"General Blaze, why have you not made efforts to reach out to our Prince? He needs to know of these events!" Angrily growled one of the elders of house Blaze, a cousin to his long-dead Aunt, and also aunt to the mother of former Empress Amber, Pyrus' mother. She had only ever been critical of his position, and often made comments that others would deem treason, so seeing her here only made his ire rise.
"He is on a mission with the other alliance leaders. Until then, I must encourage patience. Trust in our Prince, he will return soon." Blaze reassured the gathered crowd, following the earlier discovery in the Emperor's Vault, Blaze had instructed Flare to send his trainees home. Blaze had explained the entire event to him in private once able, but of course the youngsters who had been in the room immediately began telling anyone who would listen about the whispers.
Until Pyrus returned, however, he would know nothing further, and that the civilians and even members of his own House were questioning his decision to remain quiet about it further unsettled his personal calm, and threatened to bring out his inner rage.
"What if the Makers are returning?" Yelled another from further back that Blaze did not recognize, a series of hushed voices and speculations being made amongst the gathering. He grit his teeth a moment, inhaling deeply to keep from angrily responding in the expected explosive manner, as such would likely garner further scrutiny toward his actions. Blazes mistake in stealing a battle moon with some of his most loyal warriors and sending his own Prince, after gassing him to unconsciousness, would forever tarnish his relations amongst his own people. The sight of betrayal in Pyrus' eyes still haunted the old General, even so long afterward.
"If they still lived, would they not have come to aid us before? Please, keep yourselves calm. I will be informing our Prince when he returns. Now go back to your homes and other engagements, leave these whispers to me." Blaze growled, lying through his teeth. Flare briefly rested his hand on his father's arm, bowing his head to show he supported and thought he had made the correct decision in masking what they both knew. That somehow, their last monarch had reached through the veil of life and death to warn them, would not sit well with most.
Blaze and Flare then returned to the throne room, and eyed the vault that they had closed before leaving the room to address the crowd they knew would come after dismissing Flare's class.
"We need to find out where they went, I'm not in any position to ask of aid from any of the other leaders..." Blaze sighed solemnly, Flare chuckling and patting his father's shoulder.
"Not to worry. Let me try and reach out to a friend on Ice, they should be able to help." Flare moved to a control console and attempted to establish a communication with planet Ice, finding he received no response. He waited, attempting again, and still received no response. "Strange, I know the connection is open, but it's almost as though there isn't anyone on the other side." Flare frowned, his friend had never ignored his contact attempts before, even at ungodly hours of the night. "We need to find out what is happening, without alerting the populace. Can you commandeer a ship and travel to Ice to find out what is going on? I'll stall as best I can." Blaze frowned, but nodded at his son's suggestion.
"You are turning into quite the tactician son, well done. I only hope they remember I am still General."
Tibia too, found herself walking into an angry mob of Bonean pilots who were demanding answers from the machinist when her ship opened its cargo ramp for her to depart after landing. She raised a brow, shaking her head as she held her hands up, palms out, to attempt to placate the others.
"I know as much as you all do. I've noticed some strange reactions and autonomy from Lobe myself, but why or how this is happening is outside my pay grade. I was just heading to talk to Sternum or Femur, but I see their ship is gone..." Tibia almost facepalmed as she spoke and looked around, eyes falling on the empty berth where the larger capital ship -ironically named Spine after their father, as it would be the only thing with that name to listen to them- normally sat outside the palace. Lobe gently nudged the back of her foot making her turn toward Phalange, who approached on her right while running a hand along the side of her ship. The older Bonean, who she had crossed paths with many times as a visitor to the Palace when visiting Sternum and Femur in the past, could make even Sternum shudder with his strange aura of malice.
Phalange had once been Emperor Spine's tactical commander and advisor, who would whisper false promises and ideas in his monarch's ear, some even taken from others to further his own goals. Not unlike many who had sought after the throne in the past, but Phalange surprisingly did not want the headship of bone for himself. He liked his autonomy and ability to weave in and out of the public eye as he pleased, something Tibia found more slimy than the carnivore worms from the deeper pits.
"Justicar Phalange, what do you want from this humble machinist?" Tibia glowered, almost able to feel Lobe shuddering when the older Bonean stepped onto the ramp.
"I hoped you might inform me of what you have experienced, as your ship is much larger and more capable than the smaller ones showing the recent... Developments." His voice nearly made her gag, the smell of rancid meat would have been better than the odour wafting from him as he approached, and were those entrails from cannolies stuck in his teeth?
"I will be glad to make that information available when my report to Emperors Femur and Sternum is finished. Until then, Justicar, get off my ship." Tibia closed the gap between them with a single stride, growling in his face and, without him even noticing, backed him down and off the short ramp, before taking a step back up and closing it. Lobe quickly engaged the engines again, Tibia gladly walking through the ship, up the small internal stair to the bridge, gently caressing the walls as she went.
"Thanks for the warning, that old bastard needs to have his fins clipped." She smiled at the chuckling sound uttering from her ship as it rose and peeled away from the capital and out toward space, Tibia knew the leaders liked to gather on planet Ice.
"I had hoped to never hear that again, Vox." Jade muttered, the others in stunned or infuriated silence. Once able to reopen comms with the Aurora, Graveheart made the announcement that at once caused everyone's hearts to sink, and rage to rise.
"The Beast Planet is here, we need to start running if we want to put some distance between us and it. Head back, we'll catch up." He stated as the face of Glailen sank slightly.
"In good news though, we may have new allies. As I am certain you can see this... Construct following us." Tekla added.
"It's armour, not a construct." Zera corrected, huffing lightly.
"You spoke to it?" Jade asked, perplexed and concerned.
"No, Zuma did. We saw its face through the armour, it was able to make it transparent." Pyrus explained, gunning his engines, easily outpacing the other two. The armoured alien however, kept up with him effortlessly, the light streaks on its wings propelling it forward with no flapping or visible exhaust of any kind, save for the light along the armour and wings that faded as it got further away.
The largest ship seemed to have turned around and was now keeping pace behind the other two, firing off its strange missiles and light weaponry at the approaching beast troops. A group of beast drones suddenly shot past it, headed for Tekla and Cryos, the armoured creature reacting with a swift motion, flipping around and stopping, seeming to fire three quick beams of light from its mouth, two of the beast drones exploding and the third narrowly dodging and turning to begin opening fire on its assailant. The two petals from the alien ship moved to shield it, emitting a powerful shield that absorbed the null energy, as their handler flapped once to rise over the shields, and leapt toward the beast ship. They watched as it spun deftly and dodged most of the incoming projectiles as the gap between it and the beast drone closed, and it reached out a taloned limb to slash the drone in half, destroying the internal containment unit, as the drone exploded in its face. A tense moment passed, before the debris cleared and the armoured creature shook itself slightly before quickly moving to return to its place keeping up with Pyrus, the shield petals returning to hover by its wings.
There was no damage to its armour, no smoke, dents, or scratches of any kind. Through the golden glow of the strange running lights along its body and wings, they could see it was a very dark violet filligreed with gold at the edges, with patches that seemed to be made of an insulating material to allow for better range of movement for joints. It seemed to realize Zera and the others were gawking, looking through its visor into the cockpit of Pyrus' ship. There was a light musical sound in their minds at first, like wind chimes from a distance through a storm, then the two petals moved to attach hidden wiry tentacles from their centers to the ship, causing the control consoles to black out, then slowly reactivate, as though forced to restart, but their speed was not affected at all.
"Okay... what did that just do?!" Pyrus exclaimed, having released his control stick as it gave him a slight jolt. He carefully grasped it again, then looked to his consoles as they seemed to have upgraded a bit from what they had been moments before. Sternum sat forward more, trying to see what had happened to the controls, and seeing nothing different from what he expected, Zera sharing a glance and shrugging at him.
"Pyrus? What's going on, your comm died then just reconnected." Graveheart asked, concerned.
"I'm not sure, those petal–shield things did something to my controls. Engines and direction didn't change at all... Wait... There's another connected?"
"Oh good it worked!" Exclaimed a new voice, feminine and cheerful. Their escort seemed to do a barrel roll, showing that it was her on their comms.
"Okay, who and what are you? What did you just do to my ship?" Pyrus inquired, frowning a bit angrily as he eyed the console to confirm that his settings had not been tampered with too detrimentally. If anything, they had been better organised by use and the readouts appeared clearer.
"Oh, how rude of me." She seemed to purr into the comm. "I am Samateus, of the Taalrulthians, we are allies with the Ahr'aht, the ones in that ship behind us. We are part of a peacekeeping coalition." She explained, looking through the viewport at them again. Zera was transfixed, mouth agape for a moment as the newcomer spoke.
"Peacekeepers? Where in the hells have you been?" Jade growled, unimpressed and less than accepting of these new aliens.
"Watching, while you kept the beast planet occupied, we were attempting to find ways to destroy it, or contain it." Samateus replied, sounding as though she had just been kicked. "We wanted to help, however much of our forces were combating a similar evil, which is something I will gladly explain, but there is something you need to know."
"Oh great, new allies with new enemies, we were just fine until–"
"Femur, shut it!" Graveheart snapped, shocking the rest of the group to silence. None had heard him use this tone since the Beast planet had been thought gone, the commander in him surfacing after being buried under his uncertainty and personal inferiority complex. They could see on their commscreens he had pinched the bridge of his nose for a moment, Jade worriedly looking at him on the bridge of their borrowed Bladewing before he removed his hand from his face and regarded the newcomer out of the viewports, seeing no image projected from her. "Samateus, your allies, are they able to help get our worlds to safety?"
"Yes, but you need to know, there was another force of beast ships, on the far side of your planetary grouping, lying in wait. They thought us occupied here, and knew from star mapping how to catch up with you... They always knew where you were. As long as you stayed away from most stars, you were safe from ambush." She explained sadly, looking back to the other Bladewing. Jade cursed, the others still in shock as Pyrus pushed his ship harder, knowing now that his people, and all of the alliance, was in trouble.