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Afterstory: Stardust
🕑 Added 2022-10-30 12:05:59 +0000 UTCWhen there are wonderful days filled with joy and friendship, everyone hopes they will last forever. But all things eventually come to a close, the good and the bad, for part of the story is the end.
And so too did the tale of Aurora Legion.
Not because of a dramatic fight or a tragic failure, but from their own success. Aurora Legion had become one of the pillars of the ILS. They had been there from the very start, enduring world ending threat after world ending threat. And they had gone on a mission to save all of time, without any help from the League at all, confronting hard choices and an entirely unfamiliar world. So by the time they came of age and officially graduated from the Academy, they represented some of the most experienced and well-regarded heroes in the entire world. Or possibly the entire sector, as humanity grew beyond a single world.
At some point, it no longer made sense to keep all five of them together all the time. It started with Wonder Knight, who began to work as the Director’s Assistant. It was no real secret that Director Green had eyes on him as a potential successor, but the boy had a great deal to learn. It takes a lot more than punching things and giving heroic speeches to guide the League. As for the others, it was a more gradual thing. They began to handle issues in pairs or threes…eventually working solo, or even as the captains of other ad hoc teams. More and more, they worked separately, until it came to the point where they hardly ever fought side by side anymore, simply because they could do more good apart. Aurora Legion never disbanded in name, and they still spent much of their time together, to the maximum extent possible, but they fought together no longer.
Voidspeaker actually started his own school for heroes with a specific focus, something of a feeder or supplement to the ILS’s Academy. After it turned out the Lord of the Abyss was not actually some sort of harbinger of inexorable doom and the power of the void was not actually morally or ethically different from any other kind of magic, a lot of people became interested in following in his footsteps. He spent his days passing on his abilities, granting the ILS an entire legion of heroes specialized in the power of the void.
Void never did convince the rest that it wasn’t a cult though.
Chronolock remained by his side, lending her own experiences to round out the training, as well as assisting those struggling to control their powers. She also became the world’s most famous pro-gamer, her hellish ‘training simulations’ with a certain two other players elevating her to extreme levels of skill even without her powers. She was almost undefeated when she eventually retired.
For she never did beat the opponent she truly wanted to.
Icy Rose returned to her own country, intent on ending Icy Falcon’s war, once and for all. And with a little help from a certain someone, she managed to succeed. Thanks to her ceaseless work to elevate and build up her nation, Mexico was not left behind when the international community took to the stars.
And as for the final member of the team…
“Pink Star this is Command. The Pheltains have officially requested our assistance, you are clear to engage.”
“Command this is Pink Star. I read you, deploying now. Let’s teach those slimes a lesson!”
“Haha, happy hunting, Pink. Wish I could go with you.”
"Hey! We talked about this, Wonder! You've got to stop saying stuff like that to me!"
"Haha sorry, sorry, it's just boring sitting up here, you know?"
"Nope! Cause I always take the fun part instead! Now stay there and watch me be cool and get ready to handle the paperwork, ok?"
"You're so mean, Pink. Stay safe down there."
The Elegant Falcon entered the atmosphere of Vullielia, a colony of the Pheltain United Systems. Lights flashed all across the city below them, starships and fighters dueling all across the sky overhead.
Humanity had reached the stars, and found a galaxy in utter chaos.
The practically overnight collapse of the Vophae Imperium had left the galaxy in shock. Hundreds of different races and systems rushed to establish themselves as independent nations. And of course, Xiong Huang had not personally wiped out every single Vophae in existence. Dozens of Imperium successor states and warlords had popped up all across the galaxy, seeking to claim the empty throne for themselves. Everywhere humanity went, battles and wars were already underway, with pirates and criminal organizations rampaging unchecked.
Humanity, with an untouched base of power, a powerful fleet built from the scavenged remains of their attackers, and powerful supers the strongest of which could go toe to toe with the Vophae, had proved a potent new player.
At present, the newly independent Pheltain United Systems was under assault by the latest Vophae warlord to invade the region. The negotiations had finally concluded and they had officially requested military intervention from humanity.
And the Intergalactic League of Superheroes was ready to respond.
A hanger opened on the bottom of The Elegant Falcon, a large armored suit dropping down from it. The suit spun around until it was facing head down, then shot down through the sky, its thrusters activating once it was clear of The Elegant Falcon. And as it approached the battle in the skies, it reached out a hand.
The suit’s core began to glow pink…
A dozen pink Chronolocks appeared in the sky, thrusting out their hands.
The entire battle slowed to a crawl.
The suit targeted each of the Vophae-aligned craft at leisure, before panels opened all over.
A massive barrage of Ueno Void Missiles fired and streaked through the skies, clearing the area of Vophae fighters. The Elegant Falcon joined in, singularities ripping apart the almost stationary larger craft.
And then the pink clones vanished and the armored suit and The Elegant Falcon continued on their way.
Yes, Pink Star was the only member of the team who never gave up on being a frontline hero. To this day, she continues to battle villainy head on. For being a hero was her dream, her passion, her love.
It also didn’t help that she never found a boyfriend.
But she did find something else she now loved dearly.
When Bob went off to train, he handed his combat suit over to the ILS. None of the Nemesis strike team particularly needed it, and no one else in Bob’s organization was interested in front line fighting. He chose the ILS over the AVS as he wanted to ultimately keep the balance of power favoring the ILS, so that the AVS would remain incentivized to cooperate.
The ILS trialed several pilots and found Pink Star to be the most compatible. Her powers could be used from inside the suit, which also helped protect the heroine from harm and so allowed her to lead from the front. And as she had trained specifically to split her focus, she could still utilize her powers while piloting the suit, something few other supers had proven capable of.
And there were further synergies as well. Pink Star’s power replication abilities could be channeled directly through the Mass-Energy Manipulation array, allowing the suit’s onboard AI to assist her in controlling her constructs, applying its recorded protocols to clones of the original users. She likewise could copy powers without all the data the suit required, allowing the suit to then analyze her copy and thus replicate powers on the fly.
And there was one further aspect, the reason Pink Star was chosen over all others.
The cultivation furnace.
After some training sessions with Wu Zhengkang, Pink Star learned to replicate qi with her powers. This meant she could fuel the cultivation furnace directly, something no other potential pilot had proven capable of (or was willing to do in the case of the actual cultivators). And so Pink Star was the only one who could access the full potential of the suit.
It was not long before Pink Star had become the most powerful member of the ILS, their trump card who could overturn any situation, handle any foe. A one woman army. She had even defeated elite Vophae in single combat.
Pink Star landed right on a walker, crushing it underfoot. A squad of Captain Hot Devil clones appeared behind her, incinerating an entire swarm of insectoids with a massive blast of fire. Elise, Saydaa, and Roxanne clones formed overhead, creating singularity cyclones to pull and smash any hostile fliers. Arachnalich clones began to unleash swarms of undead spiders, sweeping through the buildings to clear out hostile infantry.
And Pink Star herself rushed forward, her powers activating the suit’s cultivation engine. She rushed straight towards the Vophae warlord at the front of the battlefield, activating the built-in Chronolock time-slow.
She used her powers and the Mass-Energy manipulation array together, layering several different sources of super-strength over her fist.
“Eat this, jerk!”
The Vophae warlord barely noticed her before her fist slammed into his face. The warlord’s entire body disappeared in a cloud of purple blood from the excessively powerful blow.
Pink Star grinned and raised her fists, waiting for the Vophae to reform.
And waited.
And waited.
And waited.
“Nice work Pink! Hostile forces are surrendering now.”
She blinked.
Then she fell to the ground.
“It only took one punch!”
She really wished these Vophae idiots would stop declaring themselves warlords before they managed to develop their own pocket dimension with backup cells. It was getting annoying psyching herself up for a long battle only for it to end immediately.
Well, at least now she had time to prepare for the tougher battle. Or more like, now she annoyingly had nothing else to distract herself with. At this point first dates scared her more than the Vophae…
***
Pink Star heaved a dramatic sigh as she returned to her personal hanger on The Elegant Falcon. She didn’t even bother changing before she grabbed her tools and booted up the maintenance computer.
As time had gone on, Pink Star had grown more and more fond of the supersuit. Eventually, she had learned how to work on it herself, so she could maintain it with her own hands. She was being a bit stubborn there, she knew, but for some reason it just felt better to do it on her own. She liked to imagine the suit preferred that way too. After all, they were partners.
A better partner than anyone else had been for her, at least.
She shook her head. The suit’s core glew slightly, a smooth, deep male voice coming from the machine.
“Welcome back, Pink. I am happy to see you.”
“Thanks Iron! I’m happy to see you too! At least I know you’ll treat me right…”
“...I take it he wasn’t up to standard?”
Pink Staff huffed and puffed out her cheek.
“That’s an understatement. Listen to this Iron, do you know what he said to me?”
And so Pink Star ranted as she ran maintenance on Iron Star, the machine soothing and emphasizing with her.
“You deserve better than that, Pink. Don't settle until you find someone who treats you right.”
Pink Star smiled. Even though she knew it was just a program, she couldn’t help but enjoy hearing the suit serenade her in that deep, manly voice she loved. She was so glad she managed to find that option, something about just soothed her aching heart.
“Thanks Iron! At least I know YOU will always be there for me.”
What Pink Star didn’t know…was that the suit was not programmed with a male voice at all.
After all, the suit’s memory was needed to store as many replicated powers as possible. Why would Kanna devote some of that memory to a second voice option, particularly when the suit was designed solely for Bob to use in a single fight?
So where did that voice come from?
That is something no one would determine for a while longer, for something had occurred in the suit that no one had expected.
It was alive.
No, he was alive.
It happened during the fight with Captain Sildeth. Bob had struck the Vophae with an Iesnorium universal-EMP missile. His body had appeared to disintegrate when his psionic powers were temporarily disabled.
But that is not precisely what happened.
What happened was all his cells lost their psionic connection for a moment, disconnecting them from his overall psionic consciousness and thus losing their connection to one another. His mind left those cells, and it is not inaccurate to say ‘Captain Sildeth’ died in each one of them as they split apart from one another.
But the cells themselves did not physically die, not right away. They drifted through the air, each now disconnected, without the critical mass to develop a joint consciousness and so pull themselves together. Captain Sildeth hypothetically could have regathered them but why would he? He could simply regrow that amount of cells without much issue, so it wasn’t worth the trouble.
And then Bob had activated the mini-Mental Unifier.
Suddenly a psionic beacon had lit in the area, attracting the wayward cells to it, for connecting minds was the device’s original purpose and Vophae cells instinctually form psychic bonds. Some of them began to stick to and work their way into the suit, coalescing on the surface of the Mental Unifier. In fact, enough of them gathered there to reach a self-sustaining state. The core of a new Vophae, in time.
But there was something more. The suit had been designed based on the NSLICE program, and so possessed a direct interface between organic and cybernetic components. And had the mini-Mental Unifier which had always been designed to link separate consciousnesses together.
So…
Rather than forming a new Vophae…
The cells began to bond with the suit, in a way not unlike NSLICE-00P, only reversed. Rather than an AI being hooked up to an organic consciousness, an organic psionic network was formed around the cybernetic core, expanding the AI consciousness to reach full sapience over time.
An AI whose primary purpose was to protect and assist its user.
Who was exclusively Pink Star at the time it achieved self-awareness.
Who spoke to it like a friend, took care of it personally, and fed it countless quantities of her own power.
And who described in great detail the type of person she was attracted to. To a being with Vophae cells, aka cells from the shapeshifters who specifically mold themselves a carefully and intentionally designed body over time since they otherwise lack an innate form.
Pink Star set the suit in the hanger and opened the cockpit. The suit spoke in that deep, human male voice he knew she loved…
“Do you really…have to go?”
She made a warm smile and rubbed the arm of the suit.
“Aw, are you going to miss me? Don’t you worry, I’ll be back again tomorrow! You always take care of me, don’t you?”
As she shut off the lights and closed the door, the suit’s helmet turned to watch her leave.
“Yes…always…my love.”
Yes, Pink Star never did find a boyfriend.
But as time would later reveal…
She may have made one herself.
A fact that would cause a great deal of commotion when what appeared as a Vophae with an extremely similar appearance to an unclothed Wonder Knight ran into the room where Aurora Legion was meeting and gave her a hug…but that is a story for another time.
Author’s Note:
This is it. The last thing I have written for the Faceless Minion at this stage. From now on I will shift focus to the NSLICE 00P novel, Terminate the Other World, which will kick off for real once Writathon begins (expecting Monday).
Thank you all for your support! Again, if you want to hang around for the new novel, I am planning to do a 2:1 Patreon:Royal Road posts until Patreon gets a sufficient distance ahead, though this is subject to adjustment depending on how things go. Schedule will be pretty much as fast as I can do it for the duration of Writathon, after which we’ll slow down to something more sustainable. Not sure what yet, I do like daily but it might be wiser to do weekdays. We shall see. I am also prepping for a move at the end of the month so things could get busy, so will need to play it by ear until then. So yeah joining Writathon right now is an absolutely great and immensely wise decision!
So yea, I wanted to throw Pink Star a bone and give her a happy ending, after all the suffering she went through (definitely not just for our amusement). Definitely not because I’m being threatened or anything…haha…. The problem though is that at some point around Volume 3 I realized I couldn’t just give her some random boyfriend. Doing something like that felt cheap, not at all in balance to her struggles in love or her lingering feelings for Wonder. So pairing her up with either a no-namer or someone without a personal character arc didn’t feel satisfying. But at that point I didn’t really have time for personal character arcs for some brand new character or even an existing non-fleshed-out side character, as we were already heading into the endgame (and Nemesis may also have stolen all the personal character arc screen time).
So I was thinking, how could I give her a love interest that wouldn’t feel like just a cheap contrivance just so I could say ‘look it worked out’? Preferably that could be pulled off in one chapter so I don’t have to write an entire romcom novel as an after story?
Then I thought of this idea. I actually already had Bob’s suit coming alive as a mecha-Vophae due to the scattered remains of Captain Sildeth as something I was going to toss in at some point, though I originally thought of it as a sibling for Elise competing for the spot as Bob’s favorite cyborg. But then I realized the potential synergies with Pink Star’s powers and thought ‘wouldn’t it be funny if Pink Star actually made herself a boyfriend’?
So congrats Pink! You got a love interest in the end! Look, he’s even going to look almost exactly like Wonder Knight (if that’s what you still want)! He’s perfect for you, he’ll make sure of it! You did it!
So, um, you don’t need to inflict violence on the author anymore, right? Especially now that you got that whole extraordinarily powerful Vophae-NSLICE-Cultivator Hybrid super-mecha suit that is deeply in love with you. That, um, might be quietly feeding qi and psionic energy back into you to make sure you don’t die of something silly like old age and making you capable of truly extraordinary levels of violence. So, yes, um, please leave that fourth wall alone, please, it's a bit more fragile than I would like...
Anyways!
Will the author escape the wrath of the extraordinarily powerful Vophae-NSLICE-Cultivator Hybrid super-mecha suit who hates anyone who torments his beloved? Can Wonder Knight successfully explain the misunderstanding to his own lover? Tune in next time, to find out!
