The trip back was rather smooth for the three passengers aboard the Traveler, who were taking the time to simply relax after their extended stay in the ocean. As with before, Chel had instructed Traveler to take three days to return back to Deckan. Counting this, the total time that they had been away from the research lab was twelve days.

Sadly, containing the energies from the relic proved useless in getting the star map to find them a new one. According to Chel’s estimate, the map would only change after the energy was fully siphoned into another person. Given that they wanted these for research purposes, that was not something that they considered high on their priorities list.

“We are approaching Deckan, and may drop out of the domain at any moment.” Traveler’s voice spoke up within the bridge. As they had been keeping track of the time, all three girls were present and watching the forward monitors.

“How do you want to do this?” Thea asked, glancing over at Chel. The existence of Traveler was still a secret, so there was no telling how the planetary defense fleet would react. However, Chel simply smiled, shaking her head.

“Traveler, can you access the internet for me? I need to send an email.” She said with a mischievous smile, rocking back and forth playfully in her chair.

“To whom am I addressing this email?” Traveler asked curiously, but she simply shook her head again.

“Leave the recipient field blank. For the message, record the following. Protocol Black Moon, A-L-X-9-5-8, security code 7-V-9-4-C-D-X. Did you get all of that?” The other two looked strangely as Chel spat out the codes, unsure what they were for. For that matter, why send an email to a blank--

Nora’s eyes widened as she figured it out. She had seen both James and Chel typing emails to people before, and could have sworn that they left the field blank as well. When they chose to send the email, an error message appeared, but they ignored it. When she asked James about it once, he said “It’s his preference.”

If there was someone who preferred their name to be blank and had the power to do such a thing, that could only be Blank himself. “I have transcribed the message exactly as you instructed.” Traveler responded dutifully.

“Very good, then please send it. And don’t worry about an error message, it’ll get through. It’s how he screens his messages.” Chel smiled, and then began counting after her command was given. This time, they really couldn’t be sure what was happening.

Once she had reached a hundred, she nodded her head. “We can drop out of the domain now. Just fly us straight to the transit point in orbit.” After she said that, she hopped to her feet. Skipping out the door, she glanced back at the twins. “Well, are you coming?”

“But… the fleet…” Thea asked, dumbfounded as she rose to follow.

A Destiny-Class ship, the Juggernaut, was stationed in upper orbit around Deckan. It served as one of their constant planetary defenders, though in all honesty they didn’t do much. Every now and then, they would fire a single shot to destroy encroaching monsters, but they had never fought anything on the scale of a true threat.

“Sir, I’m picking up a strange disturbance in the space one thousand kilometers ahead.” An officer on the bridge announced, staring at his screen. “The energy signature appears to be… divinity.”

Hearing this, the captain of the ship shot to his feet, alarm on his face. There were very few gods that used space itself as a medium for transportation with their domain, and even fewer that would appear in orbit like this. “Tell the gunners to power up their weapons. When the entity comes through, I want immediate identification, or we will open fire.”

The captain was not a cruel man. Deckan had already had an encounter with an evil god in the past, and he knew of the existence of divine monsters. Should one of these monsters appear, they had to be ready to destroy it at a moment’s notice.

Barely had his orders been relayed before a golden portal appeared ahead of them. From the portal emerged a sleek ship of unknown design, not matching any public records. The captain grit his teeth, knowing that this could either be an alien ship, or even a monster in some form of disguise. “Send the identification request, and ready all weapons!”

However, as he said this, the lights on the bridge all began flashing red. “Weapons systems are offline!” Another officer called out from her terminal.

“What happened?” The captain questioned in a panic. The weapons systems going down was clearly an attack of some sort, while the strange ship seemed to be flying closer.

“Unknown!” The officer reported with a shake of her head. “They were just all disabled at once. I’m not picking up any sign of signal jamming, though.”

The sleek ship flew right up to the Juggernaut… and then simply passed it by, moving towards an orbital dock station. The captain ordered his ship to pursue, even if they had no weapons, and saw that other ships had also turned to follow this golden vessel. Were they all disabled, as well?

The ship moved in to dock at the station, appearing to follow all normal procedures, at which point the captain could only order that his ship do the same. If they could not use their weapons, they would have to run through the station on foot to find out the identity of this mysterious vessel.

“Protocol Black Moon is a little bypass that I set up in the weapons systems of the Destiny-Class ships back when they were being built.” Chel explained as she pushed one of the two containers housing the primordial relics, the other being pushed by the twins. “If there was ever a situation where our weapons were outside the control of our people, or somehow turned against us, this hardcoded bypass would allow us to shut the weapons down remotely.”

“But… why did you need to send the email to do that?” Thea asked, grunting as she pushed the heavy container. For security reasons, each container had been outfitted with field suppressors to prevent their energies from clashing while they were transported back to the lab.

“Because the only one that can activate that bypass is Blank.” Chel grinned, shaking her head. “Activating the bypass requires networking two different computers, each of which have their network access disabled and are located in sealed bunkers. Each of these bunkers have void energy disruption fields to prevent their dimensional coordinates from being used in transport spells for physical beings.”

“As a programmed intelligence that had achieved sentience, Blank has the power to jump from network to network, as long as he has been there before. Even if their access is currently closed.”

“When I was establishing the bypass, I temporarily had Blank occupy both terminals, that way he could bookmark their locations. Only after the code I gave him was used would the terminals connect and trigger the bypass. Furthermore, the code resets after every use. Once I get back and make sure that there’s not another entity on either terminal, I’ll make a new code. The only one with access to the terminals is Blank, and the only ones that know the code is myself, James, and the Greater Pantheon.”

Thea nodded her head slowly as she heard about the security procedure. “How… many of these procedures have you made?”

Chel gave a playful little smile at that. “James has his hobbies, and I have mine. Mine is to prepare for any situation I can imagine. If I’ve dreamt of it, I’ve probably dreamt up a countermeasure. Ask me some time to tell you how I would beat a God of Death with the power of friendship.”

“I’m sorry, what…?” Nora looked over at their conversation when she heard that.

“Well, if you gather a group of normal kids, and have them sing--” Chel started, before being cut off.

“N-No, that wasn’t a request to share. Just… why? That is a very specific scenario.”

The smaller kitsune grinned, having finally reached the airlock of the ship. “Easy. Sometimes, you need to improvise to get the job done. And where I come from, there is no such thing as being over prepared. I once saw a giant monster made of pasta, able to drain a person’s soul as long as they came within a thousand kilometers.”

“We killed it with high-intensity incendiary rounds dropped from orbit. Funny enough, it actually cooked pretty well, and became perfectly edible after it died. One of the tastiest void monsters we’ve killed.” Chel seemed to lick her lips merely at the thought of grilled pasta.

Nora… was at a loss for words, simply blinking as they passed through the airlock. “You have a… very colorful history.” Outside the ship, they could see that numerous Destiny-Class vessels were just docking, while security forces from the station itself could be seen running in their direction. “So, what’s the next stage of the plan?”

Chel rolled her eyes at that, glancing behind them. “You can go back home, Traveler. It was fun, and I’ll call you again the next time I need a lift somewhere!” After she said that, there was a faint tremor from the golden ship. A moment later, it was simply… gone.

“As for us… let’s go see if they took the bait yet.” She smiled, snapping her fingers to create a gateway before them. “Might want to hurry, so they don’t catch you~.” Chel laughed, pushing her container through as the twins hurried to follow. By the time the security forces had arrived, the portal had already closed. However, their figures had clearly been seen on numerous security cameras, so Chel was confident that they would be identified.

The other side of the portal led just outside of the research facility, near the loading bay. Humming a tune to herself, Chel casually pushed her container to the thick metal doors. As she approached, these doors seemed to open on their own, Chel’s eyes scanning the interior once inside. “Well, it doesn’t look like anyone’s invaded through this entrance, at least. Or, they didn’t leave any traces.”

“It’s a bit more than that.” A new voice cut her off, a door opening nearby as a tired elf stepped through. The group naturally recognized Treisha, though she seemed quite haggard. “You’re finally back.”

“...We didn’t hit a time field, right? We’ve still been gone less than two weeks?” Chel seemed to grow nervous as she asked that, further confirming her rather drastic imagination.

“Huh? N-No, nothing like that. Two weeks… has it really been that long?” Treisha asked in confusion. “Anyways… no, nobody tried to break in or anything. They’ve all been too busy with something else.”

“Not a fan of the vague explanations.” Chel urged. “What happened?”

Treisha gave a bitter smile. “The evolution of sapient, organic life on an interdimensional scale.”