The moment the small ship was locked onto by several behemoths, as though a rock out of a slingshot, its acceleration suddenly doubled.
Sparks and explosions rang through the quickly thinning atmosphere, and yet they only seemed to propel the small ship faster as it squirted out of their encirclement.
The lights were so bright and the ship was so tiny in proportion to everything else that it was immediately assumed that the operation was successful. But, if it was so easy to fool such high tech, why would the Guild have ever invested however many billions they had to build them?
However, what left the siblings at a loss for words was that the moment the ship used the momentum around it to shoot by the last thinning layers of the atmosphere, runic patterns exuding a magnificent aura bloomed like a halo.
At first, the runes were etched right onto its sleek, silver surface. But in the next, they became animated, wiggling about as though life had been breathed into them.
They rose from the surface, forming a protective disk of flickering silver the grew brighter and brighter until it rivaled even the second barrage of beams headed right for its small frame.
Tobyn's eyes widened.
"RETREAT! EXECUTE EVASIVE MANEUVERS, NOW!"
Very few seemed to understand the purpose behind Tobyn's orders, but their job wasn't to understood. Even though some of the Guild Head's children saw themselves as less than, any one of them that was known to have such a connection wouldn't be easily crossed. On top of this, Tobyn wasn't like them, he was born from the Head's legitimate wife. His orders were even less likely to be ignored.
It wouldn't be long, though, before they realized that Tobyn had saved all their lives.
The rippling silver runes reached an unspeakable peak, touching upon a level of brightness that seemed to rival the sun in the distance.
And then, everything seemed to collapse.
A black hole that was of miniature proportion and devastating impact ripped through the Fold of Reality. The orbit of the planet was shaken, tilted off its axis. The moons in the distance were warped, threatening to be slinged into the ether as they trembled to maintain the path they had followed for billions of years. And the ships that had once surrounded them all fell into chaos.
Some of the ships were simply too close.
Their front hulls were smashed to pieces, warped beneath the twisting space. What once were behemoth-like ships the size of large asteroids suddenly became scrap metal.
Sparks flew and blood floated through the air. Whether by irony or simply as a display of the cruelty of this world, the latter was nothing more than fleeting droplets amidst the carnage, the much larger ship parts making them difficult to even notice.
The ships that were further away were a bit luckier, but the result was still them losing control of their steering.
The end was devastating.
Some of the ships plunged toward Planet Vincero below, painting what looked like beautiful swirls of white, green and blue from the outside with heart trembling explosions and the blood curdling sounds of groaning and whining metal.
Some of the ships were flung out of their orbit, drifting into the depths of space with off kilter propulsion that wrestled and fought against their control.
But, the most devastating were three ships that crashed headlong into one another. The resulting devastation was even more furious than that of the ships that had been too close. At least in the latter case, it ended as soon as it started. But, in this one, it seemed to continue into infinity. Whenever the explosions had seemingly come to a stop, another chain was let off.
The skies were filled with fireworks and smoke, but it wasn't the kind one could enjoy on a national Independence Day. Rather, it was the kind that made one's ears bleed, one's gaze dazed, and etched their minds with the memory of every shake and tremble they experienced.
Many years later, when this matter became a case study for the history books… It would become known that the Milky Way Guild had suffered such devastating losses targeting a ship that didn't even have their target on board.
In fact… the ship wasn't related to their target in the slightest.
…
On board the silver ship, tunneling through space to a location unknown, one could find three women.
One wore a stoic expression, taking control of the steering before passing it on to an AI. The second wore a look of confusion, seemingly wondering how it is she had gotten caught in this mess while her heart was lodged in her throat. And the last was in a daze, blanky staring at something on her wrist without a word. In fact, from her demeanor, it seemed that she might not speak for a very, very long time. And maybe if you pried into her mind, you would find that she might not have had the intention of speaking ever again.
Who else could these three be if not Yuri, Savahn and Aina?
It was quite an irony that an action Leonel could very well abhor with all his heart and soul… Had all but guaranteed his safety.
What no one realized, though, was that half a day later, it wasn't only a small ship that covertly slipped through the cracks left by the Guild's defenses. There was another protected vessel that seemed to have been doing the same. And, oddly enough, these two left from completely different ends of Planet Vincero and headed in direction opposite to each other.
The first held Leonel who was shocked by the ease of his escape. He had been certain that he would need to use almost all of the trump cards he had planned. Had he known things would be like this, he could have left within the first hour.
As for the second…
The vessel meandered through space. It looked like a small glass orb traveling through the darkness, not being even half the width of a palm. Obviously, it was impossible for it to hold a person, and its speed was on a level that put Leonel's own vessel to shame.
Weeks later, this vessel descended onto an obscure, desolate planet.
It tore into the almost none existent atmosphere, following a path into a hole so small even a fist couldn't fit down and through an elaborate set of complex and steadily widening tunnels that looked more and more manmade with every trek forward.
And then… It appeared in a large lab setting covered wall to wall in silver metals, complex glassware, and thick, forearm sized wires, all of which could be found in one aspect or another upon the centerpiece of the whole thing…
It was a large tube... filled with fluid up to the very brim.
Around it, three men and women sat monitoring it, their expressions serious.
When they noticed the vessel, they sighed a breath of relief. It seemed that everything had been successful. They could finally begin. Though they knew and understood the ability of their patron, the logistics of this mission had seemed far too complex to accomplish. But, none of that mattered. In the end, they had succeeded.
The vessel entered a special compartment, finding itself floating with the glass tube… Along with the body of the half naked girl that hovered within.
The moment the vessel touched this girl, a light pulse rippled and she opened her eyes.
The three men and women smiled as the young woman stepped out, her body dripping with thick, viscous liquid.
"Welcome back, Miss Heira."
[Important announcement below 04/28/2022!!!!!!]