Part 21

*3rd Person Perspective*

Back in the observatory, the unicorn, robot and tiny six-winged angel were staring up at the bright-blue ‘sky’. The screens showed Luna from every angle possible, from the Earth at least. There weren’t any working observational satellites outside of the barrier. However, since the giant disk in the middle of Salvation was essentially on the equator, the main screen was able to capture everything above the furry goat-like knees.

Thus, when she turned around, Mike immediately started laughing hysterically. It took Lucy a moment, but then she was giggling as well. Only Silvia was left dumbfounded, and eventually had to ask: “I fail to see the humor in this situation? The destruction of the enemy fleet is certainly beneficial, but quite a few of the vessels managed to land on Earth. A great war is still likely to take place in the near future.”

“Hahaha~, are you fucking kidding me?!” Mike’s giant breastplate was moving up and down, as if he actually had lungs. Eventually he calmed down and said, “It’s not as funny if I have to explain the damn joke.”

Lucy was grinning as she said, “The Moon is mooning us! Ah, I guess she also flashed us too!”

“Ah, shit, I almost didn’t catch that part!” The metal man complained, “On a serious note though… There is such a thing as too much fur. I mean, I couldn’t even see any holes. Without the hole, there’s no goal. I’m sure she’s provided fap material for millions of poor, unfortunate virgins out there at least. Their standards are probably much lower too. Does Alfirin have the internet yet?”

Silvia just neighed and shook her head in irritation. On the other hand, Lucy answered: “Nope, not yet. But I have a feeling it won’t be long. In Black Mithril the paper-back pornography trade is thriving right now. Hmm~, but a lot of people go to Beast Haven if they’re looking for love~, hehe~! With your appetite, I’m surprised you haven’t fooled around with Maeleth yet?”

“Please be silent. I am attempting to discern the nature of this metaphysical projection.” The silver unicorn squinted slightly, as she brought up dozens of fluctuating graphs and charts. Then she explained: “When the surface of Luna was destroyed, it revealed what appeared to be reminiscent of an event horizon… It could also simply be an extra-dimensional portal or something similar. Truly remarkable… I can not tell whether the Avatar of Luna is merely a projection, or a physical entity. What I do know, is that without the barrier surrounding the Earth, the ambient Mana Density on the surface would have instantly increased by several thousand times. Wiping out most life within moments, before Terra would have had the chance to produce any sort of countermeasures.”

Lucy sighed, “That’s why there are so many pyramids dedicated to creating Mana Barriers. When creatures reach a certain level of power, even their surroundings are irradiated if they aren’t careful. A long time ago, there was a big war between Mars, Venus, Luna and Earth. Luna killed the other three and eventually replaced most of their Souls. Ahh~, that was such a wonderfully chaotic Era… But it was truly hell for mere ‘mortals’. Empires and Kingdoms were eradicated almost daily. If you include all the non-sentient plants and animals, then trillions died. Otherwise it was only a hundred or two-hundred billion people.”

“Only a couple hundred billion people…” Mike grumbled, “You ancient assholes are always so fucking callous. Holy shitsauce! Did she really just throw a million mile long javelin towards Mars?!”

Silvia nodded, “One-point three million miles in length… Small comparative to her height. Regardless, even the width is much larger than the planet Mars.”

“It’s not a physical object!” Lucy chuckled, “Just a spiritual attack of sorts. It’ll only target the World Soul of ‘Heaven’, Zachael the Almighty self-proclaimed God… But probably won’t be enough to kill him instantly. It’ll definitely wound him pretty badly though. Either way, it’s good for us. One less threat to deal with. Unfortunately, our biggest problem is ‘Me’.”

Mike snickered, “You mean Helel… From this timeline? Ugh, I figured as much. Honestly, I never actually got around to writing this far into the story, so I have no idea what’s supposed to happen.”

The little angel shrugged her tiny shoulders and fluttered her wings a bit: “How do you think I feel? Returning into the past of a parallel universe in order to change the future is easy… But that knowledge of the alternate future becomes pretty useless sooner or later. From this point onwards… I’ll need to do things the hard way.”

While the three of them were talking, Luna finally finished her naked monologue: “Nothing lasts forever… But even death is only temporary. How many times will you make the same mistakes? Everything is so… Predictable.”

With those last words, the absurdly large blue woman imploded, seemingly sucked into the tiny pupil of her third eye. In moments, the shiny silver dust eventually settled back down onto the Moon’s pitch-black surface. It was no longer covered in craters, but perfectly round instead. Upon closer inspection, there were hundreds of spires jutting out of its surface. Some towers, pyramids and other structures were also visible.

“Hmmm, what the hell?” Michael murmured as he focused his optical sensors onto the magnified image of the Lunar surface. A huge black cloud appeared and obscured his vision. But it wasn’t the only one. It was easy to see enormous hurricane-like storms appearing one after the other, which implied that the Moon now had an atmosphere of some sort. 

Within minutes, the visible topography started to change. Mountains and craters were rapidly appearing, sometimes even moving around. Fissures opened in the ground, and golden liquid spurted out in massive eruptions. Rivers of gold quickly covered the Moon’s silver surface, while black, white and grey clouds were surrounding the tiny not-so-distant world.

Silvia neighed, before making a startling announcement: “The Earth is now orbiting Luna!”

Part 22

*3rd Person Perspective*

“Waaah~!”

“Aaaah~!”

Six tiny pink newborn babies were crying loudly in a dimly lit hospital room. Mary was laying on a white bed that was large enough for a human, with all of her children suckling from her teats… Unlike their Green and Red counterparts, Pink Goblins actually had six nipples. Otherwise, they wouldn’t be able to take care of such large litters. The extra four teats were below the two regular sized breasts, but the mammaries for those auxiliary nipples were usually barely noticeable.

There was a thin blanket covering her abdomen and legs, while her upper body was totally bare. Thus, when a certain stealthy figure entered the room, he was immediately startled and embarrassed. Even if there were a decent amount of nudists in Beast Haven, it didn’t mean he was totally desensitized to nudity. It also reminded him of his younger, more voyeuristic days…

“Um, ah-hum… Hello.” However, he had grown a lot over the past few years. Ethir was now able to talk to complete strangers without stuttering, as much, and he was wearing a mask anyway, so it was hard for anyone to see how nervous he actually was.

“Who… Who are you?!” Mary used her arms to try and protect her infants from the stranger, who happened to be dressed like some sort of assassin.

Fortunately, the blue-skinned dryad to her left was able to quickly identify him: “Ethir Nerorneth… Biological son of Bariel Gurguranor. Also known as the Shadowlord, the Runemaster, and one of the founders of the Country of Alfirin.”

Then a tiny black serpentine dragon appeared out of thin air, before chuckling and floating around behind his back. Ethir cleared his throat and whispered, “Hi… It’s nice to meet you, um, Sister? This is my daughter…”

“Raijin, Goddess of Lightning, pleasure to make your acquaintance, Little One.” The flying snake had a surprisingly deep and raspy voice, though she was still somewhat feminine in her tone. Of course, it was mostly just a combination of telepathy and auditory-focused Wind Manipulation… Since she lacked vocal cords and was still technically a hatchling.

“Wow! So you’re Big Brother Ethir!” Mary was excited, but still quite exhausted from giving birth to sextuplets a few hours prior. She looked over towards the hallway and asked, “Where’s Mama though? Shouldn’t she be here by now?”

“Umm, I think she’s lost.” The masked man sighed, before taking a seat on a metal stool near the hospital bed. Then he murmured, “I sent someone to go help her out but… I don’t know what’s taking them so long.”

“Oh shit! Hah!” Raijin suddenly shouted, staring straight up towards the ceiling. The whole room started vibrating and creaking, while a deep, low hum resounded. After that, she started shaking her head and chuckling obnoxiously. On the other hand, the six babies were crying as loud as they could, while Mary was horrified.

Once the rumbling ceased, the Dryadic Nurse mechanically announced: “There is no need to be alarmed. That was merely a minor earthquake caused by the planetary barrier protecting the Earth… Disengaging.”

The little dragon snickered, “Luna’s always been a damn show-off. Should be fine though. She never does anything without a reason. Hmmm, I’m getting decent reception from that little kid again…”

“Shadowlord!” A high-pitched voice echoed from the open door, as a pitch-black Pixie quickly flew inside. She quickly fluttered over in front of the masked man, “The ‘Target’ has been guided to this location and shall arrive shortly!”

Ethir smiled wryly behind the blank obsidian mask, “You’ve done well… Shade. Umm… Thank you?”

“It is my honor to serve you, Shadowlord!” The little girl gave a serious salute, with her right fist over her left chest. Then she faded into the darkness in the corner of the dimly lit room… Her bright-pink irises kind of ruined the ‘stealth’ technique, but nobody was paying attention to her anymore.

The long-awaited reunion had finally arrived…

Although Ethir tried to prepare himself mentally beforehand, he was still stunned when he saw the pink-skinned woman enter the room. She had six huge tentacles wiggling around behind her back. Her irises were golden; another ‘strange’ feature that made him unsure if the woman in front of him was actually his estranged mother. She was five and a half feet tall, which was normal for a human, but would be a giant back in Pre-Michael Black Mithril. The hospital gown she wore was slightly sweaty, since she spent at least a few hours anxiously wandering around the creepy dungeon-like hospital basement.

Yes, like most buildings, the first digit of a room number was actually the ‘floor’. Room 192 was the 92nd room on the first floor of the hospital. It wasn’t until a mysterious pink light guided her to the nearest stairwell. Otherwise, she might have passed out from exhaustion before figuring out the secret to the numbering system.

On the other hand, Ariel definitely wasn’t expecting the creepy ‘stranger’ to be in her daughter’s room. He was wearing an eerie mask, a thick hooded cloak, leather armor and carrying various weapons openly. It wasn’t hard to guess that he was some sort of an assassin. However, when she gazed into those familiar golden eyes, she couldn’t even open her mouth to speak. It felt like there was a lump in her throat, and she struggled to swallow a few times, while being afraid to even blink.