Chapter 20: Playground
"Vexis, I'm bored. I wanted to do some tech designs, create stuff in my pocket dimension or test my powers." Naiki says aloud to his wife while she is observing Layla's situation. "No," Vexis answers shortly directing an order for the Cybran Cooperation to expand at the Planet Rel'evan where it was Grukev's main planet. "Veles misses me in the storm fortress. He has emotions too; you know." He still tries to persuade Vexis. "No." the same answer she gave to him; overseeing Ilya's sector of any abyss creatures that have passed through. "Can't I just-" Naiki's words are cut off by the annoyed mythical arctic fox. "For chocolate beer's sake, give it up darling. No doing those warp dimension thingy till you are fully recovered. Go and do something else at your capital planet." She swishes her tail in his direction. Naiki remains silent for a while; thinking of some entertaining stuff that he can do.
He blocked her from seeing what he is thinking and finally got what he wanted to do. "Okay, I'll go and occupy myself with some stuff." He leaves while disguising himself as a normal person. "No banging other girls except me and the regents!" Vexis shouted and smugs after she says that. Naiki nearly stumbled while exiting the observation room hearing her words. "What do you think I am!? Seesh…" He shouted back at her and step off to the teleportation room with Vexis snickering. Naiki sets the destination to one of the Gigalopolis inside his capital planet; Exan-5. He teleported at the sub teleportation areas for civilians to use. His mouth gaps a little seeing the massive blueish Gigalopolis near the ocean. It is a pinnacle of technological entertainment, artificial wave riding, astro gliding, military-style battle tournaments, free portable electronic entertainment kits, aqua football and more. "Heavenly electronic lord…" he says it while snapping back to reality and going to find the place he wanted to go. He takes a private transportation service and goes there. The view was enough to make him amazed again as the hover vehicle travels on the highest point in each transport lane.
After a while, He arrives at that place and lands safely. There is a huge holographical sign in front of it saying 'Vector Skid Racing'. With that, Naiki enters it and register himself for racing using the generated identification he created. After the first race is completed, his name pops up to get ready. 'Nk' to position 12. He is quick to grab one of the prepared racing safety gears on and straps it in with the other contestants. With the guidance of the operators, they arrived at their respective water hoverbikes in a dark tunnel-like structure. The high excitement makes him jump in first, some are taking the race seriously and betting for the racing trophy. As the race is about, to begin with, its course changes, Naiki cheated early on by using his 7th electronic senses; knowing the track. The projected signal in front of him lit on standby; he focuses up while looking beyond the exit of the tunnel. The word 'Ready' light up as he sticks to the throttle. The Go light is finally seen, with a quick reaction; he launches with the rest and blasts off to get a great start. The hoverbike barely touches the gentle waves of the ocean, another racer nearly grazes him as he is forced to do a low cut into the ocean.
Slipping badly at the back position, he catches up with them. Seeing the other racer slipstreaming behind the front racer, Naiki laughs at them; not able to predict the sharp turn near the reef. He angled to the right sharply while using his right hand as a balancer into the ocean. The two racers in front of him uses the slide brake for the unexpected turn and collided with each other. The crowd roars seeing the two have been eliminated after falling into the ocean and off their hoverbike. They were picked up by the operators with their vehicles. The races continue as Naiki punches through the bottom 5 position overtaking the others as quickly as possible. This catches a few of the crowd's attention and started cheering on him. For fun, the track redirected again; this time inside the naval military port of the empire. He quickly sees the three of the racers fighting for their positions. A slight preoccupied Naiki, he misses the entrance as one of the cybran warships emerges from the sea to start its space travel. "Ah, fuck it!" He aimed at the rising warship's bridge and gets airborne.
With the chance, Naiki adjusted his body for the hoverbike to fall far in front of the others. "Holy moly!" the lips of the captain speak out watching the hoverbike rider do the unexpected at his side bridge window. A perfectly executed skip landing makes him stand on the third spot as he races on. Seeing the finishing line miles away including the other two racers, his hoverbike cycle charger was finally complete. The press of the interface sends it darting forward at respective speeds near the 2nd and 1st place racer. The three of them races in an arrow formation trying to pass each other on the straight stretch. Naiki however has a different plan. He cheated again using his electrical powers to over boost the engine. It blasts him off far ahead of the other two and crosses the finishing line. However, he was not able to slow down. "Gah, stop already! Stooop!" He shouted while pulling the emergency brake but it did not slow him down. As a last resort, he materializes a plasma short knife and quickly stabbed at the energy feed of the hoverbike and losses power. The operators pick him up after his hoverbike finally stops. "Oh, shit I'm so sorry! Fuck I messed that up!" As a sign of apology, he paid for the broken bike three times its original amount using his digital currency. He loses the safety gear and waits for them to arrive at the main building.
Instead, he was directed to the podium for the trophy. As he enters it, the crowd cheered like mad at what stunts that he pulled out. He fists up in the air while standing in the first place. Naiki is thrilled with the experience that he received but was short-lived; Vexis warps in front of him with her human form but something is not right, her tail remains with her anthro ears. The crowd watches in surprise as the Empress stands out with her cheek flushed picking him up to return to the observatory. He tries to run off but was noticed by her. "Darling get back here!" The moment Vexis grabbed him by his arm, his cover is reset back to normal. The crowd makes an 'Ehh!' sound at the same rhythm. Naiki smiles awkwardly while some of them take pictures with their floating gadgets. Vexis warped both of them back to the space observatory. "What the hell are you thinking darling? Racing is fine but you used your electron powers just to win the race!?" She yelled at him while pinning him on the floor; sitting on him with all of her nine tails pop out of anger. "What did I say? No…using…your…powers! I can feel that 3 sectors away if you are using it!" She boop his nose four times as the same amount of words she spoke to him while making a dissatisfied face of his decisions.
"Sorry Vexis, I got carried away…" Naiki apologizes to her. "Hmph." She gets up and smacks her tails to Naiki's face lightly before combining it all back together and changing back to her anthro form. He takes a long thought before getting up. "I think I should go and grab a drink," Naiki speaks out. "Go on, I'm not stopping you." She chews the bar of nutrients without looking at him. Naiki knows she is angry and hugs his wife from behind and gives a peck on her cheek. She nuzzles him. "Did you just smear that on me?" Vexis chuff shortly. "Serves you right…" She says it while looking over Lenora's position. Naiki cleaned it off and head out once again. She sees Naiki leaving the room once more. Shultz decided to tease Vexis and send her the widespread picture of her and Naiki with the title 'Emperor participated at the Exan-5 hoverbike racing and won over the heart of his Empress'. "Gaah! Delete it, delete it!" she immediately texted Shultz back but he did not respond. Naiki this time; goes to the capital local club called 'Nightingale'. He sits silently on his top floor watching over the cybran capital spire. He sighed and look down at the dancing cybrans enjoying themselves of the free time that they have. "Your Highness, do you want the regular refreshment that you always ordered?" Naiki looked at the lass and says a short yes. She left to go and grab it by hand instead of the portable inventory that the military has.
She comes back with a bottle of Zinfandel wine and its glass. The waitress put it neatly on the floating table at his side while he watches the view below. Naiki notices that she did not leave and questions her. "What's wrong?" he asked. She immediately replies. "Y-your highness, can you sign this for me?" She shakenly pulls out her holo image display. It displayed the image of him and Vexis back at the hoverbike racing. "Oh, okay. Can you send me a copy of it?" Naiki signed it with his unofficial signature to prevent others from copying it and placed his comm gauntlet next to her holo image display. She transfers a copy of it to his gauntlet. "The Emperor went rogue for entertainment." He makes a short joke out of it. She laughed a little. "Your highness, if you want anything else you can call me at the table interface." She stated it and leaves with a smile. He displayed the image and watches his wife blushing; unable to cope with the large crowd. "Hehe, my cute wife." He says to himself while watching her face.
He turned off his gauntlet image projector. Naiki senses an uneasy feeling as one of his powers begins to emerge. He immediately grabs hold of the sofa he is sitting down only to feel it has gotten worse. With all of his senses feeling numb, he tries to contain it down. His irises lit up red once more. After a long struggle, he managed to do it. He directed his powers to his palms and opens them, the eternal flame that is the same as Vexis but it was much more intense. He immediately grasps it after watching the nearby wine glass shatter from the heat it produces. "How much more of my cursed powers that I did not know? More and more I turn Inhuman…" he drinks up a portion of the bottle and continues observing his people.
"Kelsey, how is your daughter sector doing?" Vexis asked her from the communicator. "They are doing excellent! Iresta has been developed, but we lack the people to stay at the megalopolis. Same as the rest of the sectors, they are recovering from the war and are very happy that we don't need currency for basic life goods. Some wanted to pay back the empire by serving directly under me and Lena." She reported her half to Vexis. "Yeah, we can't ask you to populate like crazy; don't we?" Vexis says it manner fully. Kelsey fixed her clothing of the topic and they finished the conversation shortly.
Naiki returned to her while bringing some of the food she loves. She picks up the scent. "Oh, darling. Is that the high-quality smoked turkey?" She drools over the scent. "Yeah, pretty sure we bring these from our origin planet before coming here. I can't believe how good they taste now." She smells the alcohol that Naiki drinks. "You're drunk, aren't you?" She looks at him up to down. "No, if I am drunk; I would just sleep at the club." He avoided the question, even though he drinks around 5 more bottles. She sits down with Naiki while watching a tournament of the naval fleets with her human form. Naiki suddenly questions a weird thing to her. "Vexis, do you have a feeling; like wanting a child?" He says it directly to her. She pauses the thought and answers rationally. "Well, I don't know. I mean; I am infertile as you already know of it and we already tried." Vexis coughed. "Layla and Ilya are the same. I don't know about Lenora." She chews the food slowly, savouring the taste. "What about artificial seeding?" Naiki suggested it to her. "Darling, I don't want to be horny and hungry at the same time." She pauses once more and answers. "I believe it will not stick in me, since I devour souls remember. Kind of Impossible for me to create a soul for another life. Why the sudden question darling?" She asked him but Naiki continues. "What about a foster child?" Vexis sighed at him. "No, it is not my child of blood and I don't want a child to be born from a tube too." She looks at him with a worried face. "Nothing, just checking. I guess immortality have flaws too." Naiki sighed while watching the tournament. He drinks the plasma water in one go.
Vexis gets the idea that he is afraid of losing her and his regents, she already reminded him that she has created a backup dark matter mist of herself for her to regenerate and respawn; one at the palace, one at the forbidden armoury and the newest one is inside his dimension. This quickly reminds her of what the Cybran Corp has achieved and changed the topic. "You know what's interesting?" She questions him while he nods. "Cybran Corp just now reported that they have made a regenerative type nanoparticle, it is still the same nanoparticles that did not affect us, magnetically or electromagnetic pulse. But the flaws are they cannot repair our organs and tissues that are not there in the first place. That means your regents can be ageless too, let's not forget that they can still be killed if… well you know…" She directed the head cut and heart shot with her finger. "Wait, that means…" Naiki rises from his chair out of excitement. "Hold your legs darling, Zarck and Ivanov only managed to create five of them. All are not fully tested yet. The probability it will work is 20% for now. Let them test it thoroughly before; okay?" Vexis suggested it to him. Naiki sits back down. "That means the whole Imperial Cybran Empire can be ageless." Vexis did not expect him to think of that.
"An ageless empire, bloody hell; we will be older than this sun if this keeps up," Vexis speaks the old dialect she learned from the retro movies that Naiki keeps in the palace archive. Naiki laughed that she says it perfectly. After they have enjoyed the food and drinks, they returned the oversight of the regents. Vexis swipe the projector to Naiki. "Darling, the second wave is approaching Ilya, Layla and Lenora in just a few weeks. I think we need to warn them of this." Naiki sees it and nods. "I will alert the theatre admiral to warm up the triple sunbeam that we used to fight the sentinels before." He noted it to her. "Isn't that dangerous if we used it in sweep mode? It will hit the other western sectors and cause a chain reaction on their suns. The planets will be left without sunlight and heat." Vexis noted it to Naiki. "Yeah, you are right. I will tell him just to stand by a few more armadas." He says to her. "And tell him to delete the media of what happened at Exan-5." She scoffs while stating it. "What, you mean this?" Naiki opened up his image projector and showed it to her. Her cheeks were ruby red and she immediately changes back to her anthro form shouting out loud. "GYAAH! Delete It! Delete It!" Vexis launches at him and tries to delete it but Naiki convinced her that it was a memorable thing just to delete. She lay down on top of him for a short time and grabs an angry kiss out of him. Vexis sits down back at her place still not satisfied by it and send the alert to the three regents that just at the end of their short break after the battle.