It was awkward at first.
After my less-than-stellar first world, I had gone out of my way to avoid the female familiars, even Lust, who I sorta got along with before. I don't think I had anything mental going on, but I'm not totally sure.
So, to avoid the silence, I meditated the entire time to try and speed up the healing process. Other than that first spike from Oasis, my healing had actually slowed down quite a bit, which was very painful.
I went looking and found nothing wrong with my body, so I checked the Gacha and found that one of my traits, Regenerator, was actually better without outside help, which Oasis was. So she stopped casting healing magic as my body started fixing itself.
My Throne and Viltrumite traits obviously used this new body to keep tearing each other apart as violently as possible. So Oasis stuck around to give my healing a jump-start whenever the traits tore too much too quickly.
So time passed as the two traits kept tearing apart my body and healing it again. Viltrumite made sure each moment made me stronger, and Throne kept ramping up in intensity as Viltrumite used the fresh Smart Atoms to try to consume it.
This just went back and forth for who knows how long as the two traits slowly realized they could function together, only for them to start all over again. This happened a few more times until they finally seemed to calm down for good.
I had my ancilla send a message to whoever was keeping this place safe as I tapped into the Throne trait more. As I did, four massive wings burst from my back as I felt my body grow slightly weaker.
Oasis gazed upon the wings in awe as the barrier let us free, and Lust gaped. "Where did you get those!" She exclaimed as the Forerunners behind her looked equally surprised. Well, as surprised as they could be.
"A new thing, don't worry about it," I said to her as I stepped out and back onto the Ark. "Where is my ship?" I asked the nearest Lifeworker, who didn't know. My Ancilla then let me know that the Vengeful is currently in the galaxy, but should return within the month. Great...
Normally, I would be bored out of my skull waiting this long, but since I was on THE ARK!! I took my time to explore everything around me. It was pretty cool seeing all the places from Halo 3 and Halo Wars 2.
In between flying around, both with wings and without, I got tickets from the gacha.
[Gift from beyond the veil, 1x Random Bronze Ticket] (Ozev_10)
[Gift from beyond the veil, 1x Random Gold Ticket] (Shadow_solder7)
Great, spin 'em!
[Spinning, spinning, spinning, done!]
[The Chair]
|Common Item|
Devil May Cry - The iconic cheap plastic chair of Vergil Sparda; it is rumored that sitting on this greatly increases the motivation of anyone who does.
[HA, L!]
[Summon Lesser Fire Elemental]
|Rare Ability|
Allows you to conjure or summon Lesser Fire Elementals out of your energy and command them, such as Fire Spirits, Living Candlelight, Fire Eaters, etc., that can use a variety of fire-based magic or other similar effects. You can only conjure elementals that are equal to or lesser in power than an Uncommon Familiar. The power, shape, and ability of the elemental you can conjure depend on your own expertise and power level. The conjured Elemental will draw power from you to maintain itself and use its abilities. The stronger the Elemental, the more energy it will need from you to sustain itself. If you stop supplying them with energy, they will vanish. If you spend enough time and energy and have the proper skills, you can create permanent elementals who do not rely on you for energy. Elementals are not counted as Familiars by the system.
Cool. I can make nukes in the palm of my hand; why would I need this?!
Anyway, once the wait was over, I was back on my ship, flying around the galaxy, reseeding life. It may sound grand and awe-inspiring, which it was, but the work was also very slow.
See, the Flood and Forerunners were so advanced tech-wise that they were fighting in slipspace as well, and things in real space still got hit. So plenty of planets that were fine before this mess now needed to be terraformed.
Thankfully, my ships had millions of Sentinels of various classes, making the work smoother, but still slow. Sometimes a planet only needed to have its flora brought back up to speed before we could reseed life; others had been shaken apart and needed their tectonic plates rearranged to keep the planet intact.
Other planets had been reduced to rubble, however. Despite their role as bearers of the Mantle, the Forerunners still possessed very powerful things that could lay waste to planets in minutes; what do you think Mendicant Bias did with those things?
Speaking of the traitorous A.I, Offensive Bias has brought back Mendicant Bias in literal pieces to keep it contained. The reseeding work was paused briefly as they deliberated on what to do with Mendicant.
Mendicant made it somewhat easy since it finally realized how far it had fallen, so they tore it into various smaller pieces and scattered them around the Ark, with the biggest piece that still had a shred of personality being left with only one thought: atonement.
I, for one, was happy for the shore leave since it was getting annoying to stay inside the ship for so long. I get why; we still don't know if any Flood survived in any form, so we had to be very careful and paranoid, but I could still complain!
Besides, I'm the only one who WILL complain! All the Forerunners are either too busy being depressed and working, or too determined and working! All they did was move from one planet to the next, terraforming it or making sure the reseeded species can actually survive after the Halos firing.
Like I said before, more than a few planets had been destroyed, and so there were plenty of new permanent residents on the Ark. Plans were already being made to find them new homeworlds since the Ark was only for the Forerunners and eventually humans.
I didn't really care; I was either too busy training with Ridley or trying to get the various Princeps to lighten up. It was a bit weird to see me acting that way, I'm sure, with me being nearly three feet shorter than even the females.
I made sure to steer clear of them, however; more than one had seemed interested in the 'not human' that was close-ish to them in size. No thanks, I choose life!
I still wasn't sure how to talk to my familiars. Ridley and the beast, and snowmen, I got along with just fine. I didn't know how to even begin talking to the Desert Sisters, Oasis and Dune.
Ridley was fine since he'd been there when I... He knew ok. We trained and ate together, and made jokes about whatever was before us.
The beasts were even easier; just give them food and space, and they were happy.
The Snowmen army was a ball. I loved having snowball fights with them; even a few Navarchs had joined in on occasion just to unwind. IG-88 was usually with them since it liked the idea of shooting sentient snow for some reason.
The problems started with Lust; she was there, and she knew as well. I don't know if she had all the details, but she knew enough to steer clear of me for the most part. The most contact we'd had was when I first summoned her into being before the Librarian and Ur-Didact.
It had been a long time since then. At most, we'd eat at the same table with Ridley and IG between us.
The Desert Sisters had mostly stuck around her. I'd never talked to them, not even once. I have no plans to talk to them either, so they usually hang out with Lust or the ship's few Lifeworkers.
Tali was easy to stay away from; she had been on the Ark for years now. Last I saw her, she was in her own suit of Forerunner armor, tinkering with a Sentinel to see what made it tick. I haven't had any Builders come asking for her head, or hand in marriage, so I guess she's doing just fine.
Still, internal conflicts aside, there was much to be done, and it was far from over.
---------
And that's all for this arc!
Next chapter will be a BIG timeskip bc I wanna get right to the point, so be ready for that. Thanks for all the support and stuff, but if you really wanna help ya boy out, head over to K O f i and gimme some love.
ko-fi.com/ betrayed1ne
JKJKJK you don't have to, but anything is greatly appreciated. I will be starting stuff there before posting here, though- just a heads up if you wanna see extra stuff. Later!