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Mission No. 77
Astropolis
Herz Control Room
"Small Price for Paradise"
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Dr. Marjorie Makepeace walked into the Herz: the control room overlooking Astropolis' untested core. Hundreds of monitors lined the sloped room, each attended by an engrossed technician. Through a wide observation window at the bottom, she could see the tall pillar of the core, so massive that the base and apex were out of view.
Her ears perked when she picked out Dr. Liebegute's serpentine voice above the din, and she looked over to see him pleading with their overseers. The Venomian had to crane his neck back to see Morgan Fredersen and Yaru de Pon, who sat behind a raised desk standing above the rest of the room. Ms. Phoenix's seat was still empty.
Marjorie grinned, knowing Liebegute's attempt to make them listen would be futile, and likely his last—but she raised an eyebrow when she noticed Beltino standing off to the side, wiping his glistening forehead. That was odd; she'd counted on him remaining on Venom. She clutched her tablet closer and approached, heels clopping along her way.
"…Madness!" Liebegute was saying. "You can't go through with this! Call the whole thing off while you still can! Why risk all we've built on a far-fetched experiment? Settle for what you have! Settle for more sun panels, settle for Mindsweep, settle for merely supplying Corneria. But for the love of all you hold dear, remember what happened to the other Bolse satellites! Thousands have already perished from this very experiment! Now you have a whole colony attached, with millions at risk! Who knows what will happen if you place a Cerinian in the center again! Why, the first time the satellite melted down, the Cerinians suffered a psychic shock wave that transformed their whole species! The second time—"
"The second time," Makepeace stopped beside him, "Dr. Andross permitted an unprepared scientist to power the core. The third time, the core was destroyed by one of his own weapons. The fourth, by Fox McCloud. Each of these was completely stable; the fifth, gentlemen, has every reason to succeed again."
Liebegute sneered. "Bolse-V was not powered by a Cerinian like Subject 28; she's a monster. Andross knew of her danger, and even he wasn't insane enough to go through with it. It was a gift of fortune that 28 escaped to Cerinia; we should have let her stay there. You should have let me kill the Cerinians when I had the chance." He glared at Makepeace. "All of them."
"No, Andross wanted to destroy them because he knew we could use them for good."
"'We?' What are you using them for, meinsau?"
Internally, Makepeace bristled, wishing she had the power to explode his head herself. But she resisted the urge to strangle the lowly baboon, and didn't let it show on her face. Instead, she formed a wry smile. Two could play this game. "Tell me, Dr. Liebegute, why didn't you also dispose of the drinking water in the labs while you were at it?"
Liebegute's face froze. "I… I fail to see how that's relevant."
"Oh, and I'm curious; do you have any notion at all what Andross was using all the surplus bio-material for? Or maybe, what he could've been developing on the last level? Any guesses at all?"
An icy tension formed between the two scientists. They stared one another down, daring the other to go further.
Finally the monkey forced through his grit teeth, "I have complied fully with each investigation and supplied Dr. Toad with all my knowledge on Andross's experiments; my advice led to many useful discoveries which otherwise would have remained lost. Now I am asking you to heed my advice once again: 28 is an unpredictable wild card which we cannot play!"
Marjorie turned to face Fredersen. "The solar array can only siphon a small trickle of the sun's power; 28 can unlock all of it. She is the key to limitless energy, and so much more." She stared into the bull's eyes, speaking directly to him. "Perhaps, she's even the key to life itself. Remember what all this is for."
Fredersen stared back, jaw firm as they locked gazes. Then he waved his hand. "Enough petty squabbling. I've heard all your complaints before, Dr. Liebegute, and they have been addressed. You oversaw two successful Bolse satellites and never complained. The test will go ahead as planned."
Liebegute exhaled slowly, admitting his defeat. "Then, at least let us keep the prototype gate on standby in case of an emergency."
That raised Marjorie's ear. "The… prototype gate? What do you mean?"
Beltino stepped forward, adjusting his spectacles. "Actually, Dr. Makepeace, you will be pleased to hear that we finally found what was at the bottom of the labs! I had Captain Lynx transport it here on the Wisdom so we could install it. Why not take a look?"
Marjorie's eyes widened, and her blood ran cold. "…What? You brought it here?! YOU STUPID FOOL!"
Ignoring the indignant frog, she stormed down to the observation window and pressed herself to the glass. Her heart pounded in her chest—but all she saw was the frame of a rudimentary, skeletal archway sitting behind the core shaft.
"I recognized it at once when Beltino showed me," Liebegute explained to Fredersen and de Pon. "It was Andross's best attempt at a gate. He worked on it ceaselessly with Albert Sifaka. While they never managed a clean portal like Beltino, they did succeed in creating a sort of pocket dimension, similar to the warp space faster-than-light engines allow travel through."
Relief flooded Makepeace when she realized it was just a gate. It wasn't what she'd expected at all… but something about the garish, twisted metal frame made her itch all over. "Why wasn't I consulted about this, or even notified?!" she demanded, glaring back at Beltino.
The portly frog bristled and straightened up to his full, yet squat height. "Who do you think you are? I am the head of the reclamation effort. It's outside your purview of the Cerinian project."
"But why bring it here?"
"Because I had to! I can't really explain it, it-it just seemed… right."
"You couldn't have had time to test it! It could be dangerous to Subject 28! Remember what happened to Bolse-X! Remember what the gate did to Andross's secret weapon!"
Beltino blinked and scratched his chin, as if having a moment of clarity. He looked down thoughtfully. "Yes… yes, we never did conclude what caused HVC-09 to go haywire. He went on a murder spree, almost like one of those Cerinians. An interesting theory…"
Liebegute waved his hand. "An anomaly which has nothing to do with the current test. There's no danger if we keep the gate off, is there? Until it's needed."
"Needed? What use is it? You still haven't told me, why did you install it here?"
Liebegute grinned. "Because it's a much better fail-safe to contain Subject 28. If she were to go berserk and break free from her constraints, we can simply toss her in and isolate her from outside power sources. The gate is specifically equipped to draw power from the core, draining her excess psychic energy and repurposing it to make her spatial cage bigger. The more energy she expends, the more twists and turns this labyrinthine dimension will create to contain her. She may be all-powerful, but she can't break free if she can't even find the walls. It's a much more robust system than the other pathetic pocket dimensions Sifaka played with. Surely you cannot object to that?"
Marjorie looked at the deactivated gate with disgust, brow furrowed, nose wrinkled, and lips taught. "You found nothing else down there?" she pressed.
Beltino stuttered. "N-No, what else would there be? Isn't it clear this was Andross's final project?"
"And you're certain that was the last level?"
Again, Beltino shrugged. "Well, theoretically, there could be other levels, since we had so much trouble finding this one. The prototype gate just seemed like Andross's most important invention. Er, Dr. Liebegute, can you attest to that?"
Liebegute met Makepeace's eyes without flinching—except the slightest hint of a grin. "No, the 120th level was the last. I swear it."
She knew the baboon was trying not to crack as she glared at him. She pointed her finger. "I demand that Dr. Liebegute submit to a Mindsweeper examination before the test."
He shrugged. "I'm willing to…" Then he grinned at Makepeace. "Though you never know who else's secrets might be uncovered during such an examination."
Now it was Makepeace's turn to bite her tongue.
"His examination can wait," Fredersen snapped. "We cannot delay the test any further. The doctor's fail safe appears sound, so I will give the order to begin—unless the two of you have any further objections?"
Marjorie bit her lip, weighing her options. She didn't like the gate being there. She didn't like the grin that Liebegute let slip through. But he had also wished for a delay of the test, and she probably couldn't afford to give that to him either. "No sir, I have no more objections. But I would like a copy of the full report on the prototype gate. That is, if Beltino remembered to fill one out."
Muttering darkly, Beltino transmitted a copy of the report to her tablet. Quickly she skimmed through the documents, mind racing as she attempted to parse the information. "…This prisoner with psychic aptitude, #114-326: he was able to lead you to the gate?"
"Yes. A funny one, that prisoner," Beltino remarked. "A Venomian soldier who spent up to two years on the other side of the portal before he was able to escape. Suffers the most excruciating headaches whenever it's open."
Fredersen's nostrils flared. "Look it over later. The decision has been made, and the test is about to commence. Focus on ensuring its success."
Makepeace pursed her lips, thoughtfully drumming her finger against her tablet as she scanned the prisoner's file with more interest. "Yes, of course, Mr. Fredersen. Let me… freshen up first."
Ignoring Liebegute's triumphant smirk, Makepeace bowed and excused herself. She exited the control room and headed for the rest area, walking stoically past a flurry of Astropolis personnel.
Let him think he's won, she thought as she pulled out her phone.
Bill didn't notice Marjorie slip past as he escorted Fara and her feline maid, Kuma, into the Herz. He didn't notice the quick glance they shared, either. His thoughts were too preoccupied with the imminent test. Having witnessed the power of the Cerinians firsthand, he was nervous. Part of him felt it best to just let them be. It was dangerous meddling with psychic energy so intense it could rip a man in two. There were a hundred ways it could go wrong—but that one chance that it could go right, well…
It has to be worth it. This all has to be for something.
It didn't instill confidence in him that Fara was acting just as anxious, and she was the one heading the project. She barely spoke a word when she was normally so chipper and cordial with him. Come to think of it, she wouldn't even meet his eyes today. The security and comfort his presence usually brought her seemed… absent. Why was she avoiding him?
Those thoughts vanished when the control room doors opened, and Bill saw who was inside. A rush of graphic, twisted memories surged through him like a cold wave of sewage: wretched horrors he tried to bury for years, and thought he successfully had. The mere sight of the baboon made his skin feel like it wanted to peel right off.
He halted so abruptly in his tracks that the small fennec behind him bumped into his back. "What… what is he…" He raised his arm and pointed. "What is he doing here?!"
Fara peeked around his tall frame to see who he meant. "Bill, what's the matter? Y-You mean Dr. Liebegute?"
He whirled to face her. "That shit-hearted ape was the overseer of Andross's worst experiments! Don't you know the atrocities he committed are the worst crimes in Lylatian history?! When I captured him, I turned him over to be hanged! Why is he permitted to live? Why is he here?!"
"B-But we need Dr. Liebegute for the project!" she tried to argue. "Without him, the core couldn't have been built—"
"He laid trap after trap for my men when we came for him! He… he killed my friends before my eyes… He should've been executed the moment we caught him. Why was he allowed to live?!"
The baboon's lips curled, and he visibly wilted back under the major's onslaught. Fara stuttered, speechless, at a loss for answers herself. "I… I…"
"Dr. Liebegute lives out of necessity; not because we've forgiven his crimes."
They turned to see Yaru de Pon stepping down from his overseer's chair. "Yes, he deserves death, Major. All you have said is true. But the knowledge and skill he can provide may outweigh the sins he committed. We will not allow him redemption, but we will force him to atone for what he did in a more useful way than simply taking his life."
Bill was seconds away from marching over to Liebegute and wrapping his hands around his pathetic baboon neck himself, even if it meant a court martial.
"Was it not General Pepper's orders to capture him alive and use his knowledge for good?" de Pon pressed.
The general's name drop made him hesitate, and reality slipped back in. He loosened his trembling, white-knuckled fingers, which had unconsciously been constricting around thin air at his side. He shuffled back and hung his head slightly—but he continued to glower at the doctor from beneath the shadow of his brow. For now, he would let him live.
De Pon led Fara up to her seat next to himself and Fredersen, overlooking the control room floor. Once all three of the project's overseers were in place, Fredersen cleared his throat. "The bionuclear core is now prepared to house the subject. Captain of the guard, you may escort Cerinian 28 to the core."
The rottweiler head of the Astropolis security detachment nodded, then marched towards the exit—but the mention of Cerinian 28 caught Bill's attention. "Wait," he interjected, stepping forward again. "I should do it."
Fara, Fredersen, de Pon—even Kuma looked at him with surprise. "Major Grey," Fredersen said, "Your authority is over the CDF—not Astropolis private security. Your role here is just part of Ms. Phoenix's security detail. Is it really your duty to handle Cerinian 28?"
"I'd torment her myself if I had to."
He swallowed, but held his ground beneath the three overseers. "The threat to Ms. Phoenix isn't in here—it's out there. I can protect her better by watching over Cerinian 28 instead. Besides, no slight to Astropolis' security forces, but I'm the only one here with experience fighting Cerinians. And… I was the one who brought 28 back. I should be the one to finish what we started. I'll escort 28—no, Krystal—to the core."
A lingering silence filled the Herz. Fredersen raised his eyebrows, taken aback. "Krystal? You mean, Subject 28?"
He nodded. "That is her name."
"…Well, Major, officially this is a scientific setting, and 28 is the subject's designated number, just as you yourself have a serial number. You understand our usage here is—"
"I do, sir. But we can also acknowledge her name if we're going to use her like this."
Fredersen pursed his lips as he studied Bill thoughtfully. "Well…"
"You have my permission, Major," Fara said at his side. But when he met her eyes, they felt as piercing and cold as icicles.
He bowed slightly. "Thank you, Ms. Phoenix."
Fredersen smirked. "Very well then, Major. Please escort Miss… Krystal to the core."
Fara watched Bill and Liebegute leave with the rest of the security detachment, face expressionless. At first. She wanted to tell herself she didn't care what happened to the pilot, but she found herself wringing her hands all the same. "Fredersen, will it be… safe?"
"For the major? Most likely. 28 has a collar programmed to inject her with sedatives if she tries to take it off, or if we give the command. We can also use Andross's prototype gate to isolate her in warp space. But I'd be lying to you if I said there wasn't any risk today. For Major Grey, and for us."
He leaned back in his seat, crossing his arms as he surveyed the core. "…And risk for all Lylat, for that matter."
It felt surreal to step through a door and enter another dimension, but Bill knew it wasn't far off from the truth. From the outside, Krystal's prison was maybe the size of a house, the walls reinforced with steel. On the inside however, it seemed limitless. A trick of Albert Sifaka's: technology similar to warp drives, which artificially increased the amount of space inside the cell. He had to walk roughly the length of a block to reach Krystal's little island, boots sending echoes into the darkness as they hit the polished black floor.
Bill could tell what once had been a pristine garden like Fara's had been uprooted by something like hurricane, then carefully put back into place—at least, as best as possible. There was still dirt scattered into the reaches of darkness away from the island, cracks in the pots and furniture, and petals missing from the clumsily replanted flowers. But an effort had been made to repair her tiny garden.
He swallowed when he walked up the brick steps, and the vixen on the bed stirred. She groggily sat up when she noticed him, still trapped in the gown that could double as a straightjacket. Her blinking, blue eyes landed on him as he approached, and he almost wilted like one of her uprooted roses. God she looked so much like 19. Her fur was blue rather than purple, but that face and those eyes sold it. He knew what 19 had done in the labs, yet eventually he'd felt safe talking to her—embracing her, even. But he did not feel safe with Krystal, even with the collar around her neck keeping her sedated with intermittent injections.
The collar will keep her in check. The collar will keep her in check. She knows that without you, she will never leave this room. She has no reason to kill you.
At least she showed no sign of resenting him. But when she noticed Liebegute, her eyes narrowed, and she tensed. The baboon was sweating buckets behind Bill, using the major for cover. He knew he'd better intervene before she snapped him in half like one of her daisy stalks—though come to think of it, perhaps he deserved it.
He stopped by her bedside and extended his hand. "Krystal, it's time. Will you come with me?"
She squinted at his hand for a second, then the cowering Dr. Liebegute as she swayed slightly in place. Then she slid off the bed, stood with some difficulty, and took it. "Lead on, Major Grey."
Bill clasped her hand as he turned and led her off the island, surrounded by the Astropolis security personnel and Liebegute trailing a safe distance behind. The sedatives kept her tired and dizzy, preventing her from thinking clearly and plotting an escape, and blunting her psychic powers as much as feasible. Her feet dragged and shuffled, and she had to clutch his hand for support to make it through the halls to the core, but he was surprised by her determination.
He realized too late that she could effortlessly read his mind like Ariki if she wanted, and find out he killed Fox. And then, she would kill him. It felt like a prison guard leading the condemned to their execution—but who was the guard, and who was the condemned? Soon, Bill was trembling as much as Liebegute, more than the unsteady vixen at his side. He couldn't think about it. He just wouldn't think about it. But every step of the way, he felt the twitch of his trigger finger, the flash of light, the look on Fox's face, and the betrayal in his eyes. Trigger, bang, flash, eyes. Trigger, bang, flash, eyes!
He adjusted his sweaty grip around her fingers, trying not to press them too hard. Please. Don't. Read. My. Mind…!
The sterile white hallways swam less and less the further Krystal walked through them. She could feel more of the exterior world beyond what her fingers and heels touched. She remembered her power over it. She could bend the walls, uproot the tiles, shatter the lights, and twist the spines of the guards beside her if she focused. She knew they wouldn't inject her with more sedatives if they could help it; they needed her awake, and her powers unblunted. If she concentrated, she could feel around inside the collar and identify the tiny, intricate mechanisms within. She could break a little metal bone, or place an impenetrable force between her neck and the needles. If she moved too slow and it managed to sting her, maybe she could still change the flow of the chemicals in her bloodstream. She'd seen the extent of her powers. These men, this "Bill Grey," didn't stand a chance. She could reduce them to red on the walls. And she could break free.
…Maybe it was the lingering dizziness from the sedatives, but the thought made her stomach sick. She'd have to kill them all again to escape, and violently. She'd have to destroy everyone and everything between this hallway and the laboratory's exit, and she'd personally feel the life leaving every soldier's veins as if it was her own. To kill was to die herself, a thousand times over. And the people living here would hate her; she'd only succeed in proving to them she was a monster. And freedom… freedom seemed so far away. She felt the satellite's crushing weight suffocating her from every side, trapping her beneath it.
Even if she did escape, she had no idea what it would be like on the outside. For all she knew, it would be another inhospitable wasteland like Venom, or most of Cerinia, and neither of those planets felt like home. She had nowhere to go but to her fate.
The Cornerian major led her through the final door and into the room that housed the core. Once inside, however, the familiar sight of it made her stop in her tracks, and Bill and the security detail were forced to stop with her.
There, towering over her in the spacious atrium, was the core of Astropolis. She was only a small child when she saw Bolse-Y's core, but even though she had grown now, so too had their ambitions. The looming pillar was even bigger than before. A steel bridge vaulted over the expanse to a circular platform surrounding the middle of the column, about which dozens of scientists crawled like white ants—even up and down the side, fiddling with panels along the curved exterior: their long lab coats like closed wings, their masks and goggles like bugs' faces.
She swallowed, the sight of the massive tower rooting her to the ground. This is what Andross wanted from her, years ago. All of her torment was for this. The reason she was driven from home after home, hunted across the stars.
She flinched and took a step back when the core hummed suddenly. The pair of blast doors in the center parted like a curtain. Inside shone a polished black globe, the hemispheres of which rotated and split open, overlapping together like a nesting doll to reveal the seat in the center. It was little more than an operating chair with restraining clasps open to receive her neck, wrists, and ankles: a crown of electrodes with serpentine wires that dangled like hair.
She knew how it went; she'd seen that chair before. She would sit in it, and they would inject her and close her inside, and then it would all go wrong. Her heart pounded faster and faster against the sedatives, remembering what had happened all those years ago the first time they had tried. No, she couldn't go back in there, or it would happen all over again!
…No, that wasn't right. It was the other way around. That would happen if she didn't submit. That's what went wrong the first time, she realized; Vixy went in her stead and paid the price for it. Everyone paid the price for it. Thousands of lives were snuffed out that day because she was a scared little child who let someone else take her place. Because of her, Vixy gained powers and lost control of them, killing herself rather than hurting anyone else. Because of her, Fox's father went on his fatal crusade against Andross, and she had ended up killing Fox when he had run away with her. If the satellite hadn't melted down, Andross wouldn't have been exiled and tormented all the Cerinians, and the whole war could have been averted.
The state of the whole world was all her fault. So she had to fix it.
The longer Krystal hesitated, the more the tension grew in the room. She resumed her march, walking across the bridge and taking her seat inside the opened core. One by one, while Major Grey looked on, the guards locked the clasps around her wrists, ankles, and neck. All the while, she remained as still and stoic as a statue, watching the soldiers with blank eyes.
Liebegute approached with a tray of syringes and tubes of pale, iridescent liquid shimmering like stars. It was hard to control her hatred for her longtime tormentor, but she took satisfaction in how he panicked. The baboon's breaths were shallow and quick. His brow and clothes were damp with sweat, despite the cool air. Clumsily he loaded and measured the syringe, and when he rolled up her sleeve and tried to find the usual veins, his hand trembled uncontrollably. He rarely missed unless he wanted to. But now he couldn't even hold it steady. Not since he'd watched her crush his underling's head.
Another scientist reached for the syringe. "Doctor, perhaps you should let—"
He hissed, jerking it away. "No! I-I'm fine, I'm fine." He swallowed, placing the needle against the crook of her elbow again and trying to hold it still. "Th-That fucking bitch," he whispered beneath his breath. "She thinks she's won…"
Krystal closed her eyes and patiently waited for him, feeding off his fear. She didn't even feel the prick of the needle when it slid into her vein anymore; she had grown callous to it. The resulting soreness barely registered, either—but she did feel the chill of the krystal lysergic acid as it spread through her arm and back towards her heart.
She tried to relax and return to the bank beneath the blossoms.
Fara frowned as she watched the Venomian inject her. "I still can't wrap my head around it. She's just a girl, like me… where does she get her 'powers' from?"
Makepeace's voice startled her; she hadn't even heard her return. "Well, my field is only psychiatry and neuroscience, but I do have a general understanding of their source. The universe is brimming with untapped energy. Even the vacuum of space has something called the zero-point field. 'Dark energy,' astronomers call it. It makes up two thirds of the energy in the universe. Cerinians have a way of tapping into it."
"But how is that possible? What lets them channel it?"
"The mind—specifically, the pineal gland. We know from the two-slit experiment that it connects consciousness to the quantum realm, but krystal lysergic acid can accelerate its evolution. With enough exposure to KLA, the mind can directly communicate with others—and even energy and matter directly, controlling them. Of the remaining Cerinian subjects, 28 showed the most responsiveness to KLA, and as a result, was the most adept at controlling energy. The Bolse cores were designed to harness their output."
"And, the process is… safe?"
De Pon snorted with amusement. "During their calculations, the scientists did come across the remote possibility 28's power funnel would destroy the entire system. Heh, I overheard a few of the scientists placing bets on whether or not the whole world would be destroyed."
Fara gasped. "That's horrible!"
He waved his hand with a grin. "They were merely joking! It only happened in less than one percent of scenarios."
"How would you have placed your bet, Mr. Fredersen?" Makepeace asked, craning her head so she could make eye contact with him.
The bull's nostrils flared, but he didn't respond. Instead he leaned forward and steepled his fingers.
"Start the sequence."
The core sealed shut. The world closed like an eyelid around Krystal, but hers only seemed to open. The KLA had already reached her head and was flowing to every mirror neuron in her brain. It felt like she'd turned into a ghost and slipped right through the floor, but after that initial gut-churning fall came a relieving weightlessness. She found herself floating outside the core, looking in, seeing herself frowning in her sleep through an X-ray of the metal shell.
The tall pillar began to rotate around the sphere inside. Her own senses were dulled, but through the ears of all the Watchers and soldiers standing by, she could hear a low, powerful hum begin to climb in pitch, and through their boots she could feel the machine rumbling.
The lights in the spacious entryway flickered, then surged abruptly, brightening till they blinded the occupants for a few seconds. Krystal felt her powers activating: the very essence of the world flowing into and through her, but this time it wasn't bending to her will at all. She had little control over it. It was just raw power for power's sake, rushing to her as she gathered it from all the spaces in between and channeled it to the core. Such immense energy like she'd never felt before…
No, it didn't just flow from anywhere this time. She wasn't alone. She craned her head back and peered straight up through the vaulted ceiling. The brightness still felt like it was burning her eyes away—but then again, all of her felt like it was being burned away. Yet she didn't have to squint or avert her gaze. For the first time, she was able to behold the sun itself, in all its splendor:
ㅤ
Lylat, molten
sphere of white gold,
larger than any rival for
light years around. A universe
unto itself, able to contain every
world she'd ever set foot on in her
insignificant life plus a million more.
She was in it, and it was in her: the
raw potential of countless planets,
oceans, mountains, people, and
weapons all churning together
in a fiery sea, beautiful and
terrible in its seething
fury. Her Lylat.
ㅤ
Unless they took it from her first.
A hundred technicians poured over monitors in the control room, and she could see over every one of their shoulders, watching them work. Through them she knew what every graph and changing number meant. If she tried, she could fluctuate them at will, worrying or relaxing them as they called out their readings. She saw Yaru de Pon and saw through his eyes, the one who had tried so hard to catch her. She saw and saw through Fara Phoenix, Fox's onetime mate, and the only one among them who had shown her kindness. She saw and saw through Morgan Fredersen, who she knew nothing of and who thought nothing of her. All were blind to the blue-furred vixen permeating the Herz like a ghost—all except a special few. One such scientist, who seemed to notice her floating above their heads, stumbled back and dropped his tablet in awe. The other two just gaped.
"Subject's energy output is higher than predicted," someone said. "It's rapidly increasing!"
She'd heard those words before. A chill ran through her body—or the combined body of all the technicians, she couldn't tell. Through the walls of the control room and the core housing, she began to see even further: the millions of people going about their lives in the city, oblivious that their fate rested on her shoulders at this very moment. The sudden realization that so many could die stressed her, along with every technician in the room.
"Output still increasing; exceeded half a trillion kilowatt-hours!"
The sun, Lylat, flowed through her and into the satellite. Her heart rate increased with worry, pumping more and more liquid light through her veins. She wanted to stop it, yet the more she panicked, the more power she channeled, creating a self-feeding cycle.
"Apply reactor pylons! Lower core temperature! Prevent overheating!"
Cold blue cylinders reached out from the atrium's ring-shaped wall segments, matching the core's slow spin. Once they clamped against the central pillar, spiderwebs of frost formed on its exterior.
"Switch Astropolis' power source over to the core," Fredersen commanded.
The lights flickered and went off, but the cooling rods began to glow red hot. Not just in the control room, but all over Astropolis the power went out, and facilities stopped working. For a few tense seconds, everyone held their breaths.
Then the lights returned at full brightness—in fact, even brighter than before.
"Source transfer successful! Bionuclear core is now fully powering the satellite!"
The core's exterior was superheated now; bursts of sparks began to rain down from the cooling pylons, forcing Bill and the scientists to run for cover and shield their heads.
"Open keyhole portal to Venom!" Fredersen ordered next.
Krystal blinked, and she could even see the remaining Cerinians buried deep in Venom's laboratories. Her imprisoned sisters and brothers slept in their chambers, dreaming, twitching from nightmares, feeding her their power too. And all their pain she felt as her own.
"Subject surpassed one-point-five trillion kilowatt-hours!"
"That's too much excess energy!" Liebegute warned.
Their hearts pounded faster and faster, like a thousand war drums all beating at once, and only she could hear the macro rhythm they formed building to dangerous crescendo. Their voices grew louder: more urgent and frantic as they traded warnings.
"Fredersen, what do we do?!"
"Channel excess power into a beam outside the plane of Lylat—"
She knew it was all headed towards the same catastrophe again, history repeating just as it had a thousand times in her nightmares. It was too much: the fear, the pain, the weight, the nothingness. There was only one way this could end now.
Krystal held her head and screamed.
Falco and the other leaders of the Corrupt looked up from a holomap of Astropolis' streets. Through the window they could see a colony-wide power outage spreading outwards from the central tower. The wave of darkness raced towards them, snuffing out the office buildings' lights one by one till it reached theirs. When it hit they were left in darkness, with only the holographic map of the colony lighting their faces.
"Whelp, mission success!" Ariki proclaimed, stretching and cracking his back. "Can I go home now?"
"Are there always power outages like this?" Katt asked, ignoring him.
The leader of the local Corrupt chapter—a bear who went by "Atlas"—scratched his chin. "No, never. Maybe one sector at a time, but this? This isn't normal. Unless…"
"Unless they're testing Krystal," Falco realized, rushing to the window.
Ariki scoffed, crossing his arms as he joined his side. "Then their test seems to have failed. I thought this notion of using some girl to power a city was a load of—AUGH!" He abruptly doubled over, clutching his head and cursing. "Sh-Sh-Shit!" he spat, staggering back from the window.
The others uneasily stood, watching him. "Ariki…?" Falco asked. "What's up, big guy?"
Suddenly the lights in all the buildings flashed on in another glittering wave, only now they glowed even brighter. The Free Birds, Corrupt, and Adept all shielded their eyes, squinting through the light. The center of Astropolis' mighty stalk glowed brighter and brighter till it practically shone as much as the sun it orbited.
Still hunched over, Ariki trembled. "I… I can feel… I can see… HER!"
Before they had time to understand Ariki's grunts, the central tower exploded with light.
ㅤ⧬ㅤ
Roland D. Finley sat in his wheelchair atop the veranda of the presidential mansion. Over the mountains, the dim, coppery disk of Lylat was setting—yet all at once, it began to shine like it was midday.
The black-furred terrier squinted, watching as a single beam of light rose from the golden disk. For a few seconds, it extended far above the plane of the Lylat System and disappeared into interstellar space. Then, as soon as it choked off, a large portal opened above Corneria City's industrial district. He had to shield his eyes when a thunderous stream of golden energy poured forth, redirected through the portal to rain down on some unseen power receiver like a waterfall of light. The immense, near-solid form of energy was breathtaking to look at, and soon every building, home, and military facility in the capital was powered by the flow. Most of the onlookers around the city instantly became enamored with the sight, filled with awe at the display.
The President felt only despair and helplessness.
Fredersen's gambit had paid off. The balance of power had forever shifted in Lylat. At this instant, he knew similar portals had opened over the cities of all other allied planets. A supply of limitless energy which, given Astropolis' many gates, could be aimed to power anywhere in the system.
Or rain hellfire down from above.
There was once a time when he would stand on the veranda with his friends: Pepper, Yaru, Edelyn, even Fredersen—but no longer.
Now, the wheelchair-bound president found himself alone.
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"All planets reporting!" a technician's voice rang out in the control room. "The power receiving stations on Corneria, Fichina, Papetoon, Aquas, and Zoness are all running at full capacity!"
"Subject's energy output holding steady."
"Core temperature nominal."
Fredersen exhaled a deep breath, shoulders deflating. "Then the test is a success on all fronts."
Cheers erupted across the control room, the staff trading high-fives and embracing with joy. Their celebration was cut short however when Fredersen raised his voice again, cutting through the revelries. "Power down the core for now. All staff, vacate the Herz. You are dismissed."
The abrupt order confused the technicians, but they weren't about to disobey the head financier of Astropolis. The technicians returned to their seats and reactivated the solar panel array, then filed out of the room without question.
Fara looked at Fredersen, just as bewildered—but the bull ignored her inquisitive look. Once the rest of the technicians had left, he stood and descended from their raised podium. "Dr. Makepeace, please accompany me to the core."
The vixen nodded and led him down a stairwell to the elevator. Curious, Fara began to follow—until de Pon caught her hand. "Fara, we… better leave him to it," the tanuki said. "I'm sure he'll join us for the celebrations shortly."
Reluctantly, Fara let de Pon lead her from the room—though she kept glancing uneasily over her shoulder as she watched the vixen and broad-shouldered bull disappear into the elevator.
The core room floor hastily cleared when Fredersen lumbered onto it. No one made eye-contact as they retreated; they couldn't with the full head-and-shoulders the massive bull had on them. Only Bill Grey had the courage to give him a distrustful look, and he was of no consequence. Liebegute wrinkled his nose at Makepeace as he slunk past, but he couldn't do anything to stop her.
Once they were alone, Makepeace typed away on the central control panel till the tall pillar split open again. The blast doors parted to reveal the black sphere at their center, which in turn cracked open to expose Subject 28. "Krystal," Major Grey had called her. Fredersen stood there in awe, watching as her sleeping body continued to dance with rainbow flames.
"My… will I be able to hear my…?" he asked the doctor.
Makepeace approached, producing a small, unmarked, white pill. She handed him the round, dissolvable tablet. "Just focus on her in your mind, and your memories will call her back to you."
Without hesitation, Fredersen tossed the pill back and swallowed. Everything, all of his efforts had built up to this moment. His heart pounded as he felt the pill go down his throat, wondering if it even made it all the way. He knelt before the girl in the chair, still taller than her even on his knees. He focused on the multicolored flames licking the vixen's oblivious face and did as Marjorie said. He tried to remember far back in his past—far back in Lylat's past, beyond when any living person, society, or even modern civilization could recollect.
The minutes seemed to drag on forever, but they were nothing compared to the ages without her. He watched the vixen's sleeping face with baited breath, the sparkling flames playing tricks on his eyes time and time again.
Then he gasped, for through the fire, the girl's face did take on the visage of another. It wasn't the muzzle of a bull calf at all, but a snow-furred lamb.
"S-Sadie," Fredersen cried. Ignoring the heat and the prickling shocks, he snatched the vixen out of the black shell and held her in his arms. He wept as he tried to stroke her cloud-like fur, imagining he could feel its softness again under his fingertips.
Eventually the sleeping lamb opened her eyes, blinking when she saw his face. "Papa…?"
He beamed down at her like the sun, at a loss for words. "Sadie, I… I've missed you so much. But I knew one day I could bring you back. All these years, I swore to myself I would."
"Papa… thank you," she said, reaching up to stroke his face. He didn't think he just imagined it when he felt her ghostly fingers brushing his muzzle.
He soaked in the lamb's caress for a few seconds, then took her hand in his much larger fist, holding it. "Tell me, child, what is death like? Is it as horrible as life has been without you? Did you see anything, or was it just nothingness? What… what awaits everyone?"
"It's like I've been asleep for so long, and yet… it feels like no time at all." She wrapped her arms around herself. "It's cold… like I'm floating underwater. But I have dreams—so many dreams. I always see Mama, and I even see you." She clutched his hand tighter as if she were about to slip away. "B-But I don't want to be asleep anymore. I want to wake up and be with you again!"
Fredersen couldn't stop the silent tears running down his eyes. "And you will be, child. You will be. I will bring you back, I swear it. In fact, I'll bring you back soon, and we can talk again like this. Okay?"
She blinked, and her eyes went wide. They darted around, but only saw straight through him. "Papa…? Papa!"
Eventually the white flames of her fur uncurled back into their individual colors, becoming just a quilt of red, green, and blue fire again. Her face disappeared in the flames, and those fires too died, leaving only the sleeping Cerinian girl behind.
Krystal.
Sighing, Fredersen relinquished the vixen and set her back in the chair. "Will the girl ever fully become my daughter?" he asked, not looking over his shoulder. "Can she truly be reborn?"
"In time, she will be. The more 28 channels energy for the core, the more your daughter's spirit can inhabit her. A psychic like that can be a vessel for many things—whether a star, or a soul."
Fredersen turned his back on her and walked towards the exit. "Summon the engineers. Have them reactivate the core and resume sending power through the gates. From now on, Lylat will rely on Astropolis. On us."
"Sir, Cornerian Parliament hasn't permitted—"
"Corneria's government will no longer be relevant after tonight. The gates of heaven opened. General Pepper has his signal."
Makepeace bowed as Fredersen exited the core atrium. He didn't stay long enough to see the vixen raise her eyes again to the control room window. Inside the vacant room stood Kuma, watching them through the glass. The tawny house cat locked eyes with Marjorie, nodded, and vanished.
