Chapter 37 : Allied Against Fate (2)

Far from the black sphere, a meeting was taking place.

Inside a room decorated with golden statues representing different species and their weapon hung on the walls behind them, was a long table which four seats in its middle, on which stood four holograms.

At the end of this table, a mysterious being, clothed in a dark outfit from head to toe, had the leading seat.

He had an imposing shape, but his movements looked much faster than they should be for his size. As if this large being was not as heavy as he appears to be.

Among the four holograms seated around the table, one of them was particular. It was Admiral Aubouros, leader of the Third Legion.

This meeting has been organized by the Fifth legion commander, War Chief and Supreme Leader of all the Void Natives, to gather the opinions of his Legions Admirals about how to proceed against the Scyllas.

They talked and debated for many hours, until they finally agreed on the best way to continue the war : resume their offense as soon as they receive the confirmation the ships they sent back left the Singularity borders.

When the War Chief was about to close the meeting, he suddenly got interrupted by one of his officers, the Third Legion Admiral.

"My Lord, I just received important news from inside the Scyllas lines..."

The War Chief turned to stare at Aubouros, and nodded his head allowing him to talk freely.

"I received a communication from the Lone Slayer... He has been detained by the Scyllas leader Primus One, and his body is now inhabited by the deity they tried so hard to awake... Their Revered Mother..."

At those words, the War Chief couldn't help but exclaim.

"What did you say ?? Is that true ??"

"It seems so, My Lord. Despite being so different to us, during all those years I fought with him he never told me a single lie."

Another voice cut off Aubouros.

"It may be a trap set up by the Scylla !!!"

It was the Second legion commander, the Admiral who had suffered the most casualties from the last battle among the five legions.

"I do not think so, he contacted me by using a closed channel we did set up many years ago between us and our respective ships. He is the only one who has access to this channel, and his emitter is directly linked to his neural network so no mind control, not even from the Scyllas, would be able to bypass it.

Moreover, this channel is also operated by the artificial intelligence, called Gladia, that resides inside him. She is by far the most advanced AI I've ever seen in my whole life."

"If that is true and their Revered Mother already woke up, it means that despite all our efforts and sacrifices, we still were not in time..."

"Uhm... My Lord, it seems like this deity allowed him to contact us. From what he said in his message, she does not want to destroy us. It seems that... she doesn't care at all about us."

"..."

Everyone in the room was shocked by this report, they all stood silent after this revelation.

The reason why the Legions suffered so many casualties was mainly that they raced against time to prevent this deity to wake up and help the Scyllas.

When they first invaded the Singularity borders, the energetic waves they detected from this being confirmed to the Legions that it should not, in any case, be awoken. If such a powerful being was hostile to them, no matter the number of ships they had, they would all get wiped out in a single attack.

"Aubouros, explain yourself. What does that mean ?"

The War Chief had trouble understanding what this message was about. It was so ridiculous that he even doubted if it was really a trap from the wicked and cunning Primus One...

He also knew that no Scylla, not even their zealous leader, would go as far as blasphemy their deity for a mere ruse.

"Uhm... In his message, the Lone Slayer advises us to flee from both the Singularity and the Void. According to him, the Revered Mother that took control of his body said that both dimensions will cease to exist after she would end her ritual.

He strongly advised us to leave the Singularity, and to send a message to our homeworlds for them to leave the Void as soon as possible.

He then finished by giving us a set of coordinates and a means of instantaneous teleportation which is the technology the Scyllas used to travel between dimensions.

This will, according to his words, 'allow us to reach his own universe, where the Scyllas hid for so long and where his home-world has been wiped out of his population'."

Aubouros took a brief pause to look at each of his fellow admirals to be sure each of them was carefully listening to him, and then resumed.

"He ended his message by saying that if we do not trust him, we would all die in vain. If despite his message we are too stubborn and we decide to stay here until the end to be sure the dimensions will collapse and the Scyllas will all die, we should at least evacuate our people still in the Void to the coordinates he sent us.

His home-world is a highly habitable class-A telluric planet, covered at 72% with water. It is inside an isolated Solar System containing many other habitable planets for our kind. He would be happy to share its coordinate with us, on the only condition that no war should be waged on its land."

After Aubouros ended his report, everyone in the room was extremely confused.

The War Chief himself was at a loss for words.

Aubouros, knowing the seriousness of the situation, decided to give his opinion about this message.

"My Lord, no matter what we decide, we have nothing to lose to at least send our people who stood on our homeworlds in the Void to those coordinates.

The technology he shared with us, which is supposed to allow instant teleportation between dimensions, is the same as the one the Scyllas used every time we invaded the Singularity.

We always speculated about where they were coming from, now we have more than a simple answer : we have the means to replicate their gates and save our people."

The War Chief stared at Aubouros' hologram and asked him.

"Don't you think this looks too good to be true ? Why, all of a sudden, after all the blood that has been spilled, the Scyllas' deity would inform us that we aren't even worth her attention and then this former Void Rifter would give us such a gift as this technology ?

I am skeptical about this message, Aubouros. From my point of view, it seems to be a ruse from Primus One so he can make us leave without having to use this mutual destruction gem."

As expected, it was hard to convince the War Chief who spent his entire life fighting against the Scyllas.

Yet, Aubouros knew that out of everyone here, he was probably the only one able to make him change his mind.

"My Lord, before reporting you this message, I took the liberty to verify its veracity, as I didn't want to shame myself by sharing something so important that could have been wrong.

After verifying the coordinates and the dimensional-teleportation technology the Lone Slayer sent us, we discovered that everything he said was true.

I do not know if this is a strategy from Primus One to make us leave without having to use the blue gem and be forced to kill his own brothers to eliminate us, or if the message really comes from the Lone Slayer alone out of his good-will.

However, what I know for sure is that everything he said is true. If we start working on these gates now, I estimated that we could build enough of them and make them work in less than a stellar day.

We already waited for so long to see the Scyllas' demise, please do not let your pride affect your judgment and make the wrong choice.

The people we left behind, and we fought so much for, do not deserve to die for no reason."

Aubouros' words seemed to have ignited a spark, as the three other Admirals also gave their honest opinions.

The meeting lasted for several hours before a decision, which would be the most important one in the entire Void history, has finally been taken by the War Chief.

___

A whole day passed since the Revered Mother entered the temple and asked Primus One to leave.

"My Lord, we detected multiple dimensional warping signature within the enemy fleet."

While Legatus was on his mother-ship, always ready to activate the blue gem in case the Legions decided to break the truce and move forward, an urgent report took his attention.

"Dimensional warping ?? What does that mean, they never used this technology before !!"

"We don't know, my Lord... Our sensors indicate that many of their ships are leaving the system through multiple gates among their legions...

They... they are leaving the battlefield !"

This could have been good news to rejoice on if they didn't use a technology that was supposed to be exclusive to the Scyllas.

For the first time, Primus One had trouble understanding the meanings behind the Legions' actions.

Even if they somehow discovered a way to get out of this dimension and they decided to leave the Singularity, it was stupid to just escape without going back to their homeworlds, letting the Void unguarded.

Once their Revered Mother would wake up, it would be a piece of cake to conquer the Void and reduce all their planets to dust.

For Primus One and all the Scyllas, the Legions were afraid of the blue gem their Mother gave them and they decided to flee out of this dimension fearing being annihilated.

However, not everyone left.

"My Lord, it seems that they left behind a small contingency of ships and... they also left their Dreadnought."

"How is the state of our fleet ?"

"Ready to move, My Lord. We have more than enough ships to destroy what the Legions left behind, and our mother-ship is able to keep their Dreadnought occupied while we eliminate its escort."

"Very well."

Primus One stood up, and opened the communication channel to all his fleet.

His majestic clone was displayed, standing up in his control room above his seat made of indestructible metal.

"Brothers !

Today marks a long-awaited date where we can finally terminate the threat of those Void heretics that plagued our Great Singularity and disturbed the sleep of our Revered Mother for so long !

Now, these filthy beings went as far as fleeing out of the dimension, by fear of a single minuscule gem !

Brothers, it is now time for us to fight !

It is time for us to prepare for our Revered Mother awakening, to welcome her venue in the noblest way possible...

BY ERADICATING THESE HERETICS !!

TO ALL SHIPS, ENGAGE !!"

And so the Scyllas ships, until then inactive and waiting for orders, all moved forward and charged at the few heretics ships that have been left behind.

___

At the same time the Scyllas decided to launch their attack, a person just woke up after many years spent in an artificial sleep.

She opened her eyes, and struggled for a few minutes before coming back to her sense. Once she assessed the situation she was in, she immediately jumped out of her pod and desperately looked everywhere around her.

'What... have I done...'

She was still dizzy and had trouble standing up. She tried to walk as best as she could to the capsule that was the closest to hers, before looking through its glass.

Once she recognized who was inside, she hurriedly checked the two other capsules close by.

Even though her head was a mess since she woke up, she still remembered each one of these people.

What was strange, was how weird she was feeling. It seemed that something went wrong while she was in artificial sleep, as she started to feel something she never experienced before : emotions.

Afraid of not being able to deal with this unknown situation anymore, she decided to wake up the three other people laying inside the healing pods.

When she was about to open the other healing pods, four shadows emerged from the ground and surrounded her.

Their voice resonated in her head.

'You. Shall. Not. Move.'

They were a group of reapers Gladia tasked to watch over Jun's squad.

"What... is happening ? Where is the Leader ?"

'You. Betrayed. Him. And. Yet. You. Ask. About. His. Whereabouts. ?'

"I... Yes... I betrayed him..."

This confused person was Katarina, and the last thing she could remember before she fell unconscious was fighting Alpha Zero and trying to capture Jun on Kar'goth.

"I don't know what happened at that time... Am I still affected by this...?"

The reapers didn't talk, and instead, another voice answered her question.

[I don't think so.]

"Gladia ?"

[Glad to see you are fine, Kat. I am sorry to wake you up only now.]

"What... Where is the Leader ??"

[He... is not here anymore, and he does not plan to come back to the flagship. I will also soon be unable to talk to you anymore.

You and the other members of the squad are now on your own.]

Katarina couldn't understand what was happening. Having spent so many years unconscious, she didn't know anything about the Singularity, the Legions, the battles Jun fought, or even that the ones who took control of her mind on Kar'goth were the Scyllas themselves.

What she knows, however, was that all her squad members were in healing pods and their leader wasn't there anymore.

"Gladia, can you report to me the situation ?"

[... It would be too long, and we don't have enough time for this. A battle is about to start, and you are not in a good situation. If I woke you up, it is to give you a choice, to you and all the other members of your squad.]

The other healing pods opened themselves, releasing a little cloud of smoke, and after a dozen seconds, three figures emerged from them.

Douglas and Alice immediately assessed the situation and after seeing Kat standing up in front of them, they immediately leaped backward and stood on guard, ready to attack her at any second.

They didn't know her current state yet, for them, she was still compromised by the Scyllas' control.

[Do not worry, both she and Jerome are free from any kind of mind control. I already scanned them multiple times before releasing their pods.]

Only after hearing Gladia's words, which they trusted as much as their Leader's words, did they finally loosen up their guard and went closer.

While Douglas was fine, Alice was still in a critical state as she didn't stay in the healing pod long enough for her injuries to heal completely. Once Gladia assured them they were safe and she loosened up her guard, she had to sit down as her legs didn't have any strength left to keep her standing.

In the meantime, Jerome was looking dumbfoundedly at the scene, he seemed totally lost about what was happening. Like Katarina, the last thing he remembered when waking up was his betrayal and the one-sided fight against Alpha Zero.

He understood the situation only after Gladia said that Kat and he were not controlled anymore. It explained why he felt so powerless when he tried to capture his leader, even though at the moment he felt like it was the right thing to do, now that he thinks about it…This was nothing else than a betrayal, and most importantly, he betrayed the only person who always did his best to take care of them since they formed the squad and went on Kar'goth.

He felt bad about it, which was also weird as he never felt like this before.

It seems that when the flagship sustained heavy fire and the healing pods got disconnected after the infirmary got hit, it caused a huge change in both Kat and Jerome's minds.

Forcefully being pulled out of the cryo-state always created irreversible mental consequences for the subjects, and in their case, they both started to feel things they never felt before.

They have both, for the first time since they woke up in the Scylla mother-ship, started feeling emotions. These mental effects of their cryo pod getting shutdown affected them greatly…They were now feeling what regular humans would feel.

[Now that you are all awake, listen up. I do not have the time to explain everything that happened since you entered the healing pods, be it since Kar'goth or Legatus' attack.

I will only ask you a single question, and the final decision will be yours.]

A few minutes later, a lone ship that was flying amidst the Void ships escorting the Fifth Legion dreadnought sneakily left their ranks, and slowly disappeared inside the reddish darkness of the Singularity.