Chapter 40 – Trouble trouble trouble

Pazak's squadron, the 12th Armored Infantry against the Black Rose Warmarch's 77th Tank Cavalry unit had both been assigned to watch the Xi-Llavalite border, and found themselves on a single planet where about 12 working Arrays remained operational. The planet served as a mobile junction through the stars, whoever held it would acquire easy mobility through the already tenuous frontlines of Xi's ongoing civil war.

 

The Warpstation they watched held PFU's older armory. Above the skies were the squadron's alliance of PFU's garrisons of about 4000-4500 personnel attempting to stabilize the Llavalite holds without assisting them in a hostile or volatile fashion. A mobile airborne force, they watched the skies and ensured they did not find themselves on the receiving end of a Llavalite assault nor incur Star Charity's dispassion.

The Xiperium had been a war-torn hell since Xi's untimely dissolution centuries ago, the dynasty fracturing after the loss of the Elderdragons following a war of succession, and the dynasty's death had triggered the fragmentation of the entire Empire. Since then, the Xiperium had been little more than a war-torn patchwork of competing territories and power-vacuums.

 

The Black Rose Warmarch was a mercenary group that was quickly growing out of strength out of the Xiperium's growing instability, one of many other such armies attempting to pick up slack and make war-gains in the interim of the Xiperium. Star Charity knew that attempting to match them in force, especially with their scientific progressed locked down without Croix, would never head way. They sought a different method to ease tensions.

 

Pazak found himself trapped in the Warpstation armory. The console remained unresponsive, and in a fit of rage Pazak slammed his fist down on it and broke its lights. His sister Ursula scolded him inside his head, but his ire remained and remained unappeased. The radio remained silent and he could not hear any responses. The lights flickered and then the console stopped doing any further display on the console. The lights were dim, the room was dark and the console looked like it had been fried with electricity.

 

All Becca could make out were the odd chirps of a blackbird on a rack of mortar cannons just behind their shoulders. The two slowly began to turn around, watching it chirp. "What?" He said, confused and suspicious. The bird had been making a chirp-chirp sound all along, and now its chirps had stopped. Purrin peaked out of her neck collar briefly, but immediately went back in when the bird scared them.

 

Suddenly, slimy black sludge began to drip from the Warpstation exit, plopping along the floor. This disgusting slime poured down from the ceiling on every wall, and soon additional birds made of latexy residue stretched, climbed and flew out.

 

"The hell?" Pazak said, his voice hoarse.

 

The two of them turned around to face the mass of birds behind them, who seemed to be addressing the man directly.

"Pazak, the son of death. Deliverer of fate. Midnight mass has come." The bird said, looking at Pazak. "What the hell are you?" He asked, his hands twitching as he slowly started striding towards the birds who had begun to descend down, growing the size of their feathers and beaks.

 

The birds chirped, clapping their feathers together. "Midnight Mass has come." The birds chirped. "Pazak, the son of death. Deliverer of

heed the call."

 

"The fuck?" The man asked. "What call?" He demanded, his eyes widening. "What is this?"

 

The birds opened their feathers wide, revealing wings and beaks made of slime and rubber. The birds began to fly into the ceiling, and as they did their bodies became liquid, causing a black liquid rain.

 

"How many?" "For how long?" "For whom do you love?" "And why do you serve?" "Your service will be the death of so many." "A gift, to our mistress. Our lord. Her graveyard grows with every mile of burials you dig upon the world, reaper."

 

He said, striding down the aisle and out of the room, only to find that the liquid had filled the room and began flooding the armory. "What the hell is going on here?" His hands began to clap together, black orbs of gravity beginning to spin.

 

Slowly the black birds began to speak in shrill tones, speaking one after the next in an onslaught of accusations, a horrible chorus of judgement.

"First it was for the rebels. You stormed the palace and sent an Elderdragon to hell." "Then it was against the rebels. You turned them into a filthy meatball canyon in a

ceremony of blood." "You took jobs for PFU. Then you betrayed them." "You fought for the

llavalites, then disgraced yourself by murdering their children." "You shielded the law with your darkness. You broke it it with the lives you shed." "You were a general once." "Now you're merely a traitor." "You care for no side or cause. Only death guides you."

"You seek to do what's right for us all. Or what is right for you. What's right is not always clear, don't you agree gentlemen?"

"Fuckin' birds." He said, only to find that his throat felt like it was getting hotter and

tighter.

"Go on, keep guard. Complete your mission. Free the prisoners in the city. Rescue as

many as you can. Kill as many as you find." "Kill them all."

 

They circled the man like a cyclone, Becca clutching closely. "It's you."

The birds chirped in unison. "Do you know how much I fuckin cannot stand religion?" He said, feeling his throat get hotter and hotter, the black liquid of his blood seeping into his lungs. He started feeling dizzy and lightheaded. "Fuck off."

"You're not who you claim to be."

"And who the hell are you?" Pazak said, struggling. "You. Ain't. Me." He said.

 

The chirping of birds began to grow louder, as they descended.

"I'm not some fuckin' goddamn god of death." He said, turning to the ground, the birds diving towards his head. Purrin hissed at the birds, the horrible Ravens that seemed to gravitate towards the man.

"I'm just some guy, I'm not death. I don't care if she's fond of me."

The cyclone got worse, their feathers becoming like knives and diving all around him in 360 degrees, tearing at his armor and sleeves. When his shoulder armor had been cut open and his side gaped with a deep laceration, blood seeped out. With his arm now exposed, Becca could see a crimson jewel on the back of his shoulder.

"I'm just a guy! Get the hell away from me maggots." "Reaper. A collector of souls. A harvester of life."

"You will never be able save your son." "Your wife and children." "Your daughters." "Your sisters." "Your "All your dear friends." "I am your fate." "An end to all hope." "I will never allow you to save anyone you love. Ursula's fiercest dog. Lives only to fight." The chorus got louder. "You have no qualms, no fear and no heart."

"I've never had a family! I don't have no goddamn son, that I'd leave behind!" He said, slamming his right fist into the hull. "I got no daughters either! And fuck's sake I certainly don't have no wife!"

 

Suddenly a hole in space-time appeared, and a crimson arm offered itself to both of the two. Becca slowly reached for it, as the birds surrounded the two in an orbit, chirping at them. The mercenary pushed forward with her, able to leave through the portal which then closed behind them.

 

Sitting on a large rock, dangling her legs was the gem of pride. "'Sup Zach." Diane said, looking like a bored teenager to Becca.

The three were back out on the planet, desert sands flowing through. The city could be seen from the smog where they'd been previously.

 

The man wiped the blood from his cuts and composed himself. "Diane! You again.."

 

Becca waved, but Diane seemed to barely look at her or give much recognition, as if she was just in the background to this version of the gem much like the last time she'd met her. It was looking at her now that Becca noticed, that Diane seemed visibly shorter, as if she were barely a girl out of puberty in her present shape. "What are you?" Pazak said. "You keep showing up like this, and I'm not going to be giving you a show and a meal like last time."

"Someone to give you a purpose." She said. "I already have a purpose." He retorted.

"You have a purpose. Someone needs a god." Diane said, looking at her. "A god of death." "I do not bring death. I bring justice." He squeezed his fist pointed up at her. "I am the

destroyer of souls." Pazak said, looking down at the little girl.

Diane laughed. "What is your justice?"

"I give those who do wrong the justice that they deserve!"

 

Diane opened her hand and a crimson beam of light flashed. "And who is the judge of that justice?"

"The people who seek me."

 

"Right." The gem rolled her eyes. "People like Croix, and Ursula who order you around.

Your sisters, you think they're fit to judge?"

"Those who need to be executed will be executed. I don't care who, I trust those who put their trust in me. They want their orders carried out."

Diane folded her arms. "I'm a lady, and I'm much older than I look. So take my advice Zach, and keep fighting, but one day you'll come to realize the ones barking your orders are nothing but petty megalomaniac scum." She turned around and created another portal. "And don't even bother looking for me. The less I see of you, the better." Diane said.

"And so you come to me now, to then I'm told you'll go away again and don't want me.

What the hell is that Diane? You come and go, you stick with me and then you leave for no reason." He grabbed her shoulder. "What are you, little girl?"

She rolled her eyes.

"Advice from a lady. Don't grab me Zach." Diane said, a portal appearing and her taking a step through. The portal then closed behind her, and a small wind tunnel blew from it, sweeping up dust and sand to blow into the air and dissipate.

"Fuck yooou too little girl." Pazak said, the dust blowing into the sky and dissipating. The two watched each other with quiet as the portal closed and the gem was gone.

 

"Who does she think she is?" Pazak said, looking at the city. "Whatever." He said, shaking his head. Becca pat him on the shoulder several times. He looked out, a new target soon in sight.

 

The gnashing jaws and creeping antennas of something that was once a starship were soon visible, coated in a layered shell of chitin as it glided through the air with its propulsion systems. It sped into view, and after one onto the next similar ships appeared in view until they outnumbered the visible stars. Along the ground, the terrible tremble of multiple legged tanks slothing, wriggling and sloughing exhaust along the a long trail of smog in their wake. The massive behemoths crawled and etched ever closer like a single mass, that Pazak and Becca could make out to be thousands of scorpio-tanks, some of them the size of city blocks. The tremble of insectoid artillery and war machines began to get louder, their bio-treads scraping and scraping along the sands of the fallen city of the Xiperium, the armies of the Black Rose Warmarch's 77th Tank Cavalry division soon became visible, crawling and walking through the smog, their hatchlings scuttling along the trails.

 

Becca tapped away on his comm and asked him. "We should run. What are you going to do?"

Pazak began to flex his neck , moving it around as he made a grimace. "Thought that would be obvious. No plan, no surrender, no escape." He said, his shoulders tensing up. "I'm going to kill them. Get on my back."

Becca did as the mercenary asked, her hand brushing against the gem on his shoulder that seemed to be embedded in as she did so. She noted the numerous tattoos, which even her distant memory reminded her of Diane's.

 

"I'm just gonna give them what they want, the death they seek! That’s what the Grim Red Zach does afterall.."

His hand stabbed into the sandy ground, a black orb rising.

"You know, if only my heart would stop for the slightest fuckin' reason." He said. The orb expanded, its size growing higher and higher. "But I've met death. She's fickle, and she won't let me die." The orb pumped so high as to eclipse the entire invading army in a cloak of shadow. It was too late for any of them to turn back.

 

By the time his graviton disc grew to the size of city, his hands were trembling so hard they hurt. "Don't be afraid, child." The eclipsing sphere started to swallow up the first row of tanks, those behind them already feeling traction while attempting to backtrack or change direction, leading them to pile into the third row and create a wave of collisions in a chain reaction they couldn't stop. The wind from the attack began blowing, scaring Purrin into puffing up and needing comfort from Becca who held the tiny catlet puffball tightly.

 

"I'm just as afraid of death as everyone else." He said, his hands growing. "I just have a different type of fear. Because I have never killed a person I care for." He said.

"You see... I'm afraid of letting the people who are most important to me die... Death comes to us all, and if I am death.."

 

Becca reached out to touch his shoulder plate and found that the gem was not moving or even wiggling under her hand, even as the sphere of the disc swallowed up the mass of tanks.

 

Pazak began to chant.

"Grimmeth. Reaper. Lord of Souls. Death. The collector of souls. The master of them all." He closed his eyes. "Deliver us from life's suffering." When Becca saw even the chitinous ships in the sky begin to become pulled into the darkness growing on the surface, crushed into gravity's terrible and violent maw, she at last understood who this man was. He who brings Death.

 

"Collect us, Lord of Death, the most merciful end. To Novus Grahim, I dedicate these souls. AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRR!!!!!!!"

 

The man let out a roar, the army of insectoid scorpio tanks and fleet of starships collapsing under the mass of his disc, all of them crushed under the sheer weight of their number that was suddenly being lifted away and collapsed, their fate taken into his hands.

 

Becca watched as the gravity disc reached it zenith, and Pazak felt his shoulders break and his mind explode as he began to fall into the gravity well, his head and arms being pulled through a black hole he'd created of his own making, the sound of him cracking into nothingness. She suddenly realized why Croix as ringleader called him 'Mr. Fate.'

 

The disc collapsed, and the mass of tanks collapsed into dust as it disintegrated in the

mass of the sun. An enormous explosion bloomed, sending a shockwave through the galaxy as the planet itself tilted on its axis, the Black Rose Warmarch's 77th Tank Cavalry unit of the Imperial Llavalite llarval force was vaporized. From star systems away, detection centers and monitoring equipment would read spikes of blackhole radiation and spacial distortion from the shockwave for centuries to come.

 

Zach pulled himself out- his decapitated torso and legs anyway, and slowly those parts that had been pulled into his own horizon and crushed to nothingness, slowly began to regenerate.

Becca found herself standing outside, watching the dust and smoke waft over and the desert sands settle.

"P-paz?" She called to him, only for him to be facing down the horizon of a dead battlefield. His head soon restored from nothingness as a shape of light, flesh returning and solidifying into being. With a deep breath, he returned to the living.

He was breathing heavy, his heart pumping so hard it felt like it was going to pound itself out of his chest. Becca stared at the mercenary in disbelief, the crimson gem visible and throbbing with light as it did so. From far way, Becca imagined he would've looked like a blazing firefly on the edge of a galaxy, a little light of hope to a dead world.

 

☆ ☆ ☆

 

The two traveled around the massive crater left in the landscape, a journey that took some time to transverse. For three days they trekked and walked around its circular perimeter. The two traveled around the massive crater left in the landscape, a journey that took some time to transverse. For three days they trekked and walked around its circular perimeter. “There.” He called to her, the light of the sun in the horizon slowly dipping into the sky. Visible in the slowly stretching shade was a bipedal ship, larger than the previous that he'd destroyed. It floated and glided its way onto the surface.

“Paz!” She called, the mercenary's back tensing up.

“You can call me Zach if you want.” He said, looking ahead at the chitin-armored vessel.

 

The two stared out at the black ship hovering on the crater’s edge, an enormous vehicle that was easily the size of several buildings. The sun shined through the black hull, casting an indigo glow upon its surface as the vehicle lowered itself onto the scorched surface among the sands.

"This is what they sent me for." Pazak said, walking away from the light. Becca couldn't make out the insignia of this starship. It looked like a combination of a scorpion and a locust merged into the silhouette of a crab, the entire ship's underside covered in a network of chitinous armor. She walked past the starship's bow to its rear, a massive cannon along one left 'arm' pointing at the planet and staring them down.

 

The cannon began charging with an eerie light that broke the darkness. Pazak wasted no time and raised his arm. A small projectile the size of a golfball shot out and rolled through the air, picking up speed and volume as it ascended and met the cannon's plasmic deluge.

 

Becca stood her ground as the ship hovered above them, the cannon now bearing down upon them and glowing with a bright red light. She felt the tremble of the crab-like pincer arm beginning to fire, and the mercenary put his back into a black graviton beam and began to

pull.

 

The world seemed to blur and move into the shadow of the vessel as Pazak's pitch-black orb grew and grew, pulling the world around them into the darkness. The starship began to list itself sideways, as if it were tilting into the air. The cannon's light began to dim as it fired continuously, the emissary of death's beam of black light shooting through the air and cutting the darkness in half with its tremendous velocity. Once the spinning orb overcame the burning red, it trespassed through the cannon and created a geometrically clean hole of dissipated matter deleted from space, the orb reaching escape velocity after and shooting into the atmosphere. The light and noise of the cannon disappeared into the darkness in a moment, with only the black globe still spinning in a void of the galaxy.

 

With the vessel disarmed, Pazak walked forward and placed his hand on the front hull, which resembled the mouth of a whale curving upwards to Becca. Instantly, he disc entrance was created as he punched a hole in the black metal exoskeleton of an organic ship. "C'mon." He told her, helping her climb inside. Within the interior, the mercenary stood atop an enormous starship, one that was made for mass combat. 1200m in length and 800m wide, its deck and insides were covered with chitinous bone-y construction with an outer shell that seemed to be an almost organic material.

 

Soon a figure with green skin and gristly plates across his swampy flesh arms like bony whips and a beak of spikes with a skull-shaped crest at the top.

 

"Hello." It said, a soft voice, the sound of a cicada coming from within it. "So the Grim Red Reaper of death has come to kill us." Slowly, the Llavalite commander rose with something chirping beneath him.

 

The reaper took a step back and put his hand to the ground as if to form a graviton disc.

The two had come to face an enormous insect who stood twice the height of any of the hatchlings the mercenary had slaughtered on this planet. The gristly figure and insectoid leader of the Black Rose Warmarch's 77th Tank Cavalry had come to them in his massive mech exoskeleton. It's top-plate opened up, tentacles pulling him in to sync with its nervous system. The entire chassis was covered with a white haze, with a black cannon on the bow of its chest.

 

Pazak turned his head. "Lord Xiphe?" He said, staring at the gristly commander.

 

"We were prepared for this moment. You've been here for a long time Pazak." Lord Xiphe of the Black Rose Warmarch said. Zach's hands began to glow, he slipped out a scroll.

"That won't work indoors. You cannot possibly use such a technique without sucking her and this entire ship in with you, with you still inside it."

"The Sphinx will rise again." He chanted.

Suddenly a wormhole was created that expanded across the floor. The mech leapt upwards to dodge. "Are you crazy? If we were in space right now you'd kill us all!" Xiph shouted. Papery tendrils and bandages began to rapidly unwind from the wormhole and wrap around the mech its mass only able to partially resist as it flailed through the air. Once the entire chassis had lost momentum, it fell flat onto the ground and was grounded. Pazak placed his hand on the front of the mech, and instantly a perfectly geometric circle disc was created, deleting the material from the material plane, turning it into space dust and plasma. The mech thrashed

back and died. All the commander do was attempt to crawl out helplessly before the mercenary grabbed him and yanked him out himself.

 

"Xiph?" He said, dropping the fallen Lord into his arm, noticing a golden shard falling from the mech's gored hole. Becca took immediate notice and leapt towards it, picking it up with eagerness. It was a golden shard of some sort, inscribed with lines of glyphs in an unknown language and a strange alien symbol to it's surfaced that reminded her of the sigil of the Imperial Llavalite they'd just fought.

"P-please. I surrender. Don't kill me." Lord Xiph cried.

As the defeated commander whimpered, a figure crawled out of the wormhole behind them. What appeared to be a lithe female covered in rotten bandages came out, her face a swirling maelstrom of rotting flesh and her arms ending in spiral tendrils.

 

She walked and approached the wounded Llavalite commander, a hand clampering around his snout as she opened her mouth. Her body seemed to be rotting from within as well, her head and shoulders appearing to be full of maggots. Slowly her facial bandages twirled open revealing a skeletal head underneath, the woman's bandaged head twisting like a gastropod, and her jaw turned into a giant maw of fangs that bit into the commander's face, sucking out his lifeforce directly until the man was a husk.

"Lieutenant. Don't-" Pazak called to her. The woman turned to face him, her mouth clampering around Xiph's face. The Commander began to scream. When she stopped biting, he stopped moving for good. Purrin covered their eyes, although Becca watched on with morbid fascination.

The mercenary sighed. "Urs wanted him alive. You know her agenda. He began to step away, his right hand pulling out a scroll."

 

"And Croix ordered him dead. Besides, I already told you." She said. "If it's a contract, I don't fuck around." The bandaged corpse told him. When Becca looked at her face she couldn't see her mouth moving, not even flapping the tight bandages. Her voice and folded arms gave her the impression this girl was rather sassy, but as it was she gave the impression that she didn't want to be there either. "Don't like it? Just kill me."

 

The two faced one another, the mercenary turning his head towards her. "You know I couldn't if I tried."

He said, staring her down. She walked past him.

"Good. Because even if you kill me it won't bring back-" The woman began to speak, but Pazak took a step forward and punched her face, sending the mummified woman crashing into the wall of the vessel.

 

The mercenary reached into his pocket and pulled out a coin, putting it into her mouth. "Give Croix my thanks for her assistance." She began to chirp like a cicada, a noise that became louder until it turned into a series of chirps and croaks that Becca heard crowd out her senses. Soon the woman burst into locusts, and scattered away until she was gone. With the Llavalite commander dead, Pazak began to make his way towards the starship's bridge. He felt the ship shift, and turned around to see Becca staring at him with a hand over the gem on her shoulder. Becca walked up to him, felt the gem and began nuzzling her head against it like a cat.

"What the fuck is wrong with you." The mercenary said, shaking his head confused.

She tapped away on his PDF and showed him. "It's just...I'm supposed to go home. I'm suppose to go back to Jack and the others. And the galaxy's only getting worse, because of me."

"Screw Jack.." He said, walking away from her.

"Don't think I don't know how you feel, kid. It's never stopped, it just gets worse and worse. It just never ends."

The two finally entered a long corridor into a holding chamber. Inside, hundreds of metallic stalks with glowing sacks embedded inside were seen, to Becca they appeared like bio-luminescent jellybeans attached to metal trees. Figures slowly came out from the back huddled together. Children, llavalite children with glowing white eyes, crawling on their hands and feet like insects and wearing white sackcloths.

Their eyes glowed through their huddle as they saw the two come in.

 

"Mother Ava, is he the Death Lord?" One of the children croaked.

Becca turned around and saw the mercenary standing beside her. "Not anymore." He said, his lips twisted in an evil smile. He pulled the sack on his back down and unzipped it, approaching and handing the child a nutritious fruit of some kind. Then to the next one, a sandwich, then some nutrient bars behind, and before long he'd passed out over a hundred articles of food to the youth who were standing around him in awe.

 

When he finished handing out food and the children took their leave he turned around to the girl. "Mission's over. Almost forgot." He took his Comm back from Becca, entered the call signal and tossed it over to the crowd. The image projected the hologram of a woman of some kind, Becca couldn't make them out from behind as Zach slowly guided her out. The shrill of her voice, Becca remembered was the same one Zach had called much earlier, one of his sisters.

 

"To the hungry, the injured, the weary and the suffering. Star Charity welcomes you to the fold. The charity welcomes you, those who suffer from the hardship of life in the stars will find nourishment and healing here. Star Charity offers you, the lost wanderers of the stars, you poor naive Llavalite souls born in the tides of war, a chance to join something greater, to become something better. We ask of you to embrace us with open arms, with kindness and charity. To you my children, we welcome you to become a part of our harmonious Union."

 

 

 

 

 

The queen of the sector arrives

ᓚᘏᗢ

Among the Set, the Akura units are among the highest of the military ranks in the Luminary Galaxy. They operate primarily in quadrupedal mechs armed with missiles launched with railguns, their torsos and legs thick and bulky. Akin to a bear or tiger in large stature, they are highly trained and have been conditioned from birth to kill at a moment's notice. Roughly a few thousand clones are taken by Alpha Scientist every year, each clone of a previous Akura mech, they're borne and implanted with a seed, known as a 'Reminiscence seed' and grown to maturity. Those specially picked receive the Seed of an exceptional warrior or caste leader. The Reminiscence seed, taken from the corpse of a fallen Set, is grown in a warm, wet chamber, implanted into the individual's spine when the Set reaches maturity. It allows it to feel, to remember, and gives it a personality, manifesting as a red diamond on the user's forehead.

When distributed outside the military, the Seeds serve to allow mothers and Kit clan-leaders to pass down wisdom and their soul to the prodigal children who will inherit their spirit.

The smallest and shortest in stature, Akura-778519 was selected by Alpha Scientist, a defective larval clone, yet so beloved by her. Very little set her apart from her cloned Set, outside her tiny weak appearance and the strange scales she had. When the unit was created and selected, they grew up together with a mysterious silvery masked warrior, learning the ways of battle and taking on the tasks set before them in the name of their Empress, the Holy Primus. They'd undergo immense experiments, modifications and scientific tests, even beyond the norm for an Akura unit.

One day, Alpha Scientist read the reports from the Cleric board. "Further experiments and a complete reprogramming of this unit have resulted in a negative net gain in the efficiency and value of the unit." She paused. "Event this unit must be destroyed to ensure proper unit discipline, efficiency, and the general safety of the Akura units." She signed, throwing the report in the trash. They looked as several Set trainees passed by, and took out a syringe. That night, 778513 vanished and was never seen again. The cleric board received a cremated body, while augmentations continued and intensified on Akura-778519. A few years later, after a major conflict that resulted in a few disappearing cleric members mysteriously, the Akura-778519 unit took on a new look, now fully remodeled and with dark orange fur, black stripes and tattoos.

Their training took a harsh turn when they were selected for the pilot's program, and they found their physical training in harsh setback by their weak stature. The program administrator and proctor approached Scales with a scowl, shaking their head as they looked over her training reports.

"Scales, I can't believe it. You, of all people. How do you expect to pilot a military mech when you can't even lift a weapon?" The unit snarled at her, their face full of contempt and rage. "They can add more glyphs.." She replied, waving her arm to show off her Writ tattoos.

"There is a limit to what glyphs can do. Even a physical body can only handle so much. Have you considered a nurse position? You'd be lucky if you're able to serve as a janitor at this rate." The administrator yelled, seeing 778519 bow their head and clasp their hands as if praying.

"B-but my psionic scores, even the clerics review board said they're i-impressive.." "Psionics don't make you a pilot, we cannot recommend you continue based off just that." She

responded.

"Please, don't give up on me." She said pleading. "I'll do anything to be a pilot, give me another chance!"

The Alpha scientist had been watching the whole scene, wearing a rubbery hazmat suit and mask that fogged through the screen and stretched over their tail. They shook their head and patted the cadet with white latex gloves. "It's ok, little one. Take your training regiment more seriously. This is nothing. Just focus on your piloting." She patted the unit on her shoulders, the cadet's eyes lighting up as she nodded. "Remember daughter, Akura's blessings flow through all of our hearts, even the meek."

They looked at the droney figure, eyes swirling in a dull silver, with a light hint of green blinking through. "I'm not weak. I'm just built different."

The proctor sighed. She shoved a clipboard in her face. The Akura looked over the list of exercises and sighed, glancing at the clock on the wall. "Six hours of training, additional exercises highlighted. I want you doing these, every morning. Otherwise I cannot vouch for you come your next review."

Scales looked at it and nodded, determination flowing through them. "I will! By Akura's wrath!"

The Akura units were given a new batch of mechs as they grew into adulthood, each one more powerful than the last. They were a sight to behold. Sleek, black and white uniforms, with a lone red diamond adorning their forehead. They walked with an aura of power, and a fierce determination in a line on initiation day. Sworn to protect their Luminary galaxy. To serve their Empress, the Holy Primus. To destroy the Xi in the name of their holy duty.

The Holy Chief Priestess of the Luminary starlight blessed the new trainees one by one, turning the Akura into official military warriors. She read Scales her speech as she gave the blessing. Scales nodded, her Reminiscence seed growing brighter and brighter on her forehead. Alpha Scientist looked at them, a sense of pride flowing through her eyes behind the hazmat. "Look at you, snifffffffffle. You've come a long way. Remember the lessons your proctors have taught you." She hugged Scales maternally.

"I'll remember them all. The strength you've given me and all of our people." She said, heart swelling.