Prologue

The girl's feet dangled dangerously over the edge of the spire she sat on, hundreds of meters above the sandy ground below. A desert wind picked up, swirling the rough sand below in circles, sweeping across the landscape in silent screams unheard. Below her lay the ruins of some structure long gone, unendingly being attacked by the fierce wind, the only recognisable thing being the broken-down walls surrounding a ghostly courtyard in front of a pile of massive stone. Pillars had fallen, tilted to the side, tired of shouldering the structure that once was.

The wind has been merciful on this one. It laughed, a shrill sound, as it picked up more speed and flung sand at the broken ruins. Hundreds of years it has blown, only managing to sweep smooth the outer walls of this structure. The ruins stayed strong, rearing against the wind like a skeletal beast in protest, not wanting to go down.

But the wind would always win. It would come in its haunting songs, one day finally sweeping away the last remains of the structure. Time would take its toll on any object that would stand in its way.

The girl had watched so many times as structures gleamed and were built into magnificent palaces and temples, only for its inhabitants to go, and the building that followed, slowly returning to the Earth as its architects had.

This never affected the girl, though. After all, why should it? She swept her hand in a circle on the ground on which she sat, disturbing the coarse stalks of the yellow grass and the grains of fine sand. There was wind for her, there was time for her. But she was never affected. She felt the passage of time, but Time had ignored her, almost like refusing her. She'd seen countless empires rise and fall, numberless amounts of battles. It was such a cruel punishment for her to exist forever. She wasn't living, strictly to say. She was simply existing. Existing with do much pain... She wanted to forget so badly, she wanted to be able to stop existing. But her mind fought against her- she couldn't forget. To forget would be a lie to the past. To forget would be denying that everything never happened... and especially when it was all her fault.

She was momentarily jerked out of her thoughts as yet another pillar succumbed to the grasp of time. The wind howled triumphantly as it battered against the pillar again and again, with a deafening roar and a crack, the structure cracked in half, the top tumbling down to the ground in a plume of dust, thumping to a stop.

The girl sighed, unsure what to do now. Life had no meaning to her. She just existed, wishing she had a meaning. She fell backwards, again, into her thoughts.

Ah, I'm here. Sorry, there was-

"You're late." The girl spoke, suddenly, cutting the voice off. A small point of light, barely visible, floated beside her head and she looked at it expressionlessly. The light bobbed a bit, seemingly bashful.

I said, I'm sorry-

"You know apologies don't mean anything to me anymore." She spoke in a low tone, looking down as her shoulders hunched over. "Back then... I said I was sorry. Everything was still my fault." The light beside her stopped bobbing.

I... I shouldn't have said that, huh?

"Well, you sound more sincere." She looked up again. "It's weird, isn't it? I'm talking to a point. A point that shouldn't even be existent. You're not any atom or molecule, because that would then give you mass. You're a point, massless, with no area, with no volume... An imaginary marker..." She smiled bitterly. "Exactly like me. Imaginary."

...

"Nothing to say now?" She looked away from it again, turning back to watch the wind's relentless attack on the ruins below. "Well, since you're here now."

... Tell me what happened?

"..." the girl lifted her head, gazing over the ruins, over the sands, and into the distance. "I don't have anything to do, and I can't forget. Maybe one day I'll be gone, but what happened cannot be forgotten. There's no harm in telling you, no?" She chuckled darkly.

...

"I'll begin, then. We have all the time in the world. Nothing affects us less than time. Ironic." Her blank stare seemed to focus on something in the distance. "Yes... things were better back then..."

Wait.

"Hmm?" The girl's head snapped around to the floating glow point, her eyes boring into what shouldn't even be visible. After all, a point is a concept, and it is not a physical thing.

You're different from them, aren't you?

"What do you mean?"

Everything here is so transparent. Others of your kind... I can read what they want to communicate to me without the need for them to express it through vocal methods. You're... different. Others of your kind communicate directly through thoughts, projecting their thoughts and feelings to each other...

"Hah... I suppose so. I am different, after all."

And that's what I don't understand- why do you feel the need to communicate through vocal means? You know you could express yourself without speech. I can't see what you're thinking unlike the others.

"So you can't hide your thoughts? There's no concealing in your world? There are no tactics, no deception?"

Exactly. Why do you feel the need to do so? There shouldn't be anything you need to hide.

"There's privacy. There's memory. There are things that make an individual an individual."

Individual? You sound like a human.

There was a long pause as the girl just watched the glowing point with her head tilted. Then, she sighed. "No wonder you and the rest of my kind are so simple."

What's that? Simple? We are just what we are.

"Heh. Well, I suppose so. I am not who I was before. Or am I? The concept of identity is hard to grasp."

You were always like this, or were you not? You speak as if you were something else before... Aren't the 1s and 0s good enough? We are all unique. Our identity is determined by what sequence our 1s and 0s come in. Of course, there are incidents where two are exactly the same. Rare, that is, but not impossible. So what do you mean exactly by "Individual" and "Identity"?

"As I said before, you are a simple thing. Sure, you are from another dimension. But simple nonetheless. You can't hide anything. There are no secrets in your world."

That's... a pretty interesting to say.

"Ah, no offence, of course. I'll try to explain what I can. I have a name, correct?"

Yes, you do. That I can see... the system has you registered as [- - - -]. Where are you going with this?

"Please just try to understand." A sigh followed, then some thoughtful silence. "That was not my name back then. So, am I now, a different person than I was in the past? Am I something completely different? Or am I the same person from before?"

This is harder and harder to understand. You're becoming like them- the humans, I mean.

"Well, whatever. You don't seem to be grasping the idea of it. What about... what about I just get on with my story? Maybe you will understand."

The story you were going to tell before I interrupted?

"Yes. But how much truth does the story contain? How much reality does the story reflect? That is for you to decide."

Sounds interesting. Truly, you are not the same as the others of your kind... [- - - -]

-----

Introductory Note

Humans always thought they are the most powerful and intelligent things in the universe. But, of course not, the Earth is in the Solar System, and the Solar System is part of the Milky Way. The Milky Way is part of a universe in many, many universes, so many, so incomprehensible, something no human can possibly understand.

In the universe right next to the universe Earth belonged in, there were other beings. Humanoid. They looked exactly like humans, if one had to put it that way. But, however, they were more advanced. Their technology had advanced way over the capacity of normal human technology, such so that each planet in Alesandira, their version of the Milky Way, was considered its own nation, and travel was done in ships between planets.

Not only did they have technology, some were able to use the art of magic, and some could use the mystic arts. Similar, but not the same.

This story takes place in Alesandira.

Chapter 1

I.

The teenaged girl moved briskly down the whitewashed empty hallway, a file of papers clutched against her chest as she bit her lip lightly. There were other people in the halls, dressed the same as her, in long white lab coats, but unlike her, they were not in a hurry, and they did not have some urgent matter they needed to attend to. She was going relatively fast, so her coat fluttered gently behind her as she turned a corner abruptly but still silently as her footfalls made no sound in the hall.

She finally stopped outside of a door with a round translucent window, pushing the door in as she entered and letting it swing back and forth a couple of times before it came to a stop. The two other people inside barely looked up when she arrived, one of them giving a short 'hello' and a glance before going back to attend to their own work with something involving a microscope. The other person didn't acknowledge her entrance and continued on their way with typing at a computer.

The table before her was littered with all sorts of chemicals and test tubes full of stuff, along with some papers and bunsen burners here or there. The girl huffed mentally and stepped forwards until her waist was practically leaning on the table, then dramatically swept the flasks and microscopes aside, throwing her file of papers onto the table with a dull thud, disturbing the silence the room was previously filled with.

"Right, so!" She waved her hand at the other people in the room. When no response came back to her, she crossed her arms, leaning forwards on the table so much that it shifted forwards a couple of centimeters, causing the things on the table to jerk backwards. "Hey, I'm talking to you people."

"Could you not do that?" The boy at the microscope on the table scooted backwards, chair sliding back on the ground with a sharp hissing sound. He shot the girl a weird look, then looked at the stack of papers on the hastily made space on the table. "You just shook the thing off focus. Do you know how long it took for me to find the cell with this kind of focusing thing!?"

"Okay, look." The girl leaned forwards, placing her hands on both sides of the paper before her. "I know you're both busy. We can develop the thing later. The thing is, Thanvus needs our help again, they have another request."

"Another request? When the last one we completed just last week?" A monotone voice spoke as the boy who had been programming something at the computer spun around in his chair, giving the girl a glance before looking away into space. The girl felt the need to nervously fidget, but composed herself and settled on tapping her fingers against the table instead.

"Yeah." The girl replied quickly, in a smaller voice than before.

"Okay, how about we see what they want now? Thanvus isn't far away, we can get there on a spaceship pretty fast." The first boy broke the unsaid tension and reached for the file, pulling them towards him with a finger and finally grabbing them with his hand when they were close enough. The room was silent for a moment as he sifted through the papers, scanning the lines of text. "Why didn't he send an email, though? That would've been faster." He was talking about the person who sent the papers.

"He did, though. This stuff was attached to the email, thought you guys would want to see it in paper form." The girl explained, poking a flask that contained some sort of see through yellow liquid, oil, perhaps. "This request isn't hard, we can do that." She shot a quick look at the second boy out of her peripheral vision, noting he was focused on the first boy, relaxed, and returned her attention as well to the first boy.

"Explosives, huh?" The first boy raised an eyebrow, then looked at the girl. The girl shrugged, returning his look.

"Who knows what he wants. It's not as if we hadn't gotten him weirder things before." She deadpanned, bringing her hands together beneath her chin, rubbing them together. "We're delivering directly to his target this time, he always has interesting requests for us to plan." She looked nervous, but smiled nonetheless.

--

II.

In a different part of the same galaxy, starships were in flight. At the command room of the central ship, a girl in a long red dress stood, gazing out of the large window that made up most of the room. This was princess Felina of Cryson, the red planet. She was princess, and she was commander of the ship, as she was trained in military as well as normal princess things.

"Well?" Another girl spoke up next to princess Felina, also dressed in red, but in a shorter dress, one that went to just above her knees. "Are we back yet?" She was Felina's half sister and her best friend, named Sarah.

"You know we still have some way to go." Felina laughed, turning away from the window. "But, we'll get to see Fluffs and Terra on the way, I heard they were coming to meet us." Fluffs and Terra were also her friends, Fluffs being princess of Amure and Terra being princess of Serulean.

"Miss!" A voice of one of the people standing at the multiple command consoles called out, waving at the two who stood by the window. "We're nearing Cryson, we've a couple of hours to go. We're sensing movement, however, from some ships in the distance, between us and Cryson, ships of Thanvus." He rattled off the facts in report.

"What? Why are they here?" Felina's voice volume rose in alarm as she sped her way around to the command console the man was standing at. Indeed, they were sensing radar waves from an entire fleet - much larger than the fleet Felina was currently on. They were not expecting an attack from their enemies so soon!

"They're going at a fast speed, too. According to the computer's calculations, the two fleets will meet just above the planet Suluvar." The man continued in a hurried voice, pointing at a couple of monitors that were flashing with all sorts of text about velocity, direction, and other things. "And, look. They're calling in." A call icon had popped up on another monitor to the right of the man, him hurrying over, followed by Felina and Sarah. With a confirmation nod from Felina, the man tapped on the accept button. Instantly, a voice filled the room, the owner's face appearing on the monitor.

"Hello!" The boy on the monitor beamed at Felina brightly, waving. "Nice seeing you! Welcome back to Alesandira."

"Francis, what do you want?" Felina snapped angrily, breaking right through his friendly facade. "I don't have the time to deal with your attacks right now."

"We're nearing Suluvar." The man next to Felina alerted her, earning him a quick nod back from the princess.

"Oh~ But wait, Cryson has so many resources we could use. It would be in so much more competent hands with me." Prince Francis of Thanvus drawled, giving the princess a sinister grin. "Your ships are in range now, hehe, expect surprises from me!" The call clicked to a close and Felina slammed her hand onto the darkened monitor, fuming.

"That disgusting thing!" She yelled, turning to the man. "We have no choice but to fight back, prepare the missiles." The man nodded and went off to tap buttons on another control console halfway across the room, leaving Felina and Sarah on their own with their section of the consoles. Felina's hands flew over the monitors, quickly typing in commands and pressing buttons.

The incoming call icon popped up again on the call monitor and Sarah pressed the accept button with an exasperated sigh, wondering what it was now.

"Hey~" The face of Francis popped up again. "Miss me? Whatever. Enjoy your surprise! Should be soon!" Again, he hung up, leaving Felina hissing in anger and disgust. She fired a couple of missiles at the fleet she could see in the distance from the large window, and she confirmed that it was way bigger than her own fleet. Definitely not good, why did Francis have to come now?

"Uh, Felina? Shouldn't you check for his 'little surprise' instead of fume angrily?" Sarah suggested, waving a hand in front of her angry friend's face. As if in response to her question, the ship shook with the force of an explosion, causing Felina to utter some very unflattering things, especially for a princess.

"What happened?" The princess demanded, finally pulling herself together and checking a monitor of the ship they were currently on. A diagram of the ship and its systems showed the damage; an entire portion of the back of the ship had been somehow blown off, and with it, nearly forty percent of the ship's engines. "How did they get behind us without us knowing?"

"Incoming!" The shout alerted the already anxious princess and her friend, both heads snapping upwards from the monitors and looking out the window.

Indeed, like the ships of Cryson, Thanvus's ships had sent their own missiles, and they were now speeding towards the vastly smaller Cryson fleet.

I.

With the sound of the explosion still echoing in her head, the girl took cover behind a control panel to the airlock that led to the rooms and places that had just been blasted clean off. Maybe she should have thought this through a bit more before carrying this out; she was now stranded on the ship. She nervously smoothed down her long lab coat and peered out over the top of the panel, looking around for anybody. Seeing nobody, she moved, darting out silently from behind it, knowing she wouldnt have much time as people would probably come and check the area.

The ship wasn't unfamiliar to her, as it was built as all standard starships were built, but its paths were confusing, with extra hallways here or there and dead ends where halls would have been otherwise.

The sound of footsteps alerted her immediately; there were people coming, and they were coming fast. She was at an intersection between three hallways, the footsteps coming from the left, leaving her with two other options open, but which way to take? The two hallways looked exactly the same, and she needed to get to an escape pod or something and hopefully drop onto the planet below, Suluvar.

Her head spun as she went over the facts. She'd blown off the left side of the spaceship, and she had also entered from that side. She wanted to avoid going to the right hind side of the spaceships where the other engines were, so the best bet she could take was probably the middle passage. But then, that would mean less likely chance of finding an escape pod, unless Cryson's ships had drop down escape pods, as normal escape pods were on the sides of spaceships.

With no time for more thought, the girl rushed down the central hallway, her footsteps making no sound exactly as she had trained. Doors lined the hallway, with transparent windows, and she could see a couple of bedrooms and rooms filled with machines and other sort of things of no importance to her. Right now, she was focused on finding some sort of escape.

She also needed to get out fast before the ship was hit with too many missiles, as she'd heard the alarm of Thanvus's ships sending theirs in. She'd been warned before; but, she still wished she had more time.

The sound of voices came from down the hall, and she mentally smacked herself in the face. Maybe the right path would have been a better choice, but she couldn't go back now, there were probably people there. Checking her pockets of her white lab coat, she pulled out what she had. A small test tube of acid, a bottle of random base. Hissing silently to herself, she returned them, knowing they would be of no use at this point.

She darted to the side, seizing the doorknob of the nearest door, attempting to open it. Unfortunately, it was locked. She glanced down the hall again, judging how much time she would have before the talking people arrived. By the frequency of their footsteps and the rate of how fast their voices' volume increased, she could tell they were coming fast, at a speed-walk rate, and she would have about thirty to forty seconds before they saw her. At least her white lab coat could slightly camouflage her with her surroundings, unlike the coming people, who probably wore red, as it was custom in the entire galaxy to wear the colour of your planet.

She fumbled around for something she could use, but the only things she had were the acid and the base, which were useless. Unlike what was commonly believed to be true, not all acids could just melt a lock clean through. The acid she was carrying was not suited for destroying a lock, so even if it could completely melt something on contact, it wouldn't go all the way through, and it would probably end up rendering the lock more non-openable than it was already right now. At best, maybe the acid could damage the springs within the lock and she could open the door through force if she shook it enough and the damaged springs shook loose.

She decided against trying to use acid and she gave herself a sharp word reminding her to bring a lock pick next time she was going to do this type of thing. Ten seconds had passed, and she had little time left, and in that moment, she made the flash decision to use the only thing she had left - her hair tie, which had a small metal decoration on it.

She tugged it down from her ponytail, letting her black hair fall onto her shoulders as she pulled at the metal part. It was made with a sturdy wire, curved and tied into a bowtie shape, and she worked at it, trying to shape it into something that could pick a lock. She crouched down by the door, peering into the lock and trying to determine how many pins the lock had.

There was no way she could make her piece of metal into a rake for lock picking, so she could only try. There was close to no time left, so she bit her lip and inserted the hastily made pick into the lock, taking a deep breath and closing her eyes, trying to visualise the inside of the lock, thinking of it as a simple one.

A few pent-up seconds passed; the lock clicked, and the girl let out a breath she didn't know she'd been holding. Wasting no more time, she pushed down the handle and half fell into the darkened room, getting up and stretching her cramping legs, letting the door close behind her slowly and moving forwards, her hairband now on her wrist and her hair falling into her face.

Some sort of draft or wind blew past her, causing the door to slam the last couple of centimetres, the sound echoing through the room she was in and no doubted the sound was also heard on the other side of the door. She could a yell and the quickening of footsteps into a run, and she took off into the room, using the light from the hallway that shone through the door's window as her only light source. She could make out there were multiple shelves of things and a couple of file holders in the centre of the room.

A sound of a muffled explosion and a slight rocking of the ship told the girl that Thanvus's ships' missiles had found their mark, and a reminder that she needed to get out fast. There had been a draft a few seconds ago, so there must be some sort of other exit of this room. She headed inwards, between the racks of papers.

--

II.

Felina yelled all sorts of colourful language as she and Sarah arrived at the door that had slammed.

"There's an intruder! This hallway is otherwise off limits, and any of our people should have known that." She fumed, pushing at the door and opening it with ease, using a little bit too much force and causing it to swing the entire 180 degrees and slam into the wall. Again, she was angry.

"No kidding." Sarah rolled her eyes and stepped into the room, catching the rebounding door and setting it straight, flicking on the lights in the process. Movement among the racks of files startled her and her eyes snapped to where she thought she saw the motion. "There!" The flap of white fabric that she'd seen immediately disappeared behind a cabinet of papers.

The pair took off at a run, skidding down the narrow pathways between the high storage racks and barriers, finally reaching the last place Sarah had seen movement, only to be met with a swinging door. Someone had gone through very recently, a couple of seconds ago at maximum.

They burst through the door into the room beyond, a large, round empty room with the floor as reinforced glass with a steel circle in the middle, showing the golden swirls of the planet Suluvar beneath them. It was one of the rooms on the belly side of the spaceship, designed so that one could see anything below the ship. In the centre of the room, a girl stood, glaring at them in a half-crouched position, one hand on the glass, one hand in the pocket of her white lab coat.

"You're the one who caused the explosion, aren't you?" Felina snarled, pointing an incriminating finger at the girl. The girl narrowed her eyes, using a hand to push back her untied black hair, not letting the hair fall into her face.

"You'd never understand." The girl hissed in reply, pulling her other hand out of the pocket, now holding a small vial of something liquid. "We are now in the atmosphere in Suluvar." She began to rattle off facts at a fast speed, almost too fast that the princess and her friend couldnt even make out what she was saying. "One hundred kilometers above the surface, possible for free fall. The acceleration due to gravity is 9.8 meters per second, very unlikely that one could survive the fall. Not impossible, but extremely unlikely- "

"Shut up!" Felina shouted, running forwards, trying to seize the girl. "Why is Mortes involved in our problems? Or are you an Exiled?" She demanded angrily, her eyes flaming.

"Stay away!" The shout and the sound of glass shattering surprised Felina, causing the princess to screech to a halt to avoid the puddle of hissing liquid melting into the steel circle in the ground, quickly backing up and not wanting to have her own shoes and feet melt off. Rapidly a hole was appearing in the room's ground, a jet of wind rushing upwards into the room, blowing everybody's hair away.

"Curse you!" Felina yelled over the high winds entering through the rapidly expanding hole, Sarah rushing towards her and gripping her arm, dragging her backwards. Felina let herself be dragged backwards, but didn't stop yelling. "You monster! Cryson may be destroyed over this!"

The girl stepped forwards towards the hole, hair whipping behind her in almost a regal sense. "Nitric acid." She said in a soft voice. "I'm sorry. But you really dont understand." With those words, she swan-dived over the hissing steel into the planet below.

With the wind howling and nothing they could do, the two remaining girls had to retreat into the previous room, Sarah shaking a bit in shock.

"A-are you okay?" The princess's companion asked her friend, patting her gently on the head, herself still shivering.

"Yeah. I'm fine. A bit angry, but fine." Felina snapped, startling Sarah, then noticing Sarah's condition and softened a bit. "Trust me. It'll be okay, we'll find her and deal with her. After all, we know the princess of Suluvar, no?" She smiled, but her eyes still flared with fury.

Sarah nodded, giving her friend a tight hug and clinging on to her. "Should we check the security cameras for other threats?" As if remembering something, she released her friend from the hug. "Why were we not alerted? Something seems to be very wrong." She straightened, heading down the aisle between two racks of files. Felina followed, and soon, the two were out of the relatively small storage room.

"We should go get that hole fixed." Felina said, still hearing the sound of wind from one room away. "Yeah, and we should get all of the damage from Francis repaired as well. Definitely, we'll also have to check the security." She was striding down the hall now, dress flowing behind her, Sarah jumping to keep up.

"And what about the Mortes girl? Did she just... kill herself?" Sarah piped up after a couple of minutes, the two finally reaching the area with security. There was still a tense aura in the air, reminding the both of them that they were still under attack.

"We can't worry about her now! We shouldn't, after all, she caused all of that damage!" Felina spoke, her voice rising every several words, the ship beneath them shaking again from the force of yet another explosion. "You!" She hurried over to the security consoles and a woman working at them, taking the woman by the shoulders and shaking her hard. "What happened here? Why were we not alerted of an intruder!?"

"T-there was an intruder?" The woman looked panic stricken and took a deep breath before continuing through a shaking voice. "S-someone had hacked the c-computers, Princess."

I.

The air was cold and felt like icy blades against her skin, causing her lab coat to flap around her in the wind. She was falling, falling fast, and she really wished now that she'd made a plan beforehand instead of going by whatever came to mind. This was a horrendously bad idea and if she died, so be it. She was the one that thoughtlessly jumped off the spaceship.

Her self-pitying was interrupted by a small flash of golden light through the clouds. Squinting against the winds that were making her eyes tear up as she fell, she saw the probes. Hundreds, even thousands of small golden probes were afloat in the fluffy recesses of the gold-tinted clouds of Suluvar.

She was a couple of seconds away from reaching terminal velocity when one of the probes shifted in its stationary floating and zoomed towards her, other probes following suit. Since they were closer now, hovering around her and also descending along with her, she could see they were like golden spheres, and that they were forming a circle around her falling form.

In a split second, thin fibers sprung out of hidden compartments within the spheres, latching onto other spheres' fibers, forming a kind of web like structure under the falling girl. Surprised, the girl tried to maneuver herself to grab onto one of the golden orbs. Her attempt succeeded, and she now held one of the orbs, feeling its hum of electric power beneath her hands.

The entire formation of spheres jerked upwards, throwing her back, and she realised that they were slowing her fall down, even if it was putting a relatively large amount of force on her body. It made her wonder; why did they bother to save her? Did Suluvar frequently have things fall out of the sky? Nevertheless, she was still kind of thankful that they were there.

Looking down, she could make out the shapes of a city with all sorts of fancy buildings, glittering gold in the light even though Cryson's ships were passing overhead and blocking some of the sunlight. From her research, Suluvar had somewhat of an okay relationship with both Thanvus and Cryson, so she wondered what it would do when the other two were faced off in battle right above its cities.

The orbs and web were slowing down more and more, adding to the pressure already on her body. They were so low now that she could make out dots of people moving around, although none of them seemed to notice her. The pressure lessened as her body got used to the slowing down and the orbs jerked sideways, nearly tossing her off, but she held on, and the orbs descended rapidly towards the top of a nearby skyscraper, dumping her on the roof shakily before retracting their web like fibers back into themselves and flitting off once again into the sky.

The girl rolled to a stop dizzily on the rough rooftop, white coat streaking with dust, causing her to cough a couple of times while she sat up, blinking as the golden landscape and buildings swam before her eyes. Blood was rushing through her head and it throbbed extremely uncomfortably, dousing her head in pain a couple of times, causing her to flop back down again, closing her eyes against the harsh sunshine.

She was so confused; why was she even alive at this point?

Somewhere nearby, there was the creak and slam of a door, followed by footsteps that stopped abruptly some distance away from her form. The girl heard a disappointed huff, cracked her eyes open, squinting a bit as she was facing the sun, and craned her head back to see who just came. She knew she was probably supposed to be alert or whatever, but she honestly didn't care right now if she got caught; she should have planned this out beforehand, and she was dead tired and somewhat lazy, and didn't want to move.

"Really?" A distinctly female voice huffed, and the outline of a person entered the girl's field of view. It was a girl, of course, and she was dressed in all blue, pale blue shirt, jeans, and a long dark blue jacket over it all. Her arms were crossed, and she strode closer, crouching down near the first girl's body and giving her a jab. "They say the weather probes went awry and flew off to here, and I come to check, and here you are. I'm disappointed, to say the least."

"Give me a break, okay?" The scientist girl groaned, shifting and flipping over, coughing a couple of times again. "I messed up pretty bad." She buried her head into her arms and closed her eyes, still trying to clear her head of the incessant pounding.

"No, the great you, impossible! No way you messed up!" Even though the girl couldn't see the other girl, she could hear the amount of eye rolling and sarcasm in the remark.

"Shut up, Terra." Finally, she pushed herself up, glaring at the girl in blue. Slowly, she stumbled to her feet, grabbing the offered hand from Terra to use as support. "I had to do it. Felina's going to be mad at me, even though she doesn't really know me, technically." She dusted off her lab coat, which was in pretty bad shape by now, and looked up, glancing at the flaming skyships afloat in the Suluvar atmosphere. "Although... To be honest, I think it would have been better if Francis timed his attack a bit later. Like, seriously?"

"Hmpf, sure." Terra snorted, giving her a light punch on the shoulder. "Fluffs is getting worried and whatnot, causing all sorts of drama over Francis. I can't see what she sees in him, but apparently, she likes him a lot and she's now extremely concerned for him."

"Well, yeah, whatever. None of my business." The girl in white waved a hand, looking back down from the skyships and fixing Terra in a firm stare. "I trust you'll get me out of here without problems? I have other things to do. Plus, I have to get out of here before a specific event happens."

"A specific event? Well, I'm certainly looking forwards to that." Terra smirked, heading back to the rooftop door she'd emerged from earlier. "Come along, there's a launch pad not far from here. You'll be back in Mortes in a couple of minutes. You know, so you can do your thing~" She ended with a small laugh which the other frowned slightly at, but otherwise ignored, following Terra to the door.

--

II.

"Miss! Thanvus's main ship is going down!" A man at a monitor yelled from across the room at Felina, beckoning the princess. Felina hurried over, quickly scanning the information before her, instantly forgetting about the hacking problem.

"Okay, send more missiles! Aim for the fuel tanks!" She snapped quickly, already starting to type in commands into the console and press buttons. Sarah stood behind her, looking over the princess's shoulder anxiously.

"But, if his ship falls now, wouldn't it be dangerous? He could die." Sarah piped up gently.

"Too late, missiles already sent. Nobody cares anyways, he's always been a pain in the neck." Felina dismissed it with a wave of her hand. "Fluffs will be okay, I suppose. She can find someone better, I suppose." She paused for a moment, then muttered, "I don't see what's so good about Francis that deserves Fluffs's love."

"Love changes people?" Sarah shrugged dubiously and went back to quietly watching Felina do her thing. After a moment of silence, she began to speak again. "Back then, with the Mortes girl something seems off, and I don't like the feeling of this, and her words before she jumped really unnerve me. Especially since her actions were covered by some sort of hacking."

"We can investigate later. She can't get off of Suluvar without a ship, correct?" Felina tapped on a couple of things, not even looking up as she spoke to her friend. "Our ships are on fire, but they can probably hold off if we land right now. I have business in Suluvar anyways, I think Terra is also here for some sort of business."

"Ah. They're down. At least Francis's ship is down." Sarah said so nonchalantly that Felina snapped her head up to look out the large command window, and true enough, the leading ship on the opposite side was dipping down rapidly, its entire left side charred from some sort of explosion.

"What? Our missiles haven't even hit him!" Felina cried incredulously, shaking her head as she ran down from the console to the side of the window, placing a hand on it, feeling the cold of Suluvars atmosphere through the reinforced glass. "What happened?"

"Uh, explosion?" Sarah stated the obvious, and Felina gave her a raised eyebrow in return.

"Ugh, no matter." Felina half stormed back to the console, giving the command to land the ship in Suluvar's specialised hangar while the rest of her fleet was to stay in the air. "We'll be back soon, I suppose. I hope Luciana won't be very mad with us causing Francis's ship to crash into her planet."

"She has a ton of money. She can fix the stuff." Sarah commented airily as their ship began to descend rapidly, giving her a weightless feeling and she giggled uncomfortably when she felt it. "We should contact her."

"No need. Here she is, calling in." Felina bit back a laugh. "It's pretty normal. We've been bombing Thanvus's ships over her atmosphere and she seems a bit concerned, not surprising." She gestured at the icon of an incoming call on the monitor. This time it was not Francis, but it was Luciana, their friend and princess of the planet Suluvar; without wasting more time, Felina tapped on the accept button.

"What are you guys doing!?" A shrill voice ripped through the air from the monitor, causing Felina, Sarah, and pretty much everyone else without earphones or headphones to cover their ears. "Did you just kill Francis?" Luciana sounded rather upset about a ship crashing into her planet, but she seemed to be more concerned about the person in the ship rather than the damage caused to her own planet.

"Uh, maybe?" Felina smiled guiltily, shrugging as she faced the other princess on the screen. "Anyways, we're coming down. You know where."

"Yeah, I know." Luciana narrowed her eyes slightly, sounding slightly pissed. "But, I'd appreciate it if you'd stopped having fights over my planet. This is, what, the fourth time you're doing this?"

"Okay, okay, got it." Felina smiled slightly at the scolding she was given from the other princess. "I'll... try not to let it happen again." She looked to the side at a man signalling to her that they were initiating the landing sequence, then looked back at Luciana. "So yeah, we're here. Meet us outside, bye." The princess of the golden planet huffed slightly at Felina, but nodded, promptly ending the call.

The ship jerked upwards, slowing in its descent, causing Sarah to stumble back a bit, Felina grabbing onto her so she wouldn't fall over. The princess of Cryson swished her dress dramatically as the ship finally slowed to a stop with the sound of streams of gas from outside, striding towards the exit of the room with Sarah in tow.

They neared the main air locked door, opening with a hiss as the two girls approached, a ramp extending downwards to the smooth metal floor of the hangar they were in. Above them, the ceiling of the hangar closed, making the entire space indoors once again. Felina flounced down the small steps in the ramp, Sarah following suit, finally standing on firm ground again.

"Whoo! We're here. Finally. I could totally use some fresh air." Felina announced, sweeping off towards one of the metal doors on the other side of the hangar, acting like the place was her home. Then again, she'd been here enough times it might as well have been her home, so she didn't really care. Other ships and aircrafts were there, but she weaved around them expertly, heading for her destination.

"And Luciana is going to be out there?" Sarah asked, struggling to keep up with the excited princess, bumping against a couple of tables when they neared the door.

"Yep!" Felina looked back at her, grinning, then turned away, reaching for the lock pad at the side of the large metal sliding door to enter the passcode for it to open. To her surprise, the door opened before her fingers even brushed against the pad, another person standing beyond the door, arms crossed.

Glittering gold clothes shone and a poofy dress rustled against the ground as the person entered, head held high and nodding a hello to both of them.

"Well, Felina, Sarah. You have so much you need to explain to me. Now." Luciana, princess of Suluvar, demanded, glaring at the two.

*COUGH, COUGH* WHATEVER YOU DO, IGNORE THIS!!

((Does anyone actually read my stories? PM me if you're reading!))

I.

The girl was once again hurrying down that whitewashed hallway towards the lab in which she and her team worked. This time, she wasn't carrying any files and attracted some attention with her ripped up dirty clothes. Waving the unwanted stares off with a shake of her head, her long hair swishing behind her, which simply attracted even more attention as she never let her hair down around the facility.

So, she just ignored the stares and found the door, pushing it in, only to be greeted by a exasperated sigh from the only person in the room.

"Where the heck were you!?" The boy with the microscope yelled at her, standing up, pushing the chair back with a screech before rushing towards her and grabbing her by the shoulders. "You were gone for three days. Three days!" He shook her hard, almost succeeding in making her dizzy. "And look at you! What happened to you coat? Why's your hair down?" He looked close to bursting with anger.

"What, missed me?" The girl managed a half-hearted, tired jab at him.

"Miss you?" He cried incredulously into her face. "No! I'm not worried at all about someone in my team who's gone out on a trip to who-knows-where for three days without even contacting back. And especially when you come back like this! You could be dead!" He ended his small rant with some more shakes.

"I would've been dead without Suluvar's weather probes." The girl muttered under her breath, before raising her voice to cut off the boy who was beginning to ask what she said. "You done with your research, then, Torrus?"

Torrus sensed her attempted to change the topic of the conversation and narrowed his eyes suspiciously, but still obliged to her question. "I'm done with staring at cells." He gestured at the microscope on the table behind him, finally letting the girl go. "Now I have to snip up and mix up some DNA to get what I want from them." He turned back to the table and slid the specimen plate from out of the microscope. "I'll get it done by... within this week, definitely."

"Last time you said one week you ended up finishing it in one month." The girl snorted.

"Aria. Really." Torrus set the plate down on a piece of paper, crossed his arms, and turned back to the girl. "You know how hard it is. It's not like you haven't tried before." He fixated her with a half-stare-half-glare.

"Sure, sure." Aria held up her hands and looked around the room for any means of escape - to find the room was missing someone. "Hey, where's Tenebris?" The question apparently made Torrus slightly angry again, as he stepped closer to her and his gaze fully became a glare.

"He holed himself up with his computers and stuff for the three days you were gone. What do you think!?" He heaved a sigh. "I worry about him, I worry about you. Why do I feel like I'm your parent? Can't you just do things properly? Tenebris is still inside the computer room!" He sighed again and turned away from Aria. "Why don't you go ask him what he's been doing these days? He locked the door and wouldn't let me in."

"And why do you think he'll let me, of all people, in?" Aria watched Torrus accusingly. "You're the head of our team. If he's going to let only one person in, that'd be you." Not exactly knowing where the conversation was going, she began to fidget, but through effort, kept herself still.

"Oh, just because~" Torrus, noticing her discomfort, began to smirk. "I figured it would be worth a try." His smirk grew wider and Aria was afraid that if it extended even more, Torrus' face would be cut in half.

"Uhm, okay..." She felt like she understood what Torrus was getting at and she didn't like it, but decided not to push it in case the conversation would take an even weirder turn.

"Now, go on~" Torrus began herding her to the other side of the room, where a door was, closed and probably locked as he'd told her. "While you try to make him open the door, I'll be out here messing with the cell's DNA, okay? Call me if he starts chucking electronics at you." At her look of alarm, he chuckled. "No, just kidding. He wouldn't even think of hurting you, I'm sure~"

Aria sent him a glare and a hiss before turning to the door before her. Her head was spinning; she recalled having control of the conversation when she first entered the room, but now it was like this. Torrus was insufferable. Without dallying anymore, she sharply rapped on the door twice, falling silent to hear if there was any reply.

There wasn't.

Aria could feel a cold feeling of unease creeping its way up into her stomach, but she waved it aside even though she could feel it gnawing at her in the background. She knocked again - no answer. The feeling of unease was stronger now, and she had trouble beating it back. Trying not to show any desperation, she glanced back at Torrus and found he was now immersed in a computer screen on the wall, and when she was sure he wasn't watching, she tried the doorknob. Sure enough, it was locked, as Torrus had said.

Aria needed to get it open. Her worry was because Torrus was worried, she told herself. Her teammate may be in trouble, and the only solution that Aria could think of in order to get inside was to pick the lock. Unfortunately, she'd lost her makeshift lockpick somewhere along the way, and she could see anything in the room that she could use as a lockpick either.

With a sigh, Aria turned to her only other source of help. "Torrus. I need your help forcing open this door."

"Can't you just kick it open or something? Pick the lock?" The boy in question turned away from his screen with the cells and looked back at her. "You seem to have all the solutions to all problems, and yet now, look where we are!"

"I'd blow the door in on any good day." Aria snapped impatiently, making Torrus raise an eyebrow in surprise. She usually wasn't the kind to be so pushy, but he shrugged it aside. "And I can't pick the lock because I don't have a lockpick."

"My gosh!" Torrus exclaimed, throwing her something which she automatically caught by reflex. "You could have said so and spared me all of this useless jabber!" When Aria looked at the item, she found it was a paperclip.

"You have paperclips on you all the time!?" She frowned, to which the other simply shrugged and gave a weird smirk. In no time, she had the paperclip into a lockpick, and, this being the room that she worked in all of the time, she knew exactly how the lock in question worked. While she worked, she heard Torrus pause his work with his cells and the monitor to come stand behind her and watch her. It unnerved her, but she didn't stop. She needed to make sure her other teammate was okay.

The lock clicked open and Aria stood up, letting the lockpick fall to the floor as she gripped the handle of the door, not knowing what to expect. With a pent up breath, she pushed the door open.

--

II.

The Cryson duo were silent as they followed the likewise closedmouth Luciana. There wasn't much to say between the three of them; Luciana seemed slightly pissed, and Felina was too guilty to say anything else. Sarah just hummed innocently and enjoyed the scenery of the surroundings.

They were heading down a beautifully sculpted quartz pathway inlaid with gold along the sides winding through a garden. The grass was dotted with swaying golden flowers and the trees boasted leaves with one side the normal green and the other side flashing gold. All of the shininess was blinding to the two Cryson visitors, and although they came often, they never quite got used to all the gold. Then again, everything on their planet was red, everything on Amure was pink, so on and so forth, as agreed upon by the Planetary Council that colours would symbolise which planet a person came from in the vast reaches of space.

The three finally came to an open area where there were less trees. A gazebo of deep brown wood lined with gold occupied most of the space in the area while a small stream wound around it. The path came to an end as a small marble bridge rose above the water around the gazebo and into the space. It was over this bridge the Princess of Suluvar led them, revealing the inside of the gazebo to be holding a fancy quartz table all inlaid with intricate patterns of gold and three glass chairs, also embellished in gold. Atop the table was what seemed to be delicate porcelain- the golden patterns showing the emblem of the royal family of Suluvar along with a few swirls and daisy flowers.

Luciana took a seat immediately in one of the chairs, folding her dress under her, and Sarah followed suit, delicately lifting her red dress to the side in order to not wrinkle it. Felina, however, remained standing and hesitantly eyed the chairs.

"What happened to the normal looking wooden chairs we used last time?"

"It's reinforced glass. Sit down, it's not going to break under you." Luciana waved a hand at the princess of Cryson. When Felina still didn't sit down, she sighed. "If I can sit on it, you can, okay?" She was, after all, slightly... rounder than the other two present. Felina, reassured, finally took a seat.

"Okay, so..." Felina started nervously, trying not to piss of Luciana further.

"First off, how was your little 'vacation'? Second off, why are you on my planet?" The princess of the golden planet did not seem to be too angry as she delicately poured some tea from the porcelain pot into the teacups before each of them. "I take it you really like to fight Francis over my planet."

"Vacation was fine." Felina replied and Sarah giggled, Felina shooting her friend a warning glance at her laugh. "Earth is a very interesting place. They look like us, but their technology is way inferior to ours. Also, they have different territories they call 'countries' where each of them is ruled by a 'president' or something along those lines. Kind of like us with our planets." She paused. "What's interesting is that they also used to have monarchies, but that was way in the past."

"Felina totally didn't make a fool of herself while we were there~" Sarah added quietly with a sweet smile.

"Oh?" Luciana finished pouring the three cups of tea and set down the teapot. "Now, I'm certainly interested."

"Nothing happened." Felina glared at Sarah, which the other simply just smiled even more at. "I did nothing."

Luciana raised an eyebrow, apparently waiting for someone to elaborate and tell her what really happened, but both girls from Cryson just stared back at her, mouths closed, one smiling and the other frowning. She sighed and decided to let the matter go.

"Well then, why are you on my planet again? You could have just gone to Cryson, you know?" She picked up her teacup in the saucer and held it up to her lips, delicately taking a sip, her tone then darkening as she said, "especially after you removed your obstacle by crashing it into my planet."

At that, Felina looked in alarm from her tea, which she'd just started to drink. "That wasn't exactly me..." Sarah was also in an alert state, although she continued to drink her tea.

"If that wasn't you, who was it, then?" Luciana accused crossly. "You'd better explain."

"It's like this." Felina set down her cup and saucer. "He attacked us first, and in self defense, we shot a few missiles out at him, hoping he'd get the message and move out of the way." She paused a moment when Luciana's sharp gaze fixated on her longer than normal. Maybe the Suluvar princess had sensed that Felina actually deliberately aimed for the fuel tanks of Thanvus' airships to down them. She hoped not. Nevertheless, she recovered from the feeling and continued. "Anyways, there was this intruder on our ship that caused a pretty big explosion and-"

"I saw that explosion. Was wondering what you guys were even thinking, bombing yourselves. Turns out it wasn't you." Luciana nodded. "Very well, continue on."

"So we thought it was Francis at first but we found out it was a girl from Mortes. A minute or so later-"

"Mortes? I thought they didn't get involved in quarrels. They keep to their high and mighty selves." Luciana cut Felina off again, and when Felina gave her an annoyed look, she fell silent and motioned for her to continue.

"So, as I was saying, a minute or so later, Francis' ship also experienced an explosion, but it wasn't from our missiles, our missiles reached him when his ship was already falling. We don't know if it has anything to do with the Mortes girl, but it seems... timed to similarly to be just a coincidence. Francis is so narcissist he would never think about damaging anything of his."

"And your point is...?" Luciana raised an eyebrow.

"We think Mortes is getting involved in things. Something big is going to happen." Felina paused, as if for dramatic effect, and then, "we need your help. Without any way of getting off this planet, the Mortes girl is bound to still be here. If we catch her..."

"... She can answer our questions." Luciana finished for her, and Felina nodded. A predatory smile began to spread on the Suluvar princess' face. "Well, let's not waste any time, then~"