Chapter 8: Cybrans Shadow
Folkvangr is forcefully magnetic guided to dock at the enormous warship. The captain, Callan and Lenora are frightened with the deep static vibration sound that the half-planet sized warship makes. "This is it, were all dead." The bridge crew speaks aloud while the others remains silent. The docking bay is pitch black without seeing the sight of a single being; even with the pulsing red light in the dock did not help them see very well. As Folkvangr have docked inside the warship, it closes its docking bay and warped away with the rest of the fleet somewhere.
Lenora prepared for the worst, she quickly grabbed Atlas sword and put its scabbard at her waist. She shakenly waited for someone to greet them at the ship starboard entrance. Maya and the Captain joins her side as the ship's crew remains on high alert under Callan watchful eye. "Princess…" The captain says to her and nods. The three head out of the ship exterior. On their way there, Lenora sees Maya cold puff exhale. The temperature dropped drastically. A set of deep blue glowing eyes pierced Lenora's body, she knows where the strong gaze looked at her and turns to its direction. Crackling sound of ice is heard from there; a snow leopard is seen in view of the refugees. The feline signals them to follow using her hand gesture.
The captain takes the lead to follow her with Lenora in the middle while Maya at the back. "Where are you taking us to?" Camilla asked. "To debrief you and do a headcount." She says shortly. Lenora looks at her stature, she has a beautiful figure with the aura of a cold hearted person while equipped with personal weapons. They were waited further with four heavily power armored soldiers equipped with unknowable weapons. "Regent Ilya." The soldiers says it while saluting at her. Maya is startled by the snow leopard rank as she looks at Lenora. Lenora only returns it with a fake smile out of worry as the elevator pod descends. All of them ride inside the elevator pod upwards. The regent turns and have a quick look at the three of them. She then directed her long tail to the left side as it catches their attention. It turns brightly colored as the elevator climbs higher; until they see a transparent view on what is outside. A sight of countless warships shocked the three of them including the people that is embarking and disembarking the warships; the far side, they can see some of warships are being assembled.
"So many warships." Mays says aloud. Ilya only returns a small laugh. Lenora looks at her as she directly watches the warships. "You only see the small sand inside the puddle, and not the sea." She pauses her sentence after the elevator stops. "We are here." Briefly announced by the snow leopard. The light is environmentally different than they first entered the docking bay. The interior light is much brighter including the wall have changed to silver white. They continued to follow the regent until one of the guards speaks to the lioness. "You two, follow us to the debrief room." The guard stated. Maya feels suspicious and Camilla asked. "What about her?"
"She will answer directly to the ruler of this empire." The regent answers without turning around and starts to walk away from the rest of them. Lenora follows her blindly while the other two goes with the rest of the guards. The Sakhalin fox continues to tail the snow leopard into a heavily guarded room with a spider bot the size of a tank in the center of the room. A sign is seen on the inside saying "Teleporter 05". The snow leopard clears her throat to break her awestruck stature and Leonora enters the glowing circle with the regent. Immediately, they are teleported in the throne room that have the same appearance of what they seen in the docking bay. Both walked into the wide hall and the snow leopard gestures her to stop as she cannot see very well even with her sharp eyes. "Emperor, I have bring you the trespasser of our empire."
Lenora is stabbed with the words that the snow leopard speaks, her mouth shakes as she can't deny it. The red pulsing lights starts to turns static and shines a little brighter. The snow leopard stands by the side of the room with Lenora finally sees the two distant figures in front of her with blazing red eyes; one is sitting down with a relaxed posture at its throne while the other one leaned beside it. "Speak." An echoing sharp voice says to her. She quickly kneeled out of fear. "Your highness, I am Lena Leonard. I am from the Estcallian parliament." A short hum is heard by her. "What brings you here?" Another set of eyes entered the throne room from the opposite side of the regent as she states out her question.
"Our country have fallen, we were instructed by someone that is from this empire to come here." Lenora speaks the truth.
"Really, who was it?" The figure by the side of the sitting silhouette says to her. "Atlas was his name. He have fallen just to buy us time from the pursuing enemy." She briefed while hiding her sad feeling for him. "Pity…but he is still alive." The figure leaning the main throne stands properly with some flames from its tails lit up as it spoken those words to her. Lenora did not responds physically until the sword on her scabbard suddenly pulls out on its own. She turns her eyes on the sword as it sharply heads to the direction in front of her. The sitting figure quickly catches it as it heads to him, the sword sparks alive with its black and red color; its length sharply extends its normal length and red electrical sparks crackled as some spreads to the ground. Lenora sees only the grin of the person who holds it.
"Took you long enough to arrive here and I see that you have shortened your name, Princess Lenora Leonard." The figure speaks to her. She looks at the originating voice as the light finally brightened the room in an instance. Lenora is blinded for a while of the sudden change of the room light. A man clad in black from top to toe including his crown is holding the phantom of silence sword. He dismisses the sword blade and dematerializes in his gauntlet. He firmly stands in front of her with a blaring red iris. "I am Emperor Naiki Russ of the Imperial Cybran Empire. You finally meet the 'real' Atlas huh Lena." He says to her. She did not expect that he was the person that he told in his story to her. "I…Um…" She stuttered while standing up. The artic fox stands by his side in elegant manner while she introduces herself to her with a sharp look. "I am Empress Vexis Russ. Your loyalty is strong of him."
She looks directly at Naiki while holding her waist. "So, this is the Sakhalin fox that you told us about?" She begins to speak psionically to Naiki while watching her with a smile. "You need to mix up your taste darling, you already have three foxes now and a snow leopard. Where is the human one?" Vexis looks at him while Ilya steps in to formally greet her. "My apologies of the silence to bring you here Lena, we have high protocol since our empire have greatly solidify. I am Regent of the South, Ilya Fenrir." The red fox continues Ilya introduction. "She is also known as the ice queen because of her powers and other facts. I am Regent of the North Layla Mirren."
She directed herself to Naiki but she already knows the answer. "Master, where is Lena to take control of the sector you preferred?" He looks at Vexis and she quickly makes a 'Don't ask me face'. Naiki eyes directly at Lena. "Since Princess Lenora comes from the east, she will take the role of the Regent of the east after her people settled in our frontier planet."
Ilya is disturbed with a call on her communicator as she quickly turns it on and asses it far from the conversation. A few moments later she joins in to excuse herself from the emperor. "Master, I have to go. The southern front needs my administration." She says it; briefly hugging Naiki. Vexis group hugged her too with Naiki rubbing her forehead with Layla doing the same. Lena was surprised that they are very close together. "Don't work too hard Ilya, you already have 15 sectors to take care of." Vexis says out of concern. Ilya nudges Vexis. "I will be alright Empress, you need to take care of master here before he sends his wrath on the eastern front."
Naiki silently acknowledges and all of them let go from the group hug, Ilya uses her personal teleportation bracelet immediately. "Then I bid my fare too master. Restructuring the northern front before I assist Ilya on the southern front. Since our position are at the northern edge of the galaxy and we don't have much to do." Layla gracefully bowed at the emperor and Vexis, she walks past Lena with a wink and leaves the room for the three of them. Lena darted her eyes away when Vexis look at her. "Now, what to do with your new regent candidate Emperor?" Naiki look at her, remembering that they have to ration their food to arrive here; He snaps his finger to get her attention. Lena look at him with a still worryingly face. "Let's go and grab some food while we plan which suitable planet to make it into your capital."
Vexis scoffs at him. "You're probably doing the planning right now darling since you are still linked to the mainframe." Naiki smug at her while Vexis takes the hand of Lena. Startled, Naiki sees her tail puffed a little. "Come on sweetie, I want to eat that cheese stick and lasagna on the deck above." Lena is guided by Vexis as they walked together, Naiki follows from behind. They walk past the debrief room and sees Maya sighing out of relief. "Maya, you're done?" Lena says to her. She looks around to find who asked and smiled happily to Lena. "Yeah, the captain already returned to her ship. I am told to wait here for their supply team and take a look in the inventory of what we needed." The lioness look at the winter fox beside Lena. "Who is she?" She asked the princess. Vexis gives a sinister smile at her while Lena looks at her.
"She is the empress of this empire. Empress Vexis Russ." As soon as she said that Maya stuttered. "Kh-" She quickly bowed at her. Vexis laughed of seeing her reaction. "Well, I do tend to not formally wear the royal uniform as the same as my dear darling right here." She point out at the back to Naiki. "Yeah, I don't too. They are too hot and act like a magnet for attention. But today is different." As Naiki speaks out to Maya, he steps forward for her to see him better and greeted her. "Emperor Naiki Russ. The one that you so called Atlas."
Maya takes a lot of time to sink into what have happened and asked him. "Your highness, what about the original body owner?" Naiki scoffs hearing that. "That body is alive back then but there is no soul inside it. Soul dead before I accidentally being put there. As you can see before; this time, he was giving a proper standoff he deserves." Naiki casually says it. "Please don't do that again your highness, Princess Lenora cannot handle it…" Maya begged of him as Lenora covers her expressed emotion. The secondary portal lit up and the supply team lead arrived at them. "Emperor; Empress" He says it while saluting at them both. Naiki nods in return. "Okay, lead Miss Maya here; chief." Vexis says to him. He nods in return of the order. They entered the main teleporter to the city inside the ship. Lena is amazed that there is a huge city inside this massive ship. Naiki and Vexis shared the greeting of some cybrans that is on break time, they finally arrived at the place they wanted to eat. Vexis quickly ordered what she wanted with Naiki and Lena. Lena and Naiki sits on the table overlooking the artificial beach. "Emperor" Lena carefully tries to get his attention. Naiki answers with a hum. "Why did you save us? What will you do next?"
Naiki stopped charting the delayed expansion. "I got myself involved in something that should have taken its course by nature. Regent Layla can foresee futures and alternate of it. With her foresight; if I haven't done this, all of the ones that have come here did not survive while my empire wipes away that side of the galaxy with long-range planet killers because of their threat to find who the real faction of this black ships is." Lena eyes widen of the thought, Vexis arrived with the set that they asked and continues what Naiki have said while handing it out. "The alternate solution. Since this have happened, Layla gladly accepted it." She ends the conversation while taking a short pause for admiring the puffy cheese stick before she eats it mannerly. Naiki pops out a small holo display and explains his plan to her while pointing out the details.
"Iresta the Gaia class 2 planet, which will be your new capital planet. There is one capital structure class station that can be used for supporting the planets growth. With our current technology, a city can be built in just half of a day. I'll let you handle the organization of your planets including its habitants; just follow our law and rules. If the other regents need of assistance, help them." Naiki instructed. Vexis makes a pause with her hand at him. "Hold up darling, she needs to pass the test first."
Puzzled, Naiki asked. "What test? I did not make such a test before and we already are heading there. Oh…" He suddenly remembers; Vexis gives a grin at Lena. Lena look at the two of them worryingly.