The assault on Harlow ended up coming to a close, quicker than anyone had expected. The first trigger to the Stygian’s early right came in the form of the speedy entrance of the imperial forces from the Novem empire’s core worlds. The second trigger was the sudden appearance of an aberrational third force that appeared within the skies above the city of Eblouir.

A third, but little spoken of, trigger was the fact the Stygians ended up getting what they’d wanted. Retrieving the rare resource that the Stygians had been willing to sacrifice millions of lives for, and retreating because the Oddessa system wasn’t that vital a position for them.

The importance of that last trigger wouldn’t be seen for several centuries. That ‘resource’ was something that few would know about because it was a matter kept secret between the devils and the gods.

When the revelation was finally made, both sides would cough blood in rage, after finding that they’d all been made fools of by a certain family of immortals that would have already risen to become a fourth power within the galaxy, and major faction in the universe overall, by that point in time.

In the meantime, the Novem empire would shake with the tales told about the first two triggers for several years. That night, the starry seas of the Oddessa system were filled with titanic monsters. Great beasts of metal, madness, and light.

The imperial forces’ ships were sleek. Designed with the vestiges of the old aerodynamic engineering that dominated the design philosophy of the races of the empire before they finally reached the stars and the vacuum of space. They were tubular vessels with streamlined, elongated bodies, multiple fins, and pointed heads.

With the ruby-red crystal caps that covered their lasers and warp-drives, the larger of the vessels looked strikingly like red-eyed whales and the smaller vessels looked a lot like sharks. The imperial fleet was a school of hyper-aggressive sea life.

The Stygian fleet, on the other hand, was a massive of arthropods and a handful of mollusks. Their ships took the forms of squids, octopi, spiders, scorpions, and other creatures with far too many limbs. Their ship's hulls were made with a mixture of inorganic and organic materials. Titanium soldered into chitin. Steel melded with flesh.

The empire's ships were ships manned with heroes. Men and women who’d sworn to fight and die for their nation. The Stygians’ ships were monsters. Manned with slaves, many of them born and bred for the duty of fighting, others captured and warped till they fit the role.

As the two sides collided and clashed the fight was originally an even one. For every Stygian ship that had its hull ruptured and ended up disgorging its passengers into the cold vacuum of space, an imperial ship would explode bursting like a dazzling mournful firework.

The Stygian’s weren’t fools they’d known they’d have to invest heavily if they truly wished to take this quadrant of the galaxy for their own. They’d come prepared to fight tooth and nail, breeding countless clone soldiers for the task of pushing back the imperial fleet.

What they hadn’t been prepared for was a major distraction. A distraction that came in the form of an anomalous vessel that rose up from planet Harlow’s surface. Escaping the planet's atmosphere and flying through their blockade of the Oddessa system with such force that it all crippled the Stygians’ defense and threw their offense into disarray.

*************************************************************************************************************

Forty-five minutes, before the collapse and retreat of the Stygian fleet, Andrew Oddvar-Luce would walk out of the lounge in which he and the leaders of Eblouir had been having yet another meeting.

Andrew stepped out of the room, hands in his pockets as he tried not to give away how very exhausted he was. He knew that Sophia was trying to get people used to seeing his face so it wouldn’t be too much of a surprise when she named him the head of their clan instead of her. However, at this stage of things, considering how tired he was, he wouldn’t have minded letting her be the head of the family if it meant being excused from a future of endless meetings.

After leaving the lounge, he headed for the large dining hall where a number of the servitor-units had set up a buffet-style area where people could come if they were hungry. In theory, he could have just gone up into the sealed-off area where Sophia’s main-body was, but there was something he needed to do in the buffet hall beyond simply filling his stomach.

The buffet hall wasn’t just one hall. At this stage, it had been expanded to a scale that was roughly equivalent to several shopping mall food courts. The “hall” had several levels that catered to several diet choices and offered various cultural cuisines.

Andrew walked inside and immediately ran into a familiar face.

“Oi, I didn’t expect to see you here?” said Andrew.

“Where else would I be? My entire family’s here.” said Oliver.

“Huh? I thought you guys got your luck back. Surely you would have been able to get a ride off-world with one of the military clans, or get into one of the private shelters?” said Andrew.

“Maybe, but a lot of those favors would have come with strings attached. There are many who are aware of my family’s recent change of fortunes, even if they don’t know the hows or whys of it. And they’d likely use this opportunity to step on our necks and remind us of where we’re meant to sit on the food chain. My family’s through with being looked down on. Miss Luce only asks for our mutual cooperation and you only ask for my friendship. That makes yours the best ship for us to climb aboard.” said Oliver. Running his fingers through his silky green hair because saying all that made him feel awkward.

“Nh...That’s...something alright.” said Andrew. Snorting and biting back a burst of inappropriate laughter because he was also feeling awkward.

Oliver chuckled as well. Tickled by the fact he still couldn’t tell if the other boy was unfathomably, or just a good-natured but low eq brute, with the powers and luck to make up for it.

“Nah, don’t worry man...It’s not like I’m here pouring my heart out to you or anything.” said Oliver.

“Nh…” Andrew didn’t really respond. He just continued looking uncomfortable and rubbing the back of his neck for a moment before he remembered that he was here on a mission.

Oliver stopped teasing his friend and took on a sharp expression as he realized that Andrew had suddenly gotten serious.

“Yo, Ollie, I’m going to do a thing. I’m gonna need you to be part of it. But it is kind of dangerous so you don’t have to join if you don’t want to. Are you in?” said Andrew.

Oliver blinked. Wondering exactly what kind of recruit offer that was supposed to be.

“What are my chances of dying?” said Oliver. Asking the question that mattered the most.

“Less than fifteen-percent.” said Andrew. Drawing on the data he’d accumulated for the plan to answer Oliver’s question.

“Eh, considering the current situation, those aren’t terrible odds. Okay, I’m in.”

“Sweet. Follow me.” said Andrew.

Andrew ate. He went to the part of the buffet hall that was serving noodle dishes, seafood, and fried rice. Oliver didn’t eat because he’d eaten hours before. Then once Andrew was done, he and Oliver left the buffet hall, and they waited in the large hallway outside.

“Uh...Didn’t you say there was something you needed to do here?” said Oliver.

“Huh? Oh, yeah. I was planning to make a big impassioned speech in the main lobby of the buffet hall. But then you made your speech which I’m not bagging on or anything, but it reminded that I’d have to make my own speech and how embarrassing that could be so I decided not to do that.”

“Alright, cool. Fuck you too then, dude.” said Oliver. Half-jokingly, half-seriously.

“Ah, come on. I didn’t mean it that way. I’m just saying I’m shy and shit. I mean I’d never be able to walk half-way across a lunch hall to ask a stranger to be my friend.” said Andrew.

“Oi, I might actually get mad now.” said Oliver. Narrowing his eyes at the other boy at the memory of his former-life of professional toadying.

“Fine, fine...Anyway, we need to wait here for a bit.” said Andrew

“Wait here for what?” said Oliver.

Less than ten minutes later a long line of youths between the ages of seventeen and thirty showed up. Crowding around them. Amongst the early arrivals were several former-students of their fallen school the now-defunct Blackvale Academy.

“Is it true? Was that video for real?!” said Emilia Karan. The normally mousy, pink-haired, gnome’s eyes were bloodshot. Like many others within the building, she looked like she’d better days. And there was a manic, borderline, fanatical gleam in her eyes.

“What video?” said Oliver. Looking to Andrew.

Andrew just shrugged.

“Like I said. I needed to make a speech but I realized giving speeches is embarrassing so I used my sprite to gather the data from the applicable folks in the hall, and sent them a video with a similar speech. A recruitment ad, if you will.”

“How?! When the hell did you have the time to do that?” said Oliver. Eyes wide.

“Uh...Just now? With the magic of technology, plus actual magic? Come on, my dude. Keep up.” said Andrew.

Oliver felt a headache coming on. He wanted to argue with the other boy about this some more, but he knew that this was neither the time or place.

“I’m also in.” said a certain blue-haired Owlkin. Her usual stoic expression replaced with a look of determination.

There were a number of others who came to join Andrew’s little operation. Some of them were members of the city’s police force and emergency response. Others were students like them, from within the city or its nearest neighbors. Others were simply ordinary people who knew how to fight and wanted a little payback after having their lives set on fire.

Andrew gave me all instructions on where to go then he and Oliver head in another direction.

“Okay, hold on...What are we doing again?” said Oliver.

“We’re getting out of here.”

“Out of here, where though? And where are we going?”

“We’re leaving Harlow.” said Andrew.

“What?! How?” said Oliver.

“Come on...You’re smarter than that. If I know you and your family as well as I think I do, you’ve probably been keeping tabs of the heaps of people who’ve been coming in and the fact that despite the population increasing at a nearly constant rate, the building hasn’t been getting any more cramped. Think about it? Even if our tech is a bit more ahead compared to what the rest of the galaxy has, it should still be ringing a few bells.” said Andrew. Urging Oliver to collect the dots on his own.

“Infinite space...Spatial manipulation...Warp drives...Wait, are you saying this building is a spaceship?!” said Oliver. Heart-pounding as he looked around for any indication of his guess being true.

“If we decide it is, then sure. This building could be considered one of the best ships on this side of the galaxy.” said Andrew. Nodding.

Suddenly, Oliver started understanding where the other boy’s mind was going.

“So you’re planning to break through the blockade? But that’d be suicide. There must be thousands of Stygian vessels up there.” said Oliver.

“Yes, that’s why I recruited a few hundred extra bodies to help us punch a hole through the blockade.” said Andrew.

“Is that what your plan is? But we don’t have any weapons!”

“Yes, we do. This ship will as heavily armed as we need it to be once we take off”

“What about mechs?” said Oliver.

“We have those too.” said Andrew.

“A lot of people could get hurt.” said Oliver.

“And if we stay down here, those same people will likely end up dead anyway when the Stygians inevitably decide to blow this planet apart as a final fuck you to the empire.” said Andrew.

Oliver frowned. He didn’t really have an argument against. Nor did he want to argue. He wasn’t afraid of dying, he wasn’t afraid of getting hurt. For the Ascelin clan, death was an old companion.

Oliver was mostly trying to gauge his friends resolve to see if he was actually going into this scheme with his eyes open or not, or if this was just something he was doing half-cocked.

Dying was one thing. Dying stupidly and meaninglessly was another. Once he was sure the other boy knew exactly what he was doing Oliver simply nodded.

“Okay...so what’s the plan exactly.”

“You know how piloting mechs has been one of the most dangerous and most difficult roles of this war for the last thousand years?” said Andrew.

“Yeah?” said Oliver.

“Well, the Luces and I have just put an end to that. In the long run, that means wars both within and outside the empire are about to get a whole lot bloodier. In the short term, the Luce family, the Ascelines, and whoever else we decide to bring on board, are about to gain a whole lot more influence in the world and that moment starts right now.”

Oliver startled, and then he looked into the glowing orange eyes of the other boy. He looked around, and it was as if a scale had been removed from his own eyes.

“What? What is this?” said Oliver. His voice was hushed as he watched the walls of the building peeled away and revealed a space that was even larger and even more labyrinthine than the building he’d been in before.

“I call this place the toy box. It’s a workshop of sorts. Filled with things that Sophia and I come up with. It’s a part of much larger space I plan to share with you, but that doesn’t matter right now...What I need you to think about is the answer to these two questions: What does it mean to be strong? What does it mean to have power?”