Disclaimer: I don't own anything that doesn't belong to me.
As the Bugrangers and Egyptrangers stared in horror, the laughing Argus beginning to bring his foot down on their friends, time suddenly seemed to stand still.
Ariel was preparing to transform into her larger kitsune form.
The Egyptrangers were preparing to summon their God Beasts.
They would not be in time.
There was no way they could possibly save them.
Queen Apista AND Philia were about to die, and without them, the Hive would collapse.
The Swarm would prevail.
Earth, and the entire universe, would fall.
Only a miracle could save them now.
Feeling oddly detached despite the utter horror and panic flooding the Buzzing, Nushi glanced down at Coccinella, the fragments of dark magic still infecting her glowing ominously, her body reconfiguring into a familiar form.
Well. A dark miracle was still a miracle.
The Buzzing quaked. Across space and time, trillions held their breath, realizing what was about to happen for a second time…and how they had no choice but to let it happen.
For their Queen.
For everything.
"HENSHIN!"
"BuG oUt!"
And once again, Nushi gave in to the darkness.
…
Aranea forced herself to look as Argus's foot came down. This was her fault. Everything was going to be ruined because of her, so the least she could do was watch.
Was this how her great ancestor had felt as the Loom of Fate was shattered before her eyes? This soul-crushing feeling of absolute, unequivocal helplessness and despair?
If so, maybe she really was suited to be Hera's successor. Why else would she be cursed to suffer such horrific loss? Her planet, her civilization, her mother, and now her other mother and sister…
Was she going to have to lose everything else too? Antares? Her concubines? Nushi and Ariel?!
How much more would she have to suffer because of this damnable destiny?!
Argus crowed triumphantly as his foot slammed down hard-
On a dome shaped barrier made of red and black hexagons.
Aranea's eyes widened. "What?"
"What… What's happening?" A confused Silver Centurion, holding a stunned legionnaire in a headlock, demanded.
"Something… Unexpected," Antares whispered, shocked.
In Aranea's head, pretty much the entirety of the Web screamed "What the fuck" or the equivalent thereof.
Under the barrier, everyone stared in disbelief at the black and red figure standing with her back to them, one of her forehands pointed upwards, generating the protective force field that had kept them from being reduced to a bloody smear. "Miss… Miss Nushi?" Kari whispered, feeling an instinctive, animalistic sensation of absolute terror, the primal response to being in the presence of a predator beyond comprehension.
Nushi didn't even look at her. The eyes growing on the brain visible through her transparent cranium, and the numerous spots on her body, seemed to be doing an adequate job of doing that for her.
For some reason, being stared at by those eyes, their pitiless gaze peeling away layer after layer of her body and spirit until every last atom of her body was being scrutinized with scientific precision was even more terrifying than being looked at by Argus. The monstrous Centurion looked at them as if they were insects to be squashed.
To Nushi, they were even less than that.
"Not quite," Dark Red Ladybug replied with zero affect.
An overwhelmed Veila started sobbing and immediately had to be comforted by an equally distraught Neycombe, and it was pretty clear she was not the only child who looked like they were at the breaking point.
"Are you… Are you here to save us?" Kagami asked, struggling to comprehend why every fiber of her body was telling her the creature before her was a far, far greater threat than the monster that had been about to step on them.
"I am," Nushi replied. "You don't need to be afraid."
For some reason, she didn't feel any less frightened.
After all, didn't many angels in the Bible – the real, utterly inhuman angels, not the pretty people with wings – tell lowly mortals the exact same thing all the time?
"Nushi… This power… This form… I… I'm sorry you felt you had to be forced to use it again," Apista whispered, tears in her eyes.
"Don't be," Nushi said impassively. "It was the only way to save you. I would do it again. As many times as is necessary."
Not a single person present wished that such a necessity ever occurred again.
"You are all unharmed."
It was not a question.
"Y-yes. Yes, we are," Mira said, trembling.
"Good. Allow me to make sure it stays that way."
The barrier immediately dissipated.
For a single, heart stopping moment, everyone thought Nushi was about to let them get crushed.
Then her palm made contact with the underside of Argus's foot, and it ceased to exist, along with most of his leg.
Argus screamed in agony, blood gushing from the resulting stump, and began to topple over.
However, before he could fall on to anyone or any buildings, Nushi suddenly appeared in the air in front of him. She wasn't flying. She was standing on nothing at all.
"Let us take this elsewhere," she said, tapping him lately on the chest.
Alexandria was shook by a sonic boom as the gigantic Centurion was blasted out of the city, crashing down in the bay and sending a huge tidal wave racing towards the docks, causing everyone gathered there to scream in fright and desperately rush towards what they hoped would be safety deeper into the city, the sailors frantically trying to abandon ship before it was too late, even though they knew deep down it already was.
Nushi calmly extended a hand, and the wave immediately sublimated into steam, rising into the air and dissipating, and what was left of the displaced water was little more than a ripple which gently rocked the boats in the harbor.
"Nobody will die this day," Nushi said calmly as the various sailors and merchants whose lives had just been spared fell to their knees and wept in exultation, more than a few of them shouting prayers to the heavens. "Well. Nobody who doesn't deserve it anyway."
And then, suddenly, she was standing in the bay, having spontaneously grown about 50 m in height, towering over the coughing and sputtering Argus as he tried to lever himself out of the water, staring at him impassively. "Look at me."
The humanoid peacock vomited up water. "What-"
"Look at me."
Argus looked at her.
His eyes widened.
And then he started screaming at the top of his lungs, scrambling his hands all over his body, ripping out as many eyes as he could, crushing them, and throwing them away, blood spilling into the water as he continued mutilating himself, practically tearing out eyes faster than they could regenerate. Sharks, smelling blood in the water, swarmed to him, eagerly nibbling on his flesh, but he was in too much of a frenzy to render himself permanently blind to care.
Mark's jaw dropped. "What… Why is he doing that?!"
"Argus's many eyes can see everything," Apista said solemnly. "Which means he can see what Nushi is right now. What she really is."
"And… And what is that?" Luna asked, face pale.
"A god. A demon. Or maybe something else, something that cannot be easily labeled," Galacta said grimly, trembling in fear.
"Cool," Fuuka gushed.
"But… But she's on our side, right?" Aki asked nervously.
"Oh, absolutely," Apista confirmed. "She's also practically a living weapon with all of her emotions, restraints, morals, and volition stripped away to become an entity of pure intelligence and power who will do literally anything she deems necessary to complete her mission."
Seeming to grow tired of Argus's screaming and self-mutilation, Nushi grabbed the monster by the back of the head and shoved it into the water, holding it in place as he flailed in desperation.
Everyone blanched. Their escorts whimpered, clutched whatever talismans they possessed and uttered prayers, while a confused and terrified Kia wondered what sort of dark age she had found herself in.
"Case in point."
"KARI! KIDS!"
"GORO/DADDY!" Kari, Mira, and the triplets shouted in relief as Goro rushed over ahead of the rest of the Bugrangers and Egyptrangers as they rounded the corner and quickly wrapping up his entire family in a hug.
"Are you all right?! Is anybody hurt?!" He demanded, frantically looking them over.
"We're fine, darling, we just got a fright," Kari told him quickly. "A… Rather big fright. This is really the sort of thing you deal with all the time?"
"No, usually the giant monsters don't try to step on us before we have our mecha ready," Goro told her, relieved everyone was okay. "For the foreseeable future, none of you are leaving Hive City. For any reason. Even for a time travel trip, because I don't care how safe Shin says it is, the fact that this almost happened on one such trip is proof it's not as safe as it's supposed to be."
"No, that's fair," Shin conceded. "I'm going to add extra safeguards for future trips to keep anything like this from happening again."
"And Kari, I know how opposed you are to being linked to the Buzzing-" Goro continued.
"And I still am."
"But it's going to do me a world of good if there were some way I could know where you were at all times just so I don't drive myself crazy worrying about you whenever I'm away from home," Goro pleaded desperately.
"We'll… Talk about it," Kari said hesitantly, alarmed that she was so shaken she was almost considering it.
"Mother-" Kagami started, only to be shocked when Mibojin hugged her. Rather tightly. "M-Mother?!"
Mibojin blinked, then recoiled, letting go of her daughter and backing away. Why… Why had she done that? Yes, of course she was relieved her daughter was all right, but… "I… I am glad you are unharmed," she stammered, bewildered by this uncharacteristic show of emotion.
"As am I, naturally," Kagami replied, eyeing her mother with a confused and worried expression, equally unsettled by this unusual behavior.
"Cousin Ariel!" Fuuka cried, opening her arms.
Ariel just looked at her.
"Can I get a hug? I almost died!" The vampire pleaded.
"Fuuka, you and I both know you've been stepped on before. You're completely immortal. You would've been fine," Ariel said flatly.
Fuuka scowled.
"Can we get a hug?" Aki and Luna pleaded.
"Okay," Ariel agreed, hugging them, much to their relief.
"Hey, where's my hug?" Philia complained, only for Aranea to envelop her mother and herself in all six of her arms. "Oh, there it is."
"You're alive," Aranea whispered, all of her eyes tearing up, holding them so tightly it was like she was afraid they would turn to dust if she loosened her hold even a fraction. "You… You're alive."
"Yes, thanks to Nushi," Apista said, wincing at being hugged a little too tight. "Which is not to discount your own efforts in trying to save us… Dearest, could you maybe loosen your grip a smidge, you're really digging into my wound-"
"I saw you die."
Apista blinked. "What?"
Aranea stared at them, eyes red, an utterly shattered look on her face. "I saw you die," she repeated, sounding more exhausted, more broken than Apista could ever remember her strong, confident, self-assured eldest daughter ever being. "I had a vision. Argus stepped on you. You, Philia, everyone… They all died. I tried to… I tried to change it. Find a loophole, a workaround, like the Magitopians do all the time. It didn't work. He saw right through it. He was going to step on you. What I foresaw… That horrible, unimaginable future… It was going to happen despite my best efforts."
"… But it didn't," Apista said slowly, the implication starting to dawn on her.
"No. It didn't."
Cutaros huffed. "Okay, so your vision was wrong. What's the big deal?"
"Haven't you been listening?!" An irritated Neycombe, eyes red from her frenzied efforts to calm the sobbing Veila down. "Her visions are never wrong! She's been going on about it all day! In great detail! More than any of us really cared to hear!"
Aranea whimpered. "Was I really that bad?"
Everyone nodded.
"Yes," Philia said bluntly.
"To be fair, Mibojin did provoke you rather a lot," Apista said diplomatically.
"I make no apologies," Mibojin said flatly.
"… That's right. Whatever method the Arachide use to see the future is supposed to be as ironclad and infallible as the Magitopian Book of Prophecy," Ariel realized slowly, an alarmed look on her face. "If she saw all of you getting stepped on…a-and dying, then… Then that's what should've happened."
"But it didn't," Shin pointed out. "Which is a good thing."
"Oh, absolutely," Ariel was quick to assure him. "But from everything we know about Aranea's way of foretelling the future, everyone should have died. But they didn't. Because of Nushi. Which, again, yes, is a good thing, but… She shouldn't have been able to do that. She shouldn't have been able to defy destiny."
"Heroes have been defying destiny for years," Goro pointed out.
"Not this sort of destiny!" Ariel argued.
"But she did," Mibojin said, pointing out the obvious.
"Yes. She did," Ariel agreed. "And I have absolutely no idea how. My love bug is amazing, I won't argue that, but this… She shouldn't be capable of this."
"And yet," Antares said, lumbering over, glancing at Aranea in concern. "She did."
"Yeah."
"… What does this mean?" Shin asked slowly.
"I don't know," Ariel said softly, staring at the colossal dark version of her beloved as she coldly drowned Argus in the bay. "I really don't."
"Um. Excuse me?" Anastasius said meekly, raising a hand and reminding everyone there were still quite a few legionnaires present. "We're. Um. We're just going to go now, if it's all the same to you. It's pretty clear we're, ah, pretty badly outclassed."
"Sure. Fine. Go ahead," Cleopatra said vaguely, not even looking at them, too transfixed by the "battle" in the harbor.
"Great. Thanks!" Valentinian said, gesturing for the rest of their cohort to depart posthaste.
"But sir, we can't run away-" one of the other soldiers protested.
"When that creature is done slaughtering Centurion Argus, she's going to come right back here," Anastasia said flatly. "Do you want to face her?"
All the legionnaires gulped. "N-no, sir."
"Great. Move out!"
The Romans retreated with their tails between their legs.
"Cleo, I don't understand. She is on our side, but I feel… Afraid," Nefer whimpered. "More so than I am by Gozim most days!"
"I'd be insulted but she's right," Gozim muttered.
"The gods are afraid of her," Thotep noted. "Something about her… Unnerves them."
Mark frowned, a worrying thought occurring him. "Wait… Your gods are afraid of her? Then…"
He looked upwards, noting that the sky was still cloudy and overcast. "What must my gods think of her?"
Nushi held Argus's head under the water for several more seconds after he finally stopped flailing, just to confirm his death. When she was certain all life functions have ceased, she let go of his corpse, the sharks eagerly rushing in to feast, then glanced northwards. "Olympians. I know you are watching."
There was a rumble of thunder and a flash of lightning, and the clouds parted to reveal a stern, almost grandfatherly face made of lightning. "You… What are you? I have not felt such fear for my own life since my battle with my father and the other Titans. Not even Typhon elicited such dread! Who in Tartarus are you?!"
"I am the Blackened Genius," Nushi said calmly. "The Dark Messiah of Science, the Black Hole Brain who accumulates all knowledge and bends the laws of the universe by her thoughts alone, the Shadowed Queen who may one day be one third of the Promised Triumvir… The Final Solution, Dark Red Ladybug."
Jupiter's eyes widened in horror. "The Promised-"
Abruptly, the clouds reformed, turning darker, swelling with power. A sudden, intense pressure weighed down on the entire city, bringing everyone to their knees, and the mages instinctively tried to cast spells of protection as everything suddenly turned a blinding white-
Which abruptly imploded on itself, forming a sphere of crackling electrical energy in one of Nushi's hands, so brilliant it almost rivaled the artificial sun in the Pharaos Lighthouse. Nushi glanced at the orb impassively. "Is that all?"
Jupiter's face appeared in the heavens again, horrified. "Impossible! That was my strongest thunderbolt! It should've wiped out the entire city, and taken you with it!"
Akilah gasped. "He would've destroyed the city?!"
"But the gods agreed to let the mortals fight this war," a shocked Gozim pointed out. "If Jupiter successfully destroyed Alexandria, it would've triggered a war between the gods!"
"Is Jupiter really that desperate?" A stunned Mark asked.
"Considering that Nushi just caught his most powerful thunderbolt, such desperation might be warranted," Cleopatra said anxiously.
"Well that… That's my lovebug!" Ariel said, laughing nervously. Unbelievable! Jupiter may be an old bastard, but his power is no joke! Even my Supreme form would've had difficulty deflecting a bolt that powerful! And lovebug… She caught it! How strong is she?!
"Strong enough," Nushi replied.
Out loud, she addressed Jupiter while wrapping all four of her hands around the captured thunderbolt, red and black energy flowing into it, causing it to roil and convulse and change color. "The gods of Olympus are… Cruel. Capricious. Petty. Selfish. Venal. Vain. Unworthy."
"So are mortals," Jupiter sneered, regaining some of his confidence. "They are made in our image, or we in theirs, depending on how you look at it. In a way, we are reflections of each other… All the faults you see in us exist in your own kind!"
"You are correct," Nushi agreed, surprising him. "Humans are weak. Flawed. Incomplete."
She glared at Jupiter. "But they are also capable of growth and change, something you Olympians lack. Humans are imperfect, yes. But that does not mean they deserve imperfect gods. Gods who treat them as playthings, who torment and curse them for meager slights and amusement. Gods who rape."
While she continued staring at Jupiter, everyone couldn't help feeling that many of her eyes were also focusing on Alexandria. "Humans deserve better gods, ones who uplift and inspire. Gods who care."
"Oh, and I suppose you think you could do a better job?!" Jupiter snapped.
"No," Nushi said, much to his surprise. "In my current form, I lack empathy. In my usual form, I lack wisdom and maturity. I am not worthy to be the God humanity needs. The one they deserve.
"Or at least… Not yet."
She spread her arms out, the energy ball she'd been forming expanding with them, now a chaotic mass of darkness swirling with red spots. "Regardless, humanity no longer needs gods such as you, gods who would wipe out an entire city of innocent people because of a perceived threat to their dominance. And since I know you will not leave willingly…
"It is time for you to disappear."
She thrust her arms forward, and the energy sphere shot off into the distance, racing northward, moving with such speed and force the ocean split open in its wake, exposing the seafloor and forcing several unlucky ships and fish to frantically turn away from the new rift in the water before they could fall in.
"What… What did she just do?" The confused Cleopatra asked.
"She threw that attack north. What's north?" Akilah wondered.
"Lots of things!" Gozim snapped.
"Yeah, but what's north and relevant to the Olympians?" Nefer pointed out.
Mark gasped in horror. "But she… She can't… There's no way…!"
"Right now," Apista said. "I think there is very little she cannot do."
"Holy shit," Cutaros swore.
"What? What is happening?!" A confused and frightened Neycombe demanded.
Up in the sky, Jupiter looked confused and more than a little scared. "What was… What did you do-" Suddenly, his projection glanced aside. "Wait. What is… No. No! NO-"
His face dissolved in a flurry of sparks.
The clouds parted, allowing the sun to shine back down in Alexandria once more.
"Nushi just destroyed Mount Olympus and killed the Roman Pantheon," Shin said, stunned. "All of them."
"Holy SHIT," Cutaros swore again.
"She… she killed… But mom, that's…" Philia stammered. "I mean, I know that the ladybug Bugranger at full power is something else, the strongest of the bunch, but… No Red Ladybug in history has been able to do that!"
"… I don't think it has anything to do with her being Red Ladybug," Goro said after a moment. "I think it has to do with her being Nushi."
Nushi continued standing in the bay, an unmovable giantess, still staring north. Finally, she nodded once, turned around, and suddenly stood before the group, back at her regular size. Her helmet dissolved, revealing her face, so much like the face her friends knew and loved, and yet so wrong. "Our friends are alive," she said almost mechanically, with no emphasis on the word 'friends' to indicate the term meant anything to her. "Argus is slain. The Olympians are dead. Alexandria is safe. Have I completed my task satisfactorily?"
"Well, we still need to deal with Caesar-" Mibojin started.
"Yes. It's fine. Everyone's okay," Ariel interjected quickly, stepping forward to touch Nushi's cheek. "You can stop now, lovebug. You can put the darkness away for now. Come back to us. To me."
Nushi stared at her, eyes completely devoid of love or kindness or anything even remotely human. "Acknowledged."
And just like that, her suit dissolved into a loveliness of ladybugs which blasted out from her in every direction, sweeping over the city and causing everyone to stagger as, for a split second, they felt a moment of pure, perfect love which struck to the core of their being.
And then the moment passed and Nushi, fully reverted to her usual self, stumbled and fell into a waiting Ariel's arms. She looked up into her lover's face as she disengaged her helmet, giving her a worried look. "Did I just commit deicide?" She asked, dazed.
"Yes," Ariel said gently, hugging her. "You did."
"Oh." Nushi blinked. "Should I… Should I feel bad about that?"
"Uhhh…" Ariel shrugged helplessly. "They sort of had it coming?"
"Oh. Okay," Nushi murmured, resting her head on her girlfriend's chest. It was very soft. "Sorry for scaring everyone. When I'm in that form I'm… I'm kind of intense."
"… Kind of an understatement," Neycombe muttered angrily, stroking the whimpering Veila's antenna.
Scarabella whistled. "I did not know my own kind can be that frightening. Damn."
"We aren't afraid of you," Mira assured her.
Scarabella grinned. "Awww, thanks babe – wait, not even a little bit? You don't find my athletic build and performance on the field even a little intimidating?"
"No," Mira said.
"Not even a little," Kagami concurred.
Scarabella seemed oddly disappointed by this.
"Are you… Are you okay?" Nefer asked Nushi in concern.
"Just need a minute to catch my breath. That took a lot out of me," Nushi muttered through her girlfriend's breasts.
"I… Can imagine," Cleopatra said, staring north in a daze.
"It is… Is it true? Did she really kill the gods of Olympus?!" Mark demanded.
Cleopatra nodded. "She did. The gods of Egypt confirmed it. If it helps, they're just as shocked as you are."
"But that's… But that's not possible," Mark stammered. "They're… They're gods! Mortals cannot stand against the divine!"
"Actually, that sort of thing happens all the time back home," Shin told him.
Fuuka nodded. "Yeah, my family helped wipe out almost an entire Pantheon of underworld deities!"
Mark and the Egyptrangers stared at her, shocked. "… What the hell kind of place is the future?!" Akilah finally demanded.
"It's busy, complicated, and often doesn't make sense," Goro said with a shrug.
"We love it anyway," Shin said cheerfully.
"I… I think I need to sit down for a minute," Mark said, slumping against a wall, a vacant look in his eyes. "The gods are dead. The gods are DEAD. I… Who do I pray to now?! Who will shepherd my soul to the hereafter? What… What will become of Caesar? Of Rome?!"
"Why is he so upset?" A confused Mei wondered as Mark started shaking and screaming, Cleopatra awkwardly trying to comfort him. "I thought the Olympian gods were bad."
"To an extent, yes, but they were also the only gods he's ever known," Shitsuki told her. "As awful as they may or may not have been, they have still been a part of his heritage, his culture, his entire life. He believed they would always be there, for better or worse." They spread their hands. "And now they are gone. What he believed to be an immutable law of the world has been proven false, shaking the foundations he has built his identity on."
"Oh, like when dad missed when he was fighting Tick-Tock?" Jun realized.
"Perhaps, but I was thinking of something more unbelievable, like if Father suddenly became a good actor."
"Hey!" Goro protested.
"His entire worldview has just been upended," Aranea said faintly, staring at Mark. "Something that… That I can empathize with at the moment."
Very reluctantly, she let go of Apista and Philia and staggered over to Nushi and Ariel. "Nushi. What… What you did… You shouldn't have been able to do that."
"Didn't we just go over how guys like us kill gods all the time-" Shin started.
"She was referring to defying fate," Mibojin interrupted.
"We also do that all the time," Shin pointed out.
"Not from her perspective."
"I had a vision. I saw my mother, my sister… Our friends… Dying horribly," Aranea addressed Nushi, trembling. "I tried… I tried so hard to stop that from happening without invalidating my vision. I failed.
"And then you showed up and stopped it. You stopped a prophecy which I have been taught all my life to believe could not be stopped."
She glanced at her hands, which were shaking. "For the entirety of my people's history, we have been taught that our way of seeing the future is the most accurate and infallible, and we have millions of years of evidence and empirical testing to back it up. My entire life has been shaped by the belief that my fate cannot be avoided, that I will not only embark on a quest to take up the mantle of my great ancestor and mend the universe but that I will succeed. It is literally written that I cannot fail in this. That knowledge has been the only thing that allows me to sleep some nights."
"I-" Nushi started.
"What you just did goes against everything my people know about destiny. It's completely impossible. But it happened anyway, and the fact that it did throws everything we know, everything I know, into question," Aranea pressed on, looking frantic and terrified. "I am grateful that you saved everyone. Do not think for a second that I am not. If I were not already in love with you, this would have won my heart for certain."
Nushi blushed this. "That's, um, that's really sweet of you-"
"But if you were able to disprove this prophecy, then that means other prophecies might be wrong as well. Including the one I have spent my entire life preparing to fulfill," Aranea almost screamed. "Please. I have to know. How. How did you do it?! Was it some sort of fluke? Was there a flaw in my precognition? Please! What does this mean?!"
Rather abruptly, she seemed to collapse on herself. "Is everything I thought I knew a lie? Am I not destined to succeed in my preordained task? Could I… Could I actually fail?"
"I…" Nushi swallowed, then glanced up at Ariel, who shrugged helplessly. Her friends had no answers either. "I… I'm sorry, Aranea. I don't know."
Aranea started shaking again. "You don't… You don't know. You don't know. That's not… That's not good enough, Nushi!" She shouted. "I need to know! Everything I have fought for, everything I have ever done… Do you understand the weight I have been under? The pressure on me? I cannot afford to fail! The knowledge that I am guaranteed victory is the only thing that's kept me from being crushed by the weight of my own destiny, and if it turns out that's not a guarantee after all, that I could lose and let down everyone and… And… They're all counting on me and now I don't know if I can… If I can…"
She was crying and hyperventilating.
"My lady-" Antares said hesitantly, extending a pincer.
"DON'T!" She snapped, batting his appendage way, much to his dismay. "I can't… I don't… I… What do I… what am I supposed to-"
She squeezed her eyes shut, gasping for breath. "I can't-"
Abruptly, she wove a shroud of invisibility around herself and disappeared.
Everyone stared at the spot where she had just been, shocked.
Then Mibojin said, "Given how badly she reacted, I can't help wondering how Ariel would feel if her vaunted Book of Prophecy were-"
"NOT NOW!" Everyone yelled at her.
Caesar watched intently as the eyeball hovering before him projected images onto pieces of parchment, using a low intensity laser to print information onto the sheets to fill them out in seconds, with slaves on standby to swap out new pieces of parchment whenever one was full. Dozens of such documents had already been created in this method and were scattered around the tent, with scribes studying them with fascination and awe.
Abruptly, the beams coming out of the eyeball flickered and stopped. The eye wobbled, and disintegrated.
"So that's it, then," Brutus observed, crossing his hulking arms over his strapping chest. "They killed Argus."
"But not before he could provide us with as much Intel as he could transmit," Caesar said in approval. "A loyal and trustworthy soldier to the end. He shall receive the highest honors posthumously. Now… Did we get what we needed?"
One of the scribes waved several pieces of paper in the air. "We did, your Imperial Majesty! Everything you need to locate the tomb of Alexander the Great and claim the Eyes is right here!"
Caesar broke into a savage grin. "Good. Brutus, ready the troops to move out. We have a tomb to raid…"
He turned to Masaru, chained to his throne, legionnaires standing on either side to cut him down if he showed any hint of trying to transform. "And you will come with me, my visitor from tomorrow, so that you may witness with your own eyes as I obtain the power I need to undo your future and establish Rome as an eternal Empire upon which the sun shall never set!"
Masaru narrowed his eyes as the Emperor laughed. Not if I have anything to say about it… If anyone's going to be changing the future, it'll be me!
