have enough for stalking charges. Yay, finally. They didn't catch him that night though.
And it turns out pepper spray wasn't that good of a deterrent. He was back bothering people two days later. Fortunately his favorite target was off for a few days and the other NA was working and called the police. They showed up and talked to him AND DIDN'T ARREST HIM. They said they couldn't because he wasn't on property when they arrived, which is bullshit because all they need is proof he was here which we have because we have security cameras and he has been busted another time that way. They just didn't want to do their job.
I started bringing my gun to work at that point in case the stalker decided he wanted revenge for the pepper spray. But honestly his brain is so liquor cooked I'm not even sure he remembers I did that.
Over the next couple days we say him a few more times, learned he had a warrant out for his arrest on the stalking and trespassing charge, but the cops kept not showing up in time. Then we didn't see him for a few weeks. I'd check on the local arrest records to see if he'd been arrested, and he finally was about 6 weeks after the incident. He was bonded out a couple days later and bond conditions included staying away from the hotel as well as my coworker and I.
After that he stayed off the property, but would sometimes shout at the NA from the sidewalk out front, telling her he loved her and would never hurt her. He never stuck around long enough that she felt it was worth calling the police over.
He would still hang around the fast food restaurant parking lot next door and bother guests whose rooms faced that direction. There wasn't anything we could do about it and they weren't interested in doing anything about it. This changed at the end of March when he was arrested there for being drunk and disorderly. He bonded out on that charge as well. We didn't see him around after that but knew better than to celebrate.
End of April, he gets arrested again this time at the gas station across the road. Drunk and disorderly, indecent exposure, and resisting an officer. Bonds out again.
Just a couple days later, the other day shift person spots him hanging around the property though he didn't stay long. She warned night shift about him when she left that night. Sure enough, he turns up again IN THE FUCKING LOBBY. NA scares him off with the stun stick that was also purchased because of him and calls the police. As is tradition, they don't arrive in time. But we have proof of him violating bond, so we're hopeful that maybe he'll get locked up and give us a longer break.
But he wasn't done with his chaos for the night, the NA learned the next morning when the police came back to talk to her. He went to hang around the gas station where he'd just been arrested. He was loitering around with another guy, generally being suspicious and touching themselves. Then comes the escalation no one saw coming (/s). He and his creep buddy attempt to sexually assault a woman at the gas station. Fortunately they fail, unfortunately buddy gets away, fortunately stalker does not.
But you wouldn't know about any of that looking at his charges. All you would see is that he was trespassing at the gas station, had an open container of alcohol, damaged a police car, resisted an officer, did a disorderly conduct, and he pissed on an officer. Nothing about the sexual assault, or trespassing at the hotel and violating bond. Also apparently pissing on a cop is a felony.
On the bright side, his bail was set to $25k and I kept checking to see if he had posted bond and he hadn't. So we were enjoying a reprieve. I checked every couple of days for updates on that, and when doing so today I noticed the status of the stalking case had changed from pending to disposed.
I looked into that and discovered the stalking charge had been dismissed because the victims and officer had not shown up to court. Showing up to court is kind of difficult to do WHEN NO ONE TELLS YOU YOU'RE SUPPOSED TO BE THERE. There was absolutely no communication with any of us regarding the stalking charge. Everything I did know I knew from arrest and court records which I barely know how to decipher.
We've done everything we were supposed to do, but fuck us I guess right? We're having to take our safety into our own hands because the justice system doesn't give a fuck. He's not getting whatever help he needs to not be a predator because it doesn't give a fuck.
I'm so fucking angry right now. We're going to call the DA on Monday, for all the good that is likely to do. Maybe the owner can band together with other business owners in the area and get something done about him since money talks. I don't fucking know.
I'm not scared of him for myself, I'm scared of what he might do to a guest or one of my coworkers. He wouldn't be the first pervert to attack a housekeeper, thinking they're an easy target. One guy flashed his dick at a housekeeper a couple years ago and the owner chased him down and held him at knife point until the cops showed up. At least that cop had the good nature to claim not to have heard the owner when he said he was going to cut the guy's dick off.
The cop the stalker pissed on probably deserved it.
How has the justice system fucked you over?

The streets of (Legally Distinct Gotham™) are overrun with supervillains. Some powerless, others powered. And short of bringing in the military and enacting marshal law, there's nothing that can be done to truly put an end to it.
No one in the city wants to be a cop, despite the high pay here, due to the high mortality rate. Because of that, the police are extremely ineffective. After all, there's only like, 12 of them left!
So, the (currently unnamed North American meta cleanup and containment organization) propose a plan. Take several of the D-list supercriminals, and give them a chance to get a clean record, by serving for 5-10 years on the (Legally Distinct Gotham™) police force (and get paid for it). And thus, The D Team is born! Made up of an alcohol-powered Arsonist, an archer vigilante that shot a cop (sorta accidentally), a getaway driver that can sense danger, a teleporting Assassin, and more, the D Team begin work to clean up (Legally Distinct Gotham™), one mob boss at a time.

Hey all, fellow lgbt teen here, and I'm going to talk about depression. Now I'm not going to going to give advice like "oh go outside" or "find god" because I don't know jack shit about your situation and depression. But it still remains the fact that a lot of us are depressed and down, so what now?
The easy answer is keep living, becuase that's all you really can do. You can medicate it with zoloft and Prozac, you can do any number of unhealthy ways to self medicate, you can talk to a therapist, you can trauma dump on random online, you can fill the hole with the want for a diagnosis for an illness, you can do a billion things to help. But at the end of the day only one way is proven to fix depression. Time.
Hold on! Hold on! I just said that I wasn't going to spew bullshit advice! And I'm not, hear me out pretty please. Time does fix things, no matter how bad it gets, it will always get better in the end. That doesn't mean that it won't get worse before it does, but it will get better someway somehow. That doesn't seem like the answer though, because it always seems to get worse. The thing you hate that happens will happen after you read this, you will still feel empty, you will still feel alone. But no matter how much worse it gets, it will get better, and if I'm wrong then you can make fun of me. But you'll be eating your words when it does get better. Tw: s_icidal ideas, light mentions of abu$e I once was talking to another lgbt teen on an online chat room, we will call them Astral, anyways Astral had it hard, abu$ive parents, trans, foster kid, the whole works. Practically a mental illness starting kit. Astral told me that they were thinking of leaving life, for good. I told them they shouldn't do that, gave them helpline, the works. But Astral was still feeling like they didn't belong here. So I told Astral a story with some blatant metaphors and a couple hidden ones, that story is this:
You ever drive past a forest that had a forestfire? Hot flames, a thousand degree nightmare ripping through trees that have been around for hundreds of years in seconds. I'm more scared of forestfires than I am of sharks, axe murderers, and bears combined. The strong wild fires cannot be stopped by firefighters, only contained and left to burn out. Forestfires are awful to say the least. If you have driven past a place ravaged by a forest fire? It looks like a big bump with skinny little burnt trees sticking up out of the ground, they are ugly and strange looking. But most people don't know a secret about those trees, they are still alive. The trees have hard bark, that hard bark is burt and scarred, broken and dead. Though the outside of the trees are burnt, the core is still alive. The tree still stands, scarred, charred, tired, and hurt, the tree still stands. When the forest all burns down, the strong stand still and wait. After a while the trees grow leaves again, they grow new limbs and continue on with life, they survive. They drop seeds that litter the ground. Big surprise, the rain comes, the newly fertilized ground has little saplings come out, under the towering big burnt trees. And the cherry on top? Scientists have discovered that those very same trees are more resistant to future flames from fires becuase of the things they went through. End of story
While I maybe not be a therapist, nor a psychiatrist, life coach, mediocre Ted talker, or wise drunk uncle. I do know one thing, whoever is reading this is a tree, and though you may be scarred, burnt, charred, that doesn't mean you are a goner. All it means is that you will be even more beautiful when the rain comes, weather you believe my dumb ass or not. You are alive.
Now Astral didn't leave the earth that day, they are alive as far as I know. But it wasn't from my story, as stated before: this story won't change shit. Astral stayed on this earth because they are one of the trees that when the forest burns down, the tough know what's coming so they survive becuase of their scars, not die at fault of them. Be gracious to yourself.

My name is Lisa, and I’m a 25-year-old artist. I’ve always had a fascination with the macabre, which is why I jumped at the chance to explore an abandoned psychiatric hospital for my latest project. I planned to capture the eerie beauty of the decaying building, but I ended up uncovering something far more sinister.
The hospital had been shut down for decades, rumored to be haunted by the spirits of the patients who suffered there. It stood on the outskirts of a small town, its presence looming like a dark shadow over the landscape. I arrived at dusk, my camera and sketchpad ready, not knowing that the true horror was about to begin.
As soon as I stepped inside, the air felt thick and oppressive. The corridors were lined with peeling wallpaper and broken furniture, remnants of a place once filled with life now reduced to silence. I began my work, sketching and photographing the desolate rooms. But as night fell, I started to hear whispers.
At first, I thought it was the wind playing tricks on me. But then I saw her—a ghostly child standing at the end of the hallway. Her eyes were hollow, and she wore a tattered hospital gown. She didn’t speak, but her presence was enough to send chills down my spine.
I tried to rationalize it as a figment of my imagination, a product of the eerie atmosphere. But when I looked through the viewfinder of my camera, she was still there, staring at me. I decided to leave, but as I turned to go, the hallway seemed to stretch infinitely. No matter how far I walked, I couldn’t find the exit.
Panic set in. I wandered through the maze-like corridors, each turn leading me deeper into the hospital. The whispers grew louder, and shadows danced just beyond my vision. I stumbled upon an old treatment room, and that’s when I felt it—an icy grip on my shoulder. I spun around, but there was no one there.
The next thing I knew, I was lying on the floor, unable to move. My body felt like it was being pinned down by an unseen force. The whispers turned into guttural growls, and I saw the ghostly child again, but this time she wasn’t alone. Dark figures surrounded her, their eyes glowing with malevolence.
I don’t know how long I was unconscious, but when I woke up, it was morning. I was outside the hospital, my camera and sketchpad scattered around me. I tried to convince myself it was a nightmare, but the bruises on my arms told a different story.
I left the town, determined to forget what had happened. But the events of that night haunted me. Every time I closed my eyes, I saw the child and her demonic entourage. I began to notice changes in myself—unexplained rage, blackouts, and strange symbols appearing in my sketches. I knew I had brought something back with me.
Desperate for answers, I returned to the hospital. This time, I was prepared. Armed with research on exorcisms and protective charms, I ventured back into the darkness. The building seemed to welcome me, the shadows reaching out like old friends. The whispers began immediately, guiding me to the same treatment room.
I confronted the ghostly child, demanding to know what she wanted. To my horror, she spoke in a voice not her own, a deep, demonic growl that echoed through the room. She told me that the hospital was a place of great suffering, a beacon for malevolent spirits. She and the others were trapped, seeking release through me.
I tried to perform the exorcism, but the entities were too powerful. They overpowered me, forcing me to relive the horrors of the hospital’s past—patients tortured, doctors driven mad, and rituals that opened doorways to unspeakable realms. Each time I thought I escaped, I found myself back in the same room, the same moment.
It was a time loop, a never-ending cycle of terror. I was their plaything, my mind fracturing under the constant assault. Days, months, years passed—I lost track of time. Every escape attempt brought me back to the beginning, each failure chipping away at my sanity.
One night, I discovered a hidden room behind a crumbling wall. Inside, I found journals written by Dr. Whitaker, the hospital’s chief psychiatrist. His writings detailed experiments to contact the other side, using patients as conduits. The journals described a ritual to bind spirits, a possible way to end the torment.
Armed with this new knowledge, I gathered the items needed for the ritual—candles, chalk, and an ancient tome I found in the hospital’s basement. The ritual required a blood sacrifice, and I hesitated, but the thought of eternal torment pushed me forward. I cut my palm and let the blood drip onto the chalk-drawn symbols.
As I began to chant, the air grew colder. The ghostly child appeared, flanked by the dark figures. They howled in rage, trying to break the circle of protection I had drawn. The ground shook, and the walls seemed to close in. My voice trembled, but I continued, pouring all my will into the words.
Suddenly, the figures froze. A blinding light filled the room, and I heard a deafening scream. When the light faded, the figures were gone, and the child stood before me, her eyes no longer hollow. She whispered a thank you before vanishing into the ether.
Exhausted, I collapsed, waking up hours later to a silent hospital. I stumbled outside, the dawn breaking over the horizon. I felt a sense of peace, but it was short-lived. As I made my way home, I noticed people staring at me, whispering. My reflection in shop windows showed dark, hollow eyes staring back. The entities had not been banished; they had latched onto me, using me as their new vessel.
I fled the town, hoping to escape their grasp, but they followed. My mind continued to fracture, the symbols appearing on my skin now. I’m writing this from a motel room, knowing my time is short. If you’re reading this, beware. The hospital’s evil isn’t contained within its walls—it’s a stain on the soul. Don’t come looking for me. Don’t try to find the truth. Some places are meant to be forgotten, their secrets buried in darkness.

Made this for fun. Contains spoiler for the following: The Understudy, Cold Comfort, Séance Time, The Bill, Death Be Not Proud, Simon Says, How Do You Plead?, Last Night of the Proms, A Random Act of Kindness, 3 by 3, and The Last Weekend. Good luck!
Question 1: What was the name of Rebecca and Carl's sister in Sardines?
Question 2: Which classical composer is played at the beginning of A Quiet Night In?
Question 3: In Tom & Gerri, what is the new title of Gerri's acting gig?
Question 4: In Last Gasp, Sally's favourite memory of her job was a little girl who wanted to be a ____?
Question 5: In The Understudy, what was in Tony's juice that intoxicated him?
Question 6: In The Harrowing, Andras can only live on two things. These being:
Question 7: In La Couchette, where does the train stop?
Question 8: What did Christine's school boyfriend die from in The 12 Days of Christine?
Question 9: What is Elizabeth Gadge's middle name?
Question 10: In Cold Comfort, what was the name of the old lady's dead cat?
Question 11: What did Pat put in the ice in Nana's Party?
Question 12: In Séance Time, what was Terry dressed up as in the famous clip?
Question 13: What programme did Dennis Fulcher have a meeting about directing but failed in The Devil of Christmas?
Question 14: In The Bill, what name does Malcolm accidentally mention?
Question 15: What play was the gun a prop for in The Riddle of the Sphinx?
Question 16: In Empty Orchestra, where does Roger's brother live?
Question 17: What is Sally's friend Gertrude reading in Diddle Diddle Dumpling?
Question 18: In Private View, what is Jean's job?
Question 19: Where is the ring hidden in Zanzibar?
Question 20: In Bernie Clifton's Dressing Room, what show did Cheese and Crackers fail to guest?
Question 21: What is the name of the removal company in Once Removed?
Question 22: In To Have and To Hold, how long did Adrian have the darkroom?
Question 23: Who did Rupert bump into in And The Winner Is...?
Question 24: In Tempting Fate, what does Keith's son Charlie have?
Question 25: What animal is Mitch supposed to be in The Referee's A W***er?
Question 26: In Death Be Not Proud, what is the name of David's baby?
Question 27: What is the game the Mowbury family plays in Love's Great Adventure?
Question 28: In Misdirection, what word does Gabriel write on a notepad?
Question 29: What is Nadia's porn name in Thinking Out Loud?
Question 30: In The Stakeout, what does PC Thompson bring into the car?
Question 31: Who would have a wank to the concept in Wuthering Heist?
Question 32: In Simon Says, how long was the Ninth Circle originally going to run for?
Question 33: What does Brenda love eating in Lip Service?
Question 34: In Hurry Up and Wait, what is the name of Adrian Dunbar's detective character?
Question 35: What does Urban call the devil in How Do You Plead?
Question 36: In Last Night of the Proms, what does Ralph use to stab Yusuf?
Question 37: Donna thinks someone will be on the. boat in Merrily, Merrily. Who?
Question 38: In Mr King, Ceri boils these animals in the kettle while making tea for Alan. Which animal?
Question 39: What cereal does Katrina pour vodka in in Nine Lives Kat?
Question 40: In Kid/Nap, what are Shane and Clifford's code names?
Question 41: What is Helen diagnosed with in A Random Act of Kindness?
Question 42: In Wise Owl, what is Wise Owl's catchphrase?
Question 43: What does Pierce's beer prayer end with in The Bones of St. Nicholas?
Question 44: In Mother's Ruin, what show does Frances go catch up on?
Question 45: What song plays at the end of Paraskevidekatriaphobia?
Question 46: In Love Is A Stranger, what is Edgar's favourite Simply Red album?
Question 47: According to Gavin in 3 by 3, who voiced Donkey in Shrek?
Question 48: In The Last Weekend, what is the name of Joe's form of revenge?

[FIRST][LAST]
Atlantis Commission
Officer Report - Lieutenant Colonel John Shepard
CLEARANCE LEVEL 5
Well this had definitely been a very interesting couple of hours. This dimension and its people had very odd opinions and ideas. Apparently the prey species of this dimension were all obligate cowards, whose instincts compelled them to be non-violent and run from threats. At least according to themselves. There were apparently some of them who were “predator diseased” as they called it, a disease which often resulted in increased violence, aggression, lack of empathy, and unheard like behavior. It sounded to me like some form of infectious psychopathy, but the venlil assured us it shouldn't affect us since we were predators, which didn’t really ease my fears, but hopefully it was something we could figure out when we got home if it ever became a problem.
Gotta love mandatory quarantine periods woo hoo!
As scary as this odd disease sounded, my main concern at the moment was to try and turn a professed coward into someone who could at the very least defend themselves.
I looked down to the table of gear ahead of me and then over to the mostly naked Venlil to my side, and then even farther to Tiel’c who thought It would be a good idea to help oversee Farva’s rapid fire training course. I fiddled with the bluetooth earpiece which was rigged up to one of our handhelds to run a translation program to speak directly with the captain. A big step up from our unknowingly one sided communications earlier.
I stepped on the other side of the plastic table and placed my hands down upon it and looked on at my new student..
“Welcome Captain Farva to our very impromptu accelerated course on Human arms armor and basic infantry tactics.” I said gesturing to the hodge podge gear we had managed to assemble for the good captain. “Are we ready to begin?”.
She flicked her ears, somewhat nervously by the looks.
“I’d take it that's a yes then?”
“Oh yes sorry”
“Alright then, well given that most of our crew is human and the only other alien struts around naked all the time, the only gear we have on hand is for humans, So you're going to be running size smalls and it's all going to fit all a bit big” I say as I toss her the tactical vest. ”Here try this on, we can try to tighten it up if it's a bit loose anywhere”. The captain wrestles with the buckles a bit, and Teal'c helps her tighten up some of the top straps, as the Venil’s shoulders weren't as broad as humans. Farva gave Teal’c an odd look, but seemed appreciative none the less.Once finished, she grasped the vest in her paws with interest. “This armor seems quite lightweight, which is nice, weight is often an issue that causes us to forgo armor, since heavy armor would hurt our running ability.” Farva remarks. “Also the sheer amount of pockets seems quite excessive, what do you need all these for?”
“Well for starters it's currently missing these '' I hand Farva one of the armor plates which she looks over. “That is a depleted Naquadria ceramic composite plate. It’s designed to stop bullet impacts and dissipate energy weapon blasts. It slots into that chest compartment in the front and back of your armor.”
“This isn't quite what Id imagine for the armor of your kind”
“What do you mean?” I asked.
“Well judging by your ships I would have imagined you would put more emphasis on defense Your predatory nature would make you less likely to run away from conflict allowing for more encompassing armor to cover more than just your chest, since you have less need to run.”
She would put it like that.
“Well there are a number of reasons for that, a lot to do with those excess pockets you mentioned. For starters you will not be carrying the same amount of gear that the standard infantry unit would normally be carrying, we are preparing you for a quick in and out op. Normally us expedition teams need to be deployed into unknown territory for extended periods of time, we need to carry everything we might need with us from food, bullets, weapons, to comms gear, sensors, repelling equipment etc. The weight from all that gear adds up fast; In order to stay sufficiently mobile and combat effective; we only carry enough armor to protect our vitals, head and torso, anything else can hopefully be patched up by a field medic.”
Tielc gave his piece as well. “It is important to know when to run both towards and aways from one's foes, not every battle can be won through strength alone, but by strategy and cunning. Being able to reposition oneself quickly is therefore highly advantageous”
Farva seemed to freeze at Teal'c's statement, not out of fear I think, she instead had a distant look in her eye. To snap her out of her slump I handed her a standard ballistic helmet.
Seeming to get the idea she looked at it oddly and tried it on. It confirmed to her head shape decently well but depressed her ears to either side of her head, kind of resembling what one might imagine a sad bunny rabbit to look like “I don't think this will be something I can bring with me” she said ” I can't use ear signals and this will muffle my hearing.”
“Why don’t you keep it on for the time being, I think any extra hearing protection might be useful considering what we are about to try next.” I hand Farva some ballistic ear protectors, slightly modified and somewhat ramshackle. “One of the corporals worked closely with Nurse Fila to get an idea for safe decibels levels for your kind, we were also able to get these earbuds molded to fit into your ear canal better”
Farva took them and slipped them in. “These are a bit uncomfortable, what do I need these for?”
“You'll need them for this” I say as I unsnap the clasps on the weapons case revealing its contents.
The content seems to capture Farva’s interest, getting a slight tail wave.
“Okay So this here is a p90, It carries a 50 round top loading magazine of teflon coated armor piercing ordnance. With a cyclical rate of fire of 900 rounds per minute.”
Farvas ears perk up at this. “This seems like an efficient design, I take it these are a flashlight and laser sight for accuracy?” She asked, pointing to the top of the weapon.
“Yes we also have holographic and acog optics which will help line up targets from farther away.” I look on as Farva picks up the weapon and inspects it, testing the weight as I note that it will weigh a fair bit more once loaded. But she doesn't seem to be struggling with the weight. I can't help but notice good firearm safety as well, she keeps her finger well off the trigger and takes care to keep her weapon pointed aways from anyone else.
“This seems like a solid design but I'm not sure how useful those weapon optics would be, as they are not designed for my side facing eyes”
“I'm sure our master at arms can figure something out, why don't we give it a test fire first tho, before we send it off to make adjustments.” I instruct her on how to load the weapon and turn the safety off. I warn her of the sound it makes. And while definitely taken aback by the recoil and sound at first, she quickly gets the hang of it, she has some respectable shot groupings in both single fire and in short bursts. And keeps the rounds reasonably centered while firing in full auto.
She did a whole lot better than I would have initially suspected given her performance in the hanger bay a day before.
“The rate of fire seems useful” Farva spoke “This would be useful for our soldiers, our accuracy falters when we are panicked, and the increased shot count should guarantee some hits based on volume of fire alone” she finished with a dejected expression.
She quickly places the weapon back in its case, as if it burned to touch.” I don't know if I should be armed for this mission, at least not with that weapon, I don't want to miss and hit one of you in the back!”
“What? Nonsense, you are a great shot, and this is just a precaution in case we get separated or flanked and need some covering fire. If our guys are doing their job right you shouldn't need to fire a single round anyways.”
Captain Farva’s breathing started to hasten, earlier I might have thought it was fear, but I was starting to get an idea of what the captain's issues were. I’ve seen this before.
“I.. I can’t be trusted with this responsibility, every time I am left in charge of something, every time people put their lives in my paws I ....”
“Farva, don’t you start with me now you hear.” I said sternly, swiftly capping off her inevitable spiral of self doubt.
“But.. no.. you don’t understand”
Stopping her again I spoke. “But nothing, what happened before on that ship, and back at that colony is in the past. I don’t know your whole situation, but from what I have gathered from the crew It was nothing good. You feel responsible and it's eating away at you, and frankly it doesn’t matter if that's true or not. Accidents happen, people make mistakes, and when that happens we need to learn, take those lessons to heart, and don't let it stop us from helping people in the present. If you let guilt, or fear of mistakes stop you, then bad guys have already won, all without having to have fired a shot”
Farva is quiet for a short time, I was hoping I got through to her, I'm not the best and pep talks and this certainly wasn’t your typical weapons demo, if only everyones could go as smoothly as Ronan’s.
Farva spoke quietly, arms pressed up against her chest, she looked so sad, defeated, and small. Well more than usual anyways. “We can't be strong like you humans, we are too emotional and when we are scared we run away or we lock up and...”
“And that is clearly not the case with you captain Farva” Teal’c finally reentered the conversation having heard enough. “You have shown courage with every action you have taken so far, your actions have saved the lives of many of your crew, every time you have been threatened you acted not just to protect yourself but others as well. You attempted to contend with beings many times your size without even thinking about it, all in the effort to protect others, and this is only in the time we have known you, this speaks nothing of your actions over the colony. You are a warrior of admirable courage Captain Farva, your self doubt is unearned.”
A single tear rolled down Farva’s eyes which she quickly wiped away. “That was very nice of you to say, but I'm not brave like you say, I was terrified out of my mind the whole time.”
Teal’c looked puzzled. “I did not call you brave, I said you were courageous.”
Farva shot back with the little venlil one up one down ear flick I had very quickly learned was confusion.” I'm confused you just said brave twice”
“Hmm it appears your language does not contain the word I am using, I apologize I am not used to speaking through a translator” Teal’c relented “ There are two words I am using admittedly in slightly different forms, bravery and courage. Bravery or to be brave is to lack fear, to not be afraid to begin with. Courage tho, Is a trait far more admirable. Courage is to be afraid, to have fear, to worry about one's own mortality and personal safety. It is to acknowledge risk, danger, to feel fear, but to act in spite of it.”
“Had I not met your kind before I would have thought predators don't feel fear.”
“Everyone fears feel Farva, It is how we overcome it that determines our worth as warriors”
Teal’c picks up the p90 and returns it to Farvas hands.
“Your people need a warrior Farva, a warrior who protects the innocent and guides the lost to safety. You have shown how collected you can be in the heat of battle, You have already proven your worth in our eyes Farva, now you must do the same in your own. The greatest enemy lies not without” Teal’c places his hand firmly on the venlil’s chest “But within”.
After Action Report - Venlil Colonial Defense Force
Subject : Chief Engineer Donu
I fiddled with my holopad, Its small surface area proving to be a consistent source of annoyance in my current endeavor. Gone was the large workspace afforded to me by my holotable back in my office. Instead I had to work with the scaled down portable holotablet I was just fortunate enough to have strapped to my person when I was beamed away from our last ship. I was stuck with its smaller keyboard and slower rendering speeds.
An annoyed smooth skin alien looked over my shoulder at my device, attached to it was a jury rigged fiber optic cable, slotted into a terran silicon to crystal patch cable, which would convert the electrical signals broadcasted by my tablet into a bandwidth that the terrans crystalline based computers; which they used for highly complex tasks like hyperdrive and transporter systems; could use, and then It was patched again in a even stranger connector to patch into the odd asgard computer stones.
All in all it looked like someone tried to plug a regular computer into some crystal construct like you would find in a fantasy holonovel, and again plugged that into a harchen heat rock sauna lounge. Finally branching out from this conglomeration was a simple copper based wire that connects to a computer terminal at which currently sat the late Doctor Rodney Mckay. A title upon initially hearing led me to believe he was a medical doctor, which led to a flurry of medical questions that he had absolutely no means of answering.
While this odd alien nomenclature was interesting, what intrigued me more was his actual area of expertise, theoretical astrophysics, as well as a number of other diverse specialties and fields. Not to mention not only was he a great scientist who had he been raised in the more civilized portion of this galaxy, would have knowledge and aptitude that would put him alongside some of Aafas greatest minds, but he was also an engineer without peer, at least in this galaxy. His interactions with general Samantha Carter hinted at her possibly being his match if not more. For a species that was supposed to glorify violence the decision to have a scientist be arguably the most senior member of what was by their admission a military vessel spoke to their commitment to knowledge and understanding, a very noble prey-like goal.
I looked warily at the lines of code at my screen, the asguard translation program had earlier scanned our ship and was able to parse written languages, but complex files, like images and 3d design schematics were harder to encode and decode from our perspective systems. As is stands we have 3 completely separate computer architectures, the asguard can talk to human computers and the venlil computers can talk to the asguard computers, It sounds like we would have everything we need to get a human C.A.D schematic into a venlil holotablet right? Wrong! And you're stupid for entertaining such a idiotic notion! Parsing text from raw binary is relatively straight forward, you're just looking for patterns, repeating bit combinations that might infer letters and then iterating them over millions of times looking for patterns, letters, words, and then with a bit of help from some undecoded analog audio transmission, spoken language. This is a far cry from actual procedural communication protocols,the ones that allow for file transfers, exactly what we needed if we were to get Rodney's redesigned part schematics into a format and medium that can be plugged into a suitable fabricator. Assuming one still exists, which I can reasonably assume it does.
Speaking of which, I have just made something of a breakthrough. For upon my screen appears a simple geometric hydrogen cube, we’re talking vertices, planes, material data, everything we need for a usable design file.
I let out an excited pent up yip, the culmination of hours of frustrating software integration work. Unfortunately I startled Rodney, who lets out a panicked gasp and clutches his chest pelts with one of his paws.
“Oh god…..” He gasps, pointing at me “Please.. don’t do that”
“Sorry!” I say a bit meekly. I slowly approach him so as to not make him unnecessarily uncomfortable and show him my work.
“I got the file exchange set up, all we need from you is to finish any modifications to your part, upload them to my holopad, and then we can print away at any class 3 or above fabricator we can scrounge up on Brayga colony.”
“Ok.. um.. got it, I'm almost done i’m just you know” He points a lone grasping appendage at his screen,”Running some simulations, making sure everything is up to spec.” keeping his response kurt. “Sorry for freaking out there.”
I nod my head in the human display of affirmation and return to my workstation to further bug check my work, to test potentially problematic edge cases for when he finishes. Tho Rodney's continued odd behavior intruded on my thoughts.
I should have felt empowered, being able to intimidate this ‘massive beast’, but I didn't. I didn't like being feared, his people have been nice to me, Rodney himself courteous to a fault and desperate for positive attention.
I thought I could expect predators to be fearless but that clearly wasn't the case, rodney was fearful, nervous, had I not known better I would say defective, and while it annoyed his crew, they didn't berate him for it, or attempt to assert dominance, they encouraged it even with placating words and tried to help him through it, they encouraged and supported him like a proper herd, even if sometimes it took the form of what the human would call a playful ribbing. I supposed I could help him as well.
I approached him again, careful to make my approach known to him, making sure to approach from within his limited field of vision. He looks up at me with a wide eyed glare, had I not known him I might have assumed it was hunger, but I did and knew it to be concern.
“Uh high Donu.. um whats up?”
“Why are you afraid of us rodney?”
“Wa-What, me afraid?” he gives out a panicked laugh ”uh no no, I'm not afraid, you know just a bit weirded out I'm just getting used to you all, it's not a fear thing it's a a…. Just getting used to new aliens thing, ask Hermirod we went through this whole song and dance right buddy”
Hermirod furrowed his brow and gave an irritated sigh from across the room.
I reached out to take Rodney by the paw.
His whole body flinched at my mere touch, I quickly withdrew my paw.
“Oh.. um.. I didn't…”
“Rodney! It's okay, your crew doesn’t seem to care when you show fear, and neither do I. Why are you afraid of us? You are almost twice our size and surely double our strength, most venlil would scream and run in terror at the mere sight of you. What's wrong?”
Rodney let out a sigh. “Oh its, we don't have to talk about this, I can deal with this, I deal with scary situations all the time, it's fine, I'll be fine.”
“Rodney, my people are a very emotional, empathic people, we are open with our feelings and with our fear, and the fear of the one can affect the herd, please let me help you. I don’t know what to expect from your society but I promise I wont judge you for your fear or emotions, I mean look at many of my crew mates, we are no one to judge”
Rodney shot back “You didn't seem to be so bothered”
“I’m too old to care, I was about to retire, hell I was about to die as far as I knew, Brayga colony was supposed to be a quiet place to lay back, work on some hobbies, plant a garden and pester the young men of my colony until I either dropped dead of boredom or got lucky” I joked.
That seemed to raise Rodney's mood somewhat. He sighed and seemingly relented.
“It’s… a dumb story, I don't even know why it affected me so much, I come from a place on earth called Canada, people don't usually believe me when I say I am from there, us Canadians are notoriously friendly and I guess I haven’t exactly filled that mold for a lot of my life, but hey I'm working on it, people like me, I have lots of friends back at Atlantis” He says the last sentence in a way as if it isn't me he's trying to convince.
“I'm sure you do, Rodney, You seem like quite the charming individual when you're not cowering!”
“Ha ha thanks, maybe you could come and visit sometime. Tell that to doctor Becket, really nice guy, smart man, he would love to meet you, he loves investigating new species. But back on topic, oh boy, so me and my sister Jeannie were on a family trip to rural Vancouver to visit my grandpa's farm, he kept a lot of goats, not for eating or anything, they were essentially pets that he would use for milk”
“Wait hold on? You drink milk from other animals! Do your females not produce enough milk for their young?”
“Oh um no, we just sort of drink it or ferment it into cheese!”
“Ferment? You mean spoil?
“Yeh”
I reeled from this plasma blast of a statement, I like any right minded venlil had a number of nightmares about being an arxur’s cattle before, especially when I first learned about those things in primary school, but never once had it crossed my mind that we could be used for something so weird. What the speh was I supposed to do with that information?
“Maybe you should get back on topic”
“Yeh sorry about that uh.. Anyways the momma goat had just had a litter of babies, and their real cute when their little, so late in the day when my grandpa was asleep we snuck out to the pens so we can play with the little baby goats, our grandpa told us not to but you now how kids are.”
At this I think back to a young Nyan, as I teach him the inner working of the hyperdrive, I tell him he’s not cleared yet to operate in this engine compartment alone, but I could tell from the occasional caught black hairs and dropped writing implements, there had been a number of curious unauthorized expeditions into its inner workings, he didn't really listen either.
“My sister as always was trying to be the voice of reason, wanting to take it slow. If I was paying attention I might have noticed the angry moma goat who didn’t appreciate the strange human messing with her children.”
The color seemed to drain from his face.
“I uh…” He began to stutter again ”I screamed, a lot, it was rather undignified, she ran right at me, thank god it wasn't a male goat, one with horns, I tired to run but I was hit in the back and knocked over and kicked real good in the head, like wake up in the vet clinic a quarter mile down the road kind of bad”
“This goat was a prey animal?”
“That would be what your kind focuses on”
“Oh sorry”
“Anyways It seems dumb but I have just never been good with animals since then, especially ones that look like you; no offense; I'm getting better but when I first saw you guys in the hangar bay, I was just that dumb kid again, getting in way over my head, scared for my life. I guess there is something to be said about childhood trauma. I really should be over this, I'm getting better with it I swear it’s just”
I take his paw again, he doesn't flinch this time.
“I'm a venlil, a prey animal, I know fear, I know what it is to live in fear, It rattles your brain, it turns your paws to wet grains. It takes great strength to overcome it, to push it aside just long enough to protect the herd. Your herd relies on you Rodney and you are doing a great job in spite of your fear, in spite of having to work with those you fear. You have achieved intellectual feats that rival the greatest minds of the federation and all that while struggling with a traumatic experience. Fear isn’t dumb and there is nothing wrong with you for feeling it.”
“Thank you” Rodney says “That means a lot, I won't be like forever I promise, I just need some time.”
“We will laugh about this someday,” I assured. “Nothing as big and intelligent as you should be afraid of anything”
“Are you calling me fat?” Rodney exclaimed with fake offense.
We both chuckled.
My kind words had resulted in a more upright posture, and a more cheerful demeanor from the human, almost like when I congratulated Nyan on his work, and it got me a look at that happy snarl of his, that I was starting to grow quite fond of.
After Action Report - Venlil Colonial Defense Force
Subject : Apprentice Engineer Nyan
Oh wow! I get to write a report for this mission! I never get to write reports, Donu says they're too boring, but there’s so many interesting things going on all the time. Sometimes I sneakily write my own! Just for fun of course, nobody sees them, which is probably for the best as I sometimes get excited and embellish them slightly. One of the reports I wrote was about the time Donu used nothing but a wad of electrical tape, a bottle of high grain venlil alcohol and a pocket knife to repair a venlil medical ship just in time to get out of the way of a big scary space predator, with glowing red eyes and a million tentacles!
Anyways Im not sure If im suppose to write these In present tense first person or past tense. I asked the captain and she said it's whatever so long as I make sure any pertinent dialogues are properly quoted(“”).
“Nobody usually reads these things anyways.” She said, but this one is surely going to be so exciting, who could look away!
I mean who's gonna scoff at a chance to read about friendly predators from another dimension! A dimension of friendly predators who give warm head scratches and hand out yummy strayu not strayu treats called donuts, that are somehow fluffier than strayu, and have a nice moisture to them. I asked for the recipe but Samantha said we wouldn't have the ingredients back on Venili prime to make them, and Teal'c said the recipe is an old family secret. Its weird predators would be so protective of their plant snacks.
There are so many weird things about these predators, they have nurturing instincts that make them find us cute. They stay perfectly balanced even if they don’t have tails, swinging their arms and body all over the place to keep upright like a lopsided gyroscope, it's pretty funny looking!
They also wear artificial pelts all the time, which I thought was weird, I thought maybe the ships temperature was set by the angry gray alien since he’s the only crew member beside the venlil who walks around naked all the time, maybe he had a fit when it was to warm, and the humans obliged him cause they were worried they would make him even angrier, and wore clothes to make up for the cold. I thought this made sense, a lot of their technology does seem to come from the Asguard, maybe he has more say in the goings on of the ship because of that. But apparently humans just like wearing pelts all the time. They feel uncomfortable without them and don’t like it if you try to remove them or look up their upper artificial pelts they call shirts.
The humans are so weird, I don’t even have to embellish my reports to make it more interesting. Like that time with the big tentacled space predator. That may sound real compared to this stuff but it Isn't, Ha! I bet you fell for it at first, hook line and sinker! Like the humans would say. I think I used that saying right, I'm not sure what it means, but Shepard brought it up when he was telling a story about the wraith.
The humans are so nice, instead of exterminating their predators they try to cure them! Their doctors are working to modify the wraith so they don't have to eat humans anymore, so they can be friendly predators too.
Anyways I should probably get to the actual report part of this report. Farva says I should start after I went off with Samantha to work on some special astrophysics equations she said I would be good at. I kind of wanted to go with Donu to help Rodney get the new parts they needed, or Farva to help rescue our people, but the humans and even the angry gray alien got really weird when Farva mentioned taking me on the mission. Samantha seemed to want me to help her really badly so I didn’t mind. Samantha says I have the most important part to our mission. She's teaching me about how humans communicate through subspace, and about stellar drift equations. We are working on what she calls the exit strategy.

Location: Defense Line Husky, Datsot-3

POV: Motsotaer, Malgeir Federation Planetary Defense Force (Rank: Pack Member)
The shrieking whistle of incoming artillery shell was among the most terrifying noises known to living beings.
Sheeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeew. Boom. Boom. Boom.
But it meant you were still alive.
Pack Member Motsotaer wondered if the poor pups in the forward trenches heard them coming as the enemy high explosive pounded into their lines.
Boom. Boom. Boom.
One of their anti-aircraft concrete bunkers took a direct hit; its roof collapsed on itself with a loud crumble.
Grass Eater artillery was voluminous, destructive, but scariest of all, it was incredibly precise. Their intelligence assets in orbit knew all, saw all. Their kill chains were short. Once they saw you, they would call it in, and the remainder of your life was measured in minutes and seconds.
There was nothing vegetarian about the efficient and bloodthirsty way the long-eared Grass Eaters fought, and the numerous intelligent predator species they’d exterminated on their way to Datsot… some of those tales gave even Motsotaer nightmares.
The defenders of Datsot had no choice. No choice but to defend their homes against the psychotic enemies pounding their lines to bits. And the ones who remained had learned the hard lessons of war, either through experience earned by blood or via the process of not-so-natural selection.
Motsotaer clutched his rifle against his chest as he laid in his own shallow hole, eyes closed. If the end was going to come for him, there was nothing else he could do but huddle in his freshly-dug grave.
Boom. Boom. Boom.
The blasts continued walking across the defense lines, undoubtedly killing scores of his comrades. But he accompanied each shockwave with a sigh of relief; they let him know that he was still alive. Still breathing.
One final rumble. And then there was silence across the battlefield.
Motsotaer waited a minute before he peeked out — another lesson that smart defenders of Datsot had discovered the hard way. A couple brave medics were already on the move, their shouts left and right, pulling bodies and the groaning injured alike out of the rubble aftermath of the shelling.
With a grunt, he pulled himself out of his hole, rushing towards the neighboring anti-air bunker. The concrete roof had collapsed, but he could still hear cries from the dark. He squeezed through the cluttered entrance.
It was a mess on the inside. The lights were all gone. Scattered sandbags. It smelled like blood and death, and he pushed aside the still body of a Head Pack Leader he only knew of, only to find the corpse of yet another Pack Member, her limbs sprawled in an unnatural position.
“Anyone still alive in here?” he asked in the dark as his eyes adjusted. “Hello?”
There were a series of loud coughs. “I’m here. I’m here.”
“Pack Leader Nidvid!” he shouted as he recognized the familiar shrill voice. “Keep talking! Where are you?”
“Here. I’m here. Help me up.”
As she continued to cough, he had the sense to fish a flashlight out of his pocket, fumbling around until he found the on button. As the light activated, he could see Nidvid half-buried in the dirt, her lower limbs trapped beneath some sand from the broken sandbags.
“Pack Leader!” He got onto his front paws and started digging. “Are you injured?”
“I don’t think so,” she shook her head in the dim lighting as she experimentally wriggled her legs. “Here, I think I’m loose. Help me up.”
Motsotaer grasped her under her arms, and with a heavy grunt, pulled her out of the dirt.
“Whew,” she said, checking her body again for wounds. Nidvid looked around at the other bodies splayed in the bunker. “Oh no… Head Pack Leader…”
“That was a close one. I can’t believe you lived through that!”
“Yeah, me neither… Wait a second,” Nidvid said as she began rummaging through a pile of rubble near the Head Pack Leader’s body. “The radio…”
“What are you looking for?” he asked as he aimed his flashlight towards where she was looking.
“Oh no, no, no…” her voice trailed off as she picked up the device she’d been looking for. “Our hardline communicator…” It was clearly broken from the strike, its shell perforated with a hundred holes and its connection to the landline severed. In disgust, Nidvid threw it back to the ground.
“What uh— what did you need that for?” Motsotaer asked. “Were we supposed to tell them we were being attacked?”
“No… It was— before the strike, we got a high priority order.”
“A high priority order?”
Nidvid recalled, “There’s a special platoon in our salient… We were supposed to get an important message to them!”
“Special platoon?” Motsotaer asked. “Are you okay, Nidvid?”
“Yes, yes,” the Pack leader replied, visibly distraught. “They only had a physical line to us because they’re supposed to be keeping in the dark. Emissions control or something like that so they can activate the flying machine swarm in time. They said this was life and death and our whole defense line hinges on it!”
“Emissions control? Flying machines? Pack Leader, we should get you to a medic,” he said skeptically.
“No! Motsotaer, this is important. We need to get the message to them now. They’re only a couple kilometers south from our position. If we run over to their position now, it might not yet be—”
He looked up at her face in alarm. “Run to another position? Outside the trench line?”
“Yes! We have to go!” she said, as she peeked out of the concrete bunker towards the barren zone ahead of the trenches. “Now! Before they start their offensive.”
Motsotaer began to protest, “But that’s no creature’s land. If we get spotted by their troops, we’ll be hunted down by the Grass Eaters ships in orbit…”
She was insistent, “Pack Member Motsotaer, get it together. We still have a job to do. Are you with me or are you going to sit here and die like a coward to the long-ears?”
“Yes, ma’am,” he said, straightening up. Death or not, he was no coward. “I mean… I’m with you.”
“Good. Then let’s go.”
With a grunt, she leapt out of the trenches and jogged south, keeping to the defensive side of it for the modicum of cover it provided, and Motsotaer quickly followed. As they sprinted away from the tattered defenses, they ran into a thick tree line that hopefully provided them with some concealment from the Grass Eater ships above.
After a couple more minutes of running in the forest, Motsotaer started to tire and pant. He weighed his burning lung and how embarrassed he’d be if he complained. Luckily for his ego, Nidvid gestured for them to stop after another minute and tossed him her canteen. “Take a break before we get going.”
He chugged as much water as he could in a single swig, and returned the canteen to Nidvid. He gasped out, “How much further, Pack Leader?”
“About one more kilometer south,” she said, aiming her snout up at the treetops. “I recognize the smell of this area.”
“What’s this even about? The message… what was it?”
Nidvid exercised her limbs. “That Grass Eater artillery strike… it was to prepare for their offensive on our lines. They’ve gathered an armored division on the other side of that,” she pointed out into the barren fields beyond the trees. “We have an hour at most before they roll over us.”
“An armored division?!” Motsotaer squeaked. The enemy’s Longclaws — their armored vehicles — were legendary. They could kill from kilometers away. And their thick shells protected them against all but the most powerful artillery in the Federation’s arsenal. He’d never seen one of them personally. If he had, he suspected he wouldn’t be alive to tell anyone about it. “What can we do against a Grass Eater armored division?”
“That’s why we have to get to the special platoon,” Nidvid replied. She pointed in the southern direction, “You ready? Let’s go.”
They galloped for a few more minutes. Motsotaer’s limbs tired and his breaths shallowed as his lung burnt. As he was contemplating whether to ask for another break, Nidvid pointed at a shape in the distance. “There, that’s their position!”
He squinted at it. It was not easy to see, but buried in the tree line was what looked like a bunch of out-of-place branches and leaves over a small vehicle. Buoyed by the anticipation of the end of the marathon, he managed to keep up with Nidvid’s pace.
As they approached, there was a loud shout.
“Hi-yah! Stop!”
They halted their steps and looked for the source of the voice.
“Not one more paw step, deserter! This is a restricted area! Turn around or you’ll be shot!”
Motsotaer looked up at the voice hidden up in the branches. After a moment, with some help from his nose, he found the yeller. It was a short, stout middle-aged male with strange-looking green and brown paint smeared all over his fur and face. He had a rifle aimed squarely at the duo.
“Don’t shoot!” Nidvid yelled back. “We’re runners. We’ve got an important message! For your platoon commander.”
The male in the tree looked suspiciously at them as he leapt down. He lowered his rifle, but didn’t seem any less on guard. “A message?”
“Yes, we’ve got an urgent message for Special Platoon Commander Graunsa. Take us to him right now!”
He sized the two of them up. After a moment, he said slowly, “I am Graunsa. Why are you here, and what is the message?”
Nidvid recovered some of her breath and explained, “The Grass Eaters hit us hard with an artillery strike. Our Head Pack Leader is dead. Our landline is gone. We ran all the way over from our lines north of you.”
Graunsa nodded and gestured for her to continue.
“The Grass Eater armored offensive is about to start. They’re moving into position and ready to go, and there’s a special message embedded—”
“Wait a second,” Graunsa interrupted. “Give me the special message exactly, without omission or your own interpretations.”
“Yes, Platoon Commander,” Nidvid nodded. “The message is: bunny water carriers are in play, red-five-zero-eight; come out of the dark and introduce yourself. Authorization is three-three-greyhound.”
Graunsa looked thoughtful for a moment as he pondered it.
“What does the message mean?” Motsotaer whispered at Nidvid.
“I have no idea,” she shrugged, whispering back. “The Head Pack Leader just told me to memorize it.”
The platoon commander seemed to have made up his mind. “Alright, that seems legitimate. Thanks for the message.” He turned around to leave.
Motsotaer shouted behind him, “Wait, what are we supposed to do now?”
Graunsa turned around. “I don’t know. I’m not your commanding officer.” He paused for a moment. “I wouldn’t recommend going back to your lines though. Might not be there when you get back…”
“What?!”
“You can’t just leave us! Where else are we supposed to go?” Nidvid asked.
Graunsa seemed to contemplate the question for a few heartbeats and sighed, “You said you’re from the position up north?”
“Yup,” they replied in unison.
“And you’re a spotter, Pack Member?” he asked, looking at the rank and position patch on Motsotaer’s chest.
“Yes.”
Graunsa relented. “Fine. We might find a use for you. Get into the bunker… before the Grass Eaters in orbit see us dawdling out here.”
“What? Where?”
The officer pointed at a patch of dark green leaves on the forest floor. As they approached it, he grasped a latch and lifted it to reveal a ladder. The three of them descended into the darkness and Graunsa secured it behind them. With a quiet swoosh, a lamp mounted on the wall lit up to reveal a small hallway leading to a heavy-looking door.
Graunsa knocked on it twice. He turned around and looked at Motsotaer and Nidvid. “What you’re about to see in here is of the highest secrecy level of the Malgeir Federation. If you tell anyone what you see in here, you will be executed for treason. Do you understand?”
“Yes, Platoon Commander.”
“Swear it, on your honor.”
“We swear,” they replied in unison, their voices infused with growing excitement.
“Good enough for me.”
The heavy steel door swung open, showing a room that was vastly different from what its primitive exterior suggested. It resembled a command center far more than a field base, and Motsotaer felt a blast of cold air conditioning in his face as he passed the door threshold.
At the front, a main screen showed a map of the defensive lines in the sector. Facing it, two rows of sleek, new computer screens lit up the dark. Their operators worked busily at their controls, and only a couple faces looked their way in mild interest as they entered.
“What is this—” Motsotaer started to ask. Nidvid grasped his shoulder and shushed him.
Graunsa cleared his throat. Several faces looked towards him in anticipation. “Platoon, we just got the message. Activate the FTL handshake and authenticate us in the network.”
“Yes, sir.” A young-looking communication officer near the front operated a few controls on her console. “I’ve got the advisors on the line.”
Motsotaer read his nametag: Gassin. She was a Gamma Leader, much higher ranked than he, but she looked not a day over twenty. He noted that many of the people in the room sported high-ranking insignias despite their apparent youth.
“On screen,” Graunsa ordered.
A communication window appeared on the main screen, streaming video of someone in a jet-black EVA suit.
Motsotaer stiffened. It was obvious that the subject was alien; at around 1.7 or 1.8 meters, it was far too tall for being a Malgeir. Too small for a Granti. And from the side profile of the suit, it didn’t bulge nearly enough for the tails that the Malgeir’s Schpriss neighbors were known for. A strange new species of aliens.
From the blackened visor, it was obvious that whoever that was… it was the reason for all this tight secrecy.
“Special Platoon Commander Graunsa,” it transmitted in perfect Malgeirish. The alien was either a trained-from-birth Federation Channel One newscaster with a perfectly inoffensive accent, or its translator was far better than anything the Malgeir themselves had invented. “This call is encrypted, but the enemy Znosians in orbit are trying to find your location from the signals, so we’ll have to make it as quick as we can. Have your defensive lines completed your preparations?”
Graunsa stepped up to address the screen directly, “Yes, advisor. Our fire support platoon is ready for tasking.”
“Excellent. Transmitting the first batch of targets in your sector now.”
A series of symbols scrolled onto the screen, showing a number of coordinates.
“We’re getting the enemy positions now,” Gassin exclaimed.
Graunsa turned to her and nodded his appreciation, “Sixteen armored targets. Weapons free.”
“Yes, sir. Programming the sequence.”
A camera on the main screen activated, remotely showing a small hole with some machinery in it dug a few hundred meters away just at the edge of the tree line.
“Launching flying machine swarm!”
As Motsotaer watched, a thicket of metal erupted from the hole in a blur, roaring into the sky.
The main screen was replaced by a four-by-four of windows of black and white images. It took him a couple seconds to realize that he was looking at the battlefield from above. The Malgeir had rotary wing, airplanes, and jet — some were even armed, but they were usually much bigger. And their air assets had been grounded since the early days of the battle for Datsot when the enemy took the orbits.
Not these tiny devices though.
He focused on one of the sixteen windows.
The ground sped past below the camera’s vision, tree line after tree line, the flying machine seemed to know where it was going by itself: Motsotaer looked at the other occupants in the room. None of them seemed to be directly controlling it.
He stiffened.
Is this controlled by a thinking machine?
“We’re getting in range of the target coordinates, Platoon Commander,” Gassin updated the room a few minutes later.
As if on cue, the flying machines flew higher, and the trees on the ground grew smaller, as if further away. Until…
“Targets identified!” Gassin reported with excitement in her voice.
As an infantry spotter, Motsotaer had been trained — barely — to identify enemy armored vehicles. As in, he’d been given a cheatsheet containing the silhouettes of the different types of vehicles the enemy drove. But even he couldn’t tell at this distance what the white-hot smudges on the screen were.
The machine had no such issues though.
Several red boxes materialized on the screen, clearly marking several enemy vehicles in the thermal imagery and adorning them with detailed information.
The one Motsotaer was watching said:
Hostile vehicle, Longclaw MK4 (top armor: ~25mm), 4.2 km.
No hostile EW detected.
Without additional prompting, the flying machines raced in towards their targets, each recognizing a different one as its final destination. Afraid to blink, Motsotaer stared intently at one of the video streams.
A new line of text appeared at the top of the screen:
ETA 20 seconds.
It counted down the seconds, number by number.
The enemy Longclaw got larger and larger until… the screen went black, replaced by static. As he looked around, the other windows were similarly replaced with static one-by-one.
Motsotaer frowned, wondering where the videos had gone.
Then, it hit him. The flying machines were on one-way trips.
The sixteen windows disappeared, and another one appeared, showing the enemy assembly area from a much higher perspective. And instead of the vehicles he expected, he counted sixteen burning wrecks, the black smoke from their flames reaching up into the sky in columns.
“Targets destroyed, Commander,” Gassin said. Several of the officers in the room looked at each other excitedly, but their celebration was muted.
Graunsa nodded. “Call our advisors again.”
The alien appeared on the screen again. “Excellent work, Platoon Commander. We’re assessing the lines and getting the second batch of targets to you now.”
“Understood.”
As the new target coordinates scrolled onto the main screen, Gassin didn’t need additional prompting, “Launching flying machines!”
Another sixteen of them flashed out from the pre-dug position. Another sixteen windows appeared on the screen, replacing the odd-looking aliens’ video.
“Wait a minute,” the aliens’ voice cut into the quiet hum of the control room’s operation. “Switch back to the high-altitude drone. Something’s happening.”
The main screen’s image was replaced by the previous camera looking down at enemy lines. There was a flurry of activity in the enemy base area. Numerous dots representing the ground troops moved to-and-fro. And worryingly, the red squares that surrounded enemy armor began appearing en masse as enemy Longclaws drove out of their covered positions into the open.
Dozens of them.
Then, hundreds. And more appeared every second.
“What’s going on?” Graunsa asked, his voice reflecting Motsotaer’s worry.
The alien took a minute to get back to him, its black helmeted face filling up the screen again. “They’re attacking. They don’t know what hit them in the last strike. But they must have realized that they’re not safe in their assembly area, and they’re doing the only thing they can… We estimate they’ll get to your first lines in thirty minutes.”
“Can we stop them?” Graunsa asked. “We can—”
The alien looked directly into the video. “Not sixteen drones at a time. And if you launch the whole swarm at once, it’ll reflect enough signal for them to sniff out where you are with their counter-battery radars and take you out from orbit.”
Graunsa swallowed. “That’s— that’s— The machines can fly themselves without us, right?”
The alien didn’t say anything for a few heartbeats. “Theoretically, yes. But even if you evacuate your position now, your people won’t get out of range from the orbital strike they’ll call in.”
“I understand. Feed us the enemy targets.”
“Delta Leader, we can’t ask you to—”
“I said, feed us the enemy targets,” Graunsa insisted.
Quietly, hundreds of coordinate pairs filed onto the main screen. Graunsa looked at the faces of the young officers under his command. Dozens of them. He turned around to look at his two guests. “I’m sorry,” he said.
“It’s the right choice,” Nidvid replied, shrugging.
Motsotaer nodded at him.
“I know,” Graunsa said, turning back to the main screen. “Just doesn’t make it any easier.”
“Sir, we’re ready to launch,” Gassin reported.
“Weapons free. Release everything.”
“Yes, sir.”
The ground shook and rumbled, hundreds of flying machines leaving their canisters for the sky. They were close enough to hear the outgoing buzzing as the munitions launched. This time, more and more windows filled up the screen with the visuals of the outgoing flying machines — hundreds of them, and Motsotaer was surprised that the computers could even handle it all.
The visage of the alien returned to their screen. It said calmly, “Enemy orbital launch spotted. Multiple launches. High yield. Missiles incoming to your location, ETA twelve minutes.”
“Understood, advisor.”
POV: Slurskoch, Znosian Dominion Marines (Rank: Five Whiskers)
“Scramble! Scramble! Scramble!”
Riiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiing.
“What’s going on?” Longclaw Commander Slurskoch sat up in his turret cupola as the sirens rang loud through the hull.
“We’re under artillery attack!” his Controller yelled back at him through the roaring startup sequence of the turbine anti-grav engines. “The Lesser Predators… they’ve got some kind of new weapon! Took out a whole battalion’s worth of Longclaws in the 194!”
“But we’re not ready!” his Driver complained. “Our artillery is supposed to pound them for another hour before we—”
Slurskoch shook his head as he checked the friendly force tracker on his screen. “Doesn’t matter! If they’ve got some new weapon, we can’t sit still while we get pounded to bits by whatever they have. We gotta get out there. Hurry it up!”
It took them another two minutes to fully warm up the engines, and with a roar, the Longclaw burst out of its camouflaged emplacement, kicking up a curtain of dirt in front of it.
“Let’s go! Go! Go!” Slurskoch yelled as his lagging Longclaw joined the armored formation already on the move.
The Controller spoke with one of her ears in the radio, “Their artillery just launched… something at us. We’ve pinpointed their location, and orbital support is on its way.”
His Gunner whooped twice, and Slurskoch nodded silently in agreement. That’d flatten those carnivorous abominations where they stood. He drew a few symbols and circles on the digital battlemap as the Longclaws drove toward the enemy lines. “Gunner, watch those potential trench lines in front of us,” he instructed. “Their anti-armor may not look scary on paper, but their infantry can always get a lucky hit in.”
Slurskoch was taught in training that it was better to overestimate the enemy than underestimate them. Luckily, the predators usually fell below expectations, which was why the Dominion controlled the orbits of Datsot now and not them.
His Controller frowned at something in her radio, “They’re saying something about the enemy artillery… The engineers at the base assessed the strike aftermath. There’s something strange in the rubble. The attack was more precise than anything we’d ever seen.”
“What does that mean?” Slurskoch asked in confusion.
“The sensor officer in charge of the assembly area has taken full responsibility. They didn’t see the incoming at all. Higher ups are speculating that the Lesser Predators have a new weapon in their arsenal.”
“The predators made new weapons?” Slurskoch snorted. “Useful ones? That’ll be a first. Well, whatever it is, maybe our Design Bureau will get a good look at it when we finally cleanse this planet of their filth. Make our next battle a little easier when we have to take their home planet.”
His Gunner agreed, “And then, the Prophecy shall be fulfilled.”
A few kilometers into the charge across the open, the Gunner remarked with one eye on her targeting computer, “Looks like even the local winged predators know that there’s about to be a slaughter here.”
The Driver, in his open hatch, looked up at the cloud of them flying over the enemy lines. “Looks like it. A nice juicy feast for them in the coming battle. The irony of the barbaric carnivores being eaten by themselves.”
A few thousand years ago, winged predators would have curdled the blood of any natural-born Znosian. On the original plains of Znos, they were one of the most dangerous threats a lone Znosian faced. Now, that fear had been completely bred out of the gene pool, replaced with contempt for predatory primitivism, the courage to face them in battle, and the drive to exterminate them all.
Curious, Slurskoch stared up into the cloud of winged predators with his Longclaw commander optics. He frowned.
One of them shimmered.
Shimmered.
He zoomed in.
Then, he saw a metallic glint. His whiskers tightened.
“That’s— those aren’t winged predators,” he barely made out in shock. “Incoming!”
“Huh?” his Driver asked, craning his head up to look at the dark shapes in the distance.
“Get inside! Secure the hatch!” Slurskoch shouted at him.
His Driver was not very good at thinking on his own, but he had been bred to follow direct orders without question. He ducked into his seat, quickly securing the hatch above him close with trained claws.
He barely secured the Longclaw as other commanders began yelling out similar instructions on their radios.
“Incoming!” his Controller advised, about ten seconds later than necessary. “Enemy… artillery?!”
“Gunner!” Slurskoch gestured in the general direction of the sky.
“I can’t get a shot on them. They’re too high up!” she screamed back at him.
A trio of air defense vehicles next to him opened up with their six barrels towards the sky, lines of bright tracers stabbing out at the dark swarm. He saw one of the… flying machines hit and fall out of the sky. Then another.
It wasn’t enough.
As Slurskoch’s optics tracked the incoming, he saw them dive. They were fast, and they flew erratic patterns, almost organically, like actual winged beasts. If he hadn’t had that specific fear bred out of his bloodline hundreds of years ago, he would have been frozen in shock. Instead, he yelled out, “Brace! Brace!”
Boom. Boom. Boom.
The world exploded around his Longclaw.
Through his friendly force tracker, Slurskoch watched an entire battalion disappear off the map on his right flank, and two Longclaws in his line of sight brewed up in massive fireballs, throwing their turrets into the sky as their plasma ammunition detonated. One of the anti-air vehicles brewed up next to his, splattering its parts against his hull.
His Driver drove for all he was worth, ducking and weaving in the open field. So did the other Longclaws. Some deployed curtains of smoke in front of them in desperation.
None of it seemed to help.
The shockwaves hit his Longclaw in quick succession, knocking him around the armored cabin and rattling his teeth.
Boom. Boom.
More Longclaws exploded. Many more. They were disappearing off his screen faster than the software could update the signals. He closed his eyes waiting for the end.
It didn’t come.
It was hard for Slurskoch to tell when the last Longclaw near them was hit. His hearing organs must have been damaged some time during the attack. His auditory senses ringed as they returned to normal, recovering when his Controller shook him with a paw on his shoulder. “—Five Whiskers! Five Whiskers!”
“What is it?” he snapped, keeping the quivering out of his voice.
“We’re alone in our company, and I can’t contact the six whiskers! And I’ve been trying to reach battalion without success!”
“Try the regiment commander!” he yelled out against the noise of the anti-grav engine.
“Can’t reach them either!”
“What about division headquarters?!”
“I think division’s gone, sir!”
“What?!”
“Nobody there has been responding. All I’ve got is a seven whiskers in the reserve infantry division behind us! They’re saying they see black smoke in the direction of our division field command!”
“What in the Prophecy? How is that possible?!”
“What do we do, Five Whiskers?”
Slurskoch had been trained for a wide variety of combat scenarios and contingencies, including losing his immediate superiors, losing most of his unit, and losing his communication link to command. But he’d never been trained for all of those combined at once. That was just not something predators were supposed to be able to do to you.
He fell back to the next best thing.
“What’s the combat computer say?” he asked.
His Controller operated the controls on her console, and after half a minute of querying, she replied, reading off the instructions, “Absent orders, continue the attack. Maybe we can push through.”
“What? Did it take our losses into account?” he protested as he checked the battlemap. Of the nearly five hundred Longclaws that had pushed out of the assembly area, only a quarter remained. At most. Some of the signals on the map were flagging themselves as mobility or mission killed.
She shrugged, “It did. That’s what it says.”
He squinted at her screen. That was indeed what it said.
Slurskoch thought for a moment, sighed, and bowed in prayer, “Our lives were forfeited the day we left our hatchling pools.”
The other crew members all did the same, lowering their heads to mutter the familiar mantra.
That ritual out of the way, he drew up to his full height of 1 meter and mustered all the confidence he could into his voice, “Attack! Attack! Attack!”
POV: Graunsa, Malgeir Federation Planetary Defense Force (Rank: Delta Leader)
The command center watched glumly as the hundred or so surviving Grass Eater Longclaws emerged from the wrecks of their comrades and slowly resumed their charge across the open toward the defense lines.
The flying machines had gotten a lot of them. Quite a few disabled too. And they were disorganized from the loss of their command. Yet they still charged. Diminished as their numbers were, they rolled towards the battered defensive lines with psychotic determination.
We’ve failed.
Graunsa sat down heavily into his chair. He brought up his communication console, connecting it to the advisor network.
The alien appeared on the screen, and though he couldn’t see its face, he could hear the sympathy in its translated voice, “You’ve done all you can, Special Platoon Commander.”
“It wasn’t enough,” he said, shaking his ears sadly. “They’re going to break through our line. Our infantry can’t stop them.”
It tilted its head. “I wouldn’t count them out completely, Delta Leader. They might. They might not. But your next defensive line certainly will hold them. The city behind you will be held.”
“Tracking enemy orbit-to-ground. ETA three minutes,” Gassin reported quietly from next to him.
Graunsa sighed. He looked at the alien, “I think I understand your people now, advisor.”
“You… do?”
“Yeah, at first, when we were picked for this mission, I wondered why your people were doing this.”
“Doing this?” the alien asked, seeming confused.
“Helping us. The weapons. The equipment. The training. The targeting. It was all in secret, but you didn’t have to do it. The other species around us didn’t do it. The Schpriss…” Graunsa snorted, “The long-tails can’t even find it in their spines to send us field rations. I thought your species… your people were just generous. Or perhaps you simply enjoyed the craft of war, being so adept at it.”
“Are we… not?”
“Those reasons may be part of it,” he conceded. “But more importantly, I think your people understand one thing the other species don’t… that we might stop the enemy here. Or we might not.”
“We didn’t set you up to fail, if that’s what you think—”
“But the next defensive line certainly will hold them,” Graunsa said, staring the alien in the eye. “You will hold them. Isn’t that right?”
It sighed. “I would be lying if that wasn’t part of the strategic equation. Our star systems are indeed next in line — sometime in the next decade or two, probably — if these bloodthirsty Buns conquered your Federation. That harsh astropolitical realism. But there’s something else too.”
“Is there?”
“Yes,” it nodded its head firmly in a familiar manner. “Yes, there is. We aren’t a particularly long-sighted species, Graunsa. We can plan, yes, but wars are fought by true believers. People don’t sign up to put their lives on the line for a hypothetical, potential invasion of our Republic twenty years in the future. They— we signed up for this because we truly believe what’s happening to your people… it shouldn’t happen to anyone, ever.”
Graunsa looked at the helmeted head for a while, then nodded. “I believe you, advisor.”
“I’m sorry this didn’t pan out, Graunsa. If I could, I’d be down there with you. We’d have made them pay for this.”
Graunsa smiled. “I believe you about that too. Thank you, advisor, whatever your name is.”
“You may call me Kara,” it said simply. A deft snap of its paws — he hadn’t noticed how soft its claws were before — and it released a latch on its helmet with a hiss. Lifting it from its head, it revealed a soft, smooth face without much fur except a bundle of long, brown strands on its scalp tied up in a neat spherical shape. Its hazel forward-facing eyes stared at him with the empathy that only other predators were capable of, filling him with mild relief. “Don’t tell anyone though,” it joked lightly, mirroring his smile back at him.
You’re not as ugly as I thought you’d be. Not nearly.
Graunsa’s grin widened at the thought. He put it out of his mind. “Ah. One last thing, advisor— Kara.”
“Yes?”
His mind drifted to his cubs at home. Perhaps they were still alive. He chose to believe that. “Our people’s clans and packs…”
“We’ll let them know,” she interrupted him softly. “And when the information quarantine is lifted, we’ll let your clans and packs know what you did here — everything.”
“Good. Thank you.”
Gassin sat down next to him, “Delta Leader, enemy missiles incoming. ETA thirty seconds, they’re entering—” She stopped her report and stared at the unmasked alien on his screen with equal parts wonder and sadness.
“Take a closer look, Gassin,” he ordered softly. “That… that is who will avenge us.”
On screen, the alien put its gloved paw up to its temple, forming a stiff triangle with its arm in a recognizable salute. “It was an honor, Graunsa.”
Graunsa returned it crisply, letting a primitive fire shine through his face. “Happy hunting, Kara.”

Location: Atlas Naval Command, Luna

POV: “Kara”, Terran Reconnaissance Office
Kara watched solemnly as the green signal blinked off the battlemap. She closed her eyes for a moment in silent prayer for the fallen.
Beep. Beep.
Another light on her console blinked urgently for her attention. Four thousand kilometers from the previous one. The war raged on — day and night — across four continents on the besieged planet. Fifty light years from the Republic, its defenders’ sweat, tears, and blood lined the fields and valleys of the beautiful blue sphere not so different from her own. Tens of millions of them: many who she knew would not see the end of this war.
They didn’t all know it, and some might not have cared, but fifty light years away, someone recorded their names, and someone felt a pang of loss for their sacrifice. In the cold, dark forest of the galaxy, somebody heard their trees fall.
Kara collected her thoughts, adjusted the bun in her hair, and lowered the tinted EVA helmet over her face once more.
She cleared her throat as she glanced at the screen and activated the microphone in her helmet, “Special Platoon Commander Treiriu. This call is encrypted, but the enemy Znosians in orbit are trying to find your location from the signals, so we’ll have to make it as quick as we can. Have your defensive lines completed your preparations?”

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