Chapter 27: From the shadows (Part 2)
ICS Electrosphere commanded by Naiki reacted quickly before a chunk of the planet nearly hit it. The main abyss host screamed in psionic. "Urgh, my head…" Vexis grunted while sitting on one of the chairs. It affected her since the scream is directed at the Electrosphere. The changing pace of battle makes the armadas in the sector on the edge. Before they can retaliate, a hailstorm of crystalline spears gunned them all down nonstop. The armadas intercepted back in a non-ending cycle of weapon fire. Shultz barely sees what is on the other side of their armadas, only able to rely fully on the radar. "Emperor, are you alright?" Shultz is quick to communicate with Naiki as he accepted the com. "Yeah, that thing is going at the center of the system near the sun." He says it while activating Electrosphere psionic barrier. The massive dodecahedron-shaped abyss main host multi-directed its fire to the Electrosphere. The three regent armadas warped directly to the Electrosphere and gave it cover.
"Should we use the Tri Solis Dyson Beam?" Shultz asked to use the gigaweapon that can destroy planets and suns in a sweep mode using the focused energy of three stars into a hyper radiative beam, they used it once fighting the sentinels before. "Calm down, we can still handle this. We don't need to create another buffer zone on this area too." Naiki gives his final answer with Vexis trying to find a way to destroy it permanently. "Naiki, what if I swallow it using my dark matter?" Vexis suggested the option. "No way, since it can roam freely in dark matter areas unless it is combined with plasma and electro storms. Hold on…" Naiki thought of the idea of using Electrosphere as an amplifier. "Stay here and wait for my signal," Naiki says to her. "For what?" Vexis asked out of worry while seeing one of Ilya's warships fall in the second line while recovering its second shield. "You will know soon enough," Naiki says before teleporting to one of the planets.
The abyss's main host immediately detects his presence and hurls a gushing liquid at him trying to swallow him. "So…you wanted me huh?" Naiki says it while countering with his electrical burst powers while teleporting to the other planets. The attention is finally let up from Shultz's armada and warped near the regent's armadas. "The hell is Naiki doing?" Shultz shouted out of worry as his crew members sees the emperor maneuvers; trying to draw its attention from the main striking armadas. Teleporting to another barren planet, Naiki nearly stumbled and the black liquid nearly get him with its acidic liquid as he keeps bolting around like a mad man while harassing the main host with his lightning strikes. "Vexis now!" Naiki shouted as the dodecahedron turned his way. The particle accelerators from the Electrosphere charge up with the others preparing to coordinate fire. The barrage is fired in sync as they watched the impact. It didn't even scratch the surface as it continues to fire at the combined armadas. "Damn, that did not work…" Naiki curses with a single drop of the mass liquid nearly hitting his elbow. Vexis's patience ended watching Naiki in a pinch of the abyss main host tries to swallow him. She warps outside the warship near the side of the armadas and strikes it with a single powerful shot of her dark matter bolt. It finally pierced it as she prepared another one. The second shot by Vexis dissolves the dark matter bolt completely and returned to its striker. Hitting 5 of Layla's warships.
All of the crew managed to emergency teleport to the equalizing warships in Layla's fleet. "Vexis, don't do that again…" Naiki warned her as he tries another approach. The main host changed its purpose and tries to kill him instead. Countless crystalline spears appear at his back and Naiki deflected most of them. A blind spot from the many shots makes him miss one and grazed his cheek. It tries again with multiple directions as Vexis and the regents are only able to watch from afar. "Master, please come back alive…" Layla says it out of concern, watching him get injured by the multiple attacks. Creating an electrical cyclone, he directed it all away from him and teleported directly at the abyss's main host, and shoots out electrical discharge from his hands. It responded violently and hit Naiki the other way near the sun. Vexis that sees it quickly warped at his side and back to the Electrosphere. Naiki looked directly at his wife that is holding him. "There is only one-way left Vexis…" He says the conclusion to her. Vexis let him go while worryingly looking at him. She knew if he lost control again, there will be anarchy in this sector. "Do it; if you lost control again, we will contain you. I promise…" She says it while nodding to him; signaling the regents to put on their space combat suits. Naiki caresses Vexis's cheeks as she kisses him, he gives a quick smirk before teleporting in the middle between his armadas and the abyss main host.
He silently waits for his enemy but it failed his expectation as he remains fully on guard. Resorting to using his first singularity powers, Naiki calmly exhales even though there is no oxygen in space. Rewriting every safety measure on each present warship in this sector, an energy spike on each warship appears and is connected to the ICS Electrosphere side-mounted electrical amplifiers. "First singularity, graviton energy…initiate!" The moment Naiki shouted the last word, Electrosphere directly pointed to him, and all of the warships channeled their aeon reactor energy to it using the energy spike link. Electrosphere shoots an absurd amount of energy to Naiki as he greeted the overflowing energy. His companion arrives inside the Electrosphere bridge with Vexis quickly takes a closer look using the outer projection of the ship directly to Naiki. She senses the overwhelming powers from Naiki that are way too much when she was forced to fight him on the Draconian capital planet. Vexis gives a serious look at him; worrying that if he did lose control, all of them might not survive to try and stop him. Feeling the burning combination of electron, photon, and neutron energy feeding to him, he creates a red electro storm across the system; sending a warning to the warships across the sector. The cybrans remain speechless, especially Shultz that is unaware of his other powers.
Sensing the threat, the main host retaliated hard with its capabilities. Naiki sees the approaching danger, he directed his hand with an open palm to the dodecahedron-shaped abyss. With a killing gaze, a graviton beam shoots out of his palm the exact width of the sun that he nearly falls into. The graviton beam pierced through the abyss main host and hit directly at the sun, making the sun goes supernova with Naiki shielding the impact from his warships using the electro storm. The brightness from the sun disappears and turns the sector into total darkness after the sun's destruction including the sector planets. The only light source for the armadas in the nearby sectors' suns and Naiki's ongoing electro storm. He returns to the Electrosphere after resetting all of the warships back to normal. Naiki teleported inside the bridge and accidentally sparked some electricity at the bridge walls. This makes the others worry about him. "Darling, you are scaring the shit out of all of us. What was that?" Vexis says to him as they sit on the floor near the command platform. Ilya quickly reported to Shultz that the emperor is okay.
Naiki opens and clenches his palms repeatedly; containing the still sparking energy from his body. He begins to suppress all of his unworldly powers as Lenora boldly sits at his side, ignoring the dangers. Vexis waits for his answer as he suppresses all of his powers, standing by to subdue him if it gets out of hand. Naiki managed to do it as the others watches his bloodless wounds heal up at rapid speed. "I guess it is fine now?" Layla asked him in her view as Naiki only nods and stands up with the rest. "That was one of my singularity powers. I called it simply as the first singularity, graviton energy." Naiki answers while rubbing Lenora's right cheek, she smiles out of worry and tries to grab a kiss from him. Naiki flicked her nose as she nearly takes it. Ilya suddenly hugged from his back, Vexis wanted some of the attention too with Layla looking eagerly at him. He looked over at all of them and sighed. "Come here all of you" Naiki opens his hands wide as they looked at each other before starting to approach Naiki. "No…no, not all at once…Argh!" Naiki blurted out as they pounced together and embraced him as they all fall back down on the floor.
He hugged all of them while Vexis gets the sweetest spot at his center beside Lenora. "H-heavy…" Naiki says it since he is suppressing all of his powers including strength enhancements. Vexis pecked at his cheek as he says that. "Well this is the weight of our love towards you, don't complain about it." Naiki accepted it full front while using a portion of his strength enhancements to null the weight. He nuzzles the four faces as each of them gives a short chuckle.
Shultz hailed at the Electrosphere. Again, Vexis just opened the channel casually. "Let's get back to our core sectors and…" Shultz pauses as he sees the five of them lay flat on the floor hugging out Naiki. "What the hell…can you wait at least when the emperor is back at the core worlds and do it in his private quarters? Empress, you were supposed to contain the regents and not join them…" Shultz shakes his head. Naiki makes an irritated face at Vexis as she sticks her tongue out to Shultz. He managed to pinch her cheeks for a short time. "Alright; let's go back, Shultz. Put five fresh armadas guarding the Altoran outer sectors." Naiki simply gives the orders even being snuggled by them. The theatre admiral sighed seeing their behavior before cutting the com.
Ilya stands after receiving her portion of affection from Naiki. "Emperor, I must leave. My armadas and sectors await my command…" She turns to her cold self and leaves using the teleportation room knowing she will be the main focus now since her sector is aiming for the south. "Wha-" Vexis says a portion of her surprise. Layla stands up and also does the same but is much more mannered. "Master, I will continue to help the Altorans and Svidana. She will be a fine regent candidate for us." She shortly bowed and left, walking slowly to the teleportation room. Lenora kisses Naiki and stands "Hold on Lena, your duties can wait…" Vexis tries to persuade the Sakhalin fox while she and Naiki stand up. Lenora hugged Vexis for a brief time. "Vexis, I don't want to disappoint the two of you; especially the council guardians. I need to step up my moves and catch up with Ilya, she taught me very much even she is cold-hearted sometimes. Its time for me to return to my sectors." Vexis slowly nods hearing the words from Lenora. She turns her attention to Naiki and hugged him too. "I'm sorry Naiki…I promise I will visit you from time to time." she let go of him with a smile and left.
"Gosh, they need to take a few days off," Vexis says in defense for them to Naiki as she looks at him. He understands what they are feeling and take command of the Electrosphere. Vexis only sits at his side in silence watching over Naiki as he blocked her from reading his thoughts, his expression says otherwise. All warships in the assaulting sectors return to their home sectors respectively using the mass warp drives. After he docked the Electrosphere at its special dockyard with the rest of Elec task force warships, Naiki and Vexis teleported back to the citadel spire using the conventional method. He returned the salute of a few seeing elite guards and walked his way to his private quarters with Vexis following him in silence, she catches Naiki glancing over at Chase's memorial statue including the honorary list of fallen cybrans. Finally arriving at Naiki's quarters, Vexis grabbed his hand. "Darling, what's wrong?" The concerned arctic fox enters Naiki's view. Naiki strokes her right ear and fixes the tracking pin at a part of her left hair. "Vexis, I'm tired…" He says it with a short smile after giving attention to Vexis. She looked at his expression as clear as day. "This is the few times I heard those words from you. Are your powers all right?" She puts her hand on Naiki's cheek while another one is on his chest, checking his powers. It was normal with him shunting all of it down, Naiki only nods to her. Vexis then jumped away and turned to her beast form and lay down near the entrance stairs to the second floor since it is big enough for her to do that. She did use all of her nine tails and directed it at her side.
"Come here darling, my tails will be your bed. I know you liked this." Vexis invites him telepathically as Naiki dimmed the window glasses and lights using his gauntlet. He approaches and falls into her soft furred tails as he sinks in them. Vexis turned her tails toward her face and nudged Naiki lightly. He snickers and hugs her face as they fall asleep together in the silent darkness.