Dragonball M, Chapter 5: Clarion’s Call! The Signal! The Fate of the Universes!

[KingofPie]

Yet some time more before the party departed Reshlan...

____



Some time after the Guardian Evangeline made her rallying cry, the air of dread anticipation that followed that summons fell across the Earth's Orbital Ring, and as the blue planet below turned silently below, though spirits were high, the confidence in their unlikely heroes bolstered, every strident measure of faith had been all but equaled by trepidation.

For as much as the Guardians of the Universe had lit the way, for many, coordinating the route of attack had all but confounded technology; and for those who still wished to fight, though the will had remained, they did not yet know the way.

___

"...-sta, come in." Faint static lit up within Mecha Durive's instruments, carrying with it Ochazuke's voice. "Galactic Patrol Unit: Katchin Squadron, are you there?"

"We have incoming..." X-Bo noted.

"I heard, I heard," P-Sta assured, reaching for the communicator. "Is this the Gotengo? P-Sta reporting in!" He glanced out the windows, the eyes of MEcha-Durive at the vast sea of stars before him. "Apologies for not reporting in sooner, but communications have been in disarray until now! For whatever reason, its inner workings had been slathered with ketchup...Either way, once we all took off, we were planning on getting the okay to do some scouting ahead! Potentially dangerous, but it might do us some good if we can relay anything valuable back to the rest of you!"

"Besides, Durive assures us we'd be safe!" N-Ten noted.

"For whatever that assurance is worth..." P-Cee noted, seconds before being ejected from her chair and knocked against the wall.

"Still could probably do with a decent plan, though..." St-Eam added.

[grampagen]

"We have incoming..." X-Bo noted.

"I heard, I heard," P-Sta assured, reaching for the communicator. "Is this the Gotengo? P-Sta reporting in!" He glanced out the windows, the eyes of MEcha-Durive at the vast sea of stars before him. "Apologies for not reporting in sooner, but communications have been in disarray until now! For whatever reason, its inner workings had been slathered with ketchup...Either way, once we all took off, we were planning on getting the okay to do some scouting ahead! Potentially dangerous, but it might do us some good if we can relay anything valuable back to the rest of you!"

"Besides, Durive assures us we'd be safe!" N-Ten noted.

"For whatever that assurance is worth..." P-Cee noted, seconds before being ejected from her chair and knocked against the wall.

"Still could probably do with a decent plan, though..." St-Eam added.

There was silence on the other side of the line for a moment.

Ketchup...?

For as honest and straightforward Officer P-Sta was, sometimes his enthusiastic conveyance was all too blunt and direct. Justice, to the letter of the law, unfiltered.

"By now the Galactic Patrol should have received a transmission one which came from our silent partners," he said, "As I understand it, the organization believes they know the Beast God and the Last Daughter of the Kaiju-jin well, however, any preconceptions you may have had from the Meridian Crisis are quite unfounded."

Ochazuke paused, contemplative for a moment. Koorimaru's bluster may have all but obfuscated his true purpose...

Plots within plots...

"To save this universe, they have been hunting members of Sakin's cult until they found where he is hidden. The way is treacherous...though I believe I have an additional means to find them. Therefore we'll be moving out shortly."

[Cleric of Hell’s Brigade]

The whispers grow, the psychic eddies curl from the moon and surround the Gotengo just as another ship, smaller and sleeker, arrives behind the Gotengo.

Ochazuke, faintly you can sense the Beast God and Last Daughter onboard the smaller ship.

Koorimaru begins throwing up psychic barriers around himself and saying something about the first defense of the moon and needing to focus as strange thoughts plague the crew and passengers onboard the Gotengo. Feelings of ill ease and fear begin to leak into your minds, that old an ancient fear of the dark and what lurks there. Of the unknown, and terror slowly begins clawing at your resolves.


—————


Cancer, sitting upon a dark throne, smiles as her eyes roll back and she begins her next wave of defense.

[bruceleegreyhulk]

The whispers grow, the psychic eddies curl from the moon and surround the Gotengo just as another ship, smaller and sleeker, arrives behind the Gotengo.

Ochazuke, faintly you can sense the Beast God and Last Daughter onboard the smaller ship.

Koorimaru begins throwing up psychic barriers around himself and saying something about the first defense of the moon and needing to focus as strange thoughts plague the crew and passengers onboard the Gotengo. Feelings of ill ease and fear begin to leak into your minds, that old an ancient fear of the dark and what lurks there. Of the unknown, and terror slowly begins clawing at your resolves.


—————


Cancer, sitting upon a dark throne, smiles as her eyes roll back and she begins her next wave of defense.

(I feel uneasy and afraid. I feel something clawing at my resolve. As if my mind is being messed with. I need to do something about it. It's a shot in the dark, but it might work,) Praxat thought.

( I'm going to use my my Bio-Electromagnokinesis to attempt to make a shield by scrambling my neural impulses. Sure, I haven't tired it out before, but during my time on Amperior, I heard of such a technique of using Bio-Electromagnokinesis in such a way from Uncle Bullick . I have no time to think about the risk, so I'm just going to go for it, )Praxat thought.

( I need this feeling of unease to go away, so I have to do this, Now, what did uncle Bullick said about the tech I'm about to attempt. That to pull it off. One must be calm and focus) Praxat thought.

( Now, Praxat try to foucs , try to remind calm. You can do this. Just focus and remind calm,) Praxat thought.

Praxat makes attempt to use Bio-Electromagnokinesis to scramble her neural impulses to create a mental shield by remembering what she heard about a technique of using Bio-Electromagnokinesis in such a way on Amperior from her Great Great uncle.

[Sub-Zero MKA]

Eva guides the ship there, and with nary a waver the ship passes through strange pathways and energies as it finally reaches through the shrouding nature of the Forsworn World.


It is a simple planet, unimpressive hanging in the dark expanse of the universe. A single moon, much like Earth’s but a touch bigger orbits round the planet as the only silent witness to its existence.

Except, oddly that was untrue. Light, suffused from unknown magic and energy seems to light up the planet as if a sun existed somewhere close. It is as plain to see from space as Vocado or Chroma or Earth is, the effect eerie since no actual light source was visible.

As far the moon, it hangs in darkness. No light touches it, a grey-black orb orbiting the silent world below. Strange eddies of psychic power swirl around the moon, and to those with keen eyes….every once in a awhile a strange Aeon of psychic energy will curl around and form odd glyphs, before shifting back to the surface.

There it was, the battlefield that would decide whether the sun would rise tomorrow or if Sakin would get to hit the reset button. Parsley told her what death was like, what it was like to die. Neither of them knew what a permanent erasure was like. She had no intention of finding out.

From a distance, Sakin's world didn't look like much. Other than it being illuminated by nothing except, she assumed, bullshit magic, there was nothing remarkable about it. That, however, wasn't what attracted her attention.

It was the moon.

Cancer's moon.

She didn't have any kind of magic sense or whatever, so she couldn't tell what was so special about it. Despite that, just looking at it raised her hackles. Even beyond the obvious, she owed that bitch Cancer big time. It had only been a few hours (?) ago, but their “fight” still seemed like a few minutes ago. She remembered the dread, the impotence, and the helplessness she felt as she was being dragged away from everyone else, then left for dead. Like she said before, she didn’t know what it was like to die, but she had come as close as she ever had that moment. If she hadn’t had a key to Vaikuntha, she for sure would have met her end.

For that, Avoca owed her big time. A fight between them would end the exact same way. The difference between then and now was that now she wasn’t alone. She didn’t have to fight her one-on-one, she just had to be standing when she was killed. And Cancer’s death was all but guaranteed, if she insisted on standing in their way.

The whispers start soon after their arrival above the planet and moon. Slight things, missed words and breathes on the side of the neck. Traces of thoughts not your own, and a feeling of foreboding starting to rise.

More and more a sense of dread starts to permeate the air of the Gotengo, as psychic swirls of energy arc off the moon and lance at the psyche of the M-Fighters.

The first of the defenses set in place by Sakin and his ally’s seems to have been activated.

She could feel a breath on her neck, followed quickly by a hasty whisper. She flinched and snarled and whirled her head around to tell whoever it was to **** off. Now wasn’t the time to be playing jokes or whatever. When she found that there was no one nearby enough to pull that **** off, she frowned in confusion.

She flinched again and touched her forehead. “Oh man,” she muttered. Thoughts were running through her mind a mile a minute, but none of them were hers. It was like someone was projecting their thoughts into her brain. It was Sakin and those fucks that orbited around him. She heard what that scumbag Icer had to say about him and his friends. She knew that what was going on was some kind of psychic attack meant to throw them off their game before they even had a chance to step foot on his stupid planet.

Foreign thoughts swirling through her head like an unrelenting maelstrom was bad enough. The nigh overwhelming feeling of dread and anxiety only made it feel insurmountable. Come on, Avoca. Keep it together! She clutched her head with both hands. Her own thoughts were drowned out like drops of water in the midst of a raging river.

Focus. Gotta focus on... something!

And yet, it was growing worse by the second.

The whispers grow, the psychic eddies curl from the moon and surround the Gotengo just as another ship, smaller and sleeker, arrives behind the Gotengo.

Ochazuke, faintly you can sense the Beast God and Last Daughter onboard the smaller ship.

Koorimaru begins throwing up psychic barriers around himself and saying something about the first defense of the moon and needing to focus as strange thoughts plague the crew and passengers onboard the Gotengo. Feelings of ill ease and fear begin to leak into your minds, that old an ancient fear of the dark and what lurks there. Of the unknown, and terror slowly begins clawing at your resolves.

“Tch!” It was very evident that Cancer’s psychic bullshit that Koorimaru spoke about a little while ago had already gotten started. Sarada could hear voices that didn’t belong to her friends tickling the back of her neck, voices that weren’t hers in her head, and all around very skeeved out by everything. She knew Cancer was a creep, but not to that extent. “What bullshit.”

Every moment brought with it a renewed wave of anxiety. Like the tide of a tempestuous sea, they crashed against her steely resolve, seeking to erode until the first seeds of doubt crept into her mind. And the others were suffering the very same invisible attack. It was an onslaught that was nigh impossible to defend against, certainly impossible to punch away.

Out of the corner of her eye, she noticed Avoca starting to freak out; or at the very least, lose her composure. She frowned and sighed. “At this rate, we’ll all be too scared to even try.” Even as she spoke, fear of the unknown was settling in. With it came the old adage: ‘Fear isn’t that your alone in the dark. It’s that you aren’t alone’. Cancer was lurking in that darkness and was probably banking on scaring them shitless before they got to her moon; at which point, she was going to activate hunter mode and go to town.

A small smile touched her lips. Little did that knife-eared bitch know, they didn’t scare easy. And they always had each other’s back, stepping up to carry the others whenever they fell.

“Stay focused. Her tricks won’t work on us,” she said resolutely to the others. Just then, a golden aura erupted and bathed the others in warms rays like sunlight. Like just before the fight with Inanna, their stamina was renewed - though everyone should have been close to full strength thanks to Zaofan’s bean paste. More importantly, though, was the mental effect. Their wills were reinforced by her own overwhelming confidence and resolve. Unbreakable and unshakable like the rocks of the eternal shore.

Saiyan Pride - Everyone’s (onboard the Gotengo) mental defenses are boosted for one post.

[grampagen]

Seated in meditative repose, Ochazuke's meditation carried from the Gotengo core to enhance his sense-awareness. Through its many-alloyed superstructure, where it pushed through long-forgotten routes and onward to the centre of the universe, through the ship's very frame he could feel the myriad cosmic energies arrayed in the stellar fabric where the vessel had drawn them in.

He drew a breath as he drew upon it to plot their course, and with every exhale he felt it pass through him, and with it the maleficent intent woven into the void as they neared.

Like the silent pulse of Creation itself...but if Sakin cannot gain his victory over the universe, he means destroy it.

The closer they moved to the source of the attacks, it seemed to him as if the damage from the shattering call had already done, for following the Leyline these long lightyears may only reveal that it had already been nicked and bled dry.

Eva guides the ship there, and with nary a waver the ship passes through strange pathways and energies as it finally reaches through the shrouding nature of the Forsworn World.


It is a simple planet, unimpressive hanging in the dark expanse of the universe. A single moon, much like Earth’s but a touch bigger orbits round the planet as the only silent witness to its existence.

Except, oddly that was untrue. Light, suffused from unknown magic and energy seems to light up the planet as if a sun existed somewhere close. It is as plain to see from space as Vocado or Chroma or Earth is, the effect eerie since no actual light source was visible.

As far the moon, it hangs in darkness. No light touches it, a grey-black orb orbiting the silent world below. Strange eddies of psychic power swirl around the moon, and to those with keen eyes….every once in a awhile a strange Aeon of psychic energy will curl around and form odd glyphs, before shifting back to the surface.

The whispers start soon after their arrival above the planet and moon. Slight things, missed words and breathes on the side of the neck. Traces of thoughts not your own, and a feeling of foreboding starting to rise.

More and more a sense of dread starts to permeate the air of the Gotengo, as psychic swirls of energy arc off the moon and lance at the psyche of the M-Fighters.

The first of the defenses set in place by Sakin and his ally’s seems to have been activated.

Though his eyes passed through no monitor or window as they arrived, the uncanny manifestation of the Forsworn World had not been lost to Ochazuke.

Indeed with his connection to the universe amplified by Muhen Sekai Keihatsu, it had quite possibly been laid bare in all of its spiritual totality.

That presence...!

He had felt it directly at the start of this miserable episode when he had challenged the Call. Sakin had imparted a vision of the world which housed that altar of sacrificial bones hewn from fallen Guardians. But when the Angel obsessed with his recreation turned his eye toward him, there but for the worlds that moved with them all, had a most unnatural terror filled his perception as he beheld it.

For the craft was of Pantaloon's design, a state of the art instrument to measure in part of the manifestations of the spirit. Now where Super-Katchin sculpted by Ghetti Nanites grafted onto the Orichalum of Old Avalon, it was meant to suit Ochazuke's purposes. Though the psychics among them were few, connected with the Gotengo's systems and its legacy machinery, as aware as he was of those on board the vessel, so was he, in a sense, connected to him, particularly where the Gotengo transferred his thoughts into direct communications.

To the pilot on the bridge, that connection was far more direct.

They've seen us. Evangeline-!

That was last utterance carried over the Gotengo's systems.

Ochazuke's Meditation Field, attuned to the subtle forces of the universe, were grounded in the Universal Leyline, had all but amplified the whispers, forcing him to to brace to challenge the machinations emanating from the Dark Moon.

[Cleric of Hell’s Brigade]

Evangeline’s entire body suddenly shudders, silver butterflies swirling from her form and encapsulating the cockpit and than spilling out to land on each of the people traveling in the Gotengo. Psychic pressure, once almost crushing, is slowly pried away as Eva, boosted by Sarada’s ability momentarily, finds purchase and pushes the assault back and frees the ship from the whispers and dread.

Praxat, having scrambled her brain signals first, and amped by Sarada’s gift, is the first to recover and see that not only has Eva managed to push the assault back, but the Guardian is currently bleeding from her nose and eyes, hands clenched as she continues to remote pilot the Gotengo safely towards the moon. Strange energy seems to be leaking off her like evaporating most, and the Guardians’s eyes are glowing with power.

Eva’s voice, over the ship’s comms, reaches out toward all in the ship after a few moments.

“I am here with you, I will not let her touch you again. I can hold the psychic pressure at bay, but I cannot…….I cannot leave the ship. Linked, I can continue to throw it back and ward us now that Inknow it’s there, but once l lose the connection to the ship I won’t be strong enough. I’ll get us as close as I can, than Koorimaru…….it will be up to you to get them through the rest of Cancer’s layers of defense. The other ship behind us appears in effected so far by the assault, which makes me think they did not plan on other visitors yet. We have…some advantage despite triggering this….trap.”

Privately, she reaches out to Ochazuke and offers what balm she can to his bombardsed senses.

‘I apologize, my friend. I was caught unawares and you suffered for it.

[bruceleegreyhulk]

Evangeline’s entire body suddenly shudders, silver butterflies swirling from her form and encapsulating the cockpit and than spilling out to land on each of the people traveling in the Gotengo. Psychic pressure, once almost crushing, is slowly pried away as Eva, boosted by Sarada’s ability momentarily, finds purchase and pushes the assault back and frees the ship from the whispers and dread.

Praxat, having scrambled her brain signals first, and amped by Sarada’s gift, is the first to recover and see that not only has Eva managed to push the assault back, but the Guardian is currently bleeding from her nose and eyes, hands clenched as she continues to remote pilot the Gotengo safely towards the moon. Strange energy seems to be leaking off her like evaporating most, and the Guardians’s eyes are glowing with power.

Eva’s voice, over the ship’s comms, reaches out toward all in the ship after a few moments.

“I am here with you, I will not let her touch you again. I can hold the psychic pressure at bay, but I cannot…….I cannot leave the ship. Linked, I can continue to throw it back and ward us now that Inknow it’s there, but once l lose the connection to the ship I won’t be strong enough. I’ll get us as close as I can, than Koorimaru…….it will be up to you to get them through the rest of Cancer’s layers of defense. The other ship behind us appears in effected so far by the assault, which makes me think they did not plan on other visitors yet. We have…some advantage despite triggering this….trap.”

Privately, she reaches out to Ochazuke and offers what balm she can to his bombardsed senses.

‘I apologize, my friend. I was caught unawares and you suffered for it.

" Ave Rea Yuo Ykao? Htats Dgod ot wonk. Wati a edcdns mhestgoni nsit thiger eerh I sodun Ynnfu?" Praxat said.

" I dah to cbramsel my ernaul misuepls, Os hyigntreve mi gysnia ot yuo ta eth emmtno si mots elilyk igtlniulienble tirgh won. Noe etommn i cna xif tath," Praxat said.

Praxat focuses and uses her Bio-Electromagnokinesis to unscramble her neural impulses. " Okay, is this better can you understand me now, Eva?" Praxat said.

[grampagen]

Evangeline’s entire body suddenly shudders, silver butterflies swirling from her form and encapsulating the cockpit and than spilling out to land on each of the people traveling in the Gotengo. Psychic pressure, once almost crushing, is slowly pried away as Eva, boosted by Sarada’s ability momentarily, finds purchase and pushes the assault back and frees the ship from the whispers and dread.

Praxat, having scrambled her brain signals first, and amped by Sarada’s gift, is the first to recover and see that not only has Eva managed to push the assault back, but the Guardian is currently bleeding from her nose and eyes, hands clenched as she continues to remote pilot the Gotengo safely towards the moon. Strange energy seems to be leaking off her like evaporating most, and the Guardians’s eyes are glowing with power.

Eva’s voice, over the ship’s comms, reaches out toward all in the ship after a few moments.

“I am here with you, I will not let her touch you again. I can hold the psychic pressure at bay, but I cannot…….I cannot leave the ship. Linked, I can continue to throw it back and ward us now that Inknow it’s there, but once l lose the connection to the ship I won’t be strong enough. I’ll get us as close as I can, than Koorimaru…….it will be up to you to get them through the rest of Cancer’s layers of defense. The other ship behind us appears in effected so far by the assault, which makes me think they did not plan on other visitors yet. We have…some advantage despite triggering this….trap.”

Privately, she reaches out to Ochazuke and offers what balm she can to his bombardsed senses.

‘I apologize, my friend. I was caught unawares and you suffered for it.

Seated upon the floor, Ochazuke laced his fingers together. Arthur's Ring fasted in his right hand began to resonate with the Orichalum grafted to the Gotengo, and the Super-Katchin of its engines began to power up.

To say Ochazuke had grown numb to fear would be far from the truth. To perceive the inner nature of the universe did not always bring with it enlightenment, and to gaze upon the vastness of the incomprehensible machinations was to court madness upon a stellar sea of cosmic chaos.

From inquiry, uncertainty...

But emanating from the Dark Moon was nothing but doom, in this manner a godly decree of acertain end. It seems therein, Cancer had made the expression of her Destroyer's prowess malignant, for once cannot fight the inevitablity of what is.

"You won't lose the connection...not so long as she keeps her gaze fixed upon us." he replied to Evangeline, his thoughts laid bare across the instruments of the ship.

"If she wants to make her threats, then we will use her position against her."

“Tch!” It was very evident that Cancer’s psychic bullshit that Koorimaru spoke about a little while ago had already gotten started. Sarada could hear voices that didn’t belong to her friends tickling the back of her neck, voices that weren’t hers in her head, and all around very skeeved out by everything. She knew Cancer was a creep, but not to that extent. “What bullshit.”

Every moment brought with it a renewed wave of anxiety. Like the tide of a tempestuous sea, they crashed against her steely resolve, seeking to erode until the first seeds of doubt crept into her mind. And the others were suffering the very same invisible attack. It was an onslaught that was nigh impossible to defend against, certainly impossible to punch away.

Out of the corner of her eye, she noticed Avoca starting to freak out; or at the very least, lose her composure. She frowned and sighed. “At this rate, we’ll all be too scared to even try.” Even as she spoke, fear of the unknown was settling in. With it came the old adage: ‘Fear isn’t that your alone in the dark. It’s that you aren’t alone’. Cancer was lurking in that darkness and was probably banking on scaring them shitless before they got to her moon; at which point, she was going to activate hunter mode and go to town.

A small smile touched her lips. Little did that knife-eared bitch know, they didn’t scare easy. And they always had each other’s back, stepping up to carry the others whenever they fell.

“Stay focused. Her tricks won’t work on us,” she said resolutely to the others. Just then, a golden aura erupted and bathed the others in warms rays like sunlight. Like just before the fight with Inanna, their stamina was renewed - though everyone should have been close to full strength thanks to Zaofan’s bean paste. More importantly, though, was the mental effect. Their wills were reinforced by her own overwhelming confidence and resolve. Unbreakable and unshakable like the rocks of the eternal shore.

Saiyan Pride - Everyone’s (onboard the Gotengo) mental defenses are boosted for one post.

Yet to find the vampire's lair, it had started when they had spoted the traces of psionic energy remaining in her brood, on Earth on the other end of the cosmos.

Now from this magical array to the very source of it, that had been the very means they had used to deduce the Moon's location in the first place.

Following upon Sarada's action, Ochazuke applied Kei'i-Ken at this critical juncture to further increase the focus of those gathered. They had all resolved to face the threat, and for his part he would not imagine any would find new courage from this; but with the stark alignment of their energy signatures, there was a reminder that they would all choose to fight.

Therefore to combat these layers of fear, it would not do to deny it, but face it directly and through sheer will, confront the worse impulses.

Drawing a breath, Ochazuke sent a surge of energy through his field of Battle Meditation, and through Banjakuza sought to reveal the nature of the Destroyer's first attack, and how it related to the Forsworn World beyond it.

[Cleric of Hell’s Brigade]

Seated upon the floor, Ochazuke laced his fingers together. Arthur's Ring fasted in his right hand began to resonate with the Orichalum grafted to the Gotengo, and the Super-Katchin of its engines began to power up.

To say Ochazuke had grown numb to fear would be far from the truth. To perceive the inner nature of the universe did not always bring with it enlightenment, and to gaze upon the vastness of the incomprehensible machinations was to court madness upon a stellar sea of cosmic chaos.

From inquiry, uncertainty...

But emanating from the Dark Moon was nothing but doom, in this manner a godly decree of acertain end. It seems therein, Cancer had made the expression of her Destroyer's prowess malignant, for once cannot fight the inevitablity of what is.

"You won't lose the connection...not so long as she keeps her gaze fixed upon us." he replied to Evangeline, his thoughts laid bare across the instruments of the ship.

"If she wants to make her threats, then we will use her position against her."



Yet to find the vampire's lair, it had started when they had spoted the traces of psionic energy remaining in her brood, on Earth on the other end of the cosmos.

Now from this magical array to the very source of it, that had been the very means they had used to deduce the Moon's location in the first place.

Following upon Sarada's action, Ochazuke applied Kei'i-Ken at this critical juncture to further increase the focus of those gathered. They had all resolved to face the threat, and for his part he would not imagine any would find new courage from this; but with the stark alignment of their energy signatures, there was a reminder that they would all choose to fight.

Therefore to combat these layers of fear, it would not do to deny it, but face it directly and through sheer will, confront the worse impulses.

Drawing a breath, Ochazuke sent a surge of energy through his field of Battle Meditation, and through Banjakuza sought to reveal the nature of the Destroyer's first attack, and how it related to the Forsworn World beyond it.

It reveals an interwoven net of psychic booby traps through the space between them and the moon, and between the moon and the Foresworn World.

This early warning system, revealed now, was used to bring those coming here to the brink of madness and fear, thus making them easy prey to be stalked by Cancer.

Or her children, seven of which Ochazuke can detect hiding among the psychic traps, the strange psychic energy hiding their energy signatures well. And, from what he could tell, they were getting ready to fire upon the Gotengo and the other craft soon.

[Sub-Zero MKA]

Evangeline’s entire body suddenly shudders, silver butterflies swirling from her form and encapsulating the cockpit and than spilling out to land on each of the people traveling in the Gotengo. Psychic pressure, once almost crushing, is slowly pried away as Eva, boosted by Sarada’s ability momentarily, finds purchase and pushes the assault back and frees the ship from the whispers and dread.

Praxat, having scrambled her brain signals first, and amped by Sarada’s gift, is the first to recover and see that not only has Eva managed to push the assault back, but the Guardian is currently bleeding from her nose and eyes, hands clenched as she continues to remote pilot the Gotengo safely towards the moon. Strange energy seems to be leaking off her like evaporating most, and the Guardians’s eyes are glowing with power.

Eva’s voice, over the ship’s comms, reaches out toward all in the ship after a few moments.

“I am here with you, I will not let her touch you again. I can hold the psychic pressure at bay, but I cannot…….I cannot leave the ship. Linked, I can continue to throw it back and ward us now that Inknow it’s there, but once l lose the connection to the ship I won’t be strong enough. I’ll get us as close as I can, than Koorimaru…….it will be up to you to get them through the rest of Cancer’s layers of defense. The other ship behind us appears in effected so far by the assault, which makes me think they did not plan on other visitors yet. We have…some advantage despite triggering this….trap.”

Privately, she reaches out to Ochazuke and offers what balm she can to his bombardsed senses.

‘I apologize, my friend. I was caught unawares and you suffered for it.

Sarada let out a brief sigh. Eva had managed to push back Cancer's psychic assault, but at the cost of her being unable to leave the ship. The Gotengo apparently could boost the power of those that were directly connect to it. Yet another technological marvel Jinzi had no doubt played a part in creating.

"Thanks, Eva," she said through the comm link. They had been given a momentary reprieve, but she didn't doubt for a second that Cancer was going to take this as a personal challenge. "Get ready. That's not the end of it." She was speaking more to the others than to Eva. She had a feeling she was only just getting started.

She turned to face Parsley, who was sitting next to Avoca. "Got any new tricks?"

"Stronger variations of the same tricks," she replied. She then turned her head to look out of one of the viewing windows. "I can see her psychic energies." Her voice trailed off as she watched more closely.

As far the moon, it hangs in darkness. No light touches it, a grey-black orb orbiting the silent world below. Strange eddies of psychic power swirl around the moon, and to those with keen eyes….every once in a awhile a strange Aeon of psychic energy will curl around and form odd glyphs, before shifting back to the surface.

She knew nothing of psychic energies nor did she have any kind of understanding of psychic abilities outside of the very basic 'do things with the brain'. Regardless, she could at the very least observe that peculiar Aeon that flared from Cancer's moon to determine what purpose those glyphs served.

Observational Focus to observe the Aeon and the glyph with more scrutiny and Toki Yo Tomare to determine if the various glyphs are part of a magic spell.

[bruceleegreyhulk]

"I know you can understand me now, so I'm going to say this Eva are you alright? I had to scramble my neural impulses/brain signals before this to form a mental shield. It's something I heard about it from my great uncle Bulllick during my time on Amperior. This was my first time doing it," Paraxt said.

" Oh and at this moment my sense of sight, sense of smell, and sense of touch are inactive because I had used my Bio-Electromagnokinesis to turn them off temporarily while this ship was traveling to its destination. I also was practicing shifting rapidly between my electromagnetic energy form and physical form and teaching myself how to control other charge particles besides electrons through experimentation. Charged particles like protons. I also used my Bio-Electromagnokinesis to reconstruct my sword into a bug shape ornament by rearranging its electrons. That's also something I did for the first time, took me several tries before I was successful" Praxat said.

[grampagen]

It reveals an interwoven net of psychic booby traps through the space between them and the moon, and between the moon and the Foresworn World.

This early warning system, revealed now, was used to bring those coming here to the brink of madness and fear, thus making them easy prey to be stalked by Cancer.

Or her children, seven of which Ochazuke can detect hiding among the psychic traps, the strange psychic energy hiding their energy signatures well. And, from what he could tell, they were getting ready to fire upon the Gotengo and the other craft soon.

Now that Ochazuke had sighted them, the layers of deception and terror could at least be traced to a foundation.

"Hold fast." Where static had sounded out before, his thoughts now transcribed to coherent speech across the comms throughout the ship's systems, and the information he discerned throughout the Meditation Field now populated the data streaming down the instruments and monitors upon the bridge - a living radar feeding information to a visual of the situation. "The closer we draw to the moon would be to court further madness, and they know this."

Seven on them lay in wait, a colony of sanguine-starved spiders in their stellar web.

"The Vampire has played her little trick, merely the first of many layers. Yet they remain between us and Sakin.

An aura of dread yet remained, an expression of Cancer's will, perhaps. Yet now that he had sighted the structure, with a part of the mystery had absolved had he begun to sharpen his intuitions as he began to examine the facets of the battlefield.

"Interesting. From the look of it they think they've already won," he mused, "Evangeline, begin turning the ship towards the Forsworn World. Begin the bow drill rotation. Zaofan, with me."

The Martial Chef slowly stood from his seat. His right hand bound over his left, fretfully rotating the palladium band upon his finger that the skin had come near to a blister. Despite everything, he'd made his promises, after all. This one in particular he would arrange to keep.

Through the Meditation Field, Ochazuke made his silent preparations, for as Cancer's minions sought to stoke fear, in a fashion they would find him there staring back at them as he sought to draw them out.

To acclimate to your surroundings, one must first listen...

The final lessons of old Tao'ro were affixed firmly in his mind...and indeed through the pulse of the Cosmic Leyline he now drew power from, Cancer's was not the only web that had been set in place...

The whispers grow, the psychic eddies curl from the moon and surround the Gotengo just as another ship, smaller and sleeker, arrives behind the Gotengo.

Ochazuke, faintly you can sense the Beast God and Last Daughter onboard the smaller ship.

Koorimaru begins throwing up psychic barriers around himself and saying something about the first defense of the moon and needing to focus as strange thoughts plague the crew and passengers onboard the Gotengo. Feelings of ill ease and fear begin to leak into your minds, that old an ancient fear of the dark and what lurks there. Of the unknown, and terror slowly begins clawing at your resolves.


—————


Cancer, sitting upon a dark throne, smiles as her eyes roll back and she begins her next wave of defense.

Koorimaru in the meantime, perused the goings-on upon the bridge. Unfettered from these machinations for the moment, his red eyes glanced over the Dark Moon's umbral shape.

"...you've all returned then, have you," he said, "it seems we have been followed. How interesting."

Folding his arms, he looked toward the shapeless surface of the moon, and slowly began retracing the steps in his mind.

"Mm...yes, I think that may do...," he said as he measured the distance, "Furthermore, it won't do to dally out here. Cancer herself is the source of all this."

[Miburo]

Sometime a bit before departure...
____

There on Reshlan, but for the resonance of the billions of souls that echoed across the path of the Guardians from their planets to the edge of the universe, peering up to the open skies, one could not help but feel the distance had become only so much farther; from home, from the familiar, this motley band of fighters now stood alone upon the threshold to the unknown.

Then far above lonely planet, the Stargate activated above, and pasisng through the white-rippled passage in folded space was a Nevadian Navigator vessel.

The freighter of the Navigation guild that had made first contact with Baradur and then the Threshling homeworld, the Penelope, pushed through. Behind it, trailing upon a tractor beam was a First Race Ship, the very same Parsley and Avoca had left docked on Earth before the battle for Reshlan.

Striking across the comm came a transmission from the Captain Ulysses Prizzm, his smoky voice filled with a certain jubilant satisfaction.

"Always come back to here, doesn't it? I got a package here from the EDF, but I've got to put it through the proper channels," he said, "Hailing Admiral Held Debon, we have a Saiyan ship in tow. Please advise."

The bright clink of fine porcelain followed by slow, smug sipping filled the airwaves for a long, uncertain moment.

"Hmm?" This was unexpected. No one had mentioned anything about a ship coming from the Saiyans....Then again, he had been otherwise occupied during the battles. Not to mention he had been technically dead for months beforehand. He accepted that perhaps there was things that, at the moment, he was not entirely privy to.

Besides, with the fate of the universe in the balance--and the loss of Nevada prime fresh in his mind--Held felt that sticking to the virtues of bureaucracy was perhaps unnecessary in this exact instance.

....That, and he was somewhat curious as to see just what the Saiyans brought to the table. It's unlikely anyone would have went through the trouble to cross the galaxy like this, without something worth the effort.

"This is Admiral Debon." Held replied, massing the side of his left temple as he pushed fresh loss from his mind, "Your cargo is approved. Let the ship through."

"That reminds me, I hope the Galloping is on one piece, sir. The Federation Homeworld might be gone, but we managed to complete the order, tailored to your exact specifications."

So spoken, the cargo doors on the back of the ship opened, and a transport slid into the atmosphere and began to glow brightly through re-entry as it made planetfall.

"Believe it or not, the Galloping barely has a scratch on--" He paused, processing the second part of the transmission.

He had it. It arrived. It was here, against all hope and expectations.

"You fucking what?" Held asked incredulously as the Captain informed him of his cargo, before clearing his voice. A more formal voice, appropriate for an Admiral returned. "...I...I mean. I see. Well Done. Your cargo is acknowledged."

There was little to be enjoyed today. The carnage brought by She Who Stalks, the pandemonium brought about by the schism between Inanna and the others, the absolute ruination of Nevada Prime and so many others by Sakin and Grinthorn....

However, this news did, however slight, put the barest hints of a smirk upon his face.

I almost forgot about it, given how long I've been gone.....Still. It's ahead of schedule even? I guess they must have really put their asses into it.....Well, either that or they skimped on the cost. I'll have to see for myself, wont I.

The Nevadian could see the cargo fall from the sky like a comet towards the world below it as it made planet fall. This was good.

"I guess I'm not completely unlucky if you managed to get this here...."

[Cleric of Hell’s Brigade]

Sarada let out a brief sigh. Eva had managed to push back Cancer's psychic assault, but at the cost of her being unable to leave the ship. The Gotengo apparently could boost the power of those that were directly connect to it. Yet another technological marvel Jinzi had no doubt played a part in creating.

"Thanks, Eva," she said through the comm link. They had been given a momentary reprieve, but she didn't doubt for a second that Cancer was going to take this as a personal challenge. "Get ready. That's not the end of it." She was speaking more to the others than to Eva. She had a feeling she was only just getting started.

She turned to face Parsley, who was sitting next to Avoca. "Got any new tricks?"

"Stronger variations of the same tricks," she replied. She then turned her head to look out of one of the viewing windows. "I can see her psychic energies." Her voice trailed off as she watched more closely.



She knew nothing of psychic energies nor did she have any kind of understanding of psychic abilities outside of the very basic 'do things with the brain'. Regardless, she could at the very least observe that peculiar Aeon that flared from Cancer's moon to determine what purpose those glyphs served.

Observational Focus to observe the Aeon and the glyph with more scrutiny and Toki Yo Tomare to determine if the various glyphs are part of a magic spell.

You determine the Aeon is a constantly sustained psychic lock. Every so often, the ‘lock’, or Aeon, flares up to those sensitive to it. It means Cancer and her followers dumped a lot of power into it, locked it in place, and now no longer need to sustain the power as the effect is locked in place. The effect is just always ‘on’, similar to a magic rune engraved in something instead of constantly maintaining a spell.

So whatever this effect is, Cancer is not actively maintaining it so she is not using power to keep it up right now.