Chapter 59: Justice's Mask
The Orbotronical, Aurian Saturn's personal space station. One of many, mind you, but if asked what she thought of them the rest would be just floating masses of metal she banged together in her spare time. This place, however, held some sentimental value to her.
Call it her home if you must. She wouldn't disagree. It is where she does most of her science-y deeds after all. Like today. She's examining a rare blue sun as a possible energy source for some new ship she's planning to make.
But as it tends to go these days her other occupation as coordinator for C.O.G.S. (Coalition Overseeing Galactic Security, cool name right?) had lead to some minor interruptions. But when it comes to her skills, multitasking is her number two specialty.
So while fiddling away at her tablet in one hand, guiding a highly heat resistant probe to scan the surface of the sun, she had a drone on standby acting as a screen between her and one of the leaders of C.O.G.S.
The whole while she was wandering to-and-fro through her garage to check-up her beauties. Three tasks at once and it didn't even require the use of 25% of her big, cute brain.
"So that is the predicament we find ourselves in, Catherine," Said the fishy alien with tentacles clasping over his fanged mouth, "Kriken swarms will land upon our world within days. With our armies off world we have no way to fend off such numbers."
"I hear you loud and clear chief! I've already got some back up drones on the way with area sweeping lasers. Kriken love to swarm together so it'll clear out most of their numbers before they get wise about it, then you can clean up the rest in no time!" As she made her declaration of victory known she swiped her finger across the tablet to pull up another window to complete the drone order.
"Oh thank you, Catherine. I don't know what our world would do without you."
"Probably be roasting alive for a buffet line for some greedy carnivores!" Catherine faced the drone head-on with a smile and shouted, "But instead the fires on your side! The fires of JUSTICE!"
"Grghhhh..." The alien groaned, wagging his finned limb at her, "I will see you at the meeting tomorrow."
He then hung up and the drone bobbed its head, departing towards one of many swiss holes in the ceiling.
With the probe still hard at work Catherine took a moment to pull her head back and smile, "Aaaaah. C.O.G.S. is off to a good start if I do say so myself! We've got 46% of that old carbon copyright infriger's worlds on our side, and reclaimed another 22% from hostile forces!"
She then gave a light sigh and remarked, "Too bad the other 32% ARE the hostile forces. Some of the roughest, toughest, meanest races across the galaxy trying to vie for the empty throne Gravitus left behind..."
She threw out a heavy shrug and shouted, "Oh well! They'll get their due soon enough!"
She then stared back down at her tablet licking her lips as the anticipation of further scientific endeavors danced giddily in her head, "Blue solar fire will especially bolster our response times exponentially! Just got to examine every detail perfectly. Everything's gotta be perfect...!"
"BWEEEE! BWEEE! BWEEE!" An alarm started blaring throughout the ship that put her slightly on edge, while a dark red tint filled the air.
"ALERT! UNWANTED COMPANY HAS INFILTRATED THE SPACE STATION! ALERT! UNWANTED COMPANY HAS INFILTRATED THE SPACE STATION!"
Catherine's tablet shrunk down to a bar and she stuffed it in her pocket then threw one hand around with a huff of cockiness, "Yet again, one of my arch-nemesis' is dropping in to say hello!"
She crossed her arms and proclaimed, "They'll get a greeting alright...Right on the heel of my JUSTICE KICK!"
She faked a kick in the air and then took a few steps forward shouting "MONA TOR!" causing a big flatscreen monitor to float down beside her suspended by photon jets.
"Do you wish to see the intruder, Miss Catherine?"
"Sure why not!" Though she had a suspicion as to who it was. A hunch? No. A true heroine just simply knows these things by heart AND soul.
Still, she humored the intruder by glancing aside at the monitor to find the camera examining the very bottom of the station's outside. There they saw nothing except a small hole punctured in the bottom.
"Knew it." A mite was crawling through her vents. No that's not meant to be demeaning, it was quite literally a mite in her vents.
"Born on the Planet Mitecro, Minitevus Yulk grew up as youngest of 50 siblings in his family. His life was normal until one day, he was introduced to the greatest evil of all...TECHNOLOGICAL ADVANCEMENT. It changed him forever, corrupting his pure mind into a mind of PURE EVIL. Swearing to see the end of all technology, he donned a suit of armor and forged an oath of brotherhood with his lance, the Anti-Technogius, becoming...!"
The vent below her popped open and a creature no bigger than her hand popped out high into the sky. It had a perfectly rotund body wrapped up in metal plated armor, with a solid glass visor shaped like a cross and two inverted horns curled towards the cape on his backside. In his hand was a lance far bigger than himself whose tip throbbed with dark green veins.
Catherine confronted the armored warrior by standing firm and crossing her arms, "THE TECHNOMITE KNIGHT!"
"Techubus, we meet again! For the final time!" Brave and powerful words...proclaimed with the tone of a kindergartner inhaling helium.
He landed many feet away and thrust his mighty lance towards the mountain he came to conquer. The mountain laughed back, bolstering her indomitable peak.
"I was wondering when you'd roll into town again! What mangy beast's fur did you have to climb onto to escape that jungle planet you trapped yourself on?"
"After a foul incursion upon the mane of a harriot, I-" The Knight then suddenly bashed his lance against the ground and shouted, "You cur! I will not monologue for you! My purpose is as clear as my armor's sheen! You will face defeat today, Aurian Saturn!"
"Ha!" Catherine nudged her glasses up to give them a sheen and smirked, "That's literally the 54th time you've said that!"
"And it holds as much weight now as it did the first time!" The Knight thrust his lance up into the air and then swung it in an arc around him, registering as a breeze to one of her leg hairs.
"Years of going unopposed have made your corruption fester and your arrogance grow! Lulled are the many by the song of your machines, each wire the ivy upon which you grip and drag your prey to a garden of sin, Techubus!"
"Are you STILL going on about that?" Catherine shrugged, "At least my other enemies love to shake it up a bit. Couldn't you like, try to get mad about something else? Like the fact that I've kicked your butt 53 going on 54 times?!"
"You look down on me cause I'm small, while your ego has bloated you bigger than a neuron star!" The Knight poised his lance to attack but instead merely thrust it into the air, "C.O.G.S...truly your latest and greatest advancement...IN DECEIT!"
Saturn rolled her eyes, knowing the mite couldn't help himself now. She snapped her fingers out and had a drone cook her some popcorn for her to eat while he ranted.
"You call yourself a savior, but you're nothing but a false prophet! Technological advancement...BAH!" The Knight spat at the ground, "Your machines aren't protecting anyone! They corrupt them with sloth, and stifle their potential!"
Catherine's cheeks were stuffed with popcorn, "This would've gone nice with some cheese powder."
"You tell the world that you're bringing them 'hope' and 'justice' but we all know you're just deceiving them with acts of innocence! Your purpose is far more sinister, devil in human skin! And 'til my last breath, when I am but dust in the wind, shall my lance oppose your corrupting regime!"
"I wonder if Jupes is gonna be busy later, there's a moon I need to break up a bit for samples..." Saturn's gaze lied elsewhere.
"YOU AREN'T EVEN LISTENING!" The Knight's sudden scream shifted her gaze back towards him and she took another bite of popcorn to fill her cheeks.
"You're just saying the usual evil villain lines, Minitevus. Can we move on to the part where we scuffle, I throw out a few one-liners, bust out a new suit, beat you with a new finishing move, then we can rinse and repeat a few months later?"
"No...!" The Knight's voice turned sinister, and he tightened his grip on the lance, "Your status quo has reigned long enough, Aurian Saturn. Today will be the end of it all...! Your deceit, your corruption..."
He bounded twenty feet off the ground and pointed his lance downward, "ALL BROUGHT TO A KNEE, BY YOUR HUBRIS!"
The moment he impaled the floor Saturn scoffed...not knowing that it may be the last she'd ever give.
As the Knight's lance throbbed with an agonizing glow, a thick, blue liquid goop began to push out of it and onto the ground. And it stuck there, not like glue. No, this wasn't possible...The goop was eating, consuming, absorbing the metal around it and growing in size.
Catherine's pupils shrank and the popcorn kernals in her hand dispersed onto the floor, sliding from her frozen palms. Uttering only a gasp, she could only watch as the Knight let himself become one with the goop around him as it began to lift him up like a god surrounded by his angels.
"Thump!" "Thump!" Thump!"
Catherine's heart pounded her chest like a hammer to a forge. Louder, harder, shaking the confidence off her smile bit-by-bit. She backed away slowly, hiding her hands behind her and secretly fiddling rapidly with her bracelet.
"C-Come on now, really?" She tried to act herself, "A-As if some fungus excrement is gonna scare me!"
After her fingers worked their magic a bit, she swiped her typing hand out and shouted "HA!" towards the growing mass. It paused, only for the top carrying the knight to lurch forward, casting its shadow atop her.
"But this is no mere fungus, is it?" The Knight boasted, his voice carrying the pulsations of raw, throbbing power within.
Saturn's face began to turn pale, her arms going limp by her sides.
"See, I did my research. I know all about this little...virus, and how you'd try to disable it," Even behind such thick protection the Knight's smiled burned through, hotter than hellfire, but colder than the devil's heart, "So I removed the shutdown program."
Saturn's heart gave one massive beat before she gasped quietly, "What...what have you done?"
"I have beaten you. Now...and forever," The Knight commanded his growing viral mass to rise then slam her down, "Accept your sins AND PERISH!"
Saturn's heart skipping a beat commanded her body to move entirely on its own. She leaped back and reached for her bracelet, hesitating to grip it for a second.
"S-Slicing Suit!" She declared upon touching the bracelet.
In such close proximity to her station the suit was warped directly onto her body and wrapped her up tight. The visor this time was a trio of downward crescents.
She hastily open a slot on her wrists and pooled her aura through it, repeatedly firing paper thin blades towards the growing mass. Though successful in slicing through it, the Knight himself weaved out of the way and continued to advance upon her.
"I've played all your devil games, Techubus! There is nothing you can do to surprise me!"
Catherine pulled her hands back and looked around, dodging the slams of the mass just narrowly. She aimed her slicers at the ground and began a relentless barrage underneath the mass.
"WARNING! AIR PRESSURE BREACH DETECTED!" Yelled the intercom as the floor gave way underneath the mass, dragging it out towards space.
Catherine put her arms down and caught her breath, her cold sweat pressing against the skin of her suit. The station's auto defenses slid plates into place before she got dragged away too.
The floor beneath her feet quaked and put her on edge. She looked down and watched in horror as the floor started to be consumed by that viral mass.
She leaped away as a pillar of the stuff shot up into the air, solidifying as a hill-shaped lump with the Knight proudly part of its peak.
"There is no escaping me!" He yelled, voice pulsing with power, "I will hunt you down and destroy your architects of sin, Aurian SATURN!"
The viral mass devoured all in its path as it made its way towards her, growing larger and larger by the second.
Catherine zipped around trying to avoid the mass' ravenous touch and continued to fire blades towards the Knight's body. But it was starting to become difficult to make out his presence among the thick goop.
"Hahaha! You're a fool! A FOOL! I am untouchable now! I have given my entire being towards the purpose of destroying you!"
Catherine cursed under her breath "You fool!" then clicked her teeth together and forced her suit off. She began to swing her to fist forward, but hesitated right as the mass prepared to crash on top of her.
"I'm sorry!" She commanded her suit to fly into the center of the mass and explode, the blast radius big enough to send her tumbling along the ground.
Shaken in both body and mind, she struggled to press her hands on the ground to stand. The viral mass thrust through the smoke, its reach now encroaching upon the nearby ships.
Catherine screamed "F-Freeze Suit!", nearly forgetting to touch her bracelet at the same time. The snowflake visor suit appeared over her body and she thrust her fists towards the viral mass. Aura shot forth and froze everything directly in front of her in a thick, white sheet of ice.
She rose to her feet on shaking knees and shook her head, "That's not enough...!"
The mass would break free, the ice was already trembling. This was to time run. To survive.
But her legs stiffened like fresh concrete. Her genius mind had devolved into that of a child. And her instincts could only carry her so far now...
The first cracks appearing in the ice shook her heart and pumped her adrenaline like crazy. She turned towards the elevator and sprinted towards it as fast as he feet could carry her. The mass continued to grow beyond the ice behind her, consuming its way through every ship she made here.
All that pride and effort she put into construction each and every on of them, gone in an instant. They were like her children, and she was abandoning them to the slaughter...
She crashed into the elevator and bounced off onto her knees, scrambling to tap the buttons to the next floor. The mass shattered off the ice and immediately turned towards her. The doors felt like they were taking forever to seal shut, her survival was in question.
She looked to her children with pained regret and rapidly started tapping away at her bracelet shouting "I'm sorry" over and over.
Many of the ships turned on and levitated off their perches, locking their sights upon the viral mass. As about an inch of the mass prepared to reach the catatonic heroine, it was pelted by a massive flurry of laser fire. So thick, in fact, that the sounds drowned out the mass' screams.
The elevator sealed shut, her heart beating heavily upon her chest as it rose to the next floor. She stood, but stiffly, both in stance and in gaze. Her eyes narrowed down upon the garage as the mass thrust itself across the room, attaching more and more ships to itself.
She pressed her hands against the glass and watch progress being undone. The mass was climbing, and it may be possible it'd reach the next floor before her...
"The garage! I got to detach the garage!" Came an answer born of panic, not brilliance.
She hastily pulled out her tablet and tapped away, missing prompts and repeating steps a few times over, "Come on come on COME ON!"
The tablet made a fierce scraping sound, covering everything in static. The Knight's masked face appeared on the monitor and she dropped it immediately, pinning herself to the back wall.
"There's nowhere to run, Techubus. I know you inside and out. Every plan, every machine, every step you take, every breath you make!"
The mass slammed against the glass behind her, and her eyes forced her to look back.
The Knight was right there, devouring more and more without any end in sight. His armor, his body, all was one with the virus.
"I told you...You. Lose."
He took his corrupted lance and attempted to stab her through the skull. She rolled out of the way and crushed her tablet under her weight. The mass began to push through, dripping towards her feet.
She crawled up to her rear end and slapped her hands on the ground, freezing the entire elevator to a stop. With the viral mass halted for a few moments longer she looked up and rocketed off the ground, smashing her way out.
She flew two floors up and smashed through the door. Then immediately upon discarding her suit she tapped the bracelet to summon another. She was running low on breath. She needed to relax. There was no way TO relax.
Closer. Closer. The virus would consume her. She was not safe, no one was safe! This would be the end of everything...
The suit she armed herself with had a visor resembling an explosion. Her body moved on instinct and backed away from the elevator as the viral mass latched onto the edge. She ejected a huge salvo of mines from her suit, blasting apart the elevator shaft and throwing the viral mass into a pained frenzy.
It retracted towards the garage for the time being. Catherine lowered her arms, they felt like anchors on her shoulders, and caught her breath.
"pitter, patter, pitter, patter..."
Her body tensed up as she felt something dripping on her right shoulder. She couldn't bear to confirm that the virus was touching her. It had to have been rust off the vents. Or humidity in the air...Anything else, PLEASE anything else but that!
There was a creaking, crunching noise on her suit that was approaching her neck. She squirmed away from it and in doing so, her gaze panned towards the viral mass filling the vents, with the Knight's body prominently at the front.
"I see you, devil!"
Catherine threw her suit off in and instant and set it to explode. Her pale screams overwhelmed her sense of reason and she raised her fists to start blasting pure aura into the viral mass. It tried to push onward, the blasts making it rain upon the ground around her.
She spun her head around and then leaped back as the mass tried to gather upon her location. She then created and shoved a huge platform of aura up to slam the mass back into the vents.
"You're just delaying the inevitable." Said the Knight's voice, blaring over the intercoms.
"S-Shut up!" She screeched, attempting to put on a brave voice, "I...I got so many plans up my sleeve I don't know where to start!"
She panted motionless and hung her head shouting to herself "Think! Think! Think!" as a motivator, and failed.
The mass was encroaching upon her location again. It was time to move, again.
She curled her fists and hurried up the broken and battered elevator shaft, dropping mines in her wake to delay the mass' approach.
She rose through floor after floor, no longer able to see the mass behind her through all the explosions. Her heart beat slowed, for all the good that meant now.
She sped on by the garden and then paused, looking down at the prison cells within there. Her mind stewed with an idea and acted upon it immediately. She forced the doors open and tumbled out onto the floor.
The noise disrupted the slumber of her sole prisoner, the devious and calculating Pluto. She hurried to his cell and tapped her bracelet. The cell had its own separate power source impossible for the Knight, or anyone for that matter, to hijack.
But the specifics didn't matter now. The cell bars deactivated and Pluto rose from her sleep still chained on all limbs. He sat up and stared with a groggy tone to his voice, "What is the meaning of this, Catherine?"
She undid his shackles with another swipe along her bracelet and then repeatedly clapped her hands towards him, "Up and at 'em, its time for community service!"
Pluto did not bark back. His eyes instantly perceived that her mannerisms were off-balance. She was smiling, but her soul was not.
He stood on his feet and embraced his newly regained freedom by rubbing his sore wrists and staring her bluntly in the eyes, "Do not play games with me. There is something very, VERY wrong going on here..."
Her smile immediately wavered when before, not even death could claim it.
"...Catherine." Pluto said in a stern tone, brows arched downward.
"KRSSSH!" The sharp sound of shattering glass turned their attention towards the elevator shaft.
The viral mass was using a small tank as a hammer to try and bash its way inside. Bits of glass scattered across the floor, while the Knight peered its head through the tiniest whole. He looked wholly corrupted, the only discernible feature being his visor.
"YOU CAN'T RUN FROM ME, AURIAN SATURN!"
Pluto's eyes widened slightly and he muttered, "What in the name of all the divine hells is THAT thing?!"
Catherine narrowed her eyes and her whole body twitched. Pluto then took a couple steps forward and muttered, "Wait...Minitevus?"
He glanced at Catherine and remarked in disbelief, "You're having trouble with THAT flea?"
"SHUT UP AND DO SOMETHING UNLESS YOU WANT TO JOIN THE REST OF THE UNIVERSE IN DEATH!" Catherine's shrill cry of panic turned on something in Pluto's nerves he hadn't felt in a long time...Pure. Primal. Fear.
He swung his hands down to summon his swords like the edge hadn't been worn off his skills. He brushed the blades together to test their wear and then lashed them at the ground, comfortably smirking towards his foe.
You're a fool for attacking this stronghold so brazenly, little flea! You face the power of the future King of the Universe!
He charged forward and the mass followed suit. He bravely slashed his blades against the oncoming tidal wave as though it was but a breeze to be diverted. Every cut he made slowed its advance and shrank it down to a more manageable size. In time he managed to push it back to the elevator shaft, where he summoned his magic chains in a tight, coiled stream to shove the thing down further into the depths.
Only then did the full extent of what was happening occur to him.
He drew away from the shaft with a pale look in his eyes and saw Catherine hung over, having trouble breathing.
"Just...how much of this station has that thing consumed?" He inquired.
"I...I don't know..." She gasped.
"Do you have a plan to stop it?"
"No..."
"No?" Pluto ruffled his mangled brows and scoffed, "Surely you're joking, Catherine. Why else would you have freed me?"
"To stall for time..." She admitted without emotion, "Nothing you can do will put that thing down."
Pluto raised his brows and curled his bottom lip, "Why do you speak with such...familiarity towards this monstrosity?"
She stood up and feverishly shook her sweating head, "I-I don't know what you're talking about! I've never seen that before in my life!"
"Lying does not suit you, Catherine." He said with a chuckle.
She pursed her lips and mumbled, "I should've just kept you in jail."
"We both know you couldn't do that." He said.
"Ha ha ha ha...!" An echo of laughter grew throughout the room, bringing goosebumps to both their skins.
The viral mass bloomed like fungus beneath their feet, forcing them to take flight. Then it erupted all at once as a giant manifestation of the Knight's body, complete with a lance.
Pluto crossed his swords as the mass took a swing at him, blocking perfectly with the help of his Drive. The lance continued to swing and carved up the garden on its way to Catherine, who erected a barrier of aura to stop it almost too little, too late.
Pluto assaulted the mass with a plethora of chains while remarking, "Impressive. You managed to overcome my blade's power. Not bad, for a fungus."
The Knight's voice echoed throughout the tumultuous chambers, "Aurian Pluto...! So you have aligned yourself with this devil girl!"
"Yes, as a matter of fact, I have," Pluto stated confidently as he parried another of the mass' swings, "This seems far beyond your pale, tiny man of such tiny ambitions..."
"Says the King of nothing." The Knight said scornfully.
"And yet my throne shall forever rest above you, as you delve further and further into Hell, flea." Pluto swung his sword out to repel along thrust of the lance, then summoned golden chains from the ether to bind the viral mass all over.
Shockingly this seemed to still its movements temporarily, as it became completely solid.
Pluto scoffed at the foul beast and then dove past it to approach Catherine, grabbing her forcefully by the wrist and shouting, "Come! We'll head to higher ground!"
She was pulled off her feet and dragged past the mass, which tried desperately to ensnare her by her lab coat. It tugged hard, eventually succeeding in ripping it off.
Failing to catch her it let out a roar that echoed throughout the entirety of the space station.
"ALL TECHNOLOGY SHALL BE DEVOURED, AND WE SHALL HAVE VENGEANCE UPON YOU, AURIAN SATURN!"
The echo rang as the two frightened souls ascended to the very, very top of the elevator shaft, depositing them in a tightly locked room complete with dozens of computer consoles and enhanced wiring spread throughout the rest of the station. On the east side, there was a lone escape pod.
Catherine collapsed on hands and knees while Pluto used his dark magic to layer the shaft with dozens of magic glyphs to slow the virus' advance. Now, for certain, this would give them time to think.
"Ha...ha...ha..." Catherine gasped for air, her fragile state leaving no mark on the elven king's bitter heart.
"What did that thing mean by 'We'?" He uttered in a foul tone.
"I...I don't..."
"Feigning ignorance at this juncture, Catherine?" Pluto said with a brutal scoff, "Either you're sincerely that ignorant or you value your pride over your life! Neither answer suits my opinion of you..."
When she met his critique with silence, he burrowed further into the personal hell she was experiencing, "There's more to that virus than the surface suggests. Its consuming not just Minitevus' body, but overwriting his will, bit by bit...IT is alive, and IT knows you."
"...I-I just, stopped a dangerous virus at one point." She immediately retorted.
Pluto silently walked past her to turn on the computers and immediately activate what few cameras had yet to be consumed.
The mass was contorting into a violent sea of viruses with seemingly no end in sight. It was merely ten floors below them, and rising fast. Even the seals seemed like they'd do little to impede its progress.
Now there was nothing to discern the Knight. Instead a menacing face, hollow in its eyes and mouth, scraped to the surface screaming and shouting to rattle the space station.
"WHERE ARE YOU?! WHY DO YOU RUN FROM ME...? WHY ARE YOU ASHAMED OF ME...?! ANSWER ME! MO-"
Catherine fired a blast to destroy all the monitors at once, then hunched over panting madly.
Pluto leaned over his shoulder with a dismissive gaze as Catherine bit her teeth down and slowly approached the console.
She weakly pushed Pluto out of the way and started typing away at the keyboard like her life depended on it.
"What are doing now?" He asked, on the edge of his patience.
"..."
He slammed his hand down on the console and shouted, "Enough of this! Reveal the truth or I will strip it off your tongue!"
"There's no need for that..." She said, devoid of emotion while her hands were shaking, "I'm...I'm going to activate the self-destruct."
"..." Pluto closed his eyes, coiled his fist and muttered, "So that's it then...?"
Before Catherine could even turn and blink, Pluto punched her square in the jaw to knock her away from the console and dislodge the glasses from her face. As her mouth dripped blood he shook his cracked knuckles around and remarked, "Of all the brash, inconsiderate options you could have taken...!"
He walked on up to her, dropping his swords so he could grab her by the collar of her shirt and beam his rage straight into her eyes, "I'd have expected this kind of cowardice from any other self-proclaimed genius, not YOU!"
Saturn grit her teeth and with her eyes wide in a panic she said, "T-There's nothing we can do! You'd rather I let this thing devour everything in sight?!"
"I'd rather you not let this one major adversity turn you into an irrational charlatan!" He shouted back, "Have you abandoned your justice?! Your hope?! Your dedication?! What little value did all that hold to you if your pride so easily consumed it all?!"
"What do you expect me to do?!" She screamed in a high-pitched wail.
"I expect you to think! That's what you're GOOD AT!" Pluto gripped tighter and shook her about, "Activate a shutdown code! Think of a weapon that can neutralize it! You cannot tell me that you, of all people, don't have a plan to deal with this thing!"
"I DON'T!" Catherine shouted so loudly it left a deaf ringing in the elf's ears.
With a brutish scoff, Pluto tossed her off his hand and she fell to her butt scraping her fingernails across the ground.
"There is no shutdown code. No weapon that can stop it...The only way to defeat it is to destroy it completely," Catherine picked up her glasses and applied them to her face as she stood, her eyes beginning to water, "I know this because...because..."
She turned and hung over, hands flat on the control panel, as the first tear drops fell, "I created it."
Pluto closed his eyes and grumbled, "I suspected as much."
"Ha, ha ha...!" Her hands squeezed into fists and she gently punched the keyboard, "Its gonna happen again...I'm going to lose another home because of my mistakes!"
Her body, fraught with trembling, went silent beyond the occasional weeps, while Pluto processed this information with a hint of intrigue in his expression.
"Ah, now it all makes sense..."
Pluto leered at her backside and said, "There were tales tossed about long ago of a planet of supergeniuses who ran the most technologically advanced society in the universe. And how one day, they were simply wiped out, consumed by some devilish manner of creation of unknown origin, as if a force of nature had just randomly happened upon them..."
"They said that there were no survivors, but that was never true, was it? There was one who survived," He gently pointed at her and remarked, "The one responsible for the end of Planet Farad. You, Catherine."
Next Time: Creating the Mask