EDITED: CLEANED UP/REVISED VER. POSTED 6/16/2014
Here we go with Book 3. It's a short one, but due to the things that happen in it it's very important. TO SITE ADMINISTRATORS: IF THIS FIC IS REMOVED, THERE WILL BE A HUGE, UNEXPLAINABLE HOLE IN THE PLOT OF THE SERIES AS A WHOLE
Mahō Shōjo Lyrical Nanoha (Teana) – 7Arcs
Higurashi no Naku Koro Ni (Shion) – 07th Expansion and Studio Deen
Shuffle! (Kaede) – Navel and Asread
Erika's New Perfume (Marie) – Deviant-Art artist Lance the Young
Mai-chan's Daily Life (Mai) – Waita Uziga
Star Wars (Ahsoka, Cody, Rex) – George Lucas, Lucasfilm
Halo (Forerunners, UNSC, Sangheili Alliance) – Bungie and 343 Industries
StarCraft (multiple mentions of characters, events, and devices)– Blizzard Entertainment
Call of Duty (reference) – Infinity Ward
Naruto – Masashi Kishimoto
Rejuve Verse – "Lurking Dragon" (with elements found on website "Bottom's Valley" along with significant changes from canon by myself)
-BOOK 3 START-
Starshot
Trans-Dimensional Slipspace
"Oof… what the hell happened?"
The six girls, gathered together in their private rec-room, gradually picked themselves up off the floor. They had been gathered, doing their own thing, with Marie & Kaede and Shion & Mai making conversation while Teana and Ahsoka went over the data from Char, when they had suddenly all passed out all at once. Now as they picked themselves up, they ran a mental checklist to ensure everything of them was working. And they discovered something unexpected…
"Hey…" a still-disoriented Marie said. "How come there's new knowledge in our heads?"
The girls examined their own minds, and sure enough there was a wealth of new information in there.
Kaede followed the now-instinctive knowledge and tapped into the strange force of energy within her, feeling it flowing through her body, empowering her. The others followed suit, marveling at it.
"Different than magic, that's for sure…" Teana muttered. "It's coming from within, not without."
"And these techniques," Mai said, "that seem to have been beamed directly into our minds. How to use this… chakra… for magic-esque stuff. …Did the Starshot put this in our heads? Why would it? The scans showed no users of thi- …chakra-users in the dimension we're heading for right now."
"Maybe we're heading for a place with some of them after this one," Shion replied, "and the ship's Virtual Intelligence thinks that sending data and power into us will only go so far, and that we need time to train with it."
Teana recognized the power as the same power that fueled her special eyes.
"So… what now?" Ahsoka asked.
"I guess… we should wait and see what's waiting for us in our destination before we decide on that" Teana replied. "…Right. Let's just… get back to what we were doing. We can think about all this later… right?"
As the girls returned to their hobbies, their minds nonetheless dwelled on this startling new development, wondering what it meant… or what it foretold…
-SCENE BREAK-
Dimension LDR-15
0.1AU from Earth, Capital World of the Phoenix League Federation
LOCAL DATE: May 14th, 2567
A slipstream-space rift opened, and the 1600-meter vessel emerged into realspace, the rift closing seamlessly behind it. The bridge crew and Gamma Team (currently on the bridge) were surprised to find another Earth, defended by several geosynchronous orbital defense platforms and a few dozen warships of varying size and class, a few of which outmatched the Starshot in size.
LEAGUE EMBER-CLASS FRIGATE – 480 METERS
LEAGUE SPARK-CLASS DESTROYER – 500 METERS
LEAGUE BLAZE-CLASS CRUISER – 1,300 METERS
LEAGUE INFERNO-CLASS HEAVY CRUISER – 1,450 METERS
LEAGUE CONFLAGRATION-CLASS CARRIER – 2,700 METERS
LEAGUE EXPLOSION-CLASS SUPERCARRIER – 3,100 METERS
"Unidentified vessel," a male voice came over the comm., "you have exited slipstream space within the territory of the Phoenix League Federation. State your business and intent."
Several warships turned to face them.
"This is Ship-Master Zhal Arum of the salvaged & refitted Forerunner destroyer Starshot. We are trans-dimensional travelers, and mean you no harm unless you mean to bring harm upon us. Due to this, we have powered down our weapons but will maintain our vessel's shields until your intent toward us is determined."
"…Acknowledged. Stand by… Telepathic scan by our psykers checks out. You are free to approach. Dock at Cheyenne Station and await delegation for formal first contact."
"Confirmed. Be advised; though my people, the Sangheili, make up a significant portion of those aboard, there are an equal number of humans and a few other races that make up this vessel's crew and defensive forces. We are from several realms, and perhaps we may add your government to our growing list of trusted allies should all go well."
"Roger that. It looks like your ship's taken a bit of a beating recently. What's your status?"
"We are fully operational; the damage is light and inconsequential, and we have merely not yet had the time to fully repair it. Any assistance would be unnecessary but appreciated."
"Docking almost complete. Select your personnel and meet ours in the main hangar."
Zhal promptly selected Col. Holland, Gamma Team, the Clone Captains, and an escort of four UNSC marines, four Sangheili Majors, and two Raynor's-Raider marines. The delegation traveled through the docking tube and entered the station, meeting the League's. The League Rear-Admiral and the Sangheili Ship-Master shook hands.
"Now," Col. Holland said, "how's about we explain ourselves, and then it'll be you guys' turn to fill us in on your story?"
-SCENE BREAK-
"Well, that's quite a history you all have" said the League's man. To Colonel Holland, this Johnathan Devine looked awfully damn young to be an Upper-Half Rear Admiral. And yet, judging by his credentials and service record, he definitely knew his stuff. What's more, the League also had a Sergeant-Major Johnson of their own, but besides being white and a woman, this girl differed from old Avery in that she looked to not even be 25 yet. Now that he thought about it, nearly all League military personnel he'd seen were rather young. What was the story behind all this?
"From the sounds of it," RADM Devine continued, "you folks have earned a little R&R. I'll have to discuss it with the Chairwoman, but I'm sure that you all can stay in our realm as long as you need to."
"Thank you, Rear-Admiral" Holland replied.
"So…" Teana asked. "What's your story? Everyone here looks to be pretty young for military – not that I'm one to talk – and there are those letters of fire on the backs of your hands, and the fact that your tech seems startlingly similar to UNSC and Koprulu-Terran tech."
"Because that's sort of what it's based on" the man replied, to the travelers' surprise. "It's a long story, but I've got to fill Chairwoman Howard in on all of this. In the meantime, Mel here will fill you in." He gestured to the young woman at his side and then walked out.
"Right" the young woman said as she took a seat, moving a lock of her shoulder-length black hair out of her eyes, calling up the projector to display various images and vid-clips as she explained things. "Where should I begin? …I guess I should start the beginning, huh? Around 2115 or so, scouts discovered some old yet functional technology artifacts orbiting a dead planet in the Tau Ceti System. These ancient machines, left by an ancient race we call the Architects, could somehow reverse a person's physical age to that of a child, though it was one-way – it can't make a person older, and it can only bring a person back to before puberty. It didn't take long to reverse-engineer the technology. With this tech, a person could live for centuries. Granted, this soon meant that as the technology became more widespread the population growth slowed, but people considered this a worthy tradeoff, especially since a mortally wounded or fatally ill person could just be rejuved to perfect health. This, needless to say, led to a few big changes. The Kensington Protocol regarded a treatment that involved a reversible sterilization operation done at the age of eight, to prevent overpopulation. The Fujikawa Protocol was a treatment that postponed puberty – a girl wouldn't even get their first period until 15 or so, and boys' voices didn't crack 'til high school. The age of majority was raised to 21.
"One of the biggest changes was to the justice system. Instead of tossing people in prisons or executing them, they implemented a new method called the Penitatas System, where convicted criminals were forcibly rejuved and placed under the "care" of discipline-heavy, spank-happy foster-parents, to go through "cycles" of rejuvenations and disciplining until their sentence was through, with male serious offenders being turned into girls – the tech can rejuve someone as the opposite gender. They were stripped of all rights and even of their surnames, being forcefully branded with the surname of their "caregivers".
"At first, things seemed to be going relatively smoothly. But then, it all went wrong. A few decades in, corruption began to take root in the upper echelons, and over the centuries it spread and got worse and worse. By about 20 years ago, the Sol Confederacy was hopelessly corrupt at nearly every rung of the ladder. There was vicious oppression, control over the media, deception of our non-human allies, and violent suppression of colonies' peaceful attempts at secession or self-rule. There were technically more pennies than non-penny rejuves, though the government worked to hide this from most of the masses. And most pennies were not committers of major crimes, but had been framed or used as scapegoats by rich or high-up folks – like me; I was a scapegoat in an embezzlement scam - , or had done "crimes" like exercising free speech in criticism of the government or peaceful public protests or even just knowing too much. There were even a lot of people punished for being potential threats who hadn't even done anything.
"Now, obviously, this didn't sit right with people who knew of it. All throughout human space, small groups of freedom fighters had worked, to no avail, to undermine the Confederacy. That is, until 2547, when they found a leader to unite them into one big, cohesive force with the power and numbers to stand up for what was right. Our leader: Grace Staunton-Howard. She'd been a genuine penny in her youth, and had turned her life around after that, but this time around she was framed. Her penni-parents were… kinda stupid and unobservant, and she had become a genius and a skilled orator over her life. No-one's sure how she did it, but she got in contact with all the various small factions fighting the Confederacy and got them to unite. Though she tried to elect this one guy Stanford as head, the other folks saw what was in front of them and made her the leader of the growing alliance.
"Over the next few years, everyone worked as quickly and quietly as they could, putting together a secret organized resistance movement hundreds of millions strong right under the Confederacy's nose, and it kept growing and growing with time. In 2548 the resistance found another trump card: Ken Scott, an extremely gifted scientist from the inner colony Nadia. Even being pennied and turned into a girl in 2550 didn't stop Ken – sorry, Kate – for long, and her customized nanite implant reversed the effects of the nano-web they use to control pennies' emotions; it was hardly any time at all before she was helping the Resistance again, this time right from Earth, the resistance's birthplace. With her help, the resistance developed weapons and tech, and got to work putting together a reliable method to get our message across to more people; the resistance grew.
"In July and August of 2550, Johnathan Devine, a prestigious naval Commander who hadn't been aware of the resistance but did know about the Confederacy's corruption and was planning an investigation to see just how far it went, sacrificed himself to prevent a ship core overload. Due to the radiation damage, he was rejuved and sent to Earth, where he met Chairwoman Howard and found out just how bad the corruption really was. He signed in with the resistance and was quickly made Howard's second-in-command.
"In October of that year, resistance explorers found something huge: forges underneath Antarctica, inside Olympus Mons, on the far side of Earth's Moon, and on several other planets throughout human space. These forges were much too young to have been made by whoever made the rejuve tech, but now we know they were made by the race you guys call the Forerunners. These were war forges, and though they could no longer make Forerunner weaponry, they could reach out through space-time and gather weapon and vehicle schematics for other realms' militaries, and then make them. That's why we have tech from the UNSC, the Koprulu Sector, the 'Old Republic', and something called the Coalition of Ordered Governments. We also found a dead UNSC ship and pulled it from your realm, refitted & repaired it with the forge: the destroyer Black Talon, which is still part of our navy, by the way. The forges gave us weapons, armor, computer tech – UNSC encryption and hacking stuff really came in handy – and the technology needed for the next big part of the plan.
"Now, you've got to understand that the majority of the resistance now consisted of unjustly-punished pennies and such, about 55-60% or so on average, with nearly all of the Sol System's personnel being rejuves. That's why we're nearly all so young; our minds are considerably older than our bodies. This was mitigated back then by powered armor and physical conditioning. The Confederacy's hold on our minds via the nano-web implants was circumvented by Dr. Compton's latest tech, mass-produced by the forges. Little, undetectable-by-Confederates implants that not only undid the emotion-manipulating effects of nano-webs, but actually worked to suppress and/or eliminate childish impulses, so our minds would be free to focus on what needed to be done rather than by the short attention spans and rambunctiousness and whatnot of normal children. Resistance personnel became adults in all but physical form. Also, the new implants boosted the speed and ease with which the mind can absorb and process information, allowing us to study and learn and train at a much faster rate than normal with much greater success.
"In mid-November, Howard and Devine decided to kick things up a notch by anonymously broadcasting a speech across all of human space. This was the first hint to the Confederacy that something was brewing, but they didn't learn how big things were until it was too late. It was that speech that alerted me – and tens of millions of others – to the resistance, to hope, and got us all to join up. I had been a personal friend of Grace for quite some time, so she was really happy to have tracked me down again and gotten me as a part of things. The forges went into overtime, since we could all tell that the start of things was coming.
"On December 31st, 2550, the resistance was formally organized into a new government with Grace as Chairwoman and John as Vice-Chairman: the Phoenix Insurrectionist League. We called it phoenix because we planned to topple the Confederacy and rise, renewed, from its ashes. The next day – New Year's Day 2551 – the implant system was implemented sector-wide, on every world with every rejuved League personnel. We also developed a unique flash-clone system, using clone-like constructs to fill in for us whenever we were out & about, to keep our overseers oblivious. These 'clones' were actually more like… well, it's like a part of our own souls was put into the constructs, somethin' psychic I think, and when their functions were fulfilled and the war started they rapidly disassembled on an atomic level, with every memory and bit of intel they gathered in their existences instantly transferred to their originals' minds; caused a headache from the sudden influx of knowledge into the brain, but it worked.
"Coincidentally, on April 6th 2551 an independent investigation by non-corrupt Confederates – which I still think was kind of an oxymoron back then – discovered Grace's innocence. Thus, she was formally declared an Innocentata – a very rare phenomenon, where a previously-convicted penni is discovered to be innocent, and is given a full pardon and extra privileges while they're raised in a much more lenient environment. But it was far too little and far too late to stop what was comin'.
"On the 8th, every League member was given an official military rank, bestowed upon them after an in-depth psi-scan that pinpointed their abilities and competence and such. With all the training I'd thrown myself into, I made Sergeant. Y'see, every single member of the Phoenix League was trained military personnel; we had no civilians, though we of course still had doctors/surgeons, cooks, trainers, etc. In all, the League numbered at over 4 ½ billion, everyone a military personnel and 3 ¾ billion of that a trained soldier. Compare that to the Confederacy's standing military of 700 million at the time. Also, the Fujikawa treatment was undone on us all, so if the war lasted longer than expected the start of puberty would give some of us extra capabilities, while our implants regulated the effects of hormones on the psyche to tolerable levels.
"On the 9th, we cut all communications to & from the Confederate base underneath the Rocky Mountains in Colorado – I think it used to be called NORAD or something – and launched a quick takeover. We had the place under our control in less than four hours, and the Confederacy was none the wiser. The next day, Chairwoman Howard publicly broadcasted the existence, status, and whatnot of the League across the entirety of human space. She then officially declared the state of war against the Sol Confederacy.
"The war was the most devastating in human history… at least, until we learned about you guys' Human-Covenant War and the Zerg Wars two hours ago. We fought for every bit of land, and practically every planet that had humans on it was soon in the midst of combat, though the heaviest fighting took place here on Earth and over on Mars. The Drakonians, a saurian species and the first non-human sapients this realm's humans encountered, sided with the Confederacy until the Oakland Atrocity at which point they pretty much washed their claws of the whole war and threw their moral support behind us, while our feline friends the Jalaxians chose to side with the League from the beginning, having seen and grown tired of the Confederacy's corruption. The Rigellians, a race of insectoid telepaths, steered well clear of the whole affair, with nearly all of them pulling back off of human worlds until it was over; being psychic empaths, they really don't like war, so they waited until they could come in and help survivors pick up the pieces. In May 2552, we made brief trans-dimensional contact with a group called the Kel-Morian Combine, and when we explained our situation they gave us a Behemoth-class battlecruiser fresh off the assembly line. We named it the Striking Hammer; it's Devine's flagship now.
"In 2553, the Confederacy's true colors and depravity were revealed to the public, first when detailed data on their corruption and on how many pennies were innocent were released, and then when they responded to the city of Oakland, California's harboring of a defecting Confederate military division by bombing it into oblivion, killing over 400,000 people. Once those two things got out thanks to Dr. Compton wrecking their attempt to cover it up, billions of people who were neutral threw their support behind the League, and millions more defected to us from the Confederacy out of disgust.
"Finally, in July 2554, we won. We pushed them off of Earth and of nearly every human colony, though the Chairwoman decided to be somewhat merciful, and she gave them an outer colony called Outreach along with four other habitable colonies near it and several resource-rich uninhabitables. July 14th is our official Victory Day; every year on that day we have a massive celebration. We repaired the damage to our planets and infrastructure, and set up a formal government – a federation. We dropped 'Insurrection' from our title and added said new word to it, and formed an official political and military alliance with the Jalaxian Republic. The war was the costliest in this realm's human history, and was in fact the bloodiest war this galaxy had seen in over 45,000 years. We of the Phoenix League suffered 479,500,020 fatalities out of a total of 4,530,105,080 people; the Confederate military lost 655,725,207 out of 700,050,000; casualties amongst civilians and pirates were 1,220,030,040 out of 4,770,000,509. Out of 10,000,155,589 total galaxy-wide human population, the war – World War 4, historians are already calling it – killed 2,355,255,667 people – roughly 23.5% of the entire population. Now, as said, this doesn't hold a candle to your Zerg Wars or your Human-Covenant War, but for this realm it was the single costliest war in human history in terms of lives lost. Oh, and around 5% of the Drakonian population and 8% of the Jalaxians died, too. And we put the age of majority down to 19 after we started getting civilians… excluding those who were physically younger but were already serving.
"We got to work setting up civilian stuff, and got our own economy set up and booming. A lot of people retired to become civilians, but we still kept a humongous standing military – and still do. In January 2555, Dr. Scott-Compton finished reverse-engineering the Black Talon's slipspace drive and using the forge to improve upon it. The resulting FTL was capable of going 52 light-years per hour, compared to the old Confederate warp-drive's 13 light-years per hour. Also, slipspace travel is safer than the star-drive that the Confeds used, takes less brain-wracking physics specialization to understand, and is a bit more precise.
"For a while, our fleet besides the Black Talon and the Striking Hammer consisted of old Confederate ships retrofitted with some heavier weapons and armor (since the Confederate military had grown complacent due to over a century of peace and had let their standards fall; that's one of the reasons we were able to beat them so easily). But all that changed in late May of 2556. That's when scout ships in the Zeta Doradus System found a Forerunner Forge World – a massive artificial sphere at least 350 kilometers in diameter. It's essentially a gigantic factory. We brought it back here to the Sol System; right now it's in an orbit between Mars and the asteroid belt. We've used it to design and construct the formidable navy that you guys saw a significant fraction of when you arrived – the Home Guard, around 45% of our navy. Our ships have MACs just like UNSC ones, and a few of the bigger ones have fusion cannons like the one on the Striking Hammer. The forge also helped us upgrade our slipspace tech. Now we can hit 200 light-years per hour, we can jump in-atmosphere, and our margin of error upon exiting is no greater than 100 atoms' width and no more than five seconds.
"We also formed a formal alliance with a three-species coalition called the Tripartate, composed of the Kyyreni, Elvaan, and Lucavi. Their tech and personnel have come in pretty damn handy.
"Of course… things didn't stay cool forever. Besides the occasional pirate trouble – which was easily dealt with – the Confederacy launched an invasion force in October 2558, aiming to take Earth back. However, they had vastly underestimated the strength of our defenses, and had also expected the League to crumble in on itself, rather than thrive as a successful government. We whooped their asses – killed 12,001,500 of their 13.5-million invasion force while losing only 60,103 soldiers out of our total armed forces of 3,250,100,205, and only 2,698 civilian casualties. However… things did get a little out of hand when two of our own betrayed us. Our shock-troop leader Leonid Dragovich turned on us, and he convinced League Marine Corps Major Jane Smythe, an old foe of mine, to join him for personal power and revenge that ended with her trying to kill me. She came damn close, too, but I got her. Meanwhile, Dragovich got his head blown off by Ishtar Solos, an Elvaan who's part of the League, though he took her arm with her.
"Things settled down a little again after that. In 2559, Chairwoman Howard green-lit Operation: PORT ROYAL, a plan to wipe out the vicious pirates plaguing human space, especially the large and extremely dangerous Delasian Raiders. …Right now, the Delasian Raiders are only 1/20th of what they used to be. In mid-July 2560, me and John Devine got hitched; my full name is Melody Marston-Johnson-Devine, but everyone just calls me "Mel Johnson". In August through November of that year, we led a campaign against the tyrannical despots of Aspatria, freed its oppressed people and publicly executed "Emperor" Renacross, and then stuck some Forerunner tech to start cleansing the planet's atmosphere of pollution and toxins; the Aspatrians are a protectorate of the Tripartate now. In April 2561, Grace gave birth to a daughter Harriet – she still hasn't told me who the dad is, but I've got my suspicions – and in September 2563, I gave birth to my son Miles; he's at home right now with my penni-mother Mary Johnson, who chose to support the League during the First War; my penni father Joshua Johnson was a victim of a Confederate psyker who forced him to try to mill me and Mary; he managed to regain control and shoot himself before his body could seriously harm either of us, though. I… haven't seen my birth mother, Carol Marston, since I was physically six shortly before the war, 16 years ago. I do know that she supported the League, but…
"So… that's our history. Your thoughts?"
The group was silent as they went over this huge wealth of information. "Age reversal…" Col. Holland said. "I'd say it was the weirdest thing I've heard of, but after the Flood, the Forerunners, the Force and Jedi, the Protoss, the Zerg, the Xel'Naga and the Dark Voice… things don't really surprise me so easily anymore."
"So…" Kaede said "what's with the hand letters?"
"Oh! I forgot!" Mel replied. "It was part of the rejuve system – nanite-formed letters on the backs of one's hands to signify their status. Different types of 'P' were for different classes of penni, a 'V' was for someone who voluntarily rejuved, an 'M' was for emergency medical rejuves, an 'I' was an Innocentata, and a 'K' was for actual non-rejuve children. We took the system and modified it extensively. For starters, the letters are formed of fire. They're military-only, and indicate a person's position. A red 'P' like the one on my left hand is a non-officer soldier – Private through the highest Sergeant types. An orange 'E' is for engineers, technologists, computer workers, et cetera. A red 'O' is for officers, and an orange 'WO' is for Warrant Officers. A blue 'M' is for combat medics, and if there's a white cross in the center they're a trained surgeon. A black 'P' is a shock trooper – powered armor, heavy weapons, and sometimes in a battle they use their implants to temporarily increase aggression and pain tolerance. A red 'I' like the one on my right hand is for Special-Ops personnel, and a violet 'I' is for the Black-Ops people. If a person has more than one role, they have a letter for each role on either hand, and any additional on their outer forearms."
"What's your justice system?" Teana asked.
"The old-fashioned prison method, mostly. Of course, we've not really had any crime in the decade and a half we've existed… though that'll probably start to change within a few more decades – human nature, after all. The penitatas program is still around, but seeing as our experiences mean we view it as the cruelest punishment imaginable it's only planned to be used for the very worst, most heinous of crimes; execution is considered a lesser punishment than being made a penni, and even Smythe's high treason wouldn't have warranted it – had I not killed her in self-defense, she would've seen a firing squad, not a rejuve chamber. …We might implement something closer to the old penni system further down the line, but probably not any time soon; the wounds are still fresh, if you know what I mean."
"How'd you deal with capture?"
"If a League fighter was captured by the Confederacy, they either used their skills to escape or, failing that, activated a failsafe implant that killed them instantly, so as avoid being forcefully rejuved and made to suffer. A few people who were already physically young had explosives fitted in them, so as soon as hand met bottom, BOOM! The Leaguer gets freedom in death, and the spanker gets their arm blown off!"
"So…" Teana said. "Now what?"
"I guess you guys get to have some R&R – judging by what you've told us, you've most definitely earned it. Though you mentioned getting new abilities recently; maybe you should spend time training with them."
"And of course," Col. Holland said, "if you guys get into anything where we can help, we'd be glad to."
"Appreciated. We'll get the forge-world to repair the damage to your ship."
-SCENE BREAK-
May 21st, 2567
Thomas Ramsey, current second-in-command of the Delasian Raiders, observed the group of underlings before him. Sometimes he wished that he could still execute subordinates who talked back to him or weren't constantly in top shape, but the devastation that the Phoenix League had wrought had meant that members were in short supply. The Confederacy had used to use non-lethal tech – stun rays, delta-wave inducers, ion cannons – due to their extreme aversion to killing and preference for capturing and age-reversing criminals. They weren't that well-trained in most cases, and their ships were under-gunned, under-armored, and under-staffed, while their ground forces were flighty, never shot to kill, and just plain sloppy.
The Phoenix League was the exact opposite in every way. They carried lethal weaponry of all types – projectiles, mostly, all of them terribly effective. Their troops were extremely well-trained and committed, of vastly larger number, and seemed to shoot to kill far more often than not. Their ships had thick armor protected by powerful shields that blocked every type of offense, and their weapons – point-defense autocannons, plasma beam turrets, fusion cannons, coilguns, and even thermonuclear warheads – made mincemeat out of any ship they went up against. What's more, while the Confederacy's corrupt upper echelons turned a blind eye to piracy, the League's coherent, altruistic leadership saw fit to wipe violent pirates from the face of the galaxy. And they were doing a damn good job of it.
Here, on the sun-baked, heavily forested world of Beta Gabriel in the Epsilon Eridani System, Ramsey and his men had found an old store of Confederate tech that could sell pretty well on the black market. If his clumsy subordinates didn't break the stuff first.
"Careful, ya oafish dumbasses!" he shouted. "This stuff is worth more than you are!"
"We're tryin', boss!" one shouted back. "But without power loaders, this stuff's damn heavy!"
Ramsey was about to reply when a .22-caliber bullet tore through his upper chest, right below his neck, at 15,000 meters per second, blowing to bits his body above the waist. The bullet also shot through the hat of one of the lifters, blowing it to shreds. Everyone stood dumbfounded as the disembodied lower torso and legs of their leader swayed in the wind, until the half-corpse plopped to the ground and everyone panicked. The League assault team that swept in had no trouble killing most of them and taking the few who surrendered into custody.
2,900 meters away, Teana smiled and lovingly ran her armor-gloved hand up and down the length of her M99 Stanchion, mentally congratulating both it and herself on another shot well done.
-SCENE BREAK-
May 22nd, 2567
"So Marie," Kaede asked, "how's it going with that project you've been working on since Bel'Shir?"
"Huh? Oh, it's going great! It should be finished in another week or two."
"What project?" Teana asked.
"…Somethin'…"
"What's something?"
"A surprise; my own little pet project, to help me further boost my effectiveness in the team."
"…All right. I can see you're not gonna tell me before it's done, are you?"
"Nope"
"Fair enough. So Shion, what did you call us in here for?"
Shion looked around at her team, along with Zhal Arum and Erohn Kilkar sitting in the corner, having turned from their conversation to look at her.
"Should we leave?" Zhal asked.
"…No. It's okay."
Shion took a deep breath and gathered herself. Mai held her hand, which helped a great deal.
"…My past… my history. The first thing is that… my old last name, the one I discarded, is Sonozaki… And the reason I was mistreated was because I am the identical twin sister of the clan heir, Mion, and twins are seen as cursed, ill omens amongst the Sonozaki Clan."
The group stared, their expressions a curious and unidentifiable mixture. Had Shion been versed in reading Sangheili expressions, she would've noticed the shock and mild horror on the pair of Elites' faces. She took another breath to steel herself.
"They almost killed the both of us right after we were born, but someone – I don't know who – took pity on us and somehow convinced our grandmother – the current head – to spare us both, and pick Mion as the heir. For all my life, I've lived at the bottom of the clan's social order – a borderline outcast, while everyone lavished attention and privilege on my sister. Even she treated me like I was different, no matter how hard she tried not to. They even sent me away to some boarding school so they wouldn't have to see me. I broke out, of course. Then, I met Satoshi-kun…
"Satoshi was the older brother of Satoko, one of the members of my old group of friends back home. He was a… an angel, at least in my view, and that of his sister. He would go out of his way to protect Satoko, and was kind to everyone around him. After some… turbulence at first, we got to know each other, and he listened to me, supported me, spent time with me… I fell in love with him, more and more each day. The clan elders weren't happy. The Hōjō clan had been enemies of the Sonozaki in the past, and old prejudices were still strong. I almost got tortured trying to defend my views, but Mion convinced grandmother to back off. And then…"
"What?"
"He disappeared. In our village, each year, around the time of the Watanagashi Festival, a person mysteriously vanishes. Sometimes they show up dead, other times they don't show up at all ever again. Last year, Satoshi-kun vanished. He was never found…"
She let out a staggered, shuddering breath.
"I think I know… what really happened. The legend is that those who vanish were taken away by demons – onikakushi. But… there are rumors – supported ones – that the Sonozaki Clan are actually the ones behind it, using the myth as an excuse to dispose of those who are nuisances to them. …My family… has taken everything from me… my home… my happiness… my love… And the worst part is…"
She began to cry, small sobs wracking her body.
"The worst part is… that they even took my birthright. The heir… is supposed to, at a young age, receive an oni tattoo on her back. But… Mion and I… they mixed us up! I was born as Mion! They gave it to the girl born as Shion by mistake! And then the few that knew forced us to live as the other, to adopt new identity, to… They took everything from me! My birthright… my life… my name! And they've treated me like dirt ever since! They… they…"
At this point she could no longer continue, collapsing into tears. Mai pulled her into a hug, Teana joining soon after, and the other four pitching in as best they could. After several minutes, Shion had calmed down enough for the impromptu group hug to break up. It was then that they noticed the two Sangheili. They were livid.
"How… dare they?" Erohn growled, barely audible yet still striking unease into those that heard it. "To defile a gods' gift… to deem it as cursed… to cause such suffering to… RAGH!-!"
A scaled fist smashed into the wall, denting it and causing the girls to jump.
"W-what's…"
Zhal turned to the girls, maintaining the barest hint of composure, and looking at Shion with sad eyes. "You must understand something, humans. To hear that this clan sees twins as cursed is… Amongst our people, due in part to their extreme rarity even when compared to you humans, twins are sacred. They are seen as blessed; a gift from the gods! To hear that a clan would dare do such things is… beyond infuriating."
"I know not much of your birth-clan," Erohn said, "but henceforth they are my enemies, lady Shion, as they are yours."
Zhal got up, Erohn composing himself and following, and they both walked up to the girls – to Shion. They stood, crossed an arm over each chest with a fist held over a heart, and bowed their heads slightly.
"Blessed One," Erohn spoke, "know that though we command you in the field of battle, you have our service and protection whenever you may need it."
"I… I don't know what to say… th-thank you, I guess..."
"So… which do you want to be called?" Marie asked.
"…I've been Shion for over a decade. Might as well keep being Shion. You guys… thank you."
-SCENE BREAK-
May 28th, 2567
"So the big bugger has General Warfield pinned. It's tryin' to bite his face off, but can't get through his helmet. It raises its claw high to hammer-strike him, and Jim's shot blows the claw right off! And then my bullet hits and tears the damn thing apart!"
"Damn, Lanstar!" said one of the PLF marines. "Wish we had somethin' like the Stanchion in our arsenal."
"Well, it's a very special weapon. Only a few people are trained to use it."
"Damn. I ain't that good at sniping. Bet Sarge-Major is, though."
"I'm alright, I guess" Mel said.
The girls of Gamma Team, Sgt-Major Mel Johnson, and several marines (mostly women) were gathered in a common room, swapping stories.
"You don't seem to be easily surprised, ma'am" Ahsoka said.
"I've seen and done a lot" Mel replied.
"Hey, if you wanna surprise her," Teana said, "show her the Zerg Leviathan we ran into on the orbital platform. That damn thing was huge!"
"Nah" Marie said, putting a hand on Teana and Shion's shoulders and grinning slyly. "If you really wanna surprise her, you two, tell her how big those boobs of yours are!"
Immediately Teana and Shion blushed beet-red and crossed their arms over their substantial chests.
"Wh-wh-what do they have to do with anything?!" Teana stuttered, feeling very self-conscious.
"But they're huge!"
"SHUT UP!-!" both girls blushed even redder, as the rest of the group cracked up laughing.
-SCENE BREAK-
June 4th, 2567
Planet Enzot
The six girls had spent almost all of their free time training with their newfound abilities. The Starshot's "download" had given them thorough knowledge on how to harness and control chakra; it had also boosted their power and skill to what the people of their next world would call Chūnin-level, and had stuck knowledge of a few various techniques into their heads. The training had further honed this power, helped by a temporal-displacement chamber in the Starshot and another tiny alteration by the Starshot's AI, which allowed Gamma 2 through 6 the same increased speed and ease of learning things that Teana's neural Spartan enhancements gave her. These new abilities had helped them immensely in their purge of another pirate base, and had been nearly essential in dealing with a rogue psychic and his followers, who had tried an almost-stereotypical "take over the worlds" bit.
But they hadn't been nearly enough to deal with what they faced now.
The sextet had come to this near-barren world in order to find a place to test their abilities against the elements and against the powerful and vicious local creatures, remnants of bio-weapons made by long-extinct peoples for a long-passed war millennia ago. These creatures were far too much for anything other than a squadron of tanks for 'normal' people, but for the newly-empowered girls of Gamma, they were great practice – Level-Grinding, Marie compared it to. After a while, the beasts' numbers began to thin (something the League was quite grateful for, as it would make resource-mining easier on the planet).
But then, something new had emerged – something unconnected to the local creatures. In the middle of a training session at a 35,000-year-old crater-turned-lake, a titanic creature, easily 50 meters tall, had emerged from seemingly nowhere. The monstrous thing – identified by legend-savvy Shion as a kishin, a type of greater oni – was far tougher than it already appeared. Every attack that Gamma Team used, every plan and attack pattern they implemented, was ineffectual; even Shion's new Void Prison was broken free of. This thing was powerful enough to trounce Jōnin; what chance did six currently-high-Chūnin-level girls have? And it hadn't just stood there and let their attacks bounce off it, either; stone-shattering claw-strikes and punches, wicked blasts of unholy energy, even the water and rock itself attacked our heroines.
Now, the six girls knelt on hands & knees upon the water's surface, all of them considerably wounded and exhausted. Whatever of whoever had called this thing here, it meant to kill them, and it was dangerously close to succeeding. Teana felt the helplessness growing in her as she realized that she – the leader, the strongest – wasn't capable of protecting her squad. She looked to her left – Marie, blood running down the side of her head; Shion, left arm burned and most likely broken; Mai, her injuries regenerated but her body still exhausted to the point of barely being conscious. To her right – Ahsoka, her red skin and red blood mixing in Teana's vision; Kaede, bruised and beaten. Teana closed her eyes, thinking of the powerful friendship she'd developed with these girls. They had become her family.
Ahsoka. Jess.
Mai. Jorge.
Marie. Emile.
Kaede. Jun.
Shion. Kat.
NEVER AGAIN.
The daemon raised its humongous claw.
A single tear ran from Teana's closed right eye. And then her eyes snapped open. And the daemon burst into black flame.
The daemon, which hadn't been harmed since shortly after its creation millennia ago, reared back and roared in pain, as the black hellfire rapidly spread along its body, engulfing and burning it. The girls stared in surprise, and then looked back at Teana, shocked by what they saw. Where her eyes had previously been three black comma-like marks on a red background, now the red held three black concentric rings, two top and one bottom, the overlapping circles forming a bizarre and unique, almost kaleidoscopic pattern. Teana's eyes visibly pulsed with power, arteries & veins standing out along the edges of the sclera, as she focused her vision on the daemon, continuing to burn it.
She snapped her eyes shut, deactivating the ability and returning her eyes to their basic enhanced state, but the black fire continued to burn. The daemon's thrashing ran down as the flames consumed it, stopping when the ancient dark being's life was finally extinguished by the black fire, which went on to consume every last bit of its body, leaving nothing but ashes. And then Teana keeled over and passed out from exhaustion, being caught by Shion before she could sink.
-SCENE BREAK-
June 6th, 2567
Starshot Archives
The girls of Gamma, having gotten out of the medical bay just 18 hours ago, sat as they finished up reading the extensive records they'd just perused. Driven by what they'd been learning the past few weeks, and especially by the happenings of a few days ago, they'd used the trans-dimensional archives to look up things regarding the world where these jutsu came from. They'd read histories – the formation of Hidden Villages, the Shinobi System, the Three Great Wars – and political data, but most of their attention had been drawn to information regarding a thriving locale called Konohagakure. From this data, they'd learned a great many things.
The most interesting was that regarding the now-mostly-dead Uchiha Clan… including the fact that Teana had blood ties to them. Apparently, her mother Sayuri Lanstar had been born Sayuri Uchiha on this world, the daughter of Kōshirō Uchiha and older sister of the clan's last head Fugaku Uchiha (apparently, the most common Uchiha hair color was black, but Sayuri had been of the rare few to have red-orange, which was passed to her children). According to the Starshot's perusal of the fabric of space-time, Sayuri had been on a mission at the age of 22 when she'd fallen into a dimensional rift, soon thereafter being declared "MIA – Assumed KIA" by the Leaf Village. In actuality, she'd ended up on Midchilda, and had adapted relatively quickly. She had met and fallen in love with Tarlis Lanstar, and only three years after arrival she'd given birth to Tīda, with Teana following seven years later. By this point, Sayuri had reached a level of power equaling a currently-still-living young prodigy named Itachi Uchiha, with Tarlis not far behind her.
And then when Teana was four, Sayuri and Tarlis had both been killed – murdered by a still-unidentified attacker who had apparently been at least S+ rank in power. Seven years after this, this same attacker (or perhaps a subordinate) had tracked down and eliminated Tiida, interrupting the young man's pursuit of a wanted criminal and successfully killing him in battle and, for some reason, taking his body; the Bureau had never learned of this (merely detecting through their long-range scanners the cessation of Tīda's vitals) and had assumed that the lowly criminal had felled Tiida, leading to unearned mockery and derision on their part. However, Tiida had known of his mother's history and been trained in shinobi arts, having planned to start training Teana on her 13th birthday, and had successfully worked to prevent these mysterious attackers from knowing of Teana's existence.
Teana paid very close attention to the data regarding her bloodline-given eyes – these "Sharingan"; their capabilities, limitations, and the advanced state known as the Mangekyō. Apparently, remembering and focusing on the emotions connected to the loss of Noble Team during that last battle had been enough to awaken Teana's Mangekyō, and the technique with which she'd slain the kishin was a black hellfire technique called Amaterasu, and was one of three extremely powerful abilities unique to the Mangekyō (the other two being named Tsukuyomi and Susanō). The vision-eroding side effect of the Mangekyō could easily be negated by the Forerunner nano-tech available aboard the Starshot, to place dedicated nanites within her eyes that would repair the damage as it was done. This wouldn't mitigate the tremendous amount of chakra required to use a Mangekyō technique, so she'd still have to be careful and use them sparingly if she could help it. Though this was partly mitigated by the fact that scans showed that, compared to the average, Teana's dormant-and-untapped-until-recently chakra reserves were enormous – almost Tailed-Beast Host level and on par with currently-living titans like Hatake, the apparently-surname-less sage Jiraiya, and Hoshigaki.
"Well…" Shion said after a while. "I think I know where we're going after this dimension, eh?"
Teana nodded. She needed to check this out; see if they could further their skills and power under the tutelage of her mother's home-city. And maybe, just maybe, discover just who was really responsible for the death of her parents and brother.
-SCENE BREAK-
June 10th 2567
Starshot – Marie's Quarters
"So, this project of yours is finally complete?" Kaede asked.
"Yep!" Marie replied. "It took plenty of work, but it's done!"
"What is it?" Mai asked.
The other five girls of Gamma Team were gathered to witness the unveiling of Marie's long-hinted 'project'. Marie reached under her pillow and pulled out an armguard, slipping it on her right hand. It went almost up to her elbow, there was metal plating – a dull grey with dark-purple lines – along it, and on the back of the hand was a circular violet crystal, with two smaller crystals – one blue and one yellow – on either side of it. After a few seconds, Teana's eyes widened.
"A Device?!"
"Yep! I've been working on this guy for quite some time, usin' the Starshot to help. I… kinda wanted to emulate you, boss. I used a Khaydarin Crystal shard and a small jorium crystal in the construction, and they've both helped boost efficiency and power and whatnot, and the Khaydarin crystal also helps calm my mind and clear my thoughts when I focus on it; I saved a couple in case you want to integrate them into Cross Mirage, boss. Girls, this is my Intelligent Device; his name is Charon."
"Greetings, teammates of Master" the Device said.
Teana used Mirage to run a diagnostic of Charon. "Impressive…" she said. "And you did this by yourself? Very impressive, Marie."
"You haven't even seen it in action yet, boss. C'mon, girls; let's head to the shooting range."
The six made their way to a currently-unoccupied shooting range near the port-side main armory. Marie stepped forward, and then turned around. "Well, here goes" she said. "Charon?"
"Set Up"
There was a flash of blue and violet light, and when it faded Marie stood in her brand-new Barrier Jacket. There was a black bodysuit that covered her torso, upper arms, and upper legs. Over the chest and back was a black vest with a fluffy white collar, open in the front and reaching down to her stomach. An armor plate protected the outer edge of her left forearm, attached to a glove that ran up to her elbow. Knee-high black boots with silver toes and armored plates covered her feet and lower legs, while small rectangular armor plates protected her knees. Circular shoulder-pads that were white on the top half and black on the bottom, and two small dark-brown belts around her right thigh completed the look.
Her Device had formed into a large contraption on her right arm, starting just below the elbow and continuing out past her hand (which now sat inside the Device), the Device crystals just behind the silver pincer-like structure at the end, while the cartridge port sat halfway up her forearm. She lifted her right arm and showed off the active Device, making it clear that, to her, it was practically weightless. She then turned to the targets down-range and pointed her Device at them. The pincers opened up, and with a twitch of the finger inside the Device a bolt of energy – blue edges, violet center – shot forth at high speed, hitting a target dead-center and leaving a considerable scorch mark, also knocking the metal plate back a few inches. Marie grinned at the sound, having successfully tuned the Device's Cannon Mode basic shots to sound exactly like Samus' Power Beam shots from the Metroid Prime Trilogy. Several more rapid-fire shots came, followed by a successful test of the Charge Beam function.
"From what I can tell," she explained, "it's some sort of energy boosted by the psionic energy of the Khaydarin crystal, making it more powerful and longer-ranged. If I use a cartridge, I can shoot an even bigger, even stronger blast than the normal charged one."
"And if you get stuck in a close-range fight?" Teana asked.
In response, Marie grinned and held the Device-arm in front of herself. With a thought, the pincers shifted shape, and a rather sizable blade of energy sprang from it, blue along the edges and violet in the middle. "It's just like your Mirage Longsword, boss."
"Very nice" Teana said, clearly quite impressed. Not quite as versatile as her own heavily-upgraded Device, but still a definite force multiplier for Marie. "You're going to start training with it?"
"Of course!"
Over the next several minutes, the girls talked amongst themselves, mostly Marie explaining the functions and capabilities that Charon possessed.
-SCENE BREAK-
Starshot
Same Day – 20:40 hours
Teana sat on her bed, having just finished going over and fine-tuning her personal records from the Battle of Char. She remembered that she wanted to ask Kaede about her records, to see if they were up to snuff. She didn't want to interrupt anything important, so she discreetly opened a one-way vid-link to Kaede's room, to see if she was busy with anything.
Teana had not been paying as much attention as she should to the occasional murmured conversations between Ahsoka, Mai, and Shion. She hadn't given them much thought; sure, they had supposedly made eyes at each other once in a while, and had been spending quite a bit of time together recently, seemingly growing more and more attached as time passed, but she hadn't expected this.
Upon seeing the… erm, 'compromising' position Marie and Kaede were in, Teana blushed brighter than she had ever before and immediately closed the link. Her heart was pounding, and her breath came in light panting. The scene played itself through her head over and over again, soon segueing into what would very likely come next between her two teammates.
'Well…' she thought, the image she'd seen not leaving her brain. 'So that's a thing now… Wow, Marie's got nice hips, and Kaede's breasts are a bit bigger than I thought…'
-SCENE BREAK-
June 11th, 2567 – 11:05 hours
"You sure you guys have to leave now?"
"I'm afraid so, miss Chairwoman" Zhal answered. "The currents of space-time continue to flow, and we must take our leave lest we be ship-wrecked here. A development has taken place in another realm, one we must investigate post-haste."
"Very well" said League Chairwoman Grace Staunton-Howard, wearing formal military attire. Her trusted Rear-Admiral Devine stood at her left, while at her right her old friend Sergeant-Major Johnson stood at attention. "It was an honor to have you here. We wish you luck in your journeys, and you are welcome to stop by again at any time."
"We appreciate that, ma'am" Colonel Holland said. He and Devine shook hands, as did Arum & Howard and Lanstar & Johnson. Many times since the day began, Teana had caught herself looking at Kaede & Marie, noticing how they stuck close to each other, looked at peace and happy whenever they "accidentally" brushed against one another, and would occasionally hold hands when no-one else was looking. Each time, Teana would blush and look away before they caught her looking. Despite this, she had no problem at all with them being in a… physical relationship; in fact, she was genuinely happy for them.
"We thank you for the several dozen volunteers who chose to accompany us" Shion said to the Chairwoman. "I'm sure they'll be of help."
"We look forward to seeing you all again someday" Mel said.
The Starshot group finished their goodbyes and then left, going back to their ship. Entering the coordinates provided by the archives, the navigations officer activated the slipspace drive, and the vessel entered the non-Euclidian realm, destined for their next destination.
-SCENE BREAK-
Phoenix League Earth – Albany, New York – 8 hours later
Mel walked down the street, her four-year-old son Miles walking alongside her, his small hand held gently in hers. She was on the way to spend time with her old buddy Lisa Garrett, who'd switched sides to the League in the wake of the Confederacy's 2553 Atrocity. As she neared Mary's house, she spotted a woman in her late 30s standing in front of the walkway. She turned to look at Mel, and their eyes met… and Mel felt a tightening in her chest, as she struggled to fight down the urge to choke up. After several seconds…
"Melody?"
"…Mom?"
-BOOK 3 END-
REGARDING KAEDE/MARIE: We have a team of a half-dozen bisexual/bi-curious teenage girls who (except for Ahsoka) have varying loneliness issues and spend a lot of time together. Hook-ups are bound to happen.