POV Rio
After leaving the lab, I was quickly surrounded by the guards on duty in Sanctuary.
"Lord Rio! What happened?" Guto asks.
"That... Is a long story, let me gather everyone up to explain it," I say, so I don't have to explain over and over again.
Several Hours Later...
"Wait, wait, wait! Yer tellin' me that 7 years passed for you but nothing happened to us?" Cait asks with some actual worry.
"Yep, it was an eventful 7 years. I have made significant progress on many of our projects, and I believe we should be in a much better position. Though I still haven't found a way to defeat the Lich," I explain with some disappointment.
"Hey, that's okay. We'll figure somethin' out. And with the mirror workin', that means we got unlimited possibilities, right?" Cait comforts.
"Sigh. I know. I know. We'll get there eventually. But for now, we need to deal with a few threats, and then I will jump back into the mirror. With some luck, I can find a world that can help us," I say with a slightly fake smile.
I knew that the odds of finding such a world were already low, and then you have to consider the danger in getting an item that can destroy a soul and not being killed by it. For instance, technically, I could find an item in the Elder Scrolls Universe that could do what I need, but I would have to deal with the insanely powerful Daedric Princes. I am decently strong, but I hold no illusions that I would be cannon fodder for beings of that level.
"But that doesn't matter right now. It's time we go to the one place uncorrupted by capitalism! Space!" I say in my best Tim Curry voice.
Everyone looks at me with eyes that worry if I have gone mad in those seven years. But Cait catches on a bit quicker.
"OH! Can I press the button!" Cait says with eyes that nearly sparkle.
"What button?" I say while trying to play dumb.
"Please, with 7 years, you definitely finished the big boom. You wouldn't come back unless you were as ready as you could become," Cait rightfully guesses.
"Sigh. Fine, you got me. Yes, I made the Super Nuke; the name still needs some workshoping but it's good enough since it is a one-time use. And the ship designed to deliver it is ready. But that won't be for a few days, as I need to download the Zetans Network to collect their scientific findings," I explain.
"Yeah, yeah, but I can press the button to make it go boom, right?" Cait all but begs.
"Sigh. Yes, you can," I say while rolling my eyes.
"Ahh, thanks, Rio, you're my favorite horse mutant," Cait says while hugging me.
"Have you been talking with Hancock?" I ask with narrowed eyes.
"Yeah, and to answer your follow-up question. Yes, I forgive you," Cait says with a smile.
I was about to ask what I was being forgiven for, but I had a sudden feeling like that would be a very bad idea. So I nodded and let it go.
As I told Cait and the others, I would need a bit of time to finish the preparations. For one, I sent the Stealth Covette to Zetan Prime with a crew of droids with the purpose of downloading everything the Zetans had on their network. Thanks to my vastly superior FTL systems, I could easily send them within a day. I had even attached a massive storage drive to the Corvette to assist in the storage and transmission of information. That was the other massive advantage I had. I have access to FTL communications; the Zetans don't.
While that was being done, it was time to pay a certain space station a visit. The station had very few people aboard, so I believed it wouldn't be impossible to clear it out. But just in case, I have come extra prepared. I didn't want them blowing up the space station, as I could use it for myself. As for defenses, from what I gathered during my hack, I only detected 36 robot workers and 18 Assaultrons. Most of the defenses were turret-based, which were useless unless they turned on the power, but turning on the power would reactivate my virus. So they were damned if they do and damned if they don't.
Which is why I was leading Cait, Quiet, Preston, and Guto, along with the new droids I had designed with Henry. The ground troops were all based on a combination of Assaultron, BX Commando Droid, HK series Assassin Droid, and Synth. They were not cheap to produce, but the theoretical capabilities they showed in testing were more than sufficient for almost any situation. Not to mention, they had a miniaturized shield generator that made them a real pain in the rear to kill.
As the Gunship approached the landing point, I was prepared to see the enemy get desperate and turn on the automated defenses to shoot at us, but nothing of the sort happened, and we all reached our specified landing points. Which were all airlocks. In order to get inside, all we needed to do was send a slight power surge to the doors, and the virus would do the rest.
"Contact!" Guto yells over the comms, and blaster fire is heard along with the sounds of some Assaultrons.
On my side, there wasn't anything. Just an empty hallway. My task was to capture the reactor room. Guto would capture the bridge. Quiet would capture the armory. And Cait would capture the robotics depot.
Besides the initial contact on Guto's side, none of us experienced any resistance. It seemed that the enemy had locked themselves in the bridge. Which meant once everything was handled on our sides, we regrouped at the bridge, and at this point, power had been fully restored to the rest of the station. Except for the bridge, which had been manually cut off from the rest of the station.
"Any changes?" I ask Guto.
"None, we have used the scanners to determine that there should only be two living beings inside. We tried convincing them to surrender, but unsurprisingly, they didn't budge," Guto explains.
"Well, let me handle it then. No need to damage our property," I reply.
Guto nods and prepares to breach if needed. But it wasn't. I turned to shadow and slipped into the dark bridge. There I saw a little person and a very rotund, almost egg-shaped man. In fact, when I looked closer, the large man looked eerily similar to Dr Robotnik from the Sonic series. Either way, I wasn't taking any chances, so I snuck behind them and turned back into solid form and stabbed both of them in the spine. The little person died right away, but the large man surprisingly survived, as it seemed like his spine was made of metal.
"ARRRGH!" the man screams in pain, but I take out my lightsaber and cut off his head.
That still doesn't kill him as his body starts to move on its own without his head, and attacks me. At this point, I was getting annoyed, so I cast several spells and ripped his body to pieces before vaporizing it to be extra sure. I did the same to his head and then checked with my Hoshigan to make sure I didn't miss anything. Then I fixed the power connection issue, and the doors opened.
A Few Days Later...
I was sitting in the new conference room aboard the ESS Harmony, the only Venator-Class I had built at this time. We were watching as the last bits of info were downloaded from Zetan Prime. Which meant the rebuilt Zetan ship we built was ready to deliver the payload. Getting past the Zetan's security was surprisingly easy. They didn't even bother checking the ship; they just saw the valid codes in their language and sent them through. The ship lands at a platform in the capital, and I had the big red button to Cait as the Zetan port authority started to notice that the ship was a bit off. As for why the button was so... itself. Cait insisted it looked like this.
"Go ahead," I say to Cait.
Cait gives a massive smile and presses the button. The visual feed cuts off and switches to the Stealth Corvette stationed not that far away. The explosion is massive, and even I was a bit surprised by the destructive power it wielded.
(AN: If you want a visual, I would suggest watching Justice League: Crisis On Two Earths | Batman Vs. Owlman | ClipZone: Heroes & Villains at the 5-minute and 20-second mark. It's what the Super Nuke was based on anyway. )
The explosion was strong enough that it caused the destruction of several Zetan ships in orbit. But despite that, there were some survivors. I was about to order the preparation to mount and final campaign to wipe them out when the ships left the system fairly quickly and went in a direction that didn't make much sense to me.
"Hmm, Strategus, do we know what is in that direction?" I ask.
"Calculating... Yes, the Zetans had made contact with a space civilization that was fighting the Silicon Empire. The Zetans seemed to have been thinking of assisting them with the fight. It is highly probable that they are heading to this... Zwelder Ascendency, to seek refugee status or some similar position," Strategus explains.
"Hmm, let them go. We have dealt with them for now. Have some probe droids sent out to learn more about the other players of the universe," I order.
"Yes, sir," Strategus replies.
"So... What now?" Cait asks.
"Now? Now I..."I start to reply when I am interrupted.
Beep.
I look at the alert, and my smile widens.
"Now. We go meet the survivors of Equus," I say with a smile.