Warning: Killer author's note ahead. I know that it's long, but please read. Thanks! :)

Hey, everyone! I'm back from my hiatus and I didn't manage to get as much writing done as I had hoped. Oh well. :(

First: an announcement. I'm working on a collab fic with DarkFoxKit called A Cold Reality. No pressure to check it out, but if you're interested...

Onto talking about this fic. In case I didn't make it clear enough, this story is part of a series.In fact, it's the final installment of a trilogy. But wait! Please, don't click the back button yet! I'm working really really hard on this story, so it would mean a lot to me if you gave it a shot. In case you don't want to read two full-size fics before trying this story out, I tried to make this one stand on its own. In fact, the first part of this story is closer to canon than anything else in the series. Well, not like the prologue and the first couple of chapters, but after that you'll start to recognize a lot of the locations.

That being said, feel free to read the first two Ceres fics before taking a crack at this one if you want. And if you who aren't interested in this story and honestly don't care about my desperate pleas (no shame in that haha), the back button is on your upper left. Have a nice day. :)

Still with me? Maybe you're willing to try out a chapter or two to see where the story goes? Thanks for giving this story a shot. I honestly care a lot about my fanfics, so readership means a lot to me. :) You might be able to guess by how seriously I take my fics, but the story itself is more serious than most fics. But if you read some of the other stuff in this Earthbound section then you're probably set haha.

Anyways, I'll be detailing a few terms and explaining characters at the end of each chapter for people who are new to the series. Hopefully it won't be too much of an eyesore. You don't need to read it all on the first round through, but maybe you could refer back to the key terms if something confuses you. The prologue features a lot of characters and terms you may not recognize, but we'll get back to Ness and the others soon. Just try to hang in there, all right? :)

As always, reviews are greatly appreciated and I'll respond to each one individually. Not that you probably want to hear me talk more after reading this AN haha.

As for my update schedule... I don't know. I'll see how things go, I guess. xD

So yeah, thanks for giving this story a shot (or returning to continue reading the series, if you've been following me in the 13 months since I've started Ceres). I really do hope that you enjoy it! :)


Jeffrey Andonuts walked out of purple, crystalline hallways to find himself standing outside. The Ceresian sun shone bright in the sky; the sound of birds chirping marked signs of life beyond the reaches of human civilization. Jeff looked back at the disorganized tower of crystal that stretched almost higher than he could see. The entire structure looked almost like someone had turned a massive cone upside down and stuck it into the ground.

The structure was known as the Shard of Ceres. Jeff had ventured there to get answers and wound up finding out what his friends were doing back on Earth.

Jeff turned to look at the woman standing next to him. Her name was Diana Carpainter, a repentant ex-cultist who freed herself from her cult leader and father Mr. Carpainter years ago.

"It feels nice to get back outside, doesn't it?" Diana asked, closing her eyes and smiling. "We've been cooped up in the Shard of Ceres for too long."

Diana possessed an astonishing sense of humanity for someone who carried the blood of thousands on her back. It wouldn't satisfy the cops, but Jeff accepted her nonetheless.

After all, she had helped him through some emotional struggles, almost like a mother would. Jeff reflected that Diana was old enough to be his mother and that his real mother had died during childbirth. Was this what it felt like to have a real family?

"You're getting that analytical look on your face again," Diana said. "What are you thinking about?"

"A lot of things," Jeff answered. "I don't know if it was wise to use the knowledge locked in the Shard of Ceres to create laser guns, but I won't back down now. My friends changed the universe with their psionics; now it's time for me to join them."

"Yeah, we had this conversation before," Diana said, staring off into the distance. "You know that I don't approve. Still, I can't blame you. Just stick to dealing with problems on Earth, all right? Most of the psions on Ceres would eat you up if you tried to mess with them."

"I guess that's what happens when a planet is the capital of an empire for a millennium," Jeff said. "Even though it's been 80 years since the empire disbanded, sometimes I look at Ceresian psions with their elitist beliefs and wonder how much has really changed."

"You know what they say," Diana said. "People cling onto tradition like infants to their mother's breasts."

"You don't seem to approve of tradition in general," Jeff noted.

"It happens when your family traditions involve murdering people."

Jeff and Diana stood in silence for several minutes.

"I think that I should go now," Diana said. "I, unlike you, have the psychic powers required to deal with the idiots on Ceres. Since my sister's dead, I have to deal with psyching Geldegarde Monotoli as president. I would rather work with Pokey Minch's father."

Jeff snorted. He tried to picture Diana reasoning with the conspiracy theorist swordplay teacher and couldn't keep a straight face for more than a second.

"So you'll teleport me back to Earth?" Jeff asked.

"Yup. One way trip to Onett coming up!"

Jeff frowned, looking at the purple dome above the habitable portion of Ceres. Originally, Ceres lacked the conditions to support human life, so several centuries ago a group of psions implanted the dome to simulate the conditions of an atmosphere.

"But the dome blocks you from teleporting outside of Ceres, doesn't it?" Jeff asked.

"Not my kind." Diana shot Jeff a secretive smile. "Call it a special ability."

"You seem to have a lot of those," Jeff grumbled. "You can also track people based on the thoughts that they leave behind, right?"

"Indeed," Diana said. "But those abilities come at a steep price."

Jeff perked up. This was the first he had heard about a drawback to Diana Carpainter's powers.

"Ah, I probably shouldn't have said that," Diana muttered. "It's better if nobody knows…"

"Knows what?" Jeff asked.

Diana shook her head.

"Please, forget that I ever mentioned it," she said. "It doesn't matter."

Jeff disagreed, but he kept his mouth closed.

"Now," Diana said. "We need to come up with a little code phrase. The next time we meet, I may not be in this form and I want you to know it's me."

Diana could shapeshift into any form that she wished with relative ease, which led to some awkward moments. Jeff started to care a lot less about that ability once he realized that all powerful psions could basically do the same thing.

"How about 'the stars shall never again align?'" Jeff asked.

"That's pretty pessimistic," Diana pointed out.

"It was honestly the first thing that came to mind," Jeff said. "It's catchy, but people probably won't say it by chance. I don't see anything wrong with it."

"All right," Diana said. "I just hope that I don't get bogged down by your pessimism. Dimension Door."

Diana waved her hand and a portal appeared right in front of Jeff. It led to an area of infinite emptiness. A moment later, another portal appeared inside of the first portal that showed what looked like an abandoned shack.

"Head east to reach Onett from there," Diana said. "Although there really aren't many other places to go."

Jeff nodded. He leapt through the first portal, floated through the emptiness and passed through the second portal and into Onett. He landed on a wooden floor that creaked underneath his weight. He looked back through the portals to Diana and waved.

"Have a nice trip," Diana said before closing the portals off.


Starman Jenny piloted the human body that she was controlling through the streets of Scaraba. She wondered if she could even consider herself a starman anymore. She basically took over the role of a human's brain, guiding this piece of flesh where she ordered.

Jenny had studied humans before, but she didn't realize how annoying it was to actually be one. Even though starmen were organic creatures, they basically functioned as robots for Master Giygas. He transmitted the commands; they obeyed. Humans were so different.

For starters, she was always receiving signals about how the body was hungry or tired or hot or whatever the problem happened to be at that particular moment. After trying to ignore the signals for a few hours, she started to experience that "irritated" state that humans sometimes felt. Would those obnoxious signals ever stop? Finally, she gave in and fulfilled her body's basic needs though food and water, returning it to homeostasis.

Still, being a human had its perks. As a starman, she mostly experienced the world through the psionic realm, a plane of existence parallel to the physical realm. Information there was transmitted through thoughts, which grew rather… bland. As a human, she could see, hear, taste, and smell. It had taken her a couple of days to deal with the sensory overload that came with controlling a human body.

Jenny walked up to a man on the other side of the sandy road. She adjusted her cowl to hide her face. Whenever these humans saw her physical appearance, they gave her stares and unsettling looks. Jenny wasn't quite sure why.

"Excuse me," Jenny said. "Would you happen to know anything about an artifact located somewhere around here? Maybe something called the Sound Stone?"

The man looked at her like she was crazy. Well, being controlled by a starman probably did fit the human criteria of abnormal behavior.

"Listen, woman," the man said, as if her gender were somehow relevant. "You're not from around here, so why should I help you?"

Jenny wasn't sure which surprised her more: the way that he could instantly tell that this body didn't come from Scaraba or the fact that he cared. Honestly, why did it matter to him what country this body came from? They still belonged to the same species. Humans continued to mystify Starman Jenny.

"Yes, it's obvious that you're a foreigner," the man said. "I can tell by the way that you talk. Are you Eagleish, perhaps?"

He could tell by the way that she talked? So the enunciation of particular syllables in the Eagleish language somehow defined where a person came from? These humans made no sense at all.

"Fine, I'm not from here," Jenny said. "But I would still appreciate help. This artifact is quite important to me."

"What's your name, woman?" the man asked, his voice getting rougher by the second.

"Mary," Jenny answered.

Mary wasn't her name but the name of the human vessel that Jenny controlled. Apparently, this human had been the last empress before the intergalactic human empire collapsed. She didn't seem to have anything special to show for it, unless a missing spirit counted. Jenny filled the role of Mary's cognitive spirit because the empress lost her own.

"Sounds like an Eagleish name," the man grumbled.

"Why does it matter?" Jenny asked.

"Because all Eagleish are the enemies of Scaraba," the man said. "They're going to hell, every last one of them."

Oh, right. Religion. The ideas of heaven, hell, and god fascinated Jenny almost more than the fact that some humans actually believed in such supernatural forces. It boggled Jenny's mind how they could create stories and myths with no real logic behind them and accept it as truth.

"Isn't that a rather silly and grotesque oversimplification?" Jenny asked. "After all, not all Eagleish are the same."

The man's face soured. He pinned Jenny against a wall with his large, muscular arms.

"Listen," he said. "If you really are Eagleish, then there's not a force in the universe that will prevent me from…"

Jenny had heard enough, and her shoulders were transmitting pain messages from the man shoving them into a wall. She bashed her forehead into the man's face and shoved him to the ground.

"Goodbye," she said, walking away. "Perhaps I will find someone more cooperative."

"I'll psyching kill you!" the man shouted, scrambling to his feet. "Death to all Eagleish!"

Jenny didn't turn back. Reading the man's mind, she could tell that he didn't intend to actually pursue her. Strange, how humans puffed up their chests and acted tough to cover up their own insecurities. The most cooperative humans that she had met here in Scaraba were the ones with the least cognitive dissonance and the most emotional fortitude.

Still, it irked Jenny how humans could hate other humans so much for just being born in a different country. It's not like they could really control their birth circumstances, after all. The more that she interacted with these humans, the more that she appreciated starman egalitarianism. Master Giygas judged all of his starmen based on performance and skill alone. Why didn't these humans do the same?

As Jenny continued walking through the sandy streets of Scaraba, she picked up on a dull sense of compulsion from her body. Something was trying to draw her body to the northwest.

Jenny knew this sensation quite well. The reason that she could control this human was because it lost its cognitive spirit, which was now trapped inside of a knife called Dynaldas. If the body could find that knife, it could try to release the trapped spirit back into this body and become whole again.

Onett, Jenny thought. The knife is in Onett.

The human's body bombarded Jenny with signals, begging her to go over to Onett and retrieve the knife. Again, Jenny had experienced this struggle several times before. Each time, it became harder and harder to say no.

We must retrieve the Sound Stone for Master Giygas, Jenny thought. After that, we can get your cognitive spirit back. There's one bit of information that you might find awkward, though…

Dynaldas, the knife with your spirit, is currently held by your great-grandson Ninten.


General Kim See-Yoon of Dalaam walked through the grey halls and grey floors of the starman base on some godforsaken planet. He often wondered about whether or not he should involve himself with an entity as powerful as Giygas, but he had enough faith in his abilities to keep going forward.

After all, everyone got what they deserved in life. If Kim failed and Giygas turned on him for whatever reason, it would reflect bad character on his part. That bad character would have caused his downfall no matter what situation he was placed in.

But Kim was confident in his morals. Sure, he slaughtered thousands of "innocent" civilians, but humans were never really supposed to care about the masses anyway. His duty was to his family, friends, and homeland of Korea. And if Kim was wrong about that… Well, he never would have been allowed to kill so many people in the first place. Someone or something would have stopped him.

Giygas appeared in front of Kim, interrupting his thoughts. Kim had seen the alien leader a few times before, and his appearance remained simple and unimposing. Giygas looked like a withered up Starman with its shiny, grey skin and tentacle arms, except that it was almost completely engulfed in a metal sphere with grey orbs clinging to the outside. Kim couldn't tell if the shell was part of his body or some sort of device that always went with him.

"Greetings, Master Giygas," Kim said, offering a Dalaamian-style bow. "I am pleased to inform you that my rebels and I have overthrown the Dalaamian throne. We even killed Minerva Carpainter, the president of Ceres."

Ceres was the capital planet of the empire that fell 80 years ago. Even after a democracy was instated and planets were theoretically equal, Ceres' influence spread far past its purple barrier in the sky. The Ceresian President was by far the most powerful person in the universe. Killing off President Carpainter had caused ripples that dwarfed anything that Kim could manage by overthrowing the Dalaamian King alone.

"Additionally," Kim continued, "The Secretaries of Psionics, who are the second and third most powerful figures in the universe, are also dead. This means that the new president will most likely be Geldegarde Monotoli, the current Secretary of Defense. If he runs his planet the same way that he runs his military campaigns, Ceres will fall without our intervention."

"WHAT ABOUT THE SISTER?" Giygas asked. He didn't use his voice to speak; he and his starmen communicated mostly through telepathic messaging.

"You mean President Carpainter's sister?" Kim asked. "Diana Carpainter? I figured that she had drunk herself to death years ago. Considering that she hasn't made any major impacts in the last couple of years, I wouldn't be too worried about her."

"YOU UNDERESTIMATE HER," Giygas said. "DO YOU REMEMBER THE INVINCIBLE WARRIOR?"

"Yes, the one who is named Lucas," Kim said. "He started to regain control of himself, but I heard that you captured him. I must commend you for that, Master Giygas."

"SAVE YOUR FLATTERY FOR SOMEONE WHO CARES. LUCAS ONLY REQUIRED CAPTURING IN THE FIRST PLACE BECAUSE OF DIANA CARPAINTER. SHE IS MORE POWERFUL THAN ANYONE THINKS."

Kim paused, the gears grinding in his head as he tried to process the information. Diana's lack of appearance wasn't a sign of depression. Rather, it revealed a cunning streak. Of course she wouldn't go out in about in her regular skin. Most powerful psions could change their appearance at will. Just how many strings had Diana Carpainter been pulling while nobody was looking?

"I apologize, Master Giygas," Kim said. "I shall keep my eyes peeled for her."

"GOOD. DO YOU HAVE ANY WORD ON KUMATORA?"

"I thought you said that she was in Scaraba?" Kim asked.

"I CANNOT TRACK HER. I MUST RELY ON REPORTS. IF YOU HAVE A REPORT, SPEAK."

"Negative," Kim said. "I must admit that her whereabouts completely vex me."

"AS I EXPECTED. IF YOU SEE HER, DO NOT HOLD ANYTHING BACK. SHE IS ONE OF THE OSOHE. SHE IS AN ALIEN WHO DRIFTS THROUGH TIME."

Did Giygas have a personal stake in hunting down the pink-haired girl? After all, the legends said that Giygas created the Osohe, although that idea made little sense to General Kim. From his talks with Giygas, he had seen that the alien leader hardly understood humans, which the Osohe shared many qualities with.

"As you command," Kim said. "Will there be anything else, Master Giygas?"

"NO. RETURN TO DALAAM AND KEEP YOUR COUNTRY INTACT. IF I HAD WANTED TO TALK TO YOU IN THE FIRST PLACE, I WOULD HAVE MET YOU THERE."

Kim often had a difficult time grasping the intricacies of starman culture… or rather, the lack of them. Because Giygas' psionics were more efficient than Kim's, it made logical sense for Giygas to warp around and meet his subjects rather than them coming to him. However, Kim was used to kings stuffed with pride and vanity who took joy in forcing their subjects to come to them and hadn't even considered the alternative when deciding to inform Giygas of his victory.

"As you say, Master Giygas," Kim replied with a bow. "I shall be on my way."

General Kim's heart continued to pound in his chest as he walked away from Giygas. By God, that thing unnerved him more than he would ever admit. Whenever Giygas spoke, it became hard for Kim to retain his sense of self. The aura of power that the alien leader created was just too overwhelming.

Lost in his thoughts, Kim didn't notice the person standing in front of him until she spoke.

"See-Yoon," she said, her voice characteristically reserved. "It's been a while."

"Zanine," Kim said, looking at the veiled woman. "I didn't know that you had the balls to work for Giygas."

"Always insulting people," Zanine said. "I should have been the one to leave you, not the other way around."

While they were both speaking in Eagleish, Kim found Zanine's Scaraban accent difficult to understand. Perhaps she felt the same way about his Dalaamian accent. He didn't particularly care either way.

"Maybe you should have," Kim said. "I never loved you in the first place."

"Just like you cannot love any woman," Zanine said. "You have no wife but many sons. Are we all just tools for your pleasure?"

Kim honestly didn't know the answer to that.

"Your heart is colder than a Dalaamian winter," Zanine said. "I do not know why I didn't see it earlier."

"I wasn't always this way," Kim said softly. "People change."

"People change into mass murderers, apparently," Zanine said. "You sit atop a throne of blood and tears, See-Yoon."

General Kim's Mu training normally gave him excellent control over all parts of his body, but it wasn't enough to keep his surprise from showing.

"Come on, See-Yoon," Zanine said. "This is the modern age. Information gets around. And as one of the leaders of the Scaraban Resistance, it's my job to know about foreign affiars."

"You? The leader of a resistance movement? You couldn't lead a group of ducklings if you imprinted them to see you as their mother."

"People change," Zanine said, her eyes flashing with determination. "Your words still sting, but I will not let a couple of welts stop me."

Well, that was new. Kim supposed that it was good for her to finally try to change her destiny and influence the world around her. He smiled, causing her to glare.

"Good luck in your resistance movement," Kim said. "Although I honestly don't give a psych whether it succeeds or not. Scaraba means nothing to me."

"Nothing means anything to you," Zanine said with a shrug. "I've gotten used to it."

Instead of lashing out and denying Zanine's ludicrous accusation, Kim widened his smile.

"I shall take my leave," he said. "Tell our son that I said hi."

"Oh, I won't have to," Zanine whispered as General Kim teleported away.


General Kim See-Yoon appeared back in his chambers in Dalaam. The lower air pressure and oxygen levels that existed near the peak of a Dalaamian mountain made Kim's head swirl, but he would adjust. He had spent enough time teleporting around that his body had gotten quite resistant to abrupt altitude changes.

When Kim tried to take a step forward, his knees buckled. Kim collapsed and fell to the floor. He tried to stand back up, but his limbs simply didn't obey the orders from his brain.

Okay, this usually didn't happen. What the psych was going on?

"Too easy," can a voice from above him.

"Guards!" Kim shouted. Apparently his voice still worked. "To me! Guards!"

"Nobody's coming to save you," said the same voice.

Kim's body was rolled over so that he was lying on the ground looking up, but he didn't feel anyone touch him. He craned his neck (he could still move that, apparently), and saw a young man who looked like a grotesque mix between a Scaraban and a Dalaamian.

"Still haven't figured it out?" the man asked. "You put a psionic enchantment on this room, remember? Anyone who teleports in is paralyzed from the neck down."

"Yes, I put that enchantment down in my quarters after fighting that royal brat Prince Poo," Kim said. "But I didn't place it everywhere. The spot that I teleported to should have been safe."

"Ah, I altered the enchantment to include the entire room," the man said. "It was too easy. To be honest, I didn't think that it would actually work. Surely the great Dalaamian general would have another trick up his sleeve to let a little bit of tampering catch him off guard." The man chuckled. "I guess not."

The man's condescending tone rubbed Kim the wrong way, but he didn't let it show.

"Who are you?" Kim asked. "I don't believe we've ever met."

"I'm told we met when I was a baby," the man said. "I'm one of your sons. Since you spent so much of your life creating children, I shall specify further. My mother is a Scaraban woman named Zanine."

So this was the ugly creation that Zanine had birthed? Kim was starting to see why mixed race couples didn't occur more often.

"Ah, of course," Kim said. "What's your name again? Durian?"

"Even in your darkest moments, you still have the capability to compare me with one of your repulsive Dalaamian fruits," the man said, shaking his head in wonder. "The name's Darius, although I really don't care what you call me."

"Okay, Durian," Kim said. "I'm paralyzed and helpless. What are you going to do to me?"

"Isn't it obvious?" Darius asked, cocking his head. "I'm going to kill you."

If Kim could still feel his spine, a chill would have surely run down it. The flippant way that Darius discussed death sent of all sorts of alerts in Kim's mind. He tried to scramble away even though he knew that his arms and legs didn't work.

"Don't look so surprised," Darius said. "You're a monster. You killed thousands upon thousands of civilians. You even killed when there was no practical benefit. That's sadistic behavior."

"I'm not supposed to care about the random people on the streets," Kim said. "Helping my friends and family back in Korea by freeing them from this oppressive Dalaamian rule is my first and only priority."

"That's funny," Darius said, "Because one of your bothers orchestrated this whole assassination."

"Oh, if you expect me to believe that…"

"Look at me, father," Darius said. "I'm 18 years old. Do you think that I have a single clever cell in my entire brain? I'm just a pawn. Really, I expected you to figure this one out."

"But that doesn't mean that my family betrayed me."

"Why would I lie?" Darius asked. "You're a dead man anyway."

"Because you want to hurt me," Kim said. "You're probably pissed that I was never there for you or something."

Darius scrunched up his nose.

"This isn't about me," he said. "You're a stain on the world that needs to be scrubbed off. I'm just the one on clean-up duty."

Kim chuckled.

"How about this?" Darius asked. "You justified your killing of civilians by saying that everyone controls their own destiny. You said that if they had the will to live, they would have somehow survived. Isn't that right?"

How had Darius known that?

"Yes, that's right," Kim said.

"So, by the same logic, you could survive and escape from my grasp if you really had the will to," Darius said.

"I suppose," Kim replied.

"So… do it. Let me see this philosophy in action. I'll give you five minutes."

"But I'm paralyzed!" Kim protested.

"And those civilians that you killed were slower than horses, unarmed, and unarmored, yet you still expected them to survive if they tried hard enough. Four minutes and fifty seconds."

Kim tried to force himself to get up. He believed that anyone could break through seemingly invincible barriers if they possessed the will. Darius was right; he could do this just like the civilians could have, even though it made no logical sense in either case. He tried and tried to control his limbs and get the psych off the floor. He tried and make the hand motions required to teleport away.

No response.

He tried again and again for what felt like hours. Nothing worked.

"One minute," Darius said.

Kim closed his eyes and took a deep breath. He had one minute to prove to his son that anyone could do anything if they cared enough. He meditated to flush out his stress and fear. Time lost its meaning; his soul and the calm were all that mattered in the universe.

"Ten seconds."

Kim's eyes opened. With every ounce of power that he had, he willed his hands to make the hand motions needed for teleportation. He pictured himself bursting through a wall of stone and moving his hands in just the right way to teleport away. He threw everything that he had at that image. Never before had he been so motivated, so dedicated. In his state of mania, nothing could stop him.

His hands didn't move.

"And zero," Darius said. "I guess you were wrong, huh? There are some things that we cannot control."

"No…" Kim said. "I tried so hard. Why…?"

"Because that's how paralysis works. While some nerves can grow back over long periods of time, your spinal cord never will unless you heal it with psionics. It was literally impossible for you to make the hand motions required to teleport, father. I hope that puts all of your killings into perspective."

Darius pulled a curved sword out of a sheath on his belt and stabbed General Kim. Being a monk who had undergone Mu training, Kim possessed a psionic aura that would absorb several attacks that he took. He could even use the aura to stall the damage and take it slowly rather than all at once. A westerner had once described taking damage with psionic stall to Kim as being similar to an odometer ticking down, which made no sense to him (didn't odometers tick up?). Still, with no way to recover damage, Kim had no chance of surviving for more than a couple of minutes.

"See?" Darius asked. "This doesn't even hurt because of your paralysis. I could stab you in the face to inflict pain, but I would rather give you a dignified death. That is what it means to be a decent human being, father."

"To kill your family?" Kim asked.

Darius smiled, his eyes twinkling with humor. He stabbed Kim another time.

"To take the option that causes the least pain," Darius said. "You're too dangerous, so I have to kill you. But I didn't kill your guards; I knocked them out. I'm not torturing you; I'm giving you a painless death. But I don't know why I'm justifying myself to a dead man."

For the first time in years, General Kim See-Yoon gave up. He could have lived longer by using his psionic aura and psionic stall, but he knew that there was no point. Darius would kill him either now or in a couple of minutes, and Kim didn't really have a reason to stall his death.

General Kim turned off his psionic aura and stall, the only forces that kept him alive through the first stab. After the next stab through the chest, everything went black.


Key Terms (locations and OCs):

Ceres: A planet that used to be the capital of an intergalactic empire. It remains as a location with strong political influence and holds a monopoly on educating children with PSI.

Shard of Ceres: a massive building made of purple crystal in the wilderness of Ceres that is rumored to hold all of the knowledge humans have ever accrued.

Osohe: Unlike in Mother 3, these people are aliens who died off millenia ago. Their technology is unparalleled.

Psionics: Another name for PSI. Manifesting psionics requires both hand motions and verbal incantations.

Psionic Aura: An invisible force that protects PSI-uers from physical harm. This is the equivalent of HP in the Mother games and explains why the characters in the games can survive some pretty deadly attacks.

Psionic Stall: The technical term for the way that health ticks down gradually when taking damage in Earthbound and Mother 3. PSI users often have a couple of seconds to heal up even after taking lethal damage.

General Kim See-Yoon: A cold-hearted general who led a coup in Dalaam, overthrowing the king. He works for Giygas.

Diana Carpainter: Daughter of Mr. Carpainter, and formerly a member of his cult. Goes by the alias Mr. Agerate and teaches PSI on Ceres.

Minerva Carpainter: Daughter of Mr. Carpainter and Diana's twin sister. She was the president of Ceres until dying from poison in Dalaam.

Mary: The last empress before the empire fell. Frozen in cryosleep by Giygas so that a starman could hijack her body and take advantage of her powerful PSI.

Lucas: A brainwashed soldier powerful enough to slay entire armies. Giygas currently controls him.