AN: I will start to slow down on the chapters after it reaches 30, Limiting only to one chapter for a month due to my tight schedule. My apologies in advance and thank you for enjoying this story so far.
Chapter 28: Aftermath & Arena
Six years have passed after the conflict with the abyss creatures. The Imperial Cybran Empire has expanded and controlled nearly half of the galaxy with minor skirmishes between some stubborn nations that did not want to cooperate peacefully; Numbering around 510 sectors. Svidana finally passed the Regent test by fighting field marshal Grukev with his Verniblade Combat Suit even though she has failed 4 times. The Emperor finally releases his death mark task force to observe the other sectors and reported back to him if there is important news. With the completion of the nanoparticle that can prevent aging and have a medium regenerative ability, Naiki announced it firsthand to give it to his beloved cybrans citizens. All of them rejected respectfully their emperor by saying 'It is better used to the regents and guardians than us. We will always follow you even beyond the end of our life.' Hearing those words of his people, Naiki steadfastly saluted at them with the cybrans seeing him drop a shed of tears as they glorified him much more. With the choice given to him by his people; all of his regents agreed to take it including some guardian members. The regent of the east finally stabilized the sectors as they came back to prosperity.
There is a rebellion that started in her sectors due to some still supporting the Draconian; they were reasoned with and finally let up the issue and most of them are treated equally. Some Draconian are even absorbed by the east regent, their loyalty towards her grows much stronger as she gives them a new purpose that is protecting the eastern sectors and mostly the Cybran Empire. As for the Regent of the south; Ilya Fenrir controls around 280 sectors while the other sectors are given out to the regent of the east and west. Her armadas are half the amount of the core world's armadas with her white warships patrolling the routes and borders. Her cold grip on the sectors makes her Ice Queen title much widespread and feared even amongst the cybrans as she ruled them cold-heartedly. The western sector also sees the kingdom of Altora finally recover and expanded under the jurisdiction of Regent Svidana. They now control 20 sectors with the king's daughters taking control some of the sectors.
The regent of the north supports the main core worlds and the other regents, acting as a quick-strike force against a few minor nations. Vexis travels around the systems, supervising their advancement while Naiki is limited to help only inside the core worlds; an act of revenge by Vexis doing most of his work since she is extremely concerned of her husband being overworked. One day he received a digital note from one of Ilya's Lord governors; wishing the emperor to watch the changing behavior of Ilya personally. While Vexis is traveling to the Zirco cluster systems, he decided to handle it by himself. He directly teleported using his powers to Ilya's capital planet of Voltane outside of her citadel. He notices the difference between the planet immediately; the structure is much more inward toward the depth of the planet and uncountable warships launching at the floating dockyards. The security is much tighter than Seraphim as a squad of her white legion royal guard saluted at the emperor. Naiki only nods as they escorted him, a few battle mechs joined; guarding the airspace above the emperor using their anti-gravity manipulators. He sees the civilians looking at him out of happiness as he extended his psionic range to read their thoughts. "The emperor is finally here; I hope his highness will straighten out regent Ilya." He reads one of the gentlemen nearby and switches to another one that is sitting at the café. "Praise the emperor is already here! The lord governor is heard by him!" Naiki sighed after hearing their thoughts. "That badly huh…" He says in his thoughts.
"What's wrong your highness?" One of the legion guards speaks to him hearing his sigh. "Nothing much, time to fix my broken snow leopard…" As he said that, they reached the citadel entrance. Naiki dismisses them with a nod and enters it. "If you won't do the impossible task properly then I should just kill you in the first place! We are the frontline and backbone of the empire!" The voice of Ilya rang throughout the main meeting hall as a frost of cold waves exits the hall entrance. This shocked him as he Naiki uses his concealment powers until the last minute to the side of the entrance. He sees some of the governors are nearly frostbitten by what have Ilya done including the hall that is nearly enveloped by ice. Ilya stands firmly at his spot, watching her governor while growling at them in anger with her cold-hearted eyes and creating ice spears to lunge at them. The governors close their eyes preparing to accept their deaths. Naiki cannot remain idle any longer, he canceled out the ice engulfing the hall in just a finger snap with his powers. Ilya immediately sees it as the emperor appears in her eyes. All of the governors watch the emperor with relief as he signals them to leave. She was stunned to see the emperor after a long year.
Naiki immediately goes to her and grabbed her hand as he teleported directly back to her room. She still looked at him dead in the eye. "Ilya, what have you become?" Naiki says it and cups her cheeks, he pulls her face towards him and kisses her forehead. Ilya finally melts her cold heart with Naiki embracing her tightly. "I want my old Ilya back…The cheerful and supportive shy snow leopard that is and follows me around; even if she is not brave enough to do it…Give her back to me…I don't want to lose her again…" He says it even though he is very angry at her; he did not yell or hurt her. Once again; while hugging her, Naiki stroked her ear as she drops her cold self. "M-master…I am sorry…I am too stressed…It's too much for me to handle…" She gritted her teeth after forcing herself to say that while crying at Naiki's embrace returning to her normal self. "No…Ilya, I have overburdened you. I am sorry for throwing all of this towards you." Hearing Naiki's apologies makes her sad much more. Ilya tries to bite her lips till it bleeds but Naiki stopped her halfway and directly kisses her, he pushes her as she falls to her bed. They slept together with Naiki comfortably intertwined with Ilya as she purred in his embrace. The next day, Ilya returned to her normal self with Naiki adjusting her sectors to be equally divided between the regents of the east and west, lessening the burden on Ilya. Naiki even asked Layla to help out Ilya by making a cluster of sectors in the south for her.
With the situation resolved, Naiki teaches a few of his adaptive knowledge to Ilya's Lord governor, making most of the things easier to command the other governors. He even forced Ilya down to take a vacation with him back at the spire when he noticed Vexis finally returned as she searches for him. "Darling! There you are!" Vexis warps directly near him and cuddles. He returns is as she finally lets him go. "Hmm, Ilya is also here? Good, let's go to the council room. The guardians are waiting." Vexis pauses her words. "I am glad that you can return Ilya to her normal self, she needed you too..." She smiles saying that telepathically while Naiki watches Ilya follows him closely at his back. Vexis quickly briefs them on their way there and all of them are seated in their respective position before it begins. The first one to report their situation is Regent of the West, Svidana Altora. "The sector under my command has fully executed the original plan that the emperor had commanded. The Altorans are now a reliable Ally for our Empire." Svidana reported without siding with her former country since she fully supported the Imperial Cybran Empire. "Good, what about the east?" Theatre Admiral Shultzkov asked directly at Lenora. She immediately stands elegantly before nodding at Shultz. "My sectors are stabilized and ready to push south to support Regent Ilya." The Sakhalin fox says her words and was approved by Grukev as she sits down.
Naiki only watches with Vexis as all of the regents reported their status followed by the council guardians. As the report finally ends, Vexis halted all of the council guardians. "Wait a minute all of you…" Vexis's single word halted them. "What is it, your majesty?" Zarck asked her as the others also waits for her command. "Did any of you take your vacation as promised to the emperor?" Vexis questions them as some expressions are made by them that they haven't. She crosses her arms until one of the guardian members says to her. "We don't, I love doing the things that I like." General Sokolovsky answers boldly. Naiki enters their view as he was about to say something to them. "Alright then; since you are stubborn enough to defy that order. All in this room will go to the virtual arena at Lumino sector that is under the control of Layla in the next week. A duel with two teams; me and the council guardians." Naiki says it with a grin. "Fine, if it was the break that you asked Naiki. I will accept your challenge!" Shultz boldly answers back to him, thinking it is a good opportunity to dust off his combat capabilities while Grukev just smiles away at his side. Naiki immediately goes down as he is joined by Vexis, his regents following after; lining up against Shultz and the other guardians. "Heh, to make things much more interesting; I will announce the duel to our fellow cybran citizens." He laughed and leaves with the other guardians.
"This will be fun." Vexis looked at the regents and turned her attention to Naiki who simply snickered. "Why don't all of you go to the forbidden armory at the spire level U5? Grab what is interesting to you. I want to have a chat with that dragon doing the galactic and universe travel research." Naiki says to the rest of them. Vexis's mouth is agape hearing that they can access the forbidden arsenal. "Master are you serious?" Layla double confirms it. "Yes, only take the weapons from arsenal 04," Naiki says while leaving his wife and regents using his teleportation powers. Vexis is quick to react and leads them to the underground area. All of them walked together in the forbidden arsenal. "Wha…micro cluster nuclear missiles…" Lenora reads one of the labeled weapons. The list goes on as they see it including railgun weapons that can destroy planets, star system collapsar, a sleeping battalion of hard kill assault bots, a prototype command mech, and other extremely dangerous weapons. The regents stick closer to Vexis who knows the way and she gives a glance at where she was locked up before. Vexis smiles as the fraction of her remains in the container. They finally arrived at arsenal 04 and enters it. The regents quickly scanned what they wanted; Vexis picks what she always wanted to use, a set of 15 laser pulse swords that can float and be controlled psionically. Ilya picked the resting lightning ice spears while Lenora chooses the prototype impulse combat boots. "You chose that?" Layla asked Lenora. She just nods with the red fox and just gives a smile.
Layla searches at the deeper part of the arsenal and found what interests her, three-clawed gauntlets that are shaped like a scythe when extended and another version of impulse combat boots. Svidana notices something familiar to her, a deactivated laser lance with a dual laser rounded shield that can rotate. "All of you have picked your new toys? Let's go back and have a quick bite." Vexis sounded off from a distance. Svidana picks it up and put it in her multipurpose bracelet the same as the others. They dine out at their favorite place near the capital spire. The news of the duel already spread out after Shultz's announcement. Some noticed the regents and empress. "My Empress and Regents, good luck!" a few of the civilians shouted at them from afar with a wave, Vexis warmly waves back with the others. "Wow, Shultz is quick…" Vexis says it and sits down with the rest after ordering their food. "How was Kelsey these days Lenora?" Vexis opens a conversation with her while the others talked about the best type of dessert including the edible space clouds. "Mother? She is doing fine, she likes Iresta more than Estcallia now. The air there is thick and clean." Lenora gives a short chuckle. "That is good to hear," Vexis says to her while the incoming food warning makes them put their hands away from the table. Their food appears before their eyes from the teleportation and Vexis with the regents enjoyed their short time picking some shop stuff together before returning to their sectors.
After the long week with Naiki mostly stayed at Iresta teaching Lenora more combat tactics and Vexis helping out Kelsey, He made a quick reminder to the other regents of the duel and arrived at the center planet of Lumino with Vexis and Lenora. The crowd cheered like mad for the Emperor and Empress including Lenora as they entered the virtual arena. The council guardians already waited for him. "Hold on, where are your other regents?" Shultz asked while drinking cold water from his straw before sending it back to his inventory. "They will be here." As Naiki said, the other regents arrived at the teleporter nearby. "Me and Ivanov will stay out this time and be your commentator for the civvies," Zarck says while Ivanov supports him. Naiki only nods and both sides entered their combat rooms. "Master, how does this work?" Svidana asked Naiki about the mechanics. "Simple; lay back at your pod and close your eyes, your conscious will transfer inside the battle arena. Don't worry about most of the others, we have failsafe and backups." Naiki explained as the others are already on standby. He gives a thumbs-up before going to his pod.
"Let's kick their asses." Naiki made the statement to the Vexis and the rest who gives a short 'Yeah!' together. They entered it in sync and as they close their eyes; it immediately materialized into the virtual space simulation with an uneven battleground for them. Both teams come into their view as Zarck announces to the cybran citizens. "Now fellow citizens, who will you side with; is it the emperor and empress with their regents or the team of guardians members." Zarck perfectly announces it as a few virtual orbiting optic drones watching both teams. "Both sides, ready your gears!" Ivanov gives the notice. Naiki who only wields his Echo Mortis laser sword looks straight at Shultz who wears the new masterpiece of a weapon that the Cybran Corp has created; a gun fort class combat suit without its helmet, smiling at him in return. Colin materializes his optical cloak and rapid-firing railgun rifle, remaining high alert of the Vexis who casually uses her 15 pulse sword; circling her while she extends her dark matter claws smiling evilly at Colin. Grukev readies himself to fight the valkyrie lance and shield again using his improved VCS (Verniblade Combat Suit). Lenora stands by; using her double-bladed beam sword as she arches to her strike form towards Altia who readies her plasma blade guns while activating her exoframe suit. Sokolovsky faces off Ilya with the spear cannon that he casually holds single-handedly with Ilya using her lightning ice spear and the other spear that she used before.
Rokosovsky materialized his high-density lightning bolt rifle and a flak chain sword to fight his mentor who uses one of the scythe gauntlets and a normal plasma sword. The countdown started with the crowds across the empire watching the event. "3…2…1…Start!" Zarck announces the start. Vexis immediately throws her pulse swords that hit Colin's optical cloak even before he can use them. The small piece of it shreds as he disappeared. Naiki bolted to Shultz as he deployed the extended armor and siege cannon. It fired directly at him as Naiki slashes the high-velocity shell before landing a hit at the armor. Shultz's armor reacted and explodes, knocking back Naiki as he takes the recoil to float above the ground and shoot lightning at his fingertips as Shultz grins; charging up the suit using the lightning that Naiki shoots out. Naiki managed to catch a glimpse of the valkyrie sparring Grukev at close quarters including Lenora using her agile speed clashing with Altia near the abandoned urban city, Shultz takes the chance to fire his charged quad maglev canons at his back to Naiki. He simply just reflected it away from him. Vexis tries to assist Naiki but was halted by the 5 precise railgun shots. "There you are!" Vexis pinpointed his location and warped directly at Colin. With another near-miss shot, the empress pinned Colin down with the pulse swords switching to firing mode and landed a barrage at him. Colin runs while calmly trying to take a shot at Naiki. "Oh no, you don't!" Vexis says it appears in front of him and claws at Colin. He parries it with full strength since the empress is abnormally strong; only to see that her pulse swords are ready to stab him from the air. "Ah, dam-" Before Colin could finish the word he was struck by the swords and disappeared back outside. "The empress beats the hunter-killer guardian in an orchestrated manner, talk about a show of authority!" Ivanov announced.
The crowd cheered for the empress's victory even though she can hear it from the outside. Vexis waved at the camera, she was quickly greeted by Shultz's own flying autonomous gun pods firing at her as she dodges it. Vexis quickly ducked after a quick reaction from her senses, it was a huge beam shot that was directed at the emperor from Sokolovsky's cannon as he gets the chance to use it while keeping Ilya busy. "Tch, tricky youngsters…" Naiki absorbed the energy, he was suddenly surprised by Shultz that uses the pulse drive boosters without him noticing and punched away Naiki's sword. He quickly spartan kicked Shultz back to the ground as he made a small crater out of the hard landing. Minorly injured Svidana from the gunfire by Grukev, she uses her awaken form and channels her flame energy at the lance she wields. It spins and shoots out the energy directly at Grukev who uses his shield at the maximum capacity that forces him to throw away his gauss canon. The canon nearly hit Layla who is fighting at the back against Rokosovsky's battle dance moves, melee while shooting from his rifle.
Vexis assisted Lenora who is deadlock fighting at close quarters with Altia since both of them are high on agility. Lenora slashes around her defense form to find an opening for her to give a fatal blow strike. The empress accurately throws one of her swords at the exoframe leg joints as it breaks and made her stumble. Altia nearly parry the last attack from Lenora but she shifted her body weight to counter the parry and managed to hit Altia's neck. She smiles at the Sakhalin fox before digitally disappearing to the point outside. "The unexpected happened! Tia was bested by the east regent with her absolute move!" Lenora falls from the weight shift as Zarck commentated and lands face-first to the ground. "Oh, looks like she falls from her strike!" Zarck continues as the crowd did not laugh but cheers for her to get back up. All of the guardians see the inevitable and made a joint attack on the valkyrie using only their support weapons. Svidana was hailed with rocket, missile, and laser cannon fire. Before she can recover from the attack, Grukev lunges at her full speed; impacting straight at her shield as she slams into the other side of the digital arena wall. "M-master, s-sorry…" Svidana pants out her last word and disappeared from the battle. "Oh, unbelievable! The guardian members teamed up to put Svidana out of action. What a change of tactics to gun down just a single woman!" Ivanov sarcastically says it, Rokosovsky and Sokolovsky put a middle finger at the camera toward his younger brother; even his father does it using both of his hands behind the back of his sons.
Zarck just laughed at the event as they use the same tactics to Layla while she tucked her tail and ran from the homing missiles; predicting the upcoming impacts using her powers, she jumped off to the other side of the canyon to see the Rokosovsky readies to shoot her. Layla was unable to predict where Rokosovsky was about to fire with her powers as the general just cleared his mind before shooting. "Aw hell nah…" She says it before receiving a shot straight at her neck artery and being kicked out of the battle. "Sorry mentor, but I wanted to wi- bhuwk!" Rokosovsky nearly finished his line but Vexis appeared from the arena above; landed her foot first on his head and makes him lay flat on the ground. She mercilessly clawed his backbone as he was also kicked out. "What was that again?" Vexis make fun of the situation and looked directly at the older brother who is far away fighting with Ilya. The snow leopard froze off the area around her, making Sokolovsky difficult to shoot at her. An ice spear impales him at lightning speed as he misses the parry, he only grinned after seeing it pierces his body and returned out of battle. Ilya let out her cold breath and run off to regroup with Lenora. "Whoa, the Empress is not merciful today including Ilya! The Emperor did not hold back either with those shock canons!" Zarck says it while watching Naiki blast away at the abandoned building Grukev ran off to. His attention is returned to Shultz with him deploying more of the gun pods while carefully placing his shot from the burst rifle to make the emperor descend more with Vexis clearing out the gun pods on her part.
Lenora and Ilya jumped into the collapsed building to see Grukev are unharmed by it; he readies his jet hammer. "You got the spunk to face me huh!?" Grukev shout before boosting his way towards Ilya, she braces for it but it was a feint. The sudden turn activates the jet hammer and slammed it directly at Lenora who is sent flying as she is rendered unconscious. Before Lenora can hit the ground, she was also deemed a loss and returned to the outside. Ilya counterattacks the exposed backside of Grukev, only to see there are launchable spikes at the back and strikes her as she was also defeated. "This is turning into a two-by-two battle; Cybrans! Now, who will win; is it the Emperor and Empress or Shultz and Grukev!?" Zarck announced. Shultz fixed his broken elbow from Vexis's sudden striking his side and Grukev returned near him. Naiki remains floating above the ground with Vexis joining him. The remaining guardians prepare to strike them as Naiki telepathically says something to Vexis. Shultz and Grukev boosted their way towards them for close-quarters combat.
Naiki and Vexis raise their hands to them with Naiki striking out using his high-density lightning strikes and Vexis's eternal flames. Shultz and Grukev returned outside with him and can be heard shouting 'that's cheating!', Naiki only laughed with Vexis. "T-there you go cybrans. The emperor and empress won the battle!" Ivanov says it but Naiki and Vexis did not stop, they faced each other while holding most of their powers back. Naiki slammed Vexis to the ground, she was quick to react on what to follow as Naiki strikes her again with his recovered sword. Vexis parries it with her claw as the ground breaks and pushes Naiki off with her swords dancing over to strike Naiki, both grinned at each other while enjoying the moment. The cybran remains in silence as they watched. "What? I thought it was over?" Grukev says it while watching with the rest on the outside. His shock canons fire rapidly while the shots exploded near her. Vexis uses her dark matter and destroys the canons with Naiki using his electrical pulse to disable all of her swords as it falls. The empress warped above Naiki near the sunlight and blast him down using dark matter. Naiki landed near the iced field that Ilya created. Even before Vexis can strike him down with her claws, Naiki slipped off the ice as Vexis grabbed her by the collar with her left hand and her right claws on his neck. The orbiting camera stays near them. "You lose darling…" She smirked; saying it while watching his smug full face. "I am afraid you will have to join me too…" Naiki says to her as one of his hands is holding a photon dagger, already prepared to pierce her gut.
The orbiting camera sees it all as Naiki sighed. "The emperor and empress are put to a draw, what a battle! This is it; folks, for the battle between both teams including the surprises!" Zarck ended the commentary as the crowds near the arena cheered for the battle and was quickly spread out, the emperor and empress disconnected manually and returned to them. "Whew, what a battle!" Altia says it while talking to Lenora. Both were quick to be friends as they chatted together. Naiki and Shultz lead the way to a nearby place in the arena where they can eat and drink. "I must say, your tactics impressed me. You improved a lot more than I expected!" Layla says to Rokosovsky while all of them comfily sit down at the table. "Then I lived up to your expectations, mentor." Rokosovsky enjoyed the food with the others. "Naiki, you cheated with Vexis. Using your strong powers at the last minute." Shultz is still disappointed by the results. "What you want another round after this? I can do this all day" Naiki gives a taunting response. "Pfft, not like I can beat you anyways. Even if I use the armadas to knock some senses into you." Shultz grunted while Naiki laughs with Vexis.
All of them watched the battle replays once again while sharing their thoughts with each other's, then the last part of the battle came into their view. They noticed that Naiki pretended to slip and it was not the iced ground fault. "Darling, did you just act to fall?" Vexis looked at him with a wry smile. Naiki slowly munches his pizza slice as all of them looked at him. "Um…" Naiki faked a smile; he immediately teleported nearby and ran off. "Naiki, I am going to cuddle you to death!" Vexis stomped off and chased him down with Naiki playfully screaming at the next room being chased by her. All of them laughed seeing the emperor and empress acting like that. "There are a lot of moments that I treasured in my life, this is one of them…" Zarck says it while wiping away his laughing tears. Vexis managed to get Naiki and both returned to the table. The Emperor, Empress, Regents, and guardians exchanged stories with the latest news as they dine before resuming their break where they wanted. The guardians go on separately from the others, except Naiki who is followed by his wife and regents as they visited one of the gigalopolis before returning to the capital spire.