48Disclaimer: I own nothing
Edit:6/15/17
AN: Yeah these are gonna be up here now. Thank you for coming back to this story! I'm really glad more than a hundred people took a look. I hope you enjoy this chapter. Peace out! Wait! Reviewers!
MangaLover521: THANK YOU!?
On with the show!
"Well you're probably confused about all this, so let me explain." It turned slightly, an arm emerging from a large fold in its robes before waving it behind itself. An ornate wooden armchair appearing in the sands. It sat down slowly, its other arm appearing to help lower itself into the chair before 'looking' to me, my face naturally neutral. "I am Death"
Outwards my face remained in its neutral state, my eyebrows and lips slightly downturn in a light frown, belaying very little emotion other than my initial confusion. Inwards was pretty similar, there was no point in denying it. I had always been very nonchalant about pretty much everything. And I doubted this was a dream, I hadn't had a dream for years, and certainly not one this lucid. My mind was slowly spooling up, I moved my mindset from mindless building to hard deductions. If this being before me was Death, it probably wanted something from me. While I have lived a pretty unhealthy life, I was still a fit young man whose worst sickness was a week long case of the flu. 'Think, think…' what could give me a hint as to what the fuck was going on… The second player. Outwardly my eyes widened slightly before narrowing. Of course, how could I forget? A second player joining my single player game with a name that sent railroad spikes though my eyes.
" Well? Are you done staring at me?" 'Deaths' words snapped me out of my internal deductions faint amusement betraying a smirk. I had been staring at 'Death' the entire time. My frown deepened slightly, I was on a serious back foot. I was in unfamiliar territory, exhausted from severe lack of sleep, and suffering from a complete lack of information.
"Sorry just getting my bearings. Please explain." A polite apology, and a fairly benign dig for information, hitching off 'Deaths' earlier intent for giving answers. 'Death' nodded before speaking, I noticed neither that while it spoke neither its face nor shoulders moved.
"I need you to do something." I internally nodded, glad I had at least deduced that much. I gestured for 'Death' to contin-
*BEEP* *BEEP* *BEEP*
An alarm shook me from reverie. I froze, mid step somewhere near the center of my factory. Surrounded by noisy assemblers, whooshing inserters, and belts upon belts of materials. Alarms weren't particular unusual, there were ones that signaled an odd discovery, others that alerted me of a malfunctioning or broken machinery, and a fairly common one that means a strain or lack of materials. However this one, was one that had never sounded before. My eyes flitted to the left of my HUD, there below my suits integrity meter, personal statuses, and bodily condition was blue exclamation point with the helpful tag of "Relay Activating".
I paused for a moment. There was only one person who would be coming through the singular Relay of this system right now. I had been guaranteed that 'She' would be the first person to find the Relay paired with my own, and fairly early in her adventure as well. However I for the sake of the plans I was going to set in motion, I had to react as though 'They' were coming instead. Looking to the top right of my HUD I checked the time 7:46PM, taking note I looked below the time and mentally chose a destination on my mini map located there towards a specific cluster of orbital cannons I had prepared for this exact occasion, it was located roughly ten kilometers northeast of my main factory and two kilometers to the south of a set of landing bays I had also prepared for the event. I allowed my suit assistive motors and synthetic muscles work in tandem with my own to run my automatically to my destination. Moving more than hundred klicks per hour whilst weaving with unnatural agility through my maze of machines.
Closing my eyes I partially disconnected from my body, allowing a simpler portion of my psyche to watch over my body, flitting to a nearby communications array and hitching it to it's paired a satellite hovering above it in geosynchronous orbit. From there I hopped to one of many massive offline orbital defense platforms surrounding my main Forge world. Slipping into it I settled into my new synthetic shell, up linking into its defense network that spread through out the entirety of the solar system. I easily took control the millions of turrets, automated defense drones, and the hundreds of other orbital defense platforms surrounding not only my Forge world, but also the five other planets in the solar system which were used for their rich mineral resources and in one case vast abundance of useful gasses. Concentrating I activated each and every one, the vast majority surrounding the Relay on strategically placed asteroids and planetoids. I mentally frowned as the vast Dyson sphere surrounding my systems young white star actually strained under the vast power usage the immense amount of defenses put on the wireless power network. However the power levels stabilized after the initial activation so I 'nodded' in satisfaction, focusing I directed every defense capable of firing towards the now active and spooling Relay, activating the auto target features I placed a strict order to hold fire even if fired upon.
Making a quick double check that everything was in order I slipped out of the now active defense platform and back down to the Forge world below. I bypassed my still running body for now and slipped down into my cyber warfare suite, buried several kilometers below an artificial sea and surrounded by meters of steel. This 'room' several square kilometers in size, was a complete vacuum kept at Zero degrees Celsius and contained the only complex digital computers in the entire solar system completely filled to the brim by monolith after monolith of processors and data banks, holding every technology, schematic and scrap of data I had collected on an off the network data bank. Other than that, roughly three quarters of it was also dedicated to fending off and initiating cyber attacks. Slipping to the main processor almost half a kilometer in size, I powered up the normally inactive cyber suite, and cringed as power levels took a steep decline as thousands of power hungry processors came online. I 'closed' my 'eyes' as a rush of processing power over took me, with this much raw strength, I could punch straight through 'Her' ships cyber defense suite.
Nodding I disconnected another more analytical portion of my psyche to control the cyber suite, and slipped up to the surface the planet and back into my body. Merging seamlessly with portion of myself left inside it. Taking a brief glance at my mini map. I nodded as I started to slow less than a kilo away from my destination. Taking a mental glance through a rear camera on my helmet I look back at the vast factory behind me, backlit by the Dyson covered sun slowly making its way to the horizon. Narrowing my eyes slightly I concentrated and immediately a dark green dome comprised of many, many hexagons and crackling with electricity snapped into existence completely covering the entire factory, nodding I closed my eyes and activated similar shields all across the solar system, over strategic strongholds filled with defense systems, vital other factories and mines, and one massive shield encompassing the entirety of the suns Dyson sphere. My body stopped abruptly and my eyes snapped open. Tilting my head up I looked the massive orbital cannons before me. Each had fifty meter long barrels fairly large at the base and narrowing at the tip, with several gemstone lenses each, designed for maximum distance and firepower at the cost of insane power needs.
Walking steadily to the earth embedded base of the nearest cannon I entered the usually unused manual control center. It was a small room maybe ten square meters in size with two main screens, one on the wall where the cannon is oriented and one directly below it acting as desk like strategic map. Meticulously cleaned by automated drones the neon blue displays sprang to life as I manually powered up the powerful cannon and all its surrounding partners, slaving them to this ones control. That done I insured that all the cannons were properly aimed at the Relay many hundreds of thousands kilometers away, before taking step away from the consoles and leaning against the far wall, arms crossed. Taking in a deep breath I glanced to the top right of my HUD above my mini map to check the time 7:54PM. Eight minutes I nodded to myself that was a good time. Closing my eyes and deepening my frown into a full on glare I began taking in short savage breaths, bringing up wrathful emotions. My lips parted in a savage snarl as I sank myself into the persona of a wrathful sole survivor ready to bring vengeance on my fallen brethren.
*BEEB* *BEEB* *BEEP* *BEEP*
Snapping out of my self induced rage, I portioned off the wrathful emotions I had gathered carefully into a separate persona that would act as my greeting call as 'She' entered the system. Finally looking to the still beeping alarm I was informed that 'She' would shortly be entering the system. Despite my system being about sixty light years from the only system that could access it, the unique Relays had propelled 'Her' ship at vastly faster speeds, even faster than 'They' could. Pushing myself off the wall I strode over to the weapons consoles, placing my hands on either side of the strategic map, I insured everything was exactly as I had prepared it before looking up to the console for the cannon itself. My eyes narrowed as I gazed unblinking at the screen waiting fo- There! The Relay shined with it's unearthly blue glow, brightening for a second before dimming as it spat out a black and white frigate, small and sleek, it was roughly two hundred meters long with two engines on either side. On its side emblazoned in white, underlined in crimson. Read Normandy and on the wing below it continued SR1.
AN(Cont.): Sorry just a little more. Here are some things you may want to look at just to give some perspective. Copy and enjoy!
Planet side orbital cannon: /D3mtF1S
Orbital defenses: assets/95744/Orbital_Defense_Station_
Automated drones: ec6f/th/pre/f/2015/337/f/3/fleet_by_
Dyson Sphere: . /i/pix/2015/06/05/15/296172C900000578-3112426-image-a-3_
Laser turrets: /upload/image/media/karanak/dred_
A Hui Hou