"Don't worry everyone, we have protocols for this."

All around the room, the waiting guards were on edge, their energy weapons held forward and out in concerned anticipation. The overseer and his family had been dragged back towards the hall in the unlikely event the alien creature tried soemthing.

They had protocols for this.

Protocols that were almost seven hundred revolutions old, which was a very long time, and Mitzen couldn't help but wonder if those protocols might have overstayed their welcome. But, then again this was his area of expertise, and if given reason, he was allowed to act on his own expertise rather than protocol. Still there was no reason to stray now and he turned to one of the soldiers, "Call the Conclave, tell them what has happened here. Have them send the translators. Seal off the room and set up a contamination screening. Prepare a biologist."

As he spoke, he kept his one eye tried on the creature, which had not moved since sitting up. Mitzen followed its Gaze around the room at the armed guards, and then, finally, watched as the creature's eyes fell on Mitzen himself.

He watched the mechanical eye contract and shivered.

It was a tenant of the religion of Shanshara that forbade the use of specific materials in bodily augmentation. Metal, and plastics being some of the more common materials. If someone lost a part or got sick, they simply replaced it with a new organic structure.

They had the technology.

To augment one's body past its original capabilities was... Well, it was an afront to the goddess.

This was the same for wearing certain materials and colors including whatever green and black material this creature had chosen to adorn themselves with. However, Mitzen pushed those thoughts aside. That was something that could be explained politely once the creature knew their language.

"I can't take it out, but I can cover it up if you would like."

Mitzen nearly detached from his own tail out of surprise, and still let off a high-pitched squeak of alarm upon hearing his own language spill out of the creature's mouth. Around the room the guards shifted nervously raising their weapons. The Overseer's second wife gasped in shock, and the group of them clutched hands together, searching for comfort in the sudden confusion.

When the creature spoke its voice was unusually deep with a rolling melodic quality. Mitzen could only assume the creature had spoken his language before, but the way it spoke..... was.... Stilted? It tripped over words, stumbled on consonants and spoke very slowly as if the feeling of the sounds were unfamiliar on its tongue.

Sitting in the silence his sudden commentary had left, the creature reached into a compartment on the front of its uniform and withdrew a strip of cloth which it pulled up and over its head, concealing the mechanical eye from view.

"May I stand?" It asked

Mitzen wasn't sure how to answer.

"I promise I don't want to hurt anyone." As it spoke its voice grew stronger and clearer. The guards looked between each other and then towards mitzen unsure of how to proceed. Mitzen held up a hand to keep them steady and then to the creature.

"How do you speak Avkin."

The creature paused, its jaw working , slowly opening and closing in some sort of indecision before it let out a long, slow burst of air, "I.... that is a story that would take a while to tell."

Mitzen would have liked a better answer, but when he determined he was unlikely to get one, he allowed the creature to raise itself to its full height. It was indeed bipedal as Mitzen had assumed and walked unaided by the use of a tail. It was incredibly graceful in a strange sort of way managing to balance itself on two long legs, while its center of gravity must have been much higher up.

Mitzen was surprised when the creature began to remove pieces of its suit. First its gloves, moving up its arms from there and eventually into the chest. It set each piece neatly on the floor. The creature was much smaller than it had originally appeared, its body more lean and dexterous than Mitzen had originally assumed, but it was still quite tall.

When raised to its full height It was seven times taller than Mitzen himself.

With the armor removed, the creature wore nothing but a tight black suit. It wasn't entirely improper, but a robe would have been preferable.

"Who are you?" Mitzen finally asked, once the creature had pulled off its last boot.

"My name is Adam Vir, and I am fleet Admiral for the Galactic Assembly."

"Adam," Mitzen rolled the name around in his mouth, "This, Galactic assembly.... It is your governing body?"

Adam ducked his head, "It is."

"Galactic.... I assume this means there is more than one species spanning multiple star systems."

"You catch on quickly." The creature said, but not in a patronizing way

Mitzen's tail flicked sharply back and forth behind his back, "One of my duties is to welcome knew species. Though we have not met anyone new for some time now. Tell me, what is your species called."

"Humans."

Mitzen tried the word out for himself. He was somewhat of a linguistic prodigy. Words came easy to him, and he filed his two new alien words into the back of his head.

He spread his wings in the proper greeting of his people, "I am Mitzen of the Avkinik high auditor to the conclave and the council of zealots under the rule of the theocrat and the gracious eye of our goddess Shanshara."

The human barred its teeth, though the repression was not threatening, "A pleasure to make your acquaintance, and that of your conclave. My apologies about my sudden appearance. I would have called ahead if I knew I was coming."

Was that supposed to be humor?

Mitzen couldn't tell ,at least not yet," It was not your intention to find us?" He wondered.

Adam shook his head, "No, I was.... I think I was forced through a portal of some kind. I am unsure where I am or how I got here."

That didn't make any sense at all, "You were forced through a portal."

Adam sighed deeply and rubbed at his eyes, "I am afraid my people are in the midst of a war against a dark outside force unknown to us. It wishes to take us over and plunge the universe as a whole into darkness and chaos."

There was a muttering around the room, and Mitzen pulled back in concern, "The universe?'

"Yes, the entirety of the universe. They have only discovered us in the past few years, and they seek to destroy our way of life indefinitely. I was attempting to find a solution when I was forced through the portal to come here."

Mitzen didn't like the sound of any of this. There hadn't been a war under the reign of Shanshara in what must have been nearly two thousand years. So much time had passed, that the technology of war had been lost to time. Of course, he was sure they could modify some of their mining equipment or their asteroid defense system to be used as weapons but, even thinking about it was abhorrent.

The human lifted his head towards the ceiling, in the direction of the sky his voice lowering gently, "And if I am here.... that means they know where you are."

Mitzen shivered and was about to press further on the subject of this strange war, when he heard running footsteps come barreling down the hallway. He looked up as a young guard came rushing into the room, "Auditor, your honor, there, a ship has been spotted entering the atmosphere. We are receiving reports."

Adam lifted his head.

"A ship, what does it look like."

The young guard skidded to a halt nearly tipping over himself in shock as the creature spoke. He didn't ave time to answer before the human nodded, "That would my ship, the empyrean." How he knew that was impossible to say, but he seemed sure about it.

Mitzen wasn't sure he liked where this was going.

*** The Empyrean let off a burst of pure energy surging forward from the shields and out in a wide circle vaporizing darkborn and shards of glass as they went.

Ramirez controlled the ship with great effort his anima energy and the anima energy of his companion barely enough to keep the Empyrean running, much less fire the weapons at the same time. Below him Maverick was shouting soemthing, but he couldn't hear it over the ringing in his ears. Outside the space around the apparatus had transformed into a battlefield. Glass shards flew left and right, colliding together and exploding into even smaller shards of glass.

The Darkborn and the Starborn grappled with each other, while void and a maker ships alike joined hands in a deadly dance whose end resulted in short, silent explosions. Their shields flared as debris and stray fire rammed into them, but that was not his priority.

Adam's radio beacon blipped from somewhere in this chaos.

He would have used the tracking beacon, but the occasional surge of Anima power Adam was now capable of producing had friend the circuitry, so his radio beacon would have to do. They broke through another field of glass, bursting outward like a whale breaching the surface of the sea, and ahead of them they saw.

Her.

Colossal.

Eminence

Big enough that Ramirez failed to think up a yo mama joke that could entirely encompass the sheer size of her. The darkborn void mother was a hulking shape of blackened rotting flesh, and massive twisted antlers that encased a halo of glowing orange light.

A body flew past the windscreen, but clamped onto one of the forward panels.

Lord celex looked out of place crouching outside in the dead of space, his rainbow hair whipping around him like a whirling storm. He motioned soemthing through the windscreen, and Ramirez cursed inwardly to himself wishing that he could read minds like Adam.

Celex raised a hand and with one arm he waved in the direction of the creature . Another body flew past them landing just to the side of Celex. Ramirez sure hoped that was conn, because if it wasn't that meant that other starborn had taken to wearing three piece suits in space, which seemed sort of odd.

The both of them began waving towards the hulking creature, and Ramirez hoped, hoped for all that he had that they were right, as he oriented the ship towards the burning orange portal. Adam's radio signal blipped once and then vanished.

"Shit,." Ramirez muttered.

Up ahead the orange circle grew brighter and brigher.

The darkborn mother turned slowly to face them, her wide mouth opening.

And then.

He appeared.

Everett floating just before the center of the blazing portal, his blond hair whipping over his head as he floated.

"Bastard." He heard maverick snarl .

Ramirez had always trusted mavrick's judgement.

As it seemed so did sunny, as a moment later Everett was hit full blast by one of the ships rear anima cannons. One moment he was there and the next he was gone in a flash of blazing white light. Ramirez couldn't be sure if the man was dead dead, but he sure hoped so.

"Where is Adam!" Sunny demanded.

"twenty bucks says I know where." Ramirez said, as he stared into the eye of the glowing orange portal.