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_The End War, the war to end all wars, is seeing the number of fronts shrinking. Hell and Heaven are now pacified, and it is time to pursue the enemy back into the Mortal Plane of existence. I hope you'll have fun reading this chapter, which brings old characters back on the scene and joins some of the dots. Enjoy the ride, and as always leave comments, ask questions, share your impressions. I'm always happy to answer to your questions (no spoilers, though!) and even happier to hear what you think of the story. _

The last enemies standing. Apparently the weakest ones, yet the most persistent. Someone is still pulling the strings.

Chapter 86 - Back On Earth

The flat screen bolted to the bulkhead right next to the top of the bed flashed slightly as the information displayed on it was updated. The old admiral turned his head slightly towards it, but couldn't quite read the small numbers, his eyes glazed over by tiredness and lack of sleep. He didn't really need to check, anyway: the light shudder going through the submarine and the change in the muffled noise coming from the machinery rooms in the stern told him everything he needed to know. They had changed course and then reduced the power to the minimum and were now drifting, carried forwards by the residual impetus that came from having raced at 45 knots only moments before. And it was entirely normal. Submarines running at high speed from one point to another were pretty much blind because the noise they generated interfered with their own sonar. To counter that, submarines moved much like infantrymen on the battlefield: soldiers dashing from one position to the other, looking out for targets every time got in cover. Submarines sprinted and drifted, moving rapidly to gain a more advantageous position, then stopping to reacquire their prey on the sonar, then sprinting again until they had secured a good firing position.

The black hull of the submarine (technically Ship, Submersible, Nuclear - SSN) slid forwards in the waters in almost complete silence now, dragging the towed sonar array behind it. Admiral John "Sandy" Hawkwood could imagine its mile-long, tube-like body slowly straightening once more after the turn described by the submarine and he could just as easily visualize in his mind the specialists in the sonar room listening to the captured noises in their headphones, while surveying the displays of the boat's combat system. The computer did most of the job, filtering the countless confused sounds coming from the depth of the ocean and focusing on those that betrayed a mechanical origin. The displays filled with lines that visualized the rhythm and nature of the noise, and the database automatically looked for matching "soundtracks". The sonar could easily identify a ship cruising dozens of miles away by listening to the noise her machinery made, and to the regular sounds coming from her propeller screws. If the ship was one they had encountered in the past, identified and filed into the database, the combat system was easily able to recognize her. Even ships of the same class, built to the same base design, tended to never be quite the same: each had a peculiarity, a slightly different note about her. The towed array was the most powerful and important sensor of the SSN. A whole mile of hydrophones listened to the outside world, picking up even the tiniest of disturbances, even coming from miles away. There were sonar arrays built in the flanks of the SSN as well, and then there was the "ball", the spherical array of hydrophones and emitters in the bow, which could not only listen but also emit powerful, low-frequency pulses that traveled in the water and bounced off objects, generating returns that the sonar officers could read to map out the depths.

But the computer could at times be tricked, so the sonar operators still needed to pick up the headphones and exercise their ears. Sonar operators were a very special bunch of people, often with a deep love for music, and their ears could, with the same ease, detect a wrong note in a full orchestra symphony or in the background noise of the ocean. Sir John reached a hand up and rubbed at his tired eyes before peeking at the screen again. The route was correct, but that didn't surprise him: he had complete confidence in Galen Huxley, commander of the submarine Audacious and one of countless "illegitimate" sons of Killer. Galen was the son of one of the Forbidden Females that in theory should have been the private harem of Killer's father, Seth, king of Kesteven. Everybody knew, however, that Killer had filled the wombs of the Forbidden Females far more frequently than his father had. Killer was no more than twelve years old when Galen was born, but there could be no doubt about the identity of the father. John smiled a little to himself, shaking his head slowly. The young prince had sired a spectacular number of sons and daughters from very early on, beginning with the triplets and quadruplets pumped into the two females tasked with serving him and guarding him when he was at the very beginning of his development. Killer's virility was already legendary when he was still a kid, and his appetites were no less astounding. Two of his most famous illegitimate sons, of course, were Riaku and Richard "Talon", the air force ace, but there were infinite numbers of less famous ones. He was credited with literal millions of sons in Ire too, where he had spent years in a military school, then in the most prestigious army academy. The king had sent his heir south in an effort to improve relations between the two countries and to give Killer a chance to learn all about the modern tactics and equipment employed by the southerners, the non-tiger nations. Relations between countries had not improved at all, but Killer's relations with southern women had been excellent and had eventually resulted in him becoming the greatest porn star of all times. The official statistics contained numbers that had caused many to call Killer a god long before he ended up truly ascending to godhood. It had also left many fearing that ligers would soon take over the world since Killer's children were invariably ligers, no matter the race of the mother. Countless families all over the world were dominated by hulking liger sons with Killer's genetics, and Killer still regularly received mails, photos, messages and money sent by millions of women eager for him and cuckolded husbands that paid for their wives' pleasure. The war had broken down the communications and destroyed many of those families, but many more remained and, now that Killer literally dominated the entire world, the prayers had resumed flooding Killer's mail box as well as his mind.

Galen Huxley was the son of Killer and a young, strapping tigress that the then Prince of Kesteven had bedded after meeting her in a bar during leave from the army. Galen resembled his father a lot: tall, muscular, sapphire-eyed and as solid as a mountain, with a punch that could knock back a tank. But the real reason why Sandy could trust him completely had nothing to do with his illustrious father or with his awesome strength, and everything to do with the fact that he trained him personally. Galen was a submarine commander because he had passed with flying colors the most demanding of exams, and Sandy had been the teacher evaluating his actions behind the periscope.

The room in which Sandy was vainly trying to get some rest was, in fact, Galen's cabin. On submarines, space is at a premium and only the commanding officer (CO) and the Second in Command (XO) have their own little rooms, which is in any case tiny and cramped. The rest of the crew slept in bunks arranged on the two sides of the Hallway, the corridor that went through most of the submarine, passing over the sealed compartment of the nuclear reactor. Senior rates and officers had larger bunks and larger cupboards while junior rates slept in bunks stacked three high. Each bunk came with a small cupboard, a lamp, electric connections for little commodities such as MP3 players, and a couple of tents that were the only source of privacy. And they were lucky: when Sandy had started his naval career, submarines literally had bunks only for half the crew and they were shared between two or more sailors. He had "hot bunked", aka slept in a bunk still warm because of the other rate having just left, many, many times. Sandy was the most famous admiral in the entire navy now, but his higher rank did not mean he could have better quarters: submarines were not meant to be flagships and admiral accommodations were not part of the design. Submarines are the most dangerous hunters of the sea, but that danger comes from their stealthness, and that in turn comes from hiding in the dark depths of the ocean... where radio signals cannot arrive, and from where radio signals cannot depart. A submarine needs to launch a buoy to the surface or needs to go up at periscope depth and deploy a mast to communicate, which means it is a terribly poor place for a command center. Admirals need to send orders to the fleet all the time, and a submarine actually spends many hours at a time down in the deep, unable to receive or send anything. The two things do not go well together.

Sandy was on board because of his unmatched experience in leading submarines past enemy defences, and Galen had been happy to share his cabin with him. They took turns to try and get a few hours of rest... but without much success. Both of their minds were crammed full of thoughts about their dangerous mission and all they could do was think again and again at every little detail, trying to find a way to keep the boat, and the hundred of souls serving inside her, safe while the most powerful fleet of all times chased them down.

Sandy checked the short line about the weather conditions on the surface, and he grunted in approval as he saw that storms were still raging. They were navigating three hundred meters below the surface, so they were completely undisturbed by the heavy seas raging above, and Sandy was very thankful for that. He prayed for the storm to continue. If there were actual sailors aboard the RA ships, and not just mindless clones and machines, he wanted them to suffer and hopefully spend their day bent over a bog, throwing up every last bit of the content of their stomachs.

The first two checks took him a fraction of a second, before his eyes moved to the moving map that gave him a condensed tactical picture as compiled by the officers in the sonar room and in the control room. The display was one of very few bits of "furniture" in the room and was meant to keep the captain always up to date.

The targets were still there and no new contact had been acquired. Not that they needed or wanted any new contact: the RA fleet that was racing towards the island of Lunis, coming from the cold waters of the Antarctic, was more than gigantic enough. The screen was full with contacts, each marked by a small dot and by an alphanumeric identification code. They were still punching through heavy seas at more than 30 knots, arrayed in a vast defensive formation around TG01, the monstrous, 6 miles-long hybrid battleship-aircraft carrier that the RA had named "Judge". The last report that had reached the submarine, several hours earlier when they had briefly gone up to periscope depth and raised the mast-antenna, had warned them that the RA fleet was almost certainly not really interested in the island-fortress of Lunis, now a sort of nation-sized temple worshipping Killer almost all day long to beg for his mercy after initially siding against him. The RA fleet, it was expected, would move rapidly past Lunis and head all the way up to the Syrane channel and the North Pole. In his message, Killer warned them that the Ice Eden was the true target... and with how holy that magical place was to every northerner, even to someone as rational and cynical as Sandy, the news had reinforced the already steely determination of everyone on board.

The satellite had sent them some good news too, at least: the message had included some radar and infrared pictures of the RA fleet, taken by the few surviving satellites they still had in orbit: from the images it was clear that the RA fleet had been slowed down somewhat by the storms and by the huge freak waves, while the powerful gales had forced them to cut back on the helicopter sorties. For Sandy and the crew of the nuclear attack submarine _Audacious_that was excellent and most welcome news. The Judge was not only immense and monstrously powerful, but also incredibly fast: she had been traveling at upwards of 40 knots an hour until then, a speed pretty much unprecedented for major warships. Her modern escort vessels had been built to keep her pace, but being smaller they inexorably suffered the heavy seas a lot more. The Judge had been forced to slow down not to lose contact with her escorts, and that eased Sandy's job: the submarine could race forth at up to 45 knots underwater, but when Sandy had joined the boat they were thousands of miles away from the Judge and, had she not slowed down, they would have struggled to get in a good position for the intercept. Moreover, no matter how well designed and modern it was, the Audacious made noise like everything else moving underwater. It was silent enough to be virtually undetectable only up to 15, max 20 knots. Going faster meant more noise. More noise meant being detected and sunk.

Moreover, when a submarine makes noise it is unable to listen at the world around itself. That was why the Audacious was now drifting with the propulsion geared back to minimum: it cut off the noise and allowed the sonar operators to listen to the sea and update the tactical picture.

They could only hope to spy on the Judge by staying silent and well hidden, and that meant that they had to take position ahead of her bow, go silent, and let her pass before following her around as best they could. She was going to eventually leave them behind just because of her amazing speed, but Sandy hoped to gain valuable intelligence in the short timeframe in which they were going to be in contact.

If the bad weather continued to force her to cruise at a lower speed, they were going to have more time to spy on her. The fact that the helicopters carried by the Judge and her escorts could not fly was even more encouraging, because the swarm of flying hunters scouting ahead of the fleet was a major danger for their survival. Each helicopter could hover above the waves and drop a sonar line into the sea, listening to any noise that could betray the presence of a submarine. They also carried sonobuoys that they could drop to form fields and lines ahead of the fleet: some buoys transmitted active sonar pulses, the pings imagined by all uninitiated when thinking of a sonar; while others listened passively, detecting all ambient noise... including the echoes generated by a ping bouncing back after colliding with the hull of a submarine. Radar and radio signals cannot pierce the surface of the sea with any efficiency, and they don't work underwater, so that only noise is left as a way to map the dark depths and detect everything hiding in them. Submarines see with their ears, and so do, for the most part, the enemies of the submarine. The only way for a radar to detect a submerged submarine is to "paint" the periscope poking out of the surface, but periscopes are small, designed to be stealthy and they hide in the radar clutter generated by the waves themselves. It takes a good radar and a relatively short distance from the target to get to a successful detection. And submarine commanders are taught from early on to keep the periscope above water only for seconds at a time.

A good submarine commander needs a photographic memory and an excellent mathematical brain to succeed in the hunt: with a single turn of the periscope, lasting as little as three seconds, he must impress into his mind a clear picture of the situation on the surface. And then he must be accurate to the second in his mental calculations about where the submarine will be, in relation to the moving ships above, in the following moments before he has the chance to send the periscope up again for another look. Enemy warships that detected a periscope at close distance often turned their bow towards it and raced forth to ram the submarine and send it to the bottom, and that was the scariest of moments, when diving rapidly to a safe depth was the only way to avoid a nasty end. Sandy was the best at that deadly game. As an operational commander he had faced frigates and destroyers charging at his periscope, had slipped under their keels and vanished in the middle of the task groups they defended, leading his boats with such mastery to always get to his target, no matter how well defended.

Then he had become "the Teacher": not just one of the trainers preparing the next generations of commanders, but the most respected and feared of them all. He had silently stood guard in the control room of most of the submarines of the Empire's fleet, judging the actions of the candidate commanders. When the time for the final decisions came up during the exercises, the pressure on the candidates was indescribable: they were harried and rushed by several frigates and they had to show all their nerve and skills to make their way through. If they had assimilated their lessons properly, they succeeded. If they broke down midway across the exercise, they were out forever. The Navy was not ready to risk the invaluable nuclear attack submarines by putting them in the hands of inadequate officers, so the rate of failure was extremely high. Sandy and the other teachers rarely spoke during the tests, adding to the anxiety the candidates had to dominate... and when they saw something wrong, they stepped forwards, took command, put things right and stepped back again. Candidates were given suggestions about how not to get into the same trouble again, but if Teacher was forced to intervene for three times, they failed. Forever. The Navy did not allow second chances.

The navy of Kesteven, now Northern Empire's Navy after Killer's conquests had led to the unification of Kesteven, Kendrew, Glacial and several other kingdoms, was ancient and had noble traditions, but the high-technology force was still young. For most of their history, the Northlands had waged war with muscles and swords. The tiger's phenomenal physical power meant that they did not need much more than their bodies to dominate the world and struggle against each other for supremacy... but the times had changed, and Kesteven had been one of the first kingdoms to accept that the advanced technology developed by the other species required an appropriate counter. John Hawkwood was one of the fathers of the modern nuclear navy of the empire, having written most of the tactics for the submarine service and tested all of them in live battles. Great leaders before him had built up the fleet of submarines, fine-tuning the design and the sub-systems until Kesteven had become a world-leader. Sandy had continued their work, taking the great new machines to victory.

He had started his navy career at a time in which many tigers still saw the navy as a second-best choice, unless it was about joining the Royal Marines. Ships that fought with cannons and didn't need oars to move required little to no muscle mass, and in a society were physical strength was everything, serving on ships was seen as an admission of weakness. The Marines were the exception, of course. They deliberately devised a selection process more demanding than that of the army, to lure in the strongest warriors the country could produce. Only the Predators, the special forces that Killer had initiated in his youth, went past even that. The Marines were the Navy's way to build up a reputation, but Sandy was not interested in them; he truly wanted to get on ships and he did not care what others could think of it.

He had rapidly climbed the ladder of command, and after commanding a frigate he had joined the submarine service, finding his true purpose there, since submarines were the quintessential offensive weapon, the hunters, the pirates of the sea. Everything else was just a target.

He had enjoyed every second of his long career on submarines, establishing a series of firsts and winning a long list of battles at sea. He was the first commander to guide his submarine all the way across the arctic, submerged under the ice and finding the way only with the sonar. He had sunk several NWOA warships that threatened Kesteven's coast and had tormented the gigantic navy of Ire during repeated short-duration conflicts that the great southern nation had initiated against the tiger kingdoms of the north. And when the time for retirement had come he had cried. Literally cried. He had moved ashore to help lead the entire fleet from the headquarters in Rodney, on the south-eastern coast of the Empire, but much as he appreciated the honor, commanding a desk could never compare to standing behind a periscope, looking for targets. When Killer had asked him to get back in active service on submarines he had jumped up like all the energies of his youth had returned to him, and since then he had been busier than ever. The demonic invasion and the sudden declaration of war from Ire, Lunis and the other major powers of the south had put the Empire's fleets in the worst possible position and he had saved the day by virtue of guts and instinct. He had ordered every sailor he could find to board the ships in port and prepare to leave as soon as possible. And he meant that very literally. Ships had been rushed out of the port of Rodney just in time to avoid a monstrous barrage of cruise missiles that had demolished docks, depots, fuel tanks, cranes, barracks and all of the vessels that were dry-docked for maintenance or had not, for whatever reason, been able to set sail. At the same time, a few miles further east, the submarines had left their underground, bunker-ized pens dug into the cliffs of Barrow. They too had a close shave, because the fortified base came under sustained ballistic attack as Ire's submarines and land-based silos vomited their nuclear-tipped missiles. The Empire's anti-ballistic missile interceptors based in silos in the Red's Heights mountains, a few miles inland, had shot down the first few nukes, but Ire had launched so many that the Empire simply ran out of interceptors, and a deluge of warheads finally got through, struck the cliff and caused several of the pens to collapse to form a terrible radioactive inferno.

At the opposite end of the Empire's territory, in the North-West, right in front of the arctic, the scenes had been very similar, with the ships rushing out of Devonport and the submarines out of Faslane while the sky became crimson and blindingly luminous as the interceptors fired from the hills of Kai climbed up to the edge of space to destroy the enemy ballistic missiles rushing down to earth.

The few ships based in Glacial, in the port of Zangwill, from where Killer and Alexis had once moved towards the island of Argolis, had also rushed out to escape from a barrage of cruise missiles, but few had made it.

The Northern fleet had moved down the Syrane channel and had fought back Lunis's warships; the vessels escaping from Glacial had done their best to defend the coast against enemy landing attempts, while the core of the fleet, moving out of Rodney and into the Abukirk Sea, was faced by the overwhelming might of Ire's enormous battle fleet. Their battle was one for survival. Thankfully for them, Sandy was there to lead them. They had left the port with some ships half-empty due to elements of the crew not showing up at the docks quickly enough. Other vessels had ventured into the open sea overloaded with late-arrivals as well as entire families: who had had a chance to do so had brought the loved ones along in the hope of saving them, so one of the first things they had had to do was move people around from one ship to the other to rebalance things. Stores, ammunitions and provisions had also needed to be redistributed, and helicopters with pallets and other loads hanging under the fuselages had flown back and forth over the fleet for several hours, delivering loads directly to the flight decks of the various units. Other vessels, which had been in port undergoing maintenance and were seriously low on ammunition and stores had to sail side to side with the enormous supply vessels, connect with them with cables and tubes and sail in close formation for hours while passing missile containers, pallets and fuel across.

It had been a nightmare, especially because they had to carry out the operation with minimal employment of radio signals. The enemy fleets were listening for electronic "noise" and in order to survive they needed to produce none. Using light signals, flags and even messengers racing from one warship to the next on board of fast boats, Sandy had somehow managed to keep the fleet together and lead it out into the open ocean by following the most hostile of routes, in shallow waters near the coast, using the numerous tiny islands and rocks and cliffs to hide from enemy radars.

Sandy had directed the whole operation from the Empire's lone aircraft carrier, the majestic Ark Royal, and he was never, never going to forget the hours spent under the freezing rain on the bridge's wings, looking down at the cays and reefs jutting out of the waves, dangerously near to the carrier's flank. He had constantly moved from one side of the bridge to the other, shouting orders all the time as they made their way, very slowly, through narrow waterways that no one had ever thought about using before. Not with a carrier weighting almost one hundred thousand tons, at least.

His heart had raced for every single second of that torturous exploit, but thankfully the swarms of fighter bombers coming from Ire's fifteen aircraft carriers out in the ocean had never found them: as Sandy had hoped, they never even tried to search the carrier in that infernal maze of tight passages and dangerous reefs. The submarines had been instrumental in his success, because, loyal to their ways, they kept attacking the enemy fleet despite its crushing superiority in terms of resources. The harrying submarines forced Ire's fleet to veer westward, while Sandy led his ships on an eastward course, staying as close to the shore as he dared. It was a gamble, but it worked: Sandy managed to avoid the fight for the first, crucial few days and he exploited that time to prepare as best he could and to embark the air wing of the Ark Royal, beginning with the "Magnificent Dozen", the elite squadron recently formed to employ the X-57s, the stealth, hypersonic super-fighter born from the advanced prototype that Killer had captured in the fortress of Chattamduring a bold night raid. The Empire's scientists and engineers had turned that prototype into a formidable war machine that could fly into the enemy radar emissions without being detected... at least not early enough for the enemy to evade destruction and effectively respond.

Only a dozen such fighters had been completed and put into active service by that point, but their impact on the battle had been awesome, as they could carry a lot of weaponry while flying at up to five times the speed of time, virtually invisible to enemy sensors. Again and again they dived upon squadrons of unsuspecting enemy fighter-bombers, blowing them out of the sky before they could find and attack Sandy's fleet. Again and again they had been scrambled up from the Ark Royal's deck to beat back enemy air attacks, and in several occasions they had loaded up bombs and cruise missiles and had reminded Ire that the Empire could still sting, sending to the bottom several enemy vessels.

Sandy was exceptional in many fields, but air warfare was not one of those. Thankfully, however, he had been advised by some of the best pilots in the world: the "Magnificent Dozen" included Richard "Talon" West-Huxley (illegitimate sons like Richard often used the mother's surname) and his Weapon Systems Officer, David "Maverick" Harrow, and it also included their great rivals Fenrir "Shadow" Wales-Huxley, one of the illegitimate sons of Riaku and thus nephew of Killer, and his WSO Harry "Eagle" McNay.

Riaku and his forces, in fact, had de-facto joined the Empire after the events of Glacial, when Alexis had claimed back her homeland and where the RA had turned against Riaku. Ever since, the collaboration between the kingdoms had been improving, and with the demonic invasion every residual contention had been forgotten in favor of struggling for survival together.

The aces had crafted the air strategy and Sandy had integrated it into his naval plan. Together, they had succeeded in something that, given the disparity of forces, should have been impossible.

Stealthness had been the name of the game: the elusive submarines and the X-57s had aggressively engaged the combined fleets of Ire and its allies, hitting them hard and forcing them on the defensive, until they had all but veered for a southwest course, retreating towards the shores of Ire and the protection offered by the land-based surface to air missiles, anti-ship missiles, coastal artillery batteries and squadrons of aircraft from all the airports of the region. Those included anti-submarine aircraft carrying torpedoes, depth charges and hundreds of sonobuoys, so the job of the Empire's submarines had become even more dangerous.

Meanwhile, Sandy's surface ships had continued to move on an eastward course towards the open ocean, to vanish in its vastness. All ships continued to adhere to a strict, no-exceptions radio silence. Electronic emission control was extremely tight, meaning that only the strictly indispensable sensors were kept active, with all other radars operating in passive mode only, so that the enemy systems would have no signal to intercept and locate. Electronic "noise", in fact, can be detected from great distance with the use of suitable sensors (Electronic Support Measures, ESM). A radar can often be detected from a greater distance than its detection range, and Sandy could not afford to give away his position like that.

The X-57s became the eyes of the fleet, thanks to their extremely advanced, low-probability-of-intercept radars. Whenever it was possible, a couple of X-57s were up in the air, scouting ahead, with at least two more sitting on the Ark Royal's deck with the pilots already in the cockpits, ready to take off at a moment's notice to fight back enemy air attacks, and when Ire's fleet looked exposed, Sandy immediately struck them with everything he had, rushing his ships forth and turning a few of his most powerful radars on for a few instants, painting a picture of the enemy formation and firing a salvo of missiles before rushing away, back into a bubble of radio silence.

The other three squadrons of jets embarked on the Ark Royal were made up of Typhoons, excellent fighters but nowhere near as capable as the X-57s, so they used much the same tactic: they followed the X-57s at a safe distance, loaded with long-range weapons, and then fired against targets passed to them by the X-57s's sensors and data links.

The tactics proved very effective, but they only had twelve fighters and 8 submarines, so the problems had surfaced early on. The jets needed maintenance and repair; their crews needed some rest. There were simply not enough of them to fly constantly, hour after hour, day after day, and there had been periods during which, despite the heroic efforts of pilots and technicians down in the hangar, the X-57s just could not fly. During those periods the fleet had suffered the most, and Sandy had been forced to resort to extreme measures to ensure the survival of the fleet and the safety of the aircraft carrier, on which everything depended. The older ships, less capable and less stealthy, which could potentially provide the enemy with the radar contact they needed to locate the carrier, had to be sent away from the main body. Sandy spaced them out in a picket line dozens of miles up-threat and effectively used them as sentinels and first line of defence for the rest of the fleet. It had been a terrible decision to take, but he knew he had no choice, and the crews of the old frigates and destroyers knew it just as well. They gallantly took their assigned positions and fought to the bitter end, saving the rest of the group in a number of occasions... but in the end, every one of those older ships had been sunk.

From that point onwards the struggle had gotten more and more desperate, but the Ark Royal had finally managed to gain the open sea and she broke contact with the pursuing enemy fleet, gaining a little bit of time to carry out indispensable repairs and restoring.

Sandy's gamble had been costly: several of his beloved submarines had vanished into the depths, along with many surface ships, but the core of the fleet had survived, and that was a miracle in itself. One carrier group had prevailed against the efforts of fifteen enemy groups.

But Ire and its allies were just mortals. They had been the easy part. Demons and monsters from Hell became the real problem once they started taking an interest in the battle ongoing in the Abukirk Sea. The submarines had ended up hiding from terrifying, gigantic monstrosities which had become the true masters of the depths, and flying demons harried even the X-57s, inflicting several painful losses to the elite group of twelve machines and crews. The Ark Royal herself was badly damaged during the fight, as the missiles and guns and torpedoes suddenly felt inadequate against those otherworldly, supernatural entities, but still the fleet resisted, and by expending tremendous amounts of ammunition somehow managed to push through the horde and survive.

Thankfully, the demons took an interest in Ire's fleet as well, tormenting it without mercy and making it way too busy to continue pursuing the Ark Royal. But Sandy, and probably everyone on board of the battered ships, was by then sure that they were all going to die. It was just a matter of when.

But then Killer's actions in Hell had caused the demonic armies to waver and to retreat... and then Alexis and Killer had appeared, literal gods of endless power, titans that stood miles upon miles tall... and the goddess had annihilated the entire fleet of Ire within moments. Toying with them, humiliating them, destroying their minds first and their bodies and their ships later.

And Killer, in a display of raw, brutal power that went beyond even hers, had dropped his cock on Ire's capital, trapping the entire town within his vast, arrogant cumslit. Ire had begged for mercy, surrendering without conditions, and Lunis had done the same. The entire world capitulated before the two gods, realizing that they were completely, utterly in control... and finally the sailors and pilots and civilians and all the others who had sought refuge on the Empire's warships realized that they had made it. They had endured. They were safe, because their emperor was now their god too. Everyone's god.

Finally, after a long and torturing period, he couldn't even tell how long, in which he had never had a chance to drop his guard, he had crashed out and had enjoyed a bit of desperately needed sleep. It had been very brief, however: nightmares had soon awakened him with images of submarines ensnared by horrendous demonic monstrosities in the deep, dark ocean and with flashes of sinking ships and sailors horrendously burned by the chemical fires started by missile hits on their vessels.

And then Killer had told him that they faced a problem. That the RA fleet in the western ocean, on the other side of the empire and thus of the world, was the only source of information that could perhaps lead them to the mastermind behind the apocalypse.

Killer and Alexis could destroy the RA fleet with no effort, and they were going to do exactly that before they could cause any more damage to the world... but what they could not do was gather information from those ships, mostly automated, that seemed crewed only by machines and mindless clones programmed via software. Alexis could read minds easily, but she couldn't read electronic signals just as well, so that the only way to try and learn something about the fleet and the commanders it perhaps communicated with was to spy on them with traditional means. Antennas. Computers. Specialists. All embarked on a submarine, the only vehicle stealthy enough to sneak up on the Judge without being detected and blown to bits.

Sandy had needed no further indications and no encouragement. He had asked for the name of the submarine closer to the RA fleet and then had boarded an aircraft to fly halfway across the world to reach it. It was a traumatic experience: as long as they had flown over land, his nose had been squished against the little window, his eyes open wide in horror at the sight of the devastation down below. He had spent the entire duration of the war out at sea and he thought he had seen plenty of the ferociousness of the fighting and of the merciless power of the demons, but flying over towns reduced to charred craters and piles of blackened ruins had given him a whole new perspective. Everywhere he looked he saw roads cluttered with wrecked and abandoned vehicles, bridges torn in half by missile attacks, villages razed to the ground by raging demonic hordes. The countryside was dead and blackened, almost all cultivations poisoned and annihilated by demonic corruption which had turned entire counties into grotesque black stains on the surface of the planet. As the aircraft flew above Ire, escorted by a couple of Typhoon fighter jets armed with anti-air and anti-radar missiles, ready to fight back against any enemy taking aim at them from the sky or from the surface, Sandy had stared in complete disbelief at miles upon miles of devastated battlefield. Wrecked, abandoned battle tanks were scattered everywhere and the deep scars left in the soft ground by their tracks scarred entire regions. The demons had completely annihilated the armoured divisions of Ire and there were fields that were literally crimson with the blood that soaked the dirt. There seemed to be no living being left in the whole country. They were never once tracked by an Irenic radar, or contacted by radio, or shadowed by fighter jets, and it was not just because Ire had surrendered and bowed down to Killer, becoming part of the Empire. It was, first of all, because the entire country was a dead wasteland and its once proud military force was now just a pile of wreckage. The rest of the world was in the exact same miserable shape. The only exceptions were the "Colonies" set up and defended by the Predators and by the legions of Seraphims from Heaven. The aircraft had flown above a couple of those sanctuaries of life: two towns nestled in easily defensible positions on the hills behind the coastal area of Ire. They had been completely encircled by titanic walls and bastions made of eternal ice, dark stone and crystal and they had become massive and overcrowded camps for refugees, with tents and makeshift shelters visible all around the original buildings, filling the streets, creeping up on the inner side of the great defensive walls and even dotting the fields all around the town, outside the circle of bastions.

Now, with Hell defeated and Killer in control, the refugees inside the Colonies were slowly beginning to push out of their refuges to reclaim the lost lands, and new cultivated fields could be seen around each colony. It was a ray of hope for the future, even if still weak and frail.

When they had flown past the coastline and over the open sea, Sandy had asked the two navy officers accompanying him in the travel to brief him on the struggle faced by the Northern Fleet after it had left Faslane and Devonport. The reports were still fragmentary because the ships had been forced into radio silence, much as Sandy had on the Ark Royal, and they had scattered far and wide in the Western Ocean, in small groups or even singularly. Most of the Navy's shore infrastructure had been destroyed and Ire had fired missiles against the Empire's satellites in space, destroying most of them, so they were still having trouble contacting the survivors, especially the submarines. Several had not yet surfaced to report their status... or at least that was what they hoped. They prayed that the long list of SUBMISS (Submarine Missing) would not turn into a list of SUBSUNK (Submarine Sunk).

What was known was that the northern fleet had faced a smaller enemy fleet, mostly composed of warships from Lunis, but on the other hand had encountered a lot more demons: apparently Hell had taken a real interest in the North Pole and the Syrane channel, even though nobody was quite sure why. The struggle had been terrible, and the Explosive Ordnance Disposal teams were busy demolishing with explosive charges the wrecks of several warships that had been sunk in shallow waters, making their remains a navigation hazard. The list of the confirmed losses was long, and Sandy had cried when reading all the names of the lost vessels. Nobody had a complete list of the personnel losses, since the hurried escape from port and the mixing of crews meant nobody was quite sure who was on board of which ship.

The Audacious had left Faslane on the day of the invasion and had battled his way out of the Syrane channel, sinking no less than twelve enemy ships before gaining the open ocean. At that point it had headed south towards Lunis. Ever a fighter and an aggressor, Galen Huxley had decided that the cruise missiles carried by the Audacious would be best used to strike back against the island-state. He didn't have enough to cause crippling damage, but he inflicted several masterful blows to the enemy infrastructure before retreating to a hunting zone north of the island, sinking every Lunis ship he met.

And now, irony of this war, Lunis is rebuilding itself into a temple to Killer; is now part of the empire and part of our mission is keeping it safe... Sandy shook his head slowly, but he couldn't help smiling a little. He had met the Audacious out at sea: Galen had brought his submarine up to periscope depth as the aircraft flew overhead and had sent a coded word to it via radio. Sandy then had jumped out of the plane and had descended with the parachute, doing surprisingly well considering that his training in its use had been far more rushed and short than he would have liked. Thankfully it had disconnected regularly when he had pulled the lever and let himself free-fall the last few feet into the icy waters of the ocean: the last thing he wanted after surviving to such a war was to die drowned by a goddamn parachute getting soaked and dragging him to the bottom. Galen had brought the submarine up a little bit more, but without quite emerging. Instead, showing off his skills and those of his excellently trained crew, he had trimmed it carefully and pushed only the top of the conning tower out above the waves before climbing up the ladder and opening the hatch to the small bridge on top. Galen and a couple of his sailors had helped Sandy climb up the tower, throwing down a rope ladder, and within minutes the submarine was diving back into the depths, undetected.

It had all been an extraordinary adventure... and now Sandy was exhausted, yet unable to sleep. The nightmares still tormented him and the mission ahead clawed at his brain even more insistently. He sighed and sat up a bit in the small bed, resting back into the cushion while looking at his shoes, poking out of the dark blue, fire-resistant coveralls he wore. Then he looked slowly ahead, taking in the entirety of the tiny room: the bed doubled up as couch, and a folding table could be brought down in front of it to serve as desk. There were some shelves in the bulkhead, with closing flaps that ensured that nothing would fall off during the roughest maneuvers, when the submarine tilted this way or that; and there was a simple cupboard on the way to the door leading outside. There was no space to waste onboard submarines. Galen had put up a few photos on the walls, otherwise only graced by panels of fake, fire-resistant wood: one of them was of his mother, another was an image of him receiving his Dolphins, the small golden badge with two dolphins facing each other that certified that he was one of a very small numbers of "masters of the sea": the submariners. Sandy grumbled a bit to himself. On the Ark Royal he had a comfortable little apartment boarding on the luxurious, as she was purpose built as flagship and during peacetime she was supposed to impress the foreign captains and admirals visiting, yet he had barely ever touched the bed, or even the armchairs in it. The pace of their struggle for survival had been unforgiving. On the Audacious he had been given plenty of chances to sleep at least a little, but his mind refused to shut up.

Finally, cursing under his breath, he turned and stood up from the bed, smoothing out his coveralls, practical and relatively comfortable, and he walked out of the small room, carefully closing the door behind his back. He only needed to walk a few steps to the right to enter the control room of the submarine, a large room compared to all other spaces in the submarine, but also a crowded one since 14 or 15 officers manned it every single hour of the day. It was the brain of the SSN and was only faintly illuminated, not to disturb eyes that spent the hours in front of computer screens. A few red lights in the ceiling, half-hidden in the maze of tubes and cables, were on, reminding the crew that on the surface it was nighttime. For submarines, day and night do not exist and very rapidly mix until the sailors can't tell one from the other without the help of the red lights. The life on the sub is measured in Watches of six hours each. Submarines stand watch for six hours, then have two Watches of other tasks and rest before it is their turn again. The ship's bell is tolled one, two, three or four times to signal the start of the related watch period. One officer looked up and welcomed Sandy with a whisper and a respectful nod - discipline on submarines is strict, but not in terms of saluting all the time, which would only be awkward in the narrow corridors - before going back to his calculations, checking numbers from several different displays and instruments and taking notes on the margins of a huge map of the western ocean, spread out on the plotting table ahead of him. Nearby, the same map was portrayed on a flat display. Electronic charts were wonderful and handy, but complete reliance on the computer was just a recipe for disaster. The Navy continued to plot the route on paper as well. Moreover, there was a second plotting table at the other end of the room. Mistakes were not tolerable.

To Port and to Starboard, left and right for landlubbers, the walls were lined with long consoles of control stations, each with two displays stacked one above the other in front of a special keyboard, a trackball and a seat. Those computer stations were used to elaborate targeting solutions for hitting the submarine's targets, using all of the weapon systems available, from the torpedoes to the anti-ship missiles right up to the cruise missiles used to demolish enemy structures deep inland, over 2000 kilometers away. All the information collected by the submarine's sensors and communication systems were collated on those displays to give the command the tactical picture he needed. Sandy walked past the officers in the various seats, making his way towards the bow of the SSN, his eyes fixed on the cubicle of the sonar operators, all seated in front of their own screens covered in myriads of lines, graphic representation of all the registered noise, in relation to the position of the submarine, with its bow always in the middle of the screen. To the uninitiated, those lines meant absolutely nothing, but sonar operators, with the help of an incredible computing power housed in an entire room of buzzing cabinets further ahead, used them to track enemy movements all around the sub.

Sandy passed by the two petty officers that sat facing a different console, with larger, vertical screens arranged almost like those found in the cockpit of an aircraft. Their hands carefully handled two large joysticks, while their eyes surveyed the data about the state of the submarine. They were the pilots who made that black sea monster of 9000 tons dive, emerge, and turn. And the comparison with an aircraft was not without its merits: underwater, a submarine has a freedom of movement on all axes that ensures it resembles aircraft far more than it does ships.

Sandy nodded to reciprocate the salutes and sneaked a look at the displays in front of the two officers, making sure that all parameters were normal... but of course they were. Had the submarine been badly trimmed they would have all been tilting uncomfortably to one side or another. When they had pushed only the tower out of the surface to pick him out of the drink (the sea, for sailors) they had given him a clear demonstration of their ability. Sandy, however, still remembered the old days when computers were not there to help and handling a submarine was much more complicated. Back then, the pilots would have sit in front of a much larger and more complicated console, with an officer sitting just behind them and with their hands on cloches. On the port side there would have been the "sternplanesman", tasked with controlling the horizontal fins back aft of the screw, while the man on the starboard side was the helmsman and controlled the vertical rudders and, only after diving underwater, the bowplanes, the horizontal fins sticking out of the sides of the bow. Now the two positions were a lot more interchangeable and the submarine used stern control surfaces configured at X, which meant that the neat distinction between planes and rudder had gone out of the window. Technology had progressed a damn lot. The good part was that having a problem with one of the four control surfaces now was far less worrisome than it used to be.

Another thing that had changed over the years was the "conn", the slightly elevated platform in the middle of the control room, where the chair of command was located. The conn was now mostly symbolic, because the old periscopes, huge tubes that physically penetrated the hull, going up and down along holes in the floor and the ceiling of the control room, were no longer there. The new periscopes were non-hull penetrating masts, entirely contained in the tower and equipped with day and night cameras. The images they captured were sent to the control room via optic fibers and could be displayed on large high definition screens and replayed as many times as necessary. Which also mean that photographic memory is not as indispensable as it used to be. Galen, you chose yourself the cozy time for being a submariner...

Galen was right ahead, standing behind the sonarmen and surveying their displays. His imposing figure towered above the computer consoles that hid the sonar cubicle, and Sandy smiled a bit to himself, reminded of the playful sayings about him that ran rounds in the wardrooms of the fleet in the days before the war: he'll get stuck in the middle of the hallway sooner or later. He's got to enter doors on his submarine walking sideways. The Navy will end up using its entire budget to enlarge all hatches so he can fit through...

Galen was not as big as his father, but he was almost certainly the most imposing man in the whole Navy. His muscles bulged against his dark blue coverall and threatened to rip it apart. He had a physique envied by even the Royal Marines who had in their strength their greatest pride. Thankfully for his crew, he was a patient and easygoing giant, who always had a kind word for his men and who knew how to gain the trust of every sailor by means of competence. He had been one of the best students Sandy had ever certified, and he had made a name for himself for far more than just his biceps, his sapphire eyes and the features that instantaneously reminded everyone of Killer. More than once, during training exercises, he had driven surface ship commanders mad with his tricks, sneaking right in the middle of naval task groups and picking them apart from the inside. Many frigate commanders had seen colored smoke erupt out of the water on the side of their ships. It was the visual clue that the submarine had torpedoed them. Had it not been an exercise, they would have gone to the bottom.

Galen was talking quietly to the sonar watch supervisor, while the other two sonar watchstanders, junior in rank, continued to work on their large screens, surveying every new line and squinting their eyes as they pressed the headphones further against their ears and worked the commands to adjust the volume and to try and clear out background clutter.

The command chair was occupied by the Officer of the Deck, OOD, who had the "conn" and the "deck". To hate the deck meant being in charge of the ship's equipment. Having the conn meant being in charge of the ship's course, speed, depth and tactical weapon employment. The captain, or the XO when in turn, tended to supervise the OOD remotely. They were the ultimate authorities on board, but did not need to sit in the command chair all the time: their time and abilities were better spent checking on everyone, from the "nukes", the propulsion technicians far in the stern of the boat, to the sonar operators.

The captain and the XO could reclaim conn and deck at any time, but when circumstances allowed they were glad to let qualified, dolphin-ed submariners enjoy the thrill of having deck and conn on their watch. The first time in full control of the ship was an unforgettable experience, part terrifying and part beautiful. Sandy remembered every instant of the night when, 500 feet deep under a ocean battered by storms, at the beginning of the fourth watch he had sat down into the chair and announced on the interphone "This is Lieutenant Hawkwood, I have the deck and the conn", before receiving the acknowledgement from all watchstanders. He had immediately produced a cigar from his pocket, violating several rules, but he was almost expected to do so. In any case, he had not liked the cigar in the slightest and had never lighted one again in his life.

"Already back up?" Galen asked, seeing the admiral walking in. Or better, stopping on the threshold of the sonar cubicle because the muscular behemoth filled all of the space available, indeed forcing the sonarmen to lean directly against the consoles, the keyboards pushing against their bellies.

"Aye. I just can't seem to sleep. I'm not sure if I'll ever be able to sleep again." Sandy replied, looking at the cup of tea in Galen's hand, tempted to laugh at how tiny it looked. The massive captain laughed a bit at that, but without joy, before bitterly observing: "I hear you loud and clear. First time I can share the burden of command with two others, and instead of having fun in the wardroom or sleeping in my bed I'm more awake than a cricket with insomnia."

"What's the tactical picture like?" Sandy asked, looking at the broadband waterfall displays filled with white lines, the sound readings that rolled downwards on the screen endlessly. Sonar operators could scroll back through earlier readings, so they could keep track of anything weird catching their eye.

"We are tracking at least five enemy submarines in addition to all the ships. And there are other noises in the whole cacophony that give away the presence of several more SSNs. But it is hard to tell them apart from all the other noise, sir." The sonar supervisor explained, pointing a finger at the recognizable patterns of lines that represented regular, mechanical noises compatible with the machinery of a submarine. Nuclear reactor cooling pumps were a typical giveaway, and the Audacious had extremely good ears to pick up their muffled noise.

"TG45 is, as far as we know, the submarine in their vanguard position. We lose contact with him at regular intervals, but when it sprints we pick him up again. Thankfully, their submarines seem to be relatively noisy. We'd never hear one of ours from this distance." Galen said, tapping a finger on the tactical display where the estimated tracks of all contacts were constantly updated. "What worries me is that we are not just trying to get close to their ships to torpedo them. We'll have to spend a lot of time at periscope depth, spying them with the ESM mast deployed. Sooner or later, one of their radars will spot the mast, and then we'll be in serious trouble."

Electronic surveillance measures (ESM) is the collective name of a variety of passive sensors that listen to enemy electromagnetic emissions, such as radar signals, classifying them and locating their source. They were the only system on board that would alert them when an enemy radar looked in their direction and would provide them an estimate of the strength of the signal, telling them whether they were turning from hunters to prey. ESM also included the variety of listening devices that enabled them to spy on enemy communications and on the whole range of electromagnetic noise.

"What worries me even more is that we only have 8 torpedoes left." Sandy replied, and Galen grinned a bit at that: the Audacious had carried 38 in origin, but he had sent to the bottom a whole lot of targets. There was a jolly roger flag on the fake-wood wall of the control room, with the white skull and bones in black field surrounded by a multitude of symbols that were sewed onto the flag every time the submarine completed a mission of some sort: red ship silhouettes for each enemy warship sunk, white ships for enemy support shipping, a knife for every successful special forces insertion, a small white tomahawk for every cruise missile launched... and the Audacious flag was literally filling up with those. The crew looked forwards to flying the flag from the conning tower when they returned to port.

"We can maneuver around the submarines that we hear, but I fear that they might have more advanced boats hidden in all the other noise. We can sprint and drift for another hour, at most, and even that is a risky bet. If the storm abates and their helicopters get back into the air we'll have to start crawling." Galen observed, before the sonar operator pointed at some of the lines on the screen, explaining: "These are sonobuoys splashing into the water ahead of us. And these are the pings from the active buoys. They can't hear us yet, but they have fixed-wing anti-submarine patrol aircraft that they launch from the Judge and that can fly in almost any weather. They are laying lines of sonobuoys at regular intervals."

Sandy nodded, but a look at the tactical display was enough to understand that Galen had already crafted a route that would bring them between one field of buoys and another. Assuming the aircraft did not unexpectedly change its search pattern they were going to be able to slip through.

"Their pattern is a bit scholastic, isn't it...?" Sandy asked, and Galen shrugged a bit. They both knew that it was quite extraordinary that they were dropping that many buoys to start with. They were rarely, if ever recovered, so they were not just costly but finite, and normally were only dropped when the presence of enemy submarines was already known. The helicopters, with their ability to hover and drop a sonar line into the depths, were instrumental as early warning sensors, but thankfully the RA was unable to use them for the moment.

Still a few hundred miles away, the Judge, identified as TG01, was broadcasting her position to the world without any fear or shame. "See these huge peaks in the diagram? These are the pings from the Judge's sonar. And those smaller lines are her machinery, her nuclear reactors' pumps and the cavitation of the water around her screws and hull. She is many things, but certainly not stealthy." The sonar operators explained, and Sandy and Galen grimaced. The Judge had an immense sonar array under her keel and she bombarded the bottom of the ocean with an endless succession of extremely low frequency pings. Active sonar basically made her position known to the entire universe, but she clearly did not care about being found. She did care a lot about finding enemy submarines sneaking up on her, however, and her continuously active sonar ensured detection of everything coming within a range of dozens of miles. "Normal" enemy warships listened passively to their sonar, trying to stay stealthy, much as Sandy and Galen did on submarines. The sonar was only switched to active when absolutely necessary, when it was already known that an enemy vessel was near and a firing solution was needed quickly. The Judge did not need to hide, however. She challenged the entire world to try and harm her, arrogantly sure of her invincibility. "Some of their submarines are sticking too close to the Judge and her sonar is illuminating them for us. We can see all of the escort ships arrayed around her too... but the submarine commanders with any competence in their fleet are sailing well ahead of her. And we have not found all of them yet."

"Keep your ears well open." Sandy recommended, but the sonar watchstanders were all very aware of the consequences the Audacious was going to face if they ended up detected. Their concentration could not be any more intense.

Galen and Sandy thanked the sonarmen and moved out of the cubicle to reach the electronic chart table. The navigator stood aside to let them study the tactical picture on the large map, which depicted the seabed. The submarine service made every effort in war and peace to secure the best possible hydrographic data, but the bottom of the ocean remained a mysterious and dangerous place and not all of it was known. At least not with any degree of reliability.

"We don't know how much draught the Judge has, but it must be a damn lot." Galen said, before pointing at the vast area of the map where the seabed was drawn out in clear blue, signaling relatively shallow waters above the continental shelf that extended from the cost of Ire towards and beyond Lunis. "There has never been a ship that big before. Not even close. Even with her hull becoming triple towards her stern, I estimate a draught of at least 30 meters. At least."

"And probably a lot more." Sandy agreed. It was three times the draught of the Ark Royal and probably still very conservative an estimate for the monster that the Judge was. The Ark Royal was less than 380 meters long. The Judge was over 6 miles long. She also had a huge beam, however, and as Galen had noted, the stern half of the ship was even larger, built to a trimaran shape with two outer hulls that supported two divergent flying decks as large as some airports on land. Unlike the Ark Royal and other normal aircraft carriers, the immense Judge could launch even the largest bombers and cargo aircraft and could launch and recover her air wing at the same time, with one enormous runway dedicated to landings and the other to take offs. The vast spaces between the central hull and the two outer hulls hosted two gargantuan well docks filled with air-cushioned landing crafts and even hovercrafts armed with missiles and cannons. She literally carried a fleet of escort and attack ships within her vast belly.

The superstructure of the Judge was dominated by an immense radar mast that pushed almost two miles up from the waves, with the flat-face, fixed array radars irradiating enough energy to instantaneously fry birds flying many hundreds of meters away. Her bow was topped by the colossal gun towers jutting with the ungodly barrels of her super rail guns, while missile cells and other, smaller guns and laser emplacements were arrayed all along her sides. The satellite photos were unbelievable, and the poor sods at the Intelligence section had spent hours analyzing them to come up with a summary of the terrifying firepower she could bring to bear. Five quad-barreled gun towers were her main artillery armament and the caliber of each barrel was estimated at 21.3 feet, which meant each hypersonic dart they fired was wider than two train coaches placed side to side. 28 triple turrets carried guns roughly half the size of the main ones, and there were 16 smaller, but still enormous, rail guns especially meant for "wide area air defence". They fired darts that exploded in midair in a hailstorm of barrel-sized pellets that could instantaneously erase an entire fleet of aircraft, clearing the sky several cubic miles at a time. There were another hundred of rail guns in the sides of the hull and 150 laser turrets and a whopping 400 gun-missile, independently radar-targeted Close In Weapon Systems for close range anti-missile and anti-air defence, which meant that there were not enough missiles in the whole planet to saturate her defences.

48 colossal armored silos doors could be counted on the bow, ahead of the main guns, and the Intelligence thought that each hid at least one enormous anti-ship, or better, anti-fleet missile, possibly nuclear tipped. 120 large cells contained missiles that were tipped with anti-submarine torpedoes: each missile would fly up to one hundred kilometers away before dropping its torpedo into the water to sink enemy submarines long before they could become a threat. And there were at least another 2500 missile cells containing anti-air and cruise rounds. Her air wing was estimated in at least 200 fighter-bombers and at least as many more helicopters for anti-submarine defence, troop transport and attack, plus airborne early warning flying radars and long-range anti submarine warfare (ASW) patrol aircraft.

"Whoever designed that monstrosity is insane. There is no other adjective. She is the insane fantasy of a kid turned into horrible reality." Galen commented, looking at the photos that had been put up on the wall near the plotting table. "And I have no clue how and where they built something that big. There is no shipyard in the world with docks and sheds big enough to build even just a fraction of her hull."

"Killer does not know either, and it is one of the things he'd really, really like to find out. Although we'll need to be really, really lucky to intercept any communication that could lead us to their secret docks. The Intelligence has been trying to find answers for all this time and obtained nothing." Sandy replied, before making a grimace. "Considering that she popped up out of thin air in the southern hemisphere and that no country in the world has the infrastructure necessary to build anything like even a piece of her we were left with one option only: she must have been built underwater. Perhaps literally under the ice of the Antarctic."

"Are you serious...?" Galen incredulously asked, but Sandy only shrugged and observed: "Where else? She is definitely not invisible, yet no satellite ever picked her up until very recently. When the whole peninsula of Alfaya was covered by the "fog of war" we thought the RA infrastructure had to be there, but ever since your father beat the crap out of the god of war and we have regained full visibility we have ascertained that there is not much of anything there. Doesn't leave many options."

"So we can expect to be sent all the way down south to check under the ice." Galen groaned, before smiling to the old admiral, saying: "I'm glad you are aboard, Teacher. I hear you can sniff ice from miles away."

"I did get to know it pretty well when I led the Unseen under the North Pole." Sandy modestly replied, before looking again at the photos of the Judge, mumbling: "And as insane as the Judge is... well, she works. There is no mortal weapon that can get past her defences. And even if one did, there is simply no warhead big enough to put a dent in her armor."

"We could sink her if we had enough nuclear-tipped torpedoes, maybe."Galen half-heartedly replied. In truth, they were never going to get close enough because of her continuously active sonar, and he knew it.

Modern submarines are of course covered by a slippery "skin" made up by thousands of smooth tiles of a special sound-absorbing foam. The sound absorbing coating is called "anechoic," which would seem to mean "no echo2, and for a fortunate coincidence the Audacious had been refitted with the very latest variant of tile, particularly effective. The foam lessens, or attenuates, inside noises from getting out, and absorbs incoming sonar pings from active sonars, but there is only so much good that it can do. The immense sonar of the Judge was going to paint them bright on every sonar screen of the RA fleet if they got too close, no matter how thick and advanced their coating was.

"Yeah, on second thought, if God wasn't literally on our side, we would stand no real chance against that monstrosity." Galen finally admitted, grinning a bit at the thought of his father. "God is with us. Hell, I can't believe I'm saying it. I used to laugh of all the fools that, over the course of history, claimed to have god on their side."

"Same. I've always agreed wholeheartedly with the saying that God has only ever sided with those with the best artillery." Sandy amusedly said, before smiling slightly as he added: "But now I'm a complete believer. I saw Alexis and Killer towering over the sea while she annihilated the entire Irenic fleet, and from the deck of Ark Royal we were still able to see him looming over the world even after he had headed deep inland to play with Ire's capital city. It was definitely a godlike sight."

"We were submerged, but his voice reached us even three hundred meters down under, so... yeah." Galen admitted, even though he shook his head slightly, still unable to fully believe he was awake. "I hope he can come here really quickly and get us out of trouble if things go tits up."

"I can't believe I'm saying this, but he assured me that help would come our way immediately if we pray for it. He told me that he regularly hears the thoughts and prayers of everyone thinking of him... but he made clear that we should be loud and get to the point. He has millions and millions of voices annoying him all the time, mostly with stupid and contradictory requests, so he says he tries to shut the noise out of his mind. But he'll be listening to us, and he says he can come and sink the Judge whenever we need him to."

"If I didn't know you as well as I do, I'd have the boat's medic tying you to a bed to keep the crew safe from your insanity." Galen sincerely countered, and Sandy nodded with a little snort of entertainment.

"So, if the RA rushes you we literally get down to a knee and pray for dad to come rescue us...? Holy, I knew this mission was going to be weird, but I didn't think it would get this weird." Galen murmured, before arching an eyebrow questioningly in a way that reminded Sandy a lot of his father. "Until we can I'd prefer to keep the boss up to date in the old way, though. I'd feel endlessly ridiculous trying to file mission reports in form of prayer."

"I hear you loud and clear." Sir John mumbled, before looking down at the electronic chart which moved together with the small dot in the center, which represented the position of the Audacious. The route they had followed until then was clearly marked, and another line showed the course to their PIM, Point of Intended Motion. The known targets and their routes were also mapped out, and Sandy studied the various courses, putting special attention on the water depths reported by the chart.

"She does not like shallow waters. As mighty as she is, she can still run aground if her skipper makes a mistake, so I'm betting she keeps well west of the end of the continental shelf." Galen said, using a pencil to draw a route that went from the current position of the Judge straight past Lunis, in deep waters. Sandy nodded in agreement. "She doesn't like to turn, either. She tends to take the most direct route to wherever she is going. Not surprising: being so big she must be a total bitch to turn around. They need to work on the rudders for dozens of miles to get her to actually turn."

"If she is heading for Syrane as Killer says, she might never get truly "close" to Lunis. She can open fire with her cannons from a thousand kilometers away and turn the entire island in a crater without ever changing course." Sandy added, before drawing a narrow circle around the island of Lunis. "But if they intend to land an invasion force, she'll probably head this way and stop no more than 200 miles from the island's shore. Her air cushioned landing craft are fast, but relatively short legged... and if they have to go back and forth to land multiple waves of troops, it'll take hours. A greater distance would make the whole affair painfully slow."

"The movements of their submarines in the next two hours will probably tell us where she is going to head." Galen added, tapping the finger on an area of deep water near the margin of the circle that Sandy had drawn. "If they intend to land, she'll launch her landing craft from somewhere in this area, and her submarines will want to sanitize those waters ahead of her arrival."

"Shallow waters are a problem for us, too..." Sandy reminded, to no one in particular since Galen was well aware of it. They needed not just a safe number of meters of water under the keel, but quite a few meters of water above the turret as well, otherwise the submarine would start to generate a surface wake that could give their presence away. If they ventured in even shallower waters they risked becoming flat-out visible from helicopters and aircraft looking down at the sea... although the war, the countless sinkings of ships and the demonic corruption had turned all seas into ugly puddles of murky liquid. Clear waters were a distant memory. "... but we can only hope to spy on her from the shallow waters, away from her sonar." Sandy concluded, biting his lower lip as he looked at the chart, trying to craft a plan.

In that moment, the interphone came alive: "Conn, here sonar."

The officer of the deck lifted the phone built in the L-shaped console of screens and commands ahead of his seat and then put the communication on the speakers so Galen and Sandy could hear. They had both turned around to listen. "Conn, aye."

"Contact lost with TG16, sir. His screw stopped a few minutes ago and has not restarted. He is drifting again. Still twenty miles to starboard, on a course parallel to ours. He is the closest target and will pass us by in half an hour."

The navigator and fire control officer immediately updated the electronic chart and then the paper chart, before looking up at Galen and Sandy to hear their opinion.

"We'll creep past him and just let him pass. We have to start crawling, these waters are getting crowded." Galen said, and Sandy nodded in approval while the younger commander turned to the officer of the deck and ordered: "Reduce speed to four knots. Let's play it safe."

"Aye, Skipper."

The sonar called again just moments later. "We had contact for a moment on a faint mechanical noise. It warbled, then settled down. She made a turn, and I think she's heading our way, but it is just a guess for now. There is some more noise south-east, not close. Over ten miles. Too confused to make sense of it as of now; we are working on it."

"Another two submarines ahead." Sandy muttered, as two more TGs were added to the chart, even though they did not have much information about any of the two. "They are expanding the search area, maybe expecting some resistance from Lunis. We'll better get out of here. We should move over the continental shelf and move right into the Circe's Trench. I don't think they'll be too eager to get in there."

The admiral picked up a pencil and drew a route that would bring the submarine close to Lunis's shores, over the continental shelf and right past a number of underwater mountains and cliffs that walled a deep, narrow valley known as Circe's Trench. Galen looked up at the screens on the wall above the plotting table, checking the GPS coordinates, which had been updated for the last time many hours earlier, when they had briefly gone up to periscope depth to "check the mail". The inertial navigation system display was nearby, providing its calculation of their current position, using the GPS fixes to come up with the most accurate data. And there were a number of other clocks and systems that supplied their own readings, in order to give them a good idea of their exact whereabouts. The error margin still ran up in the dozens of meters, however, sometimes hundreds, and the more time passed between a GPS update and another the less reliable their coordinates became.

"I'm not too eager to get there myself." Galen admitted, making a bit of a grimace. They could not navigate the trench using their active sonar, as that would give their position away, so they needed to base their route on earlier passages. It was going to be like driving a car with obscured windows, with no view of the surrounding world, on a barely known road, with the risk of ramming a wall at every turn. "But if we can navigate our way through that maze, we can emerge in shallow waters south-west of Lunis and go up at periscope depth once there."

"Exactly." Sandy produced his logs, a small black book with a very worn cover and with countless pieces of papers and little notes sticking out almost every other page, and rapidly flipped the pages until he found the annotations from his previous visit in the area. Years had passed. Back then nobody had been hunting them down, there was no war ongoing and they had been able to bombard the mountains with the pings of their sonar, mapping out the valley and navigating their way along its entire length.

The navigator of the Audacious was already digging out the admiralty charts that had been produced thanks to that exploratory cruise, trying to keep a stony face but betraying some of his anxiety. The various segments of the route were marked with their approximate length and the speed at which Sandy had covered them. The admiral checked his annotations and the chart, humming a bit to himself, then patted the navigator's shoulder and walked towards the conn, followed by Galen.

"We'll need to get there quickly, too, to take up a good position on the Judge's starboard side. The mountains will mask the noise. We'll count the seconds." Sandy serenely announced, and Galen nodded, thankful for the admiral's presence. He was not very eager to race at high speed between enormous underwater rock formations, with a margin of error of several dozens of meters which meant they risked crashing right into the side of one of those mountains.

The officer of the deck stood up from the command chair, announcing that he was stepping down from conn duty, and Sandy announced: "I'm admiral Hawkwood. I have the conn."

All watchstanders acknowledged, and the officer of the deck took position behind, retaining control of the deck. Galen stood by the admiral as they consulted his notes together, instructing the navigator as they slowly turned towards the "entrance" to the trench.

In the meanwhile, the sonar chief contacted the coon several more times, warning that TG16 had sprinted past and that one of the two mysterious, fleeting contacts from earlier was now becoming a regular, albeit weak, noise a few miles north west of them. "Definitely a reactor cooling pump. It's moving past, they haven't heard us."

"Good, let's make sure they continue to not hear us." Sandy commented, before checking the chart and ordering an adjustment. "Diving officer, make your depth five hundred feet. We have to clear the ridge going in."

"Five hundred feet, aye." The officer responded, and with a measured movement of the joystick he began to change the asset of the submarine. They all heard the noise of high-pressure air being blown into the water tanks, forcing part of their ballast out and allowing the submarine to slowly climb higher. "Fifteen degrees up-angle on the planes."

"Good. Make it slow, we don't want to cavitate." Cavitation means noise, and is thus an enemy of the good submarines. Cavitation is the formation of bubbles in the water due to a sudden drop in pressure. The drop in pressure is caused by pushing the liquid quicker than it can react, leaving behind an "empty" area that immediately turns into bubbles.

"Fifteen degrees up, aye." There is no space for mistakes on submarines. One single mistake might condemn the boat and everyone inside her, so it is vital that there is never a misunderstanding during the exchange of permission requests and orders. Orders are acknowledged by repeating them in full, as a form of control. In addition, a suitably "purified" lexicon is used to ensure there are no misunderstandings. Nobody will order to "close" a door on a submarine. Doors are "shut", because "close" can end up sounding like something else entirely on an internal communication circuit in a high noise environment, in the heat of battle. "Close" might be mistaken with "blow", which means that the boat is in immediate danger and needs to do an immediate emergency main ballast tank blow to go straight up to the surface before it is too late. The tension in the control room became almost a physical presence as the officers listened to the voices of the admiral and Galen as they crafted the next move together, both commanders producing their highly accurate chronometers and preparing to keep the times.

After a few minutes, Sandy ordered the boat to dive, and the hull tilted forwards at a more pronounced angle as they descended into the trench, blindly. Some members of the crew had to grab the handles along the walls and low ceilings to keep their balance, but Galen continued to stand near the command chair, using nothing but his muscular legs to compensate for the steep gradient.

Many young officers in the control room looked up from their displays, as if expecting to hear the steel hull groaning and shrieking at any moment as they crashed in the steep side of the mountain... but nothing happened and they kept descending, until the hull creaked and groaned a bit, but because of the pressure, not of a crash.

"Balance her out." Sandy finally ordered after trading a look with Galen. They both stopped their chronometers and Galen straightened on his powerful legs as the deck returned in horizontal position.

"Let's move her now." Sandy announced, not without a smile of satisfaction. "All speed ahead. They can't hear us while we are here."

"All ahead full, aye."

The Audacious rapidly gained speed as the reactor in the stern was given freedom to generate more heat, which in turn increased the production of steam for the machinery, until and the pump jet at the stern of the vessel pushed them past the thirty knots, the speed building up even further as Sandy and Galen kept checking their chronometers and the charts.

"Nervous...?" The old admiral playfully asked as he spotted Galen swallowing a bit, and the younger, massive male snorted in entertainment and ironically replied: "Nooo, this was exactly what I had always wanted to do."

"It'll look good on your resume at the admiralty. It's the first time anyone has done this without pinging and at this speed." Sandy calmly replied, smirking a little as he saw several of the watchstanders shuddering, even while doing their utmost to hide it. They continued to work with mechanical, unfailing precision, but they were men, not robots. "Maneuver, head her for 2-7-0 degrees in ten, nine, eight, seven..."

As soon as the countdown ended, the petty officer at the joystick announced: "270 degrees, aye."

Their direction of motion was always measured in angles, clockwise from the north, either true or magnetic, in degrees from 0° to 359°, following compass convention (0° being north, 90° being east, etc).

"45 knots, Skipper."

"45 knots, aye." Sandy serenely repeated, knowing all too well that someone in the control chamber had hoped to hear him order a slow down. But they needed to get in position quickly, and the valley trapped the noise they produced. The alternative was crawling, very slowly, as close to the seabed as they dared to go, hiding under several thermal layers in the hope that the Judge's monstrous "pings" could not pierce through them. The propagation of sound in the water is affected by multiple factors, which include everything from salinity to temperature to pressure, the latter of course changing in relation to the depth. Water is an excellent conductor of sound, much better than air, and warm and saline water is even better. Sound travels faster in hot water and where salt is abundant. Temperature is an extremely important factor in submarine warfare, because water settles in isothermal layers of uniform stratification. Relatively flat boundaries separate warmer waters, closer to the surface, from colder waters deeper down and these border areas represent semi-permeable barriers, called thermoclines, which tend to reflect sound waves. The sound waves coming from the Judge's active sonar would largely bounce off the thermocline, and those waves that did manage to penetrate it would be mostly trapped below it. That gave them a chance to avoid detection, but it also made them blind and deaf, pretty much, because their own sonars would be disrupted and because they could not deploy any ESM mast without going up at periscope depth.

Sandy and Galen were confident enough in themselves, in their boat and in their crew's ability to crawl right ahead of the Judge and then go silent and motionless, becoming invisible while the RA fleet traveled right above them... but that wasn't going to be of any use. They'd have to ascend towards the surface after letting them pass and two things would have happened: they would have been left behind by their target, which moved fast; and they would have been heard, tracked and sunk.

"What is it, again, that we are looking for...?" Galen asked, even though his eyes continued to follow the hand moving on the chronometer that he kept on top of the chart of the ridge.

Sandy thought about it for a few moments, and then they had to order a new turn to the submarine, and then another to resume the course in the valley after clearing a large cliff, so many long minutes passed before the admiral shrugged a bit and admitted: "Anything at all that might be useful. We don't know exactly what. Anything that can help us locate the RA facilities and, even better, its commanders and thinking heads."

Galen grunted at that, making a grimace. He hated how vague their objective was, and how slim their chances of success. "If the satellites can't pick up anything useful in the Judge's electromagnetic noise I doubt we'll do much better, even if we get really, really close to her."

The old admiral could only agree with that observation, but when they finally entered one long leg of their travel that only required staying on a straight course in the center of the deep, narrow valley, he put the chart down on the computer console and sighed. "That's true, but Killer doesn't want to destroy the Judge only for something even worse to pop out somewhere else. I don't know the entire story, but he told me that the RA supplied technology and weaponry to both Heaven and Hell and ultimately created synthetic divinities and other aberrations. Stuff that even Killer might not be able to take down, one day."

"Then I hope we can find out something useful, but why a submarine...?" Galen insisted, turning to look straight into the admiral's eye, his sapphire irises glowing in the faintly-illuminated control room. "You think that we will find the answers underwater. Maybe under the Antarctic, if not under the Judge's keel."

"Yes, that is something Killer and I agree on." Sandy confirmed, before putting one knee on the arm of the command chair, taking his chin between two fingers and running them into his short beard. "The Raja Alliance, or RA... we used to think we'd find the answers in Alfaya, kingdom of the Raja family. Mysterious, inaccessible place covered by a supernatural fog created by the God of war himself...? It was certainly pretty conspicuous. But now the fog is gone and - surprise, surprise! - there is nothing of interest in the entire country. Moreover, Cerberus Raja, which we thought might be the RA's commander, is about to be overrun by the New World Order Army and is begging for our help. If he was in command of the Judge, he could blast the entire NWOA force out of existence in mere instants using her cannons. That leads us back to square one."

"Cerberus Raja's weakness could well be a lie. He might just be showing us what he wants us to believe." Galen suggested, and Sandy nodded in agreement again, tapping his index on his little diary as he remarked: "Absolutely, and that's why Killer and Alexis have ever intention to head to Alfaya in person. They can wipe out the NWOA once and for all and find out something more about Cerberus. But empress Alexis reads minds, and she picked up nothing weird in Raja's thick skull. Sure, he never showed up in person, but Alexis says that is not a real problem. If he was the head of the RA, she says, it should be easy to read about it in his mind, even through a television screen. Yet she found no answers."

Galen snorted in entertainment at that, shaking his head slowly. "Typical of my father, isn't it...? He always tends to conclude that the best way to defuse a suspected trap is charging right into it and then stomp it into pieces."

"Well, he always managed to make that method work." Sandy amusedly replied. "Results matter more than the methods. Which is, by the way, what he told me about our current mission, too. We are free to proceed in any way we deem necessary. We'll spy on the whole spectrum of electromagnetic emissions, but what I really, really want to do is listen at any underwater noise coming from the Judge." The admiral paused briefly, then leaned forwards in the command chair and looked up at Galen while pointing a hand at the dark control room around them. "I'm just... puzzled by the RA's decision to build that monstrous thing. Battleships are a thing of the past. As powerful as the Judge is, we might still be able to creep up on her and sink it, with enough nuclear-tipped torpedoes. You said it yourself. Battleships became obsolete many, many years ago. Okay, she is half aircraft-carrier, but still... it feels off."

"Well, there were no gigantic rail guns back then." Galen half-heartedly countered, but then he smiled and nodded. "But if you really mean business, it is a submarine that you really want, yeah."

"Killer agrees on this observation. We suspect that the Judge might not be the RA's main asset. She is scary, but she can't hide. She is immensely powerful, but not invincible. SSBNs armed with nuclear-tipped missiles are the ultimate arbiters, because they can evade detection and destroy the entire world at a moment's notice."

The SSBN, acronym that stands for Ship, Submersible, Ballistic missile, Nuclear powered, is the ultimate instrument of deterrence and, when deterrence fails, of destruction. Loaded not just with torpedoes but with enormous ballistic missiles able to reach almost any corner of the planet carrying over a dozen nuclear warheads each, they are the most sophisticate, expensive and deadly weapon ever created.

"So, if that is the Judge, there might be a Sentence lurking in the deep." Galen concluded, and Sandy nodded with a serious expression.

"That is what Killer and I have been thinking. It is just a guess, but the RA, in all its megalomania, has never acted without wisdom and rationality. Surely they are aware of the advantages a submarine offers. We have never, never seen anything suggesting they have such a super-submarine. Never a mast deployed above the surface, never a periscope, nothing... and still, my instinct tells me that there is something hiding under the Judge. If we get close enough we will be able to listen to all underwater noise, and if she is using a GERTRUDE we will have our proof."

The GERTRUDE is an "underwater telephone", a device that works on frequencies and waveforms to convert coded messages into a high-pitch signal that is transmitted through water at short ranges.

"The Judge might only be the antenna, then...? Holy shit, it is a mind-blowing prospect." Galen commented, before silence fell in the control room as the two officers thought of that possibility and tried to figure out a way to get close enough to pick up weird noises.

A submarine in the depths cannot effectively receive or communicate. Radio signals cannot travel through water. But the Judge could communicate easily with everything she wanted to contact, and through the GERTRUDE, or maybe some other advanced sound-based communication system, it could transmit to and receive information from the submarine. Galen walked to the plotting table and dug up the recorded routes followed by the Judge from the very first time she had been spotted at sea by a satellite right to that very moment. Then he took the resulting vector and superimposed it on the relevant depth charts and he bit his lower lip, looking over his shoulder at the old admiral. You are right on target once more, old man.

The Sentence had never once ventured in waters less than 600 meters deep. She has a big ass, but not THAT big.

Maybe there truly was something else hiding deep in her wake.

The helicopter leveled off a couple hundred feet above the flight deck level, approaching from the stern, and easily slid sideways to project its shadow upon the carrier before descending, its night navigation lights still blinking even though the sun was rising rapidly on the horizon. Killer watched as the side door opened and the loadmaster leaned out, checking the descent and communicating to the pilot until the helicopter touched down with a little bump. The clouds were opening up rapidly, promising a sunny day, but the sea was still heavy after the stormy night that had just ended, and the wind on deck was still quite ferocious, so that the flight deck pitched and rolled considerably, requiring extra care in all evolutions. As soon as the wheels touched down, the deck specialists with their jackets of various colors - each color denoting their belonging to a specific team, such as fuel, weapons, handlers, maintenance - rushed towards the helicopter and began to secure it, attaching a small electric tractor to the front wheel to pull it out of the way and towards one of the parking areas near the edge of the deck. Not much further ahead, a Sea Typhoon was taxing slowly towards the launch position, guided by the gestures of a deck officer walking ahead of it. Its two engines filled the air with their intense whine and two large blue flames pushed out of the nozzles, but they were becoming less evident as ambient light rapidly increased, the dawn projecting a warm red light onto the two islands of the NES (Northern Empire Ship) Ark Royal.

Riaku easily stepped out and moved a few steps away from the machine, taking just a moment to admire the unique profile of the Ark Royal, ever recognizable because it had two islands rather than just one on all other aircraft carriers before her. The island closer to the bow, offering a better view of the bow and the waters around it, was topped by the main navigational bridge, where the ship was handled, while the island closer to the stern was the FLYCO, the Flight Control center that, thanks to its large windows perfectly placed to look out over the flight deck, handled all the aircraft operations. One of the enormous aircraft lifts going down to the cavernous hangar separated the two superstructures. The ship had a very unique and graceful profile about her and she looked splendid in the soft light of dawn, with her night lights still on. Riaku walked forwards, putting some distance between him and the helicopter, followed at a discreet distance by a mixed escort party made of his own guards and of several Predators from Killer's army.

Riaku's eyes were drawn almost violently towards Killer, who waited for him in the shadow of the front island, flanked by Mriya and Elaine, while the other Praetorians and Disciples surveyed the scene from higher up on the carrier's island. It was a terrifying line up of supernatural power, but it was not due to anybody expecting any kind of trouble. Riaku had long ceased to be an enemy and anyway, even as strong as he was, he simply could no longer compare to Killer in any way. It was like pitting a sad zero against almighty infinity, and Riaku himself was painfully aware of the gap. The entire world was aware of Killer's terrifying strength, and even though they had been given nothing more than a glimpse of a fraction of his power, that hint was so astonishing that they were showering him in prayers and worship and gifts and tributes and sacrifices. Temples were being erected everywhere in his honor as entire civilizations suddenly faced the merciless reality of their helplessness. All the populations of the world now shared the same religion, the same humiliating awareness that they were nothing but unworthy bugs crawling in the shadow of a titan, a behemoth, a God that owned them utterly and that could mulch the entire planet in any moment if he felt like doing it. Every other activity had ceased almost completely as every last terrified mortal now spent the days trying to worship, praise and please a creature that was beyond their understanding, their intelligence, and their wildest fantasy of strength. Riaku was no different from all other mortals, awed and terrified by that unfathomable power, and as soon as he spotted Killer waiting for him at the base of the island, he stared in awe at the hulking titan, who had clearly grown even bigger since their last meeting and who now more than ever truly incarnated power and masculinity. Killer wore parts of his heavy black armor, which was the stuff of legends itself: apparently it was not made of any kind of metal but literally by the energies and essence of Deimos, unkillable, eternal god of Fear. It was an armor that could change shape depending on Killer's wishes, and it was sentient to a degree, and it didn't just protect the liger but also banish the hearts of his enemies into utter despair. Just looking at it could easily prove too much for most people... and yet the effects of Deimos were nothing compared to the crushing force of Killer's presence. The titan was cloud in armored, cruel combat boots made of black plating and a loincloth of the same color, apparently made of sturdy leather and completed by a thick, heavy double-belt holding up armored plates on the hips and another, curved and elongated, covering his crotch and stretching down, down, down... providing a not very subtle hint about the astonishing side of his virility. His abs were bare, as was, mostly, his chest, only partially covered by a plate over the heart, shaped like a roaring lion head and held up by a thick bandolier crossing his hulking frame. In a mere instant, Killer could reshape his armor with just a thought and cover up much more of his body, but there were very few things which could hurt him at all, in any way, so he only rarely needed to. Riaku and Killer had had the chance to talk a few times during the war against demons, but this was their first meeting since the liger's true and definitive ascension to godhood, and Riaku missed a breath because of the impact with that overwhelming presence, that terrifying power. He felt the air squeezed out of his lungs, then heard the warriors escorting him dropping to their knees and groveling before the king of kings... and before he could even try and tell himself not to, he dropped down on his knees as well and bowed in worship before slowly crawling forwards on all fours, head hanging low.

He heard the snorts of derision coming from Mriya and Elaine, and he shuddered at the humiliation, feeling their gaze on his back with such clarity and intensity that he thought it would leave scorch marks on his skin, and then both goddesses pushed forth one open-toe boot in a silent order. He reverently reached forwards for the dragoness's black scaled foot and kissed all of her toes, one by one, until she was satisfied and, with a little smirk, she pushed the other foot in his face. He paid his tribute to her toes, then crawled to the side to worship Mriya in the same way... only with even greater passion as he dared look upwards along her muscular legs, right up to her beautiful features as she grinned down at him. Riaku was mesmerized by her beauty and strength, and he began to plant slow, loving kisses up the neck of her feet, his heart racing: he had seen her only rarely, but every time his eyes had had a chance to fix on her spectacular body he had lost himself in desire and love. He loved Mriya even more than he had loved and desired her mother, Alexis... but Mriya snorted in entertainment and flexed her monumental quad before ordering: "Look up, bitch-boy."

Riaku trembled in shock and shame at her call, but he obeyed, gaping slightly as he admired the flexing, bulging mountains of muscle in her thigh, before she silently tapped her finger upon the large KO tattoo, and Riaku swallowed thickly, staring at that K, shaped like a rampant lion, and the O that had a swirling line of fire passing through it and tearing through a skull, so that the letter could also be read like a symbol of infinity. Killer Owned. A merciless sentence without appeal, and one that was rapidly spreading worldwide: if before his ascension and the destruction of Ire's capital the KO mark had been easy to find, now it was simply ubiquitous. Mriya smirked, then pulled back when she was satisfied with his worship, and Riaku finally reached Killer's own feet, his tongue immediately beginning to work to polish the imposing, fearsome war boots of the great male. Killer, however soon stopped him. "Stand up, Riaku... this long skit is not necessary. Not all the time, at least."

The black furred male thanked his father and finally stood slowly up, keeping his head bowed and swallowing thickly as he was battered mercilessly by the terrifying force that radiated out of the great male, energies that made the very air burn and an aura of hypervirility that made him flinch, especially as his nostrils filled with the god's rich scent, an essence that was clean yet brutal, delicious enough to cause dependence and ferocious enough to cause his own male attributes to shrivel away inside his pants. It was overwhelming, and Riaku gasped silently for breath while staring at the monstrous bulge in Killer's black leather-and-metal loincloth, not hidden but only evidenced all the further by the massive plate of armor covering it. Simply being in his presence was an incredible fatigue. It was draining, it was humiliating, it was emasculating. Riaku trembled, looking up at the far larger male, and part of him shrieked in denial at the unfairness of that comparison: Killer wasn't just stronger, he was absolute. He was excessive. He was not just powerful, he was overpowered. Without so much as lifting a finger, Killer had crushed him almost out of existence. He couldn't argue, he couldn't resist, and he could feel himself crumbling before the titan. He became so shriveled, so emasculated by his presence and power that he couldn't think of himself as king, as strong... hell he just couldn't think of himself as a male in front of such ultimate masculinity. Part of him cried helplessly, cursing Killer for existing even as he submitted completely and definitively. And part of him literally craved nothing more than to crawl forwards to worship, to adore, to taste, to witness his monstrous, above-godlike power, to be soaked in his musk and masculinity, to be his and his alone.

"My God, it is an honor to meet you. I... I'm not worthy of being in your presence... and I thank you for blessing me with this undeserved honor." Riaku finally whispered, and Killer couldn't help but smirk a little before leaning forwards to hug the smaller male. Riaku had been a rival, sure, but he was still his son. Of him and Diana. And Killer had not been a good father to him, something he had not yet managed to put right. "Welcome aboard the Ark Royal, Riaku. Thanks for coming... and sorry for this... introduction. I could say it is part of my new role, but it would be a half-lie on my part. In truth, I do like being worshiped... so I tend to dispense people from groveling only after they do it at least once." Killer said, smiling warmly down at his son and speaking with complete honesty. His warm welcome was sincere as well: Riaku had earned it fighting valiantly against the demons, the RA forces and the Irenic invasion contingents that had pushed into his kingdom, Mottram, to the south of Glacial. His resistance had helped keep one half of the empire secure, and he had immediately established contact, offering all of his forces for a common defensive strategy. Killer and Alexis had not been present at the time, but Riaku had worked with Siegfried and Alexander to set up defences, slow down the demonic invasion and evacuate entire regions, herding hundreds of thousands of civilians towards defensible positions that they had then proceeded to jointly build up into "colonies". Riaku's help had been fundamental, and he had battled back an entire legion of demons almost by himself, finally becoming the immortal hero that he had always dreamed to be. When an armada of demons had pushed through Mottram and into Kesteven and Glacial, Riaku had pursued them at the head of a selected team of his best warriors. They had marched through the hostile Aran Heights, a mountain range in southern Glacial, pushing through storms and blizzards at a phenomenal pace, before swinging left into Kesteven, blocking the advancing demons in a narrow valley. The battle had been ferocious and Riaku and his small force had been pushed back repeatedly, but the demons had failed to break through and Siegfried had advanced south at the head of an entire division of Predators with the latest demonic warfare equipment, joining forces with Riaku and crushing the enemy, cleansing the whole border region. Riaku's actions had been so gallant and selfless that most of the empire's people had welcomed him back to his homeland with open arms. Nothing could cancel the memory of how, in a non distant past, he had been leading an invading army into Glacial and Kesteven, because far too much devastation and death had been caused by those two wars, but everyone in the Empire now was convinced that the young king had truly changed.

"I'm sorry, Riaku. I know that it is quite torturous to stand close to me right now, but... I'm still having difficulties in restraining my energies." Killer added, letting go of the smaller, black-furred male, who looked up at his father with surprise. "R-restraining...?"

"Yes. I don't want to sound like an arrogant show-off, but... this is definitely not the size you'd see me at if I didn't work very hard to... compress myself, so to speak. I would also radiate a lot more energy, and a lot more... magnetism, if we can call it so." Killer explained, leaning back against the metallic wall of the island while Elaine opened the heavy door leading inside. "I'm doing my best not to torment the people around me too much, but... it isn't easy."

Riaku swallowed a bit at that, but he had no difficulties believing his father's words. He remembered all too well standing on the terrace of his castle in Mottram and yet seeing Killer and Alexis looming over the horizon, in the distance, far beyond the Abukirk Sea. He had learned from the news reports that the two divinities had made short work of Ire's fleet and then of Ire's capital city. He had seen Killer squatting over Arkaley, humiliating the whole town by taking it whole inside his vast cumslit... and he had seen it from thousands of miles away, which had left him wondering just how immense Killer had been at the time.

"How... how strong are you, exactly...?" Riaku hesitatingly asked, and Killer snorted in entertainment at the question, folding his powerful arms on his chest before smiling as he honestly replied: "I have no idea, Riaku. But I can assure you that what this world saw at Arkaley was... zero comma zero, zero, zero... etcetera-etcetera, something. We literally didn't even begin to try."

"Show him the necklace. Should give him an idea." Mriya easily suggested, and Killer slid one thumb under the little chain around his neck, showing it to Riaku as he squinted his eyes in confusion... then shuddered visibly and backstepped with an expression of shock as he realized that every little grain of the necklace was actually a planet. Mriya and Elaine laughed, their eyes glowing sapphire as they gazed at their father with adoration, while Riaku swallowed thickly and half-hugged himself, rubbing nervously over his huge bicep as he commented: "That is... wow. That is scary. I was more than intimidated enough by you when you were "just" a war hero, an emperor and my father. Now... I just... fuck, I don't even know..."

"I realize it is complex, but... try not to be intimidated. Not too much, I mean." Killer quietly replied, smiling in amusement and reaching forwards to squeeze his solid shoulder. "We haven't had a chance to be a family in the past, but I'd like to remedy to that... at least as much as we can."

Riaku smiled softly at that, and then asked: "Is mom onboard too...?"

"Yes, Diana is down in the infirmary, taking take of the wounded. The entire fleet has been sending all casualties to the carrier, and more arrive from the continent, but it shouldn't take her long all the same." Killer easily replied, and they both looked up as another pair of helicopters landed, almost simultaneously, on the two deck spots closest to the stern island. A large double door leading into a large elevator sized specifically for stretchers was already open and a medical team from the ship's hospital immediately rushed forth as the helicopter doors were opened. Riaku made a bit of a grimace at that, sighing tiredly at the thought of how many friends and comrades he had lost during the battles against the demons, and then he briefly looked towards the imposing anti-air warfare destroyer that sailed right next to the Ark Royal, guarding her flank from close by. As the sun cast more and more of its light upon the task group with every passing moment, he could see clearly the many warships spread out over a distance of dozens of miles. Every single ship looked old and tired and battered after spending such a long time out in the ocean, tormented by storms, salt water, horrendous weather and constant enemy action. He studied the nearby cruiser with curiosity, squinting his eyes to read her name, Dauntless, spelled out near the stern. The pennant drawn on the hull was almost unreadable with how much rust and dirt had accumulated on the steel plates; the mighty bow was dented and there were at least three areas of the hull which had been very evidently patched up by emergency teams after the ship had been hit by enemy missiles and bombs. Dauntless had been lucky: one bomb had torn into one side and out of the other without exploding, and an anti-ship missile had hit her and sparkled a huge arson that the sailors had managed, with a supreme effort, to suffocate. All sorts of other, minor damage had been inflicted by other attacks, close shaves with bombs exploding into the sea all around her and demonic assaults. The hull and the superstructures were almost black in proximity of her two huge missile silos, one in the bow, behind the gun turret, and one just ahead of the hangar for the helicopters. She had had to fire so many missiles to defend herself and the Ark Royal that the rocket blasts and the smoke and all the hot exhausts had ended up leaving their mark. The Ark Royal herself revealed how battered and bruised and rusty she was as the sun blessed her with its rays, and one of the frigates that followed her literally limped in the rough seas with much of her bow simply gone. An Irenic torpedo had struck her and the explosion had disintegrated several meters of her hull. Amazingly, she still floated, but the waves were putting dents in the exposed internal bulkhead which had had all its doors sealed shut by the emergency teams. Another frigate further back had lost propulsion because of a torpedo hit that had taken off her stern, including the rudders, both screws and most of the flight deck. She was being towed by a large destroyer, and just as Riaku watched on a helicopter began hovering over her bow, using the winch to lower a stretcher onto her deck, where members of the crew waited to evacuate another group of casualties. Riaku sighed again, then turned back to Killer and asked: "Where is Alexis, by the way?"

Right in that moment, an X-57 fighter dived down from high above and tilted on one wing, shooting past at insane speed, right between the Ark Royal and the Dauntless, with the thrust of its phenomenal engines throwing up a freak spray of seawater all the way up to the carrier's flight deck. A second X-57 followed a moment later, flying higher up, on a safer course, its night lights and the little green-light arrays that helped pilots fly in formation in the dark still shining.

"There is your answer. She was the escort leader for your helicopter." Killer amusedly replied, before every other noise was drowned out by the thunderous roar left literally behind by the highly-supersonic aircraft, before a second couple of fighters flew high above, adding to the ruckus. Killer watched as Alexis's fighter shot vertically up into the sky and then began to spin rapidly before going into an incredibly tight turn. "She was an ace of Glacial's air force back in the days... and she just had to try out the X-57 firsthand after hearing so much about it."

"She is piloting that...? I'm amazed she didn't shot me down on the way here." Riaku mildly commented, before wincing in shock as he was poked in the back and the goddess's voice teased: "I was tempted, but Killer said I shouldn't." The male turned slowly around, looking confused, but before he could accuse Killer of lying about her whereabouts she grinned widely and winked, and a third Alexis briefly appeared in front of him, poking him on the forehead as she simply stated: "Being who I am has advantages."

The third Alexis vanished a moment later, and the goddess walked over to Killer's side, kissing his cheek lovingly and wrapping an arm around his waist. Killer invited Riaku inside and Elaine shut the door behind them, finally giving their ears some relief from the endless, terrible noise that dominates an active aircraft carrier deck. They walked along a narrow corridor, passing past an open door leading into a room lined with comfortable, large seats destined to welcome deck personnel and pilots standing watch but not immediately required in the noisy, dangerous environment of the flight deck, and after turning the corner they climbed one of the narrow, extremely steep staircases that make warships so unwelcoming for landlubbers. They made their way up the island until they reached the admiral's apartment, just below the navigation bridge, and Killer led them inside. The quarters for the admiral were not very spacious but compared to all other accommodation on the ship they were enormous and luxurious. There was a couch, a couple of armchairs decorated with the ship's crest, and a long table of heavy hardwood, chiseled and imposing. The walls were covered in paintings and photographs of the carrier during different moments of her operational life, and there were a couple of silvery commemorative plates with the name and photo of every ship captain and admiral that had served on board the Ark Royal from when she had been commissioned. Sandy's name had already been added, and the ship's company had funded an additional, large plate chiseled with a fantastic depiction of the task group as it had sailed from port at the beginning of the Demons War. Every ship had her name chiseled nearby... and it was humbling to count the crosses that denoted the vessels that had succumbed in the fight. Under the splendid illustration, an endless list of names, grouped by ship. Those who had not made it were all remembered... and many more names were still missing, as the fleet worked to identify several casualties yet without a certain identity. Above the drawing, instead, there was a long history of the battle as it had been fought, and an inscription of sincere gratitude to Sandy for how he had led them through the darkest of all hours.

A few steps past the large plate, the bulkhead ended and was replaced by a series of huge, full-height windows of thick armoured glass which gave them a formidable view over the flight deck and the sea around the ship. A door led to the gangway that wrapped around most of the island, for when the admiral wanted to go outside, and the Praetorians and Disciples stood on attention there, making Riaku gulp in a mix of wonder in front of their beauty and apprehension in front of their obvious, godlike power. He was particularly intimidated by two massive, powerful zebras whose golden, spiked hooves at the end of prodigiously muscular legs covered in tattoos of cracked skulls, blood, death and punishment. The two goddesses saw him staring and grinned, licking their lips with long, thick, strong, dexterous black tongues ending in long forks that had him gaping in awe. One of the two had a massive sand-colored cobra instead of a tail, and the huge serpent bared its poisonous fangs at him, distracting him from the enormous, firm breasts on the goddess's chest... before his eyes bulged again as he spotted a small, cruel cage hanging at the end of a golden chain attached to her thick leather-and-steel belt. Inside the cage he could see a small, miserable, scrawny creature which hopelessly yanked on the bars and howled with a tiny, inaudible voice.

A third beautiful zebra female, younger and much leaner despite a musculature nothing short of imposing, looked at him with bright emerald eyes that glowed with energy and pride and hunger, making him feel like a toy, like a morsel of meat she could devour in one bite, before he swallowed a bit as he saw her hands massaging over her huge pregnant belly. Needles to say, her thigh was branded with a big KO tattoo.

Riaku couldn't help wondering if males like him were ever going to have a chance again with how ubiquitous that tattoo was, but he swallowed down his comment and sat down in a tall, comfortable chair while Alexis and Killer took position on the other side of the table. Elaine and Mriya stood guard near the door, crossing their mighty arms and looking at his back, and Riaku had the terrible sensation that they were measuring him up and evaluating his worth. Normally he'd smirk confidently and enjoy the attention, sure of his worth, but with Killer in the same room he felt like a worthless bug.

"How are things in Mottram?" Killer asked, looking sincerely concerned, and Riaku turned around with a blush, coughing once before replying: "Peaceful, for now. Been a while since the last fight: all demons retreated and the RA troops vanished. But other than that... horribly. Like everywhere else. There are only ruins left." The black-furred male paused, then bit his lower lip nervously as an irreverent question rushed up to his mouth, eager to get out even though his common sense warned that making God angry in any way was an obvious no-no. But Riaku was no coward and after a moment he finally enquired: "Why don't you fix it all? If you are so powerful it must be as easy as lifting a finger."

"I don't even need to lift a finger." Killer confirmed, matter-of-factly. "And in good time I'll repair everything that we need to get the world moving again. But I don't want the world to believe that I'm the answer to every problem. I will not always be there to pull people of everyday trouble. My mind already buzzes constantly with prayers and begging and requests, and you wouldn't believe the kind of things people ask for. If I fail to shut their voices out even just for a moment, it is enough to nearly drive me insane. There are requests that come from the heart and that I would love to fulfill. And there are such selfish and shallow demands that I'm tempted to curse those who formulate them to perennial failure."

Riaku listened intently, but much as he tried to be sympathetic with his father's point of view he still couldn't think of it as anything other than selfish. Okay, it annoyed him to hear prayers all the time. But he could fix things as easily as he breathed...! Why couldn't he just... make everyone happy...?

But then, a voice in his mind wisely warned: it would never work. Think what would have happened if your wish to conquer Kesteven had been granted. You would have been happy, but so many others would have been left crying. And it is the exact same for too many wishes.

"Look, I... understand. I think. In part, at least..." Riaku hesitatingly said, before looking at the ceiling with a grimace as he searched words, as he tried to phrase doubts and confusions. "But this is an emergency situation. The world was almost completely destroyed... if there ever was a special case, this is it!"

"That is true, and in fact I'm fighting to ensure that the world lives on." Killer gently replied, smiling softly and shaking his head a little. "Riaku, if I fixed everything by myself, there would be no lesson learned. The mortals would think that they are entitled to having God serving their every need and fixing their mistakes all the time. That would be way too easy. Way too comfortable. Way too generous, because it would reward my enemies and ease the remorse of those who couldn't see the truth and fought on the wrong side. It would give the RA a fresh, sane world to conquer... or to ruin, I'm not even sure if they want conquest or just mindless destruction. There are plenty of people out there that hates me for who and what I am. That blames me for this disaster. People that showered my country and my people with nukes. People who dreams of a way to take my place. People who would give their everything to see me fail, even if it meant worse evil than me would win. Then they would hate the winner and wish for his fall too. Because that is the way most people reason. No, they must see the consequences of their actions, and they must remedy on their own." Killer paused, then added: "At least in part. I recognize that this is... too much. The mortals can't fix this world. So I'll help. I am helping already. But they must help themselves, first of all."

Riaku looked at his father with concern, tapping his fingers nervously on the table and looking out of the windows as another helicopter approached the flight deck to land another bunch of casualties, and when the stretchers started to be unloaded his expression became cold as he muttered: "Couldn't you just teleport them here? Damn it, couldn't you just heal them all...?"

"I did it for those who were at risk of dying without immediate action." Killer quietly replied, looking out of the window as well, his voice shrinking to a whisper: "You think I haven't thought of them? You think I don't want to help all of my men...? Diana is healing them all. She is putting back on their feet men who would have never again walked again if treated only with mortal means. She saved lives that were, by all means, over. They will all heal, Riaku... and yet, they probably shouldn't, if I was completely honest. I'm saving them because I care for them, but I cannot change the rules of the universe. I can't make everyone immortal. I'm tempted to, believe me... but it would never work."

"Tell that to every family in tears over a loss." Riaku barked, but Killer only looked back at him with quiet sadness, replying: "In a way, I do. I don't like it, but I cannot eradicate death. It is part of the cycle, and it is part of what makes life precious and unique."

"Oh, really...? Then why don't you give up on your own immortality? And on Alexis's?" Riaku countered, and the great god closed his eyes with a little shudder before admitting: "I don't do that because I am a coward."

Riaku recoiled in shock at that, gaping and blinking in disbelief as he nearly pushed his chair over, but Killer only gave him a little smile, sincere and sad. "It is a form of cowardice, yes. But I just can't... stand the idea of losing the ones I love. I don't care much about my own death per se, but... the idea of losing Alexis? It terrifies me to no end." Killer squeezed Alexis's hand and turned to gaze at her with adoration, before leaning forwards to meet her lips in a kiss. "I'm not ready to lose any of my loved ones. I'm too much of a coward for that... For me, being a god is all about never losing them. It is about making them happy. It is about never seeing tears in their eyes. It is selfish in its own way, I admit it... but. It is the one thing about being god that I will never give up."

Riaku fell silent at that, half-heartedly trying to find a counter to that, or words to try and again change his father's mind about the fate of so many mortals... but Killer preempted him, smiling softly as he said: "If nobody dies, nobody progresses to Heaven and Hell. Instead of having a development, an improvement in the nature of living beings, we'll only have stagnation. Look, I used to grumble at god much like you are doing, but... seeing things from god's perspective has changed things quite a bit. You'll have to trust me on this one, Riaku: the perfect world cannot exist. If I took literally all the decisions, erased everyone who I judge evil and made immortal those who I consider worthy, where would freedom end up? It would amount to destruction of free will, because I'd build the "perfect world". But then it would be truly and utterly mine. It would turn every mortal into nothing but walk-ons. Is it a price worth paying...?"

"No..." Riaku admitted, looking down for a moment as he reflected on Killer's words, seeing for the first time the full implications of the miracles that a moment before had seemed so flawless, so worth begging for. If Killer started just "cancelling scenes" from the history of the universe, erasing actions and choices and tears and smiles, what remained for mortals? They would have lived "perfect" but empty lives on tracks, never once allowed to depart from a path already drawn in advance. It was monstrous in its own way to think about... and yet, when he looked up again, he felt again the monstrous, indescribable, awesome power radiating out of Killer. Enough power to rewrite history and rebuild the entire planet without needing to flick a finger. Enough power to dwarf everything else, to mercilessly condemn mortals, immortals and other, lesser divinities to existences that were frail, precarious, temporary, borrowed. They were born zeroes and they would die zeroes. Everything they were, everything they had, everything they built in the course of their lives was never going to be truly theirs. They could only ever be his, defenceless, helpless in front of his whims. There was nothing they could do, no matter how hard they tried, to ever get even a tiny, insignificant bit closer to his monstrous strength, and Riaku trembled at the awareness, whispering: "But we can never be truly free... you leave us nothing. You leave us no hope. We will always be ultimately slaves to your will."

"I'm afraid you will." Killer confirmed, his voice taking on a colder, impatient note now as he leaned forwards slightly and added: "I know, I'm lucky. I've been gifted with strength that is unheard of. But I've had to fight every step of the way to this point. I fought yesterday, I will fight today and I'm sure I'll have to fight tomorrow. I've conquered what I have; and every scar on my body is part of the price that I had to pay to ensure the survival of this world. There was no one else who could pay the price it took, and even fewer were willing to take this much pain and keep going. I think mortals owe me some gratitude. If you think I should give away everything I have conquered just to give every mortal the chance to feel like a god, even just for one day... well, stop dreaming. I'm putting my life on the line to protect everyone's free will, the freedom to live your days according to your choices. I think I'm more than doing my part."

Riaku bowed his head, his cheeks burning with shame and, admittedly, fear at the sudden harshness in the giant male's voice, but Killer sat back in his chair and sighed slightly, leaning his head against Alexis's for a brief moment. It was enough for that hint of rage to vanish away, and he sighed before smiling a little. "I'm helping and I will continue to help, Riaku. What do you think the colonies are eating...? I'm creating food to keep them going, but I'm also clearing the land from corruption and helping them kicking agriculture into motion. I want to give them a chance to start a new and better world with their own hands." Killer paused, and then asked quietly: "Did you bring the list I asked...?"

Riaku nodded and dug in his pocket, producing a USB drive that he pushed across the table. "It is a long list. Mottram is just a pile of ruins and polluted land and the only places where survival is possible are a handful of colonies. I need your help to ensure they can move out and reclaim some land to start growing crops and... everything." Riaku explained, his voice breaking down as his mind filled with images of his kingdom ruined and devastated and turned into a dead wasteland where no plant could survive and no food could be grown.

Killer took the pen drive and squeezed it in his hand before putting it in his pocket, assuring: "I'll check the whole list personally, and I'll make sure to provide all what is necessary. I'm speaking to you right now... but I'm also in Mottram at the same time, doing some clean up. You'll see, on your return it'll already look a lot better."

"Thanks." Riaku murmured, nodding a bit and offering a weak, little smile. He clearly still thought that Killer should just... snap his fingers and put everything right with a big miracle, but the liger was determined not to. He had thought long and hard about it, and he had been immensely tempted to do exactly that... but he had concluded that it would have been a mistake, and he was not going to change his decision. But it was hard not to. As he looked at his son, he bit his lower lip, painfully aware of how confused and irritated Riaku was. He was fully aware that countless mortals all over the world were going to misunderstand, to judge him harshly, and to label him as a selfish monster. He was uncomfortably aware of all the privileges that his power ensured and all the envy, hate and disapproval that it ensured. His life was never going to be comparable to that of a mortal. He had, and he was going to enjoy forever, things that mortals could never even begin to dream of. He could understand Riaku's rage, his bitter disappointment, his envy. He couldn't blame him for it, because he knew he would have felt exactly the same emotions had the table been turned.

"My son... I know it hurts. But you'll have to accept that this is how things work. I wish there were kind words that I could use to make it painless, but there are not." Killer quietly said, before hesitating a little, unsure of how Riaku would react to the idea that had just dawned in his mind, but ultimately deciding to speak all the same: "If it can make you feel any better, I think there is space in my... novel Olympus for you, too. Your mother and I will be happy to welcome you to the family, if you'll want to become one of us. Your actions in this war have saved countless lives and have ensured the survival of Kesteven, so I can hardly think of someone more worthy."

Riaku looked at him in shock, gaping slightly and unable to find any good word to offer, his mind struggling to process the unbelievable implications. He gulped thickly, feeling his mouth going dry while his brain ran through countless different thoughts. Family! He had dreamed of it for so long... he had lost his mother so early, and his father had never been there... and for how long he had desired a word of true appreciation from Killer... for how long he had tried to be half as much of an hero as him! And a god! He was going to become a god...! But was it right...? Was he alloying Killer to buy his silence...? Should he not be an advocate for the mortals, and call for more concessions in their favor...? But a god! How do you say "no" to the offer of ascension to godhood...? Couldn't he be a better advocate for the mortals from the inside of the family, rather than from the outside...?

Riaku swallowed thickly, then bowed his head deeply as he cleared his throat and managed to say: "T-thank you. Father, yours is... such a generous offer. I... I just did was right."

"Doing what is right is never easy. So many mortals did not have your same courage. So many were cowards. So many were ambivalent, only ever trying to side with the winning party." Killer softly said, smiling at him with affection. Things between them had been more than stormy, but now when he looked at his son he felt proud. Doubly so because Riaku had done everything he had done, the bad but also the good, on his own. Killer had failed him and was painfully aware of it... but Riaku, even though it had taken a lot of twists and turns, some of which exceptionally bloody and painful, had dragged himself out of Hell and put himself on the road to Heaven. But there was more that Riaku had to do to redeem himself. "But now I need you to help me again, Riaku. I need you to tell me again everything you know about the RA. And I mean everything, this time."

The black-furred male took a deep breath, then nodded in acceptance before asking: "Is their huge fleet still on the move?"

"It is." Killer calmly replied, but he did not add anything else for the moment, because Riaku still had a Spirit device lodged in his neck, connected in irreversible way with his marrow and neural synapses. Every thought of the younger male, every command his brain gave to his body, passed through that incredibly advanced computer system that enhanced his reaction times, suppressed pain, unlocked energy reserves and enabled the body to literally deliver 120% of its possibilities. The Spirit helped Riaku be the formidable warrior he was, but it was a terrible sort of collar that the black-furred male had unwisely allowed the RA to install. When Riaku had broken ranks and refused to follow the RA's orders, the Spirit device had been used to punish him, to torment him and to control him, at least to a degree. Riaku had gone through hellish agony as the computer system sent destructive discharges of energy through his nervous system, causing his entire body to burn with terrible pain. He had spent weeks screaming and breaking his fangs with how hard he bit into anything in sight, or simply gritted them together while vainly trying to shut out the pain.

Parts of his memory had been forcefully erased, and other parts of his mind had been remotely shut down by the RA as they tried to turn him into their puppet. Somehow, Riaku had resisted. He had been able to resist the temptation of tearing into his own neck to eradicate the device, and he had managed to stay lucid enough not to commit suicide, even though the malignant computer system repeatedly took control of his limbs and tried to aim a gun at his head or slit his throat or impale him on a long blade.

That was why Riaku had largely vanished from the scene after the events of Glacial: when he had failed to stand up to Alexis and Killer, the RA had attempted to dominate him and control his actions through the Spirit, and he had ordered his most loyal warriors to lock him away, to immobilize him and to guard him every single moment of every single day to ensure he could not become a weapon in the hands of the enemy. Riaku had managed to defeat the Spirit through meditation and hardening of his mind. Amazingly, he had been able to insulate his nervous system from the computer, even though he couldn't physically break its connections without ending his life. He had built up enough resistance that he had been able to fight back and literally fry some circuits... and when he had regained enough control over himself he had called the best scientists and technicians his kingdom had to offer and had ordered them to slice open the back of his neck and work on the Spirit system to ensure that the RA could no longer access it. He had been strapped and chained to a steel table, more akin to a torture instrument than a medical tool, but they certainly couldn't risk him tearing the restraints apart halfway through the surgery.

He had spent the best part of three days unconscious and hooked to machines while three teams took turns working on the Spirit system, which turned out being hellishly complex... and engineered to be inviolable. In several occasions the scientists had had no choice other than put Riaku's life at risk, because multiple built-in security circuits punished every attempt of manipulation with destructive pulses of energy shot along the nerves. Amazingly, Riaku had survived, and he had managed to shield his mind so well that he was able to recover fully. The scientists that had modified the Spirit device in his neck had feared that he would have awakened with serious brain damage and, most likely, without the use of legs and arms. Riaku had proven them wrong. Since then there was no sign of the RA having ever again invaded his mind with any degree of success, but Killer still hesitated in revealing anything about Sandy's mission. What if the RA could still somehow access the feed of Riaku's senses...? The last thing he wanted was to put the Audacious and its crew at risk in any way. Finally, Killer said: "I will take care of that fleet before it can cause any more damage, but it won't do much good if we can't eradicate the RA once and for all. I need to know what I'm dealing with, and where I need to hit to truly hurt them."

"Did you get the call from Cerberus...? Alfaya is close to succumbing." Riaku replied, and Killer nodded with a snort that was half-contempt and half-amusement.

"Of course I got the call. I got several calls from him, actually... the Raja family has hated my bloodline for generations; it has stirred trouble inside and outside Kesteven's borders at every chance and has sucked the world dry of money in exchange for the oil that kept Ire and the other superpowers running. He is part of the RA, too... and now he crawls like a worm, sends me thousands of females to buy me and begs me to save his throne and crush his enemies."

"They are also our enemies." Riaku quietly reminded, looking up to meet his father's eyes. "We have been fighting against the New World Order Army since our respective first days in the army."

Killer grunted at that, adding nothing. It was true, of course: Killer's glory days as the hero and protector of Kesteven had mostly revolved against fighting back NWOA forces and their allies, most frequently Ire, which rarely joined the wars in an overt way but always supported the NWOA with cascades of money and generous shipments of advanced weaponry, plus mercenaries and mentors and "advisors".

Killer and Riaku had fought together against the NWOA armada built up by Dark, the most successful of all generals produced by the terroristic and revolutionary organization. During the battles against Dark, Killer had founded the Predators, the feared special forces of Kesteven, and he had covered himself in glory - and scars - in years of almost constant struggles.

And yet so little of those wars had ever made any sense: Kesteven was probably the most powerful of all the tiger kingdoms, yes, but it had also been the most progressive and welcoming for the other races that the NWOA claimed to represent and defend. As much as they had tried to understand the reasons of the hate and of the constant aggressions, the kings of Kesteven, all the way up to the father of Killer and then to Killer himself, had never found clear answers. And every attempt to reach an agreement with the NWOA had miserably failed. Every offer of a table of discussion and negotiations had been turned down.

"One day, maybe, we will finally discover who leads the NWOA and maybe we'll even understand how they reason. But up to this day, I really have no clue what those idiots have inside their skulls." Killer coldly commented, clenching a hand into a massive fist at that thought, before adding: "Now that they are hitting Raja, I'm struggling to see them as my enemy, I must admit. And anyway, I'm in no hurry to kill them off: they are pathetic and irrelevant. I can crush their entire army under my thumb any time I like."

"The only reason why we are paying attention to Cerberus's whining is that he has a role within the RA. He has admitted it, but he says he is not the real commander and he whines that the RA has abandoned him in the time of need."

"Well... it sure looks like it has." Riaku hesitatingly remarked, before reaching forth for one of the large charts that had been piled up on the table. He pulled it open and tapped a finger on top of the Ohara oil extraction field, in the Yellow Sea, in front of Alfaya's shores. "The RA was not there to defend the source of his riches, the Ohara oil field. It ended up nuked and the oil has burned for days on the surface of the sea. It was the largest and richest oil field in the world and now it is inaccessible due to the radiologic pollution. Hundreds of years might have to pass before it is safe enough to be redeveloped."

Then Riaku moved his finger down the chart, overland, tracing the movements of the NWOA army up to the capital, Saqquara. "Now Cerberus rules over an impoverished desert kingdom which literally no longer contains anything worth stealing. The oil is gone, the infrastructure has been destroyed, the people hate his guts and the NWOA is about to break into his bedroom. And the Judge and her escorts are in the wrong ocean, completely unfazed by Cerberus's desperate situation. The RA sure doesn't seem to be helping him... so much so that he is now crawling to you like a maggot, begging for help. Knowing him, it must be making him sick to no end."

The liger made a grimace and snorted in contempt. "That idiot! If I was in his shoes, I'd kill myself rather than humiliate myself like that. He has no dignity, no honor, and no common sense. His stupid, retrograde ideas have left his warriors facing armoured divisions with spears and swords. Yet he refuses to admit his failure and wants to cling to his precious throne."

"Or, at least, that is what he wants us to believe." Alexis intervened, crossing her muscular arms on the table and narrowing her eyes as she leaned forwards, studying Riaku, the man that had once conquered her homeland and captured her. Things which felt a whole geological era away, in a weird and crazy past. "Should we believe him? What role does he have inside the RA...? For a while we thought that finding him would have put an end to the whole damn thing, but now... it is difficult to believe."

"If I think back to when I was part of the RA, I have to say without hesitation that Cerberus was the leader of the organization." Riaku began, before tilting his head to the side with a grimace of disgust and self-pity as he added: "Of course, back then I was actually convinced that it all revolved around me. Raja gilded every battle plan with shameless adulation and always promised me that I'd lead the Raja Alliance to victory. That I was going to build a new and better era for the world... and I was stupid and blind enough to drink it all up. It felt like I was giving orders... but I actually always ended up saying the words that Raja put on my tongue."

"Yeah, that much was clear to us long before it was clear to you." Alexis replied, shooting him a bit of a glare. She had paid a tremendous price for his stupidity and she wasn't going to forget it. Even with the good and impressive things he had done, she still couldn't quite forgive him, and the only reason why she was not tearing him apart piece by piece was because he was Killer's son.

"I know. I wish I had listened. I wish I had not been so blind, and so... stupid." Riaku admitted, bowing his head before her. "Back then, the RA I knew was an alliance of kings. Weird and secretive, yes, but it didn't seem to be anything too otherworldly. But now... now I'm really not sure what to think. The other kings that made up the alliance are all dead, and their kingdoms gone. You will remember Duke, of the Kennan bloodline, the king of Brunei... you stole the X-57 prototype right under his nose, in his fortress at Chattam."

"Yeah. That was an interesting night." Killer replied, smiling slightly at the memory. Back then Chattam was considered inviolable, and their daring raid had left the world speechless.

"The kingdoms of Urania and Anubia have been overrun by the demons and are now just a fading memory... and the shocking thing is that the RA's powerful weaponry was not there to defend them. Which makes me think that their kings have been exploited worse than even I have been." Riaku continued, before Killer knocked his knuckles on the table and snarled: "And now Cerberus Raja is heading for the same finale, killed by an army that, however powerful, could have been wiped out very quickly with just a barrage from the Judge's guns, or a few Unmanned Combat Walkers. Where the hell is all of the RA's combat power? They have flooded the world with UCWs and caused almost as much damage as the demons, yet they have none to use in Alfaya? And where are the factories? Those things are huge; the Judge is ginormous, yet there is no hint of a factory, or dock, or big assembly line." He smacked his fist on the table, cracking the hardwood and rattling the entire ship, then muttered: "it makes no sense."

"I don't know where the RA stuff is produced. I thought it came from Alfaya, but that is not the case." Riaku quietly admitted, before making a grimace as he admitted: "When I was part of the organization, the kit was excellent but nowhere near as ambitious and oversized as the Judge. All I was ever allowed to have in Mottram was assembly lines for the Tyrant super-tanks and some factories for other advanced weaponry. The rest of the equipment I used to invade Kesteven had been delivered to me onboard merchant vessels. I have no idea where they loaded up the cargo. Cerberus never told me where the first UCWs had been built, I remember that the RA wanted the forges of Kesteven and Glacial because they were the only ones with the technology and the know how to produce alloys as powerful and complex as the Neo Titanium used for the Unmanned Combat Walkers' outer shell."

"They didn't conquer either, but they keep producing UCWs all the same." Alexis grumbled, and Riaku could only shrug and shake his head. He didn't know how it was possible. All he could add was: "At this point I think it is safe to say that the real target has never been the forges. They probably just wanted me to kill you two."

"Keep us busy, more likely." Alexis corrected, and Riaku frowned a bit, confused but not daring to ask for explanations. He did not know anything about the Anchors, the tremendous power they kept at bay and Killer's unique, formidable ability to absorb and conquer all of that devastating energy. "But ships tend to return into the frame all the time. We are left with two options: either the RA really produces its crap in the depths of the Antarctic ocean, where no one can see them... or they must have hidden their damn factories in space, because there is not another place in this damn world that I haven't checked."

"We'll have to swim." Killer grimly noted, and Alexis grunted in agreement, without any pleasure, before she coldly added: "But I still don't trust Cerberus."

"Why? I mean, he lost almost everything he had and treasured. If he is trying to fake weakness, he is truly taking it to the extreme." Riaku countered, his expression betraying his disbelief as he looked at Alexis like she was being paranoid. But the goddess was unfazed by the objection and only let out a little snort of disapproval before explaining: "I can't locate him. Every time he came on video link with us to beg for our help he did so without giving us any clue about the place he is hiding into. He always has his flag propped up behind him and the data link is too well protected and for following the signal back to its source. That is already a reason to not trust him fully. More importantly, he is somehow able to hide his energy signature from me. Normally I can easily locate anyone anywhere on the planet. With ease. No matter how deep underground they dig." She paused briefly, letting Riaku marvel at her words, before tapping her perfect claws against the table as she added: "If I can't find the bastard, I can assure you that he either isn't on this planet at all or he is hiding behind exceptionally sophisticate shields of either technological of magic origin. Either option clashes with his image of weakness and his story about being abandoned by the RA: the RA has the kind of technology that can shut even my mind out. And, as far as I know, no one else has anything even remotely comparable."

Riaku was tempted to say that she couldn't possibly have such powers, but as soon as the thought crossed his mind he saw her eyes narrowing venomously as she gave him a flat look, and he winced and raised both hands in surrender, admitting: "Sorry, sorry. Still having trouble with the whole... goddess thing. But if you say you can, you can." Alexis sat back in her chair and crossed her mighty arms with a snort of entertainment, and the black-furred male shivered a little, feeling clearly the terrifying energy she radiated and, just as clearly, the sheer immensity of her physical power pushing against him like a raging ocean. It was clear that she could have crushed him into pulp literally without having to lift a finger at all. Still, he couldn't help but wonder: "But what do you suggest, then...? Are you saying he has nuked his own oil fields, or at least allowed it to happen? Nobody would ever do that!"

Alexis grunted, looked thoughtfully down at the table without really seeing it, focused as she was on her thoughts and reflections. "Normally, it would indeed be too insane to ever consider doing it... but the stakes in this game are greater than you imagine. No matter how much money the Ohara oil field made for the Raja family in the last century, it might still have been a bargain to incinerate it just to gain a little more time."

Riaku fell silent at that, sitting back in his chair and looking at the map with a little sigh. There were too many things he did not know, and consequently too many that he just could not understand. He was there to provide answers, not to receive them. Killer looked at him with a soft smile, appreciating how awkward and even irritating it had to be for the young king, and he offered: "Look, Riaku, I'm sorry for how... weird this whole thing is for you. We'll give you a full explanation in good time, but for now the priority is finding out how to put an end to the RA once and for all. Do you have any clue where Cerberus might be hiding?"

"No. I've met him only once or twice in the past. Even when I was in the RA I usually talked to him only on video... and after Glacial I've been shut out of the whole thing, so I really have no clue." The black-furred male replied, and Killer nodded, completely unsurprised. If Cerberus Raja was the head of the RA, and maybe even the "occult mastermind" that had set the End War into motion, he had made very few, if any, mistakes along the way. Certainly he had not advertised his whereabouts in any way.

The huge male looked down at the map, making a grimace as he gazed at several red marks on the territory of Mottram: those were the factories, once owned and funded by the RA, which had produced tanks and advanced aircraft and personal equipment for Riaku's army during the war in Kesteven and Glacial. Some had been completely destroyed, others were damaged and out of action and those that remained continued to produce massive super-tanks for Riaku's army but no longer had any connection with the RA. Riaku had revealed the position of all plants and facilities he knew and Killer and Alexis had explored every single place, even those reduced to mountains of rubble, but nothing useful had emerged. Even in their glory days those factories had produced only relatively basic equipment. The massive Tyrant tanks were fearsome war machines when compared to the battle tanks available to any other country worldwide, but they were not revolutionary. They could still be countered effectively with decent tactics and good equipment, which was what they had done in Kesteven, so they did not concern Killer. The world-leading stuff, which included everything from the Unmanned Combat Walkers to the gigantic one-off monstrosities such as the Judge, was another story entirely. What they truly wanted to terminate once and for all was all the research and experimentation connected with clones and beastly constructs made up by stitching together multiple supernatural beings, including gods. That was what made the RA a true threat.

"He is calling again." Alexis announced with a grimace of distaste, and Killer rolled his eyes with a snort but reached for the commands of the large display on the wall, before stopping as the goddess added: "Cold is coming right up with a special notebook of his own, to try and track the signal."

Riaku looked confused at that, wondering what had made her suddenly say those things... but within a couple of seconds a red light blinked over an almost invisible door in the wall covered by panels of fake wood. The young king knew enough about warships to know that it was a small elevator that allowed the ship's commander and the admiral, when present, to move quickly up to the bridge or, more importantly, down to the crowded Control Room, filled with officers, displays and computer consoles several decks below, deep inside the hull, as far away as possible from enemy ears and actions. The control room was the true brain of the carrier, the place where the ship was truly "fought". The bridge handled navigation, but the consoles down in the command centre controlled everything, from sensors to the planning of sorties by the embarked aircraft.

Killer turned towards the windows and beckoned to Manticora and Kimera, who immediately stepped forwards with matching grins, pushing open the door and walking up to their Master, keeping position behind him. Killer did not need to give them orders: they already knew what he expected from them. Kimera grabbed the golden chain hanging from her belt and dangled the cruel cage above the table, sending the miserable, puny creature locked inside it crashing into the cold bars before these became ethereal for a moment, sending him crashing ruinously onto the table.

"Who... who is that...?" Riaku asked, looking horrified as the minuscule being tremblingly pushed up to his knees, howling in pain in a voice so tiny that it could barely be heard. Kimera and Manticora grinned widely, and Killer couldn't help but smirk mercilessly down at the minuscule dragon, replying: "You'll know in a moment."

At the same time, an elegant panel of fake wood slid to the side to reveal the elevator's cab, and Siegfried stormed out of it carrying a ruggerized laptop apparently identical to those normally used by the troops on the battlefield. A closer look revealed a small and rather anonymous black box connected to one of the USB ports, and there could be no doubts that the genial prince and his team of engineers had done their very best to put together a new tracking system that could violate Cerberus's secure data transmission. Siegfried carried a second notebook under his arm, connected to the black box with several cables. Siegfried looked mostly the same as always, but he was taller and bulkier, his musculature greatly enhanced, pushing arrogantly against his form-fitting armor. He radiated energy that Riaku didn't miss, shivering a little at the heat and strength of it, and he had a small, simple collar of leather around his neck, closed by a lion head clasp at the front. Riaku had only a vague knowledge of the concept of Disciples, coming from the little that he remembered of religion lessons taken when he was just a child, but they were enough for him to understand that Killer had poured some of his energies into his younger brother, allowing him to ascend to godhood. Alexander and Kaya, the other brother and the beloved sister of Killer no doubt had undergone the same transformation... or were going to go through it at the first chance, Riaku imagined.

"I bet you already know what's on." Siegfried said, arching an eyebrow slightly, and Alexis smirked and nodded, tilting her head to the side to underling with her gaze how ridiculous it was to even ask. The prince rolled his eyes with a smile and put the first laptop down in front of Killer, nearly crushing Typhon under it. He frowned when he heard the tiny squeak of terror, and when he saw the scrawny being on the table he recoiled with a grimace of disgust, muttering: "The hell is that...?"

"What's left of the asshole who had usurped Heaven's throne." Killer idly replied, pushing the computer back and using the tip of a finger to easily drag Typhon in front of it. Riaku and Siegfried both paled, gulping in awe at the news, and Alexis smirked in amusement while Manticora and Kimera traded little grins. Riaku leaned down to look in shock at the tiny drawing, while Siegfried did his best not to, setting down the second laptop and checking the cables, sitting down in front of it before giving his brother the thumb up.

Killer tapped a key and the screen immediately came to life, shoving, as usual, nothing but a huge flag of Alfaya, with the two rampant feral tigers facing each other, with a scimitar in the middle, all in blood-red field. Riaku leaned over the table and craned his neck to watch, but Killer tilted his head to the side, signaling him to walk around the table. The black-furred male immediately did so, feeling strangely happy and proud for that invitation. Meanwhile, on screen, a large, imposing figure crawled into the frame, moving on his knees and keeping his head low, not daring to look at the screen yet as he took position straight inside the camera and then went down on all fours, pressing his muzzle practically to the ground as he said in a potent, clear voice: "Almighty God, owner of the world, creator and destroyer, master of destiny, I beg you... I need your help. Have mercy on me, and show me your benevolence, I beg you."

"Yes, it's what you always tell me, Raja." Killer coldly replied, supporting his chin with one arm and looking at the knelling king with evident irritation. Cerberus Raja slowly tilted his head up, only slightly, until his amber eyes could stare into the camera. The last king of the Raja bloodline, which rivaled the Huxley family for length of reign, was a massive pureblood tiger with a beautiful orange, black-striped coat which faded over the biceps, chest and abs to a shade of amber so pale that it was almost white. His features were handsome, unscarred and perfect, with the contour of the eyes so impeccable that it could only have been obtained with some degrees of makeup. Vanity was a common trait in the Raja family, with some of the ancestors of Cerberus having been remembered in history, sometimes in ridiculous terms, for their extremely refined looks... and often for tacky, excessive opulence. Cerberus's attire was less showy, at least in that moment, but he still had combed his long amber hair into an heavy ring of chiseled gold and enormous precious stones, so to leave a long pony tail dangling down probably all the way to waist. Killer could not see them, yet he could easily image a multitude of other ostentatious jewels clamping on the long ponytail at regular intervals. The golden turban burdened by fabulous numbers of diamonds, rubies and emeralds was not in sight, but probably was in close reach, just outside the camera's field of view, while golden armlets squeezed on the king's massive biceps and countless heavy and elaborate rings covered every finger of his hands. Cerberus loved to show the world how outrageously rich he was, and he was said to never wear the same clothes a second time. Killer wasn't sure whether that was true or not, but the notion did nothing to improve his extremely low opinion of the king of the eastern deserts. In that moment, Cerberus wore a sleeveless white jacket that was clearly meant to be worn under armour yet was ridiculously elaborate, with decorations traced with gold and silver treads all over the chest and down the sides. The fabric was light, meant for use in the hot desert, but it was also very evidently thick, no doubt because it contained a protective layer of overlapping "scales" of metal.

He wore stupendous white pants crafted to the same concept and with even more gold thrown in for good measure and since he wasn't wearing boots Killer could spot some jewelry even on his toes. Cerberus was vain, but not just in the more shallow definitions of the word; he clearly cared a lot about his body and he trained hard and constantly to build up his musculature, which was impressive... and carefully oiled up and, there was no doubt about it, perfumed with all sorts of balsams. Killer had never dueled against Cerberus, but he was told that he was an excellent warrior, too, extremely dangerous with a sword and even more terrible with a spear... but almost all of his fame had been piled up in various tournaments rather than in real conflict, and that made them somewhat less relevant in Killer's mind. Cerberus was more than sixty years old, and even seventy according to some intelligence reports. The exact date of his birth was not known and he had, for whatever reason, never revealed it, instead only ever celebrating - with immense expenditure of riches - his "royal birthday", commemorating the day in which he had killed his father in duel and ascended to the throne. Despite how youthful he looked and regardless of his extraordinary physique, toned and powerful and full of energies to put to shame much younger warriors than him,

Cerberus had been on the throne for nearly 50 years, while Killer was just 32 mortal years old... We shall not mention the nearly 2000 years spent in Heaven and Hell, because that makes me feel ancient.

And yet Cerberus had not conquered any kingdom and had not expanded his own in any way during his many years of reign, and the liger, who had instead rapidly built up a gigantic empire, was obviously unimpressed. In the Northlands, tournaments were frequent and held in high regard, but the true measure of the power of a young king was always given by the extension of his kingdom and the success of his campaigns of conquest. Whenever a new king ascended to the throne, neighbors could expect to be challenged as the new lord sought to secure more land to rule and, more importantly, more females to claim as his own. It was the reason why the rest of the world had such a hostile view of the kingdoms of the North, but among the tigers it was a fact of life. Normally, the kings dueled between themselves so the conquest or defeat did not pass through a major war and the devastation it implies. Kings who invaded another country bringing their army along were frowned upon as it was inexorably considered a sign of cowardice, but it was something that had happened many times all the same. The millenary culture of the north, where power was always determined by personal values, strength and virility above all others, did not consider it weird or scandalous. The kings guilty of doing it were taunted and derided, obviously, and If they were defeated, they were shown no mercy. But if they won and then managed to keep their army strong and loyal they had a chance to rule all the same. Of course, that kind of king usually enjoyed a very short reign before being finally defeated, frequently by their own generals who, by virtue of greater personal strength, forced them into duels while the rest of the army sat it out. Several ancient bloodlines had ended in that way, replaced by new royal families sired by victorious generals.

There were always plenty of citizens willing to form up an army around their kings, since being a warrior meant being rich, respected and quite simply above the other members of society. As barbarian and primitive as it sounded, it was a social organization that had always worked well for the tigers. In the centuries, it had strengthened their genetics and made them stronger and stronger because, in the long run, the power always ended in the hands of those strong and mature enough to secure it. The "civilized" countries always liked to remember that a nation should be led by people with a clear strategy for the well being of the people. Brains and not muscles, was their reasoning. But Killer, like most other northerners, was convinced that a good warrior very rarely lacked brains. The greatest kings in the history of the Northlands had been powerful conquerors but also, with almost no exception, builders and protectors and incorruptible guardians of justice. As Killer liked to remind to sneering, arrogant political leaders from other countries, the Northlands had very rarely experienced the rule of true tyrants. "If I'm king it is because I'm the strongest and I have the biggest dick", Killer had often bluntly explained to annoying foreigners that called his people barbarian, "and that means I don't need to pretend. I don't need to chase after money to buy me power and influence and confidence. I already have everything I need. I don't need to behave like an asshole and overcompensate."

The concept normally scandalized the ones who heard it, but it was far from without merit. How many politicians in the rest of the world needed to become corrupt; to secure money from all sorts of sources; to make compromises; to buy the support of this or that group of rich people...? In the north, money could not secure a position of power. Only true power mattered. It eased things a lot.

Technology had changed the rules somewhat, as now an army with better weapons could overturn the balance of power and make the old laws ineffective, but the concept of honor was still so ingrained in the minds of the tigers that kings trying to expand their reigns by virtue of rifles and tanks often struggled to win any favor among their people, leading to tanks without crews and rifles without soldiers.

War was a constant in the culture of the tigers, but the rules of honor had ensured that, over the centuries, far fewer tigers had died in war than people of all sorts of species in the wars fought elsewhere in the world. The armies of tigers had mostly fought against the armies of southerners, of "prey species". And for centuries they had truly been prey: until technology had counterbalanced the physical supremacy of the tigers, the kings of the north had always had an easy time plundering the south. Then, with technology at their side, the southerners had become the aggressors and the armies of tigers had had to defend the north. But internal "wars" in the Northlands were most often solved by duels between generals and between kings. The few exceptions registered in the course of history meant that even Riaku's armed invasion of Kesteven and Glacial was not considered a crime without precedent or attenuating factors. It was the one reason why Kesteven and Glacial's peoples were ready to forget the past and accept Riaku's return: his actions, however terrible, had not been outside of the tigers' comprehension, history and culture. Cerberus Raja was the true exception to the rule, the odd one out.

The Raja family had been a relatively unimportant clan for most of its long history. The fact that the throne of Alfaya had always been filled by a Raja for centuries in a row was more due to their kingdom being an unattractive desert than to the strength of the males of the family. They had very rarely attempted to expand and they had needed to defend their territory even more rarely. Their army was used only for internal security, compensating for the unexceptional characteristics of the kings.

Everything had changed when the other tiger kingdoms were put under pressure by well armed, technologically advanced southerners angry for centuries of raids, plundering, rapes and oppression. Not only were stronger tiger families forced on the defensive by the attacks coming from the south, but the technology developed by the prey species had an endless thirst for oil. Both factors went to the advantage of the Raja clan since Alfaya turned out being incredibly rich of oil. The largest, richest deposits of oil and natural gas in the world were all inside or close to the borders of the Raja's kingdom, and the ancestors of Cerberus had rapidly realized that they had a chance. Ire immediately attacked Alfaya to try and conquer the oil fields, but the Raja family was first able to resist, in no small part due to strategic alliances with other advanced countries interested in the oil, and then to turn Ire into an ally as well.

The southerners were happy enough to pay for the oil in gold rather than in blood, and the Raja family had been happy to sell. The clan of the Rajas rapidly became the richest family in the whole world. They also realized early on that it was cheaper to shower the strongest warriors of the country in gold and make them a privileged caste than to redistribute the wealth over the entire population with any degree of equity. The warriors of Alfaya, or most of them anyway, gave up their honor in exchange for gold, and that enabled the Raja family to accumulate fabulous riches in the decades and centuries that followed. The Raja family liked gold so much that they spent as little as possible upon their army, perhaps also as a way to ensure that it never became too powerful to be controlled. The royal army continued to fight almost exclusively on foot, with swords and spears, with the exception of a number of special formations tasked with the defense of the oil fields. Extremely well armed mercenaries were hired whenever it was necessary, and Ire was allowed to send warships and aircraft and troops to help guard the oil fields, in exchange for questionable "discounts" on the price. The Rajas always made sure to drop some money here and there to ensure that other mighty countries, such as Java or Lunis, sent their own warships in the same areas as well, so that nobody was ever in the condition of stealing the oil fields. With the minimum effort, they had always been able to secure the best possible result. Clearly, what they lacked in strength they had in brains, and even Killer grudgingly admitted that.

The gold of the Rajas could other countries on a collision course when it best suited the interests of the family. Their money had spread corruption not just in the south but even in the Northlands, paying for assassins and mercenaries, pushing trusted soldiers to betray their comrades and in general causing trouble for other kings. Troubles that Kesteven had so frequently ended up having to solve, while the ancient laws of honor were progressively eroded away. As general of Kesteven, Killer had been tempted many times to march across the desert and crush Alfaya under his heel, but that would have meant declaring war on all the "allies" interested in the oil fields, and in any case Kesteven back then did not have the necessary resources to mount a war campaign so far from home and in such a hostile environment.

Cerberus Raja was the worthy heir of his father, of his grandfather and of those than came before. His money had funded the Raja Alliance. His money had put advanced weaponry in the hands of Riaku. His sly promises had convinced Riaku of the need to attack Kesteven. Killer could only look at Cerberus with distaste and irritation. They couldn't possibly be any more different than they already were: Killer, a conqueror led by honor and loyal to the old laws and traditions; and Cerberus, who had not fought a single duel to expand his kingdom but had expended fabulous amounts of money to damage his rivals and put an enormous war into motion. And that was just what they knew. Who can know what else he is hiding...? What was - or is - is plan? He didn't cause the war for nothing. He planned to get something out of it. But what, exactly? Killer gazed sideways at Alexis, who was looking at the screen like it was showing a particularly ugly cockroach, and it was clear from the glint in her eyes that she was just as frustrated as him: despite all of her extraordinary mind powers she couldn't find anything useful in Cerberus's mind.

"Almighty God, please... my army will not be able to resist much longer against the cowardly terrorists of the New World Order Army, with their battle tanks and artillery. Each of my guards could crush a hundred of those bugs, but..."

"But they can't because the enemy is inside battle tanks and protected by creeping barrages of artillery." Alexis completed, looking at him coldly as she crossed her powerful arms, biceps bulging with power. "That is because you failed them. You have not equipped them for the wars of today, despite having so much gold that you can afford to make your clothes with it."

"You are right, my goddess, as always..." Cerberus whined, dropping his forehead against the ground and cowering before her, crying out: "But now I want to save them! And my gold has no use anymore! I need your help, you can crush the NWOA out of existence in one instant if you just so desire! I beg you, flick your almighty finger and crush these monsters out of existence!"

"I'm very tempted to crush you out of existence too." Killer coldly replied, before he put the tip of his index on top of Typhon's head, effortlessly pushing the tiny, scrawny being forwards over the table, on his knees and so weak that he could barely breathe. The dark god pulled his finger backwards slightly, forcing Typhon's spine to bend backwards so his face stared right up at the camera built into the notebook, and Killer teased: "Do you recognize this face, Cerberus...?"

"I've never met him! I never saw him before, I swear!" Typhon squealed with his tiny, ridiculous voice, flailing his arms uselessly until Killer snorted and flicked his finger back a little bit more, nearly snapping the dragon in half. Cerberus looked at the scene, eyes wide in shock at the sight of the minuscule being, but betraying no emotion suggesting that he had met or even seen Typhon before. The tiger looked at the puny creature for a few long moments while Typhon continued to desperately cry in denial, saying that he was guilty of nothing, that he didn't knew the tiger on the screen... and finally, Cerberus shook his head slowly and said, in a quiet and apologizing voice: "I'm sorry, my God, but I have no idea what that thing is. I've never seen a creature like that."

"You see? You see...? I don't know him!" Typhon desperately cried, trembling violently under Killer's index and shutting his eyes as he sobbed miserably: "It's not my fault... whatever he did, I'm not... I'm not part of it... I don't know him."

"Shut up." Killer idly commanded, and the dragon sniffed but fell silent, hugging himself and trembling violently as he was crushed into the table, his face grinding into the, thankfully smooth, wooden surface as the great liger's finger twitched ever so slightly back and forth while idly resting his hand on the desk. He looked coldly at the innocent face that Cerberus offered, and then he sneaked a gaze sideways to see that Alexis's powerful shoulder was visibly tensing up, the great chords of muscle bulging, betraying her irritation as she again failed to find anything useful in the tiger's mind. Past her, Siegfried was bent forwards on his ruggerized laptop, biting his lower lip nervously as he tried to track down the signal, but when he started silently mouthing curses, Killer knew for sure that they weren't making any real progress.

"You can't expect me to believe that the RA... which stands for Raja Alliance, I believe... is something that you don't control. A group that carries the name of your family!" Killer muttered, looking at Cerberus with hate only for the orange tiger to shrink even smaller as he bowed deeper down in front of him, trembling before his range. The king of the east whimpered pathetically before insisting: "I already told you, almighty God... my family funded the organization, it is true. I can't deny that, and I don't want to. I funded its activities, I wanted their technology to secure my power... to expand it over the whole of the Northlands... over the whole world! But I don't control them now, I swear it, I don't...!"

"You keep telling me that it slipped out of your control. That you don't know what it does. That you never saw this pathetic insect..." Killer muttered, picking Typhon up and throwing him onto the keyboard of the laptop, looking down at him with contempt as the dragon crashed hard down on the edge of a key and shrieked in pain. "A group possessing incredible, otherworldly technology and operating the most powerful fleet ever assembled, which could effortlessly wipe the NWOA out of existence... and you paid for it, but were stupid enough to have no real grip on its activities?"

"I know it's hard to believe, but... but God, if I controlled that power, would I be humiliating myself like this...? Would I not use that technology to keep my throne safe, instead of watching the NWOA tear my kingdom apart?" Cerberus whined, looking up as his eyes filled with tears, his teeth gritting as he bitterly added: "And even that would still not save me from you... I've lost everything. My throne is yours, my life is yours, my kingdom is yours... Have mercy on me, God... I beg you... have mercy... I only ask you to save my life. And that of my warriors. They are tigers like you!"

"I'm a bit sorry for your warriors, but not too much. They gave up on their honor too long ago, just so they could get your gold. They betrayed all of the old laws and traditions of our kind in order to keep you on the throne... I'm not sure I want them to survive." Killer easily replied, smirking coldly down at his humiliated rival. "For sure I have no real desire to save your own worthless pelt. Especially if you keep lying to me. You must know what the RA is up to. Where was the Judge built? Where are the Unmanned Combat Walkers assembled? Where are they stored?"

"I don't know it, I swear!" Cerberus squealed, crawling closer to the camera and praying him with clasped hands. "I don't know... they betrayed me, they took my money and abandoned me!"

"You are an idiot, but even you can't possibly have funded them for years without knowing where the money went." Alexis coldly countered, and Cerberus turned towards her with an expression of misery as he swore: "I thought I knew, my Goddess, apex of perfection... I inherited the RA plans from my father, and his father before him. I always thought of it as my life insurance... My father told me that the RA was built as a pile of sealed boxes. Nobody knows who operates outside of his little box, so that even if several boxes are compromised, the others can continue to function. My box contained me, the kings of Anubia and Brunei and a few other minor lords, and Riaku once we brought him aboard. I thought ours was the command box! I thought the whole organization worked for us! I swear, I... I only ever saw it as an alliance with the other kings of the east to ensure our kingdoms would never fall!"

"How convenient, all of them are now dead." Alexis coldly observed, and Killer snorted in agreement. Cerberus trembled, but spread his arms and raised his hands as he cried: "Please, have mercy on me... I made mistakes. I... I was stupid. But my gods, if I hadn't been I wouldn't be in this situation now! You have to believe me, I beg you! I just... trusted the organization. I always received the shipments of weapons regularly, and I kept paying what they asked. It seemed like a good business... I thought the weapons came from Ire, or maybe Lunis, or even Java... they had the technology and they could surely be interested in keeping me strong, and Kesteven weak. I always thought they were the ones hiding into the other boxes! But I was told not to make questions, and I... did not want to end up on their bad side. An organization like the RA, I realized, could become a double-edged weapon... as it did, in the end."

"Bullshit." Killed cursed under his breath, but they were clearly not going to discover anything else. Some parts of the explanation were plausible, some were only remotely believable and some other things just didn't make sense. Sealed boxes made sense in a secret society, but it was hard to believe that the members of it could have such a poor idea of the structure and aims of the organism they were part of.

"And you don't know who this asshole is?" Killer again asked, using his index to push Typhon forwards, making him scream in agony as the huge claw poked violently into his tiny, frail back.

"No, Sir. No, God. I swear, I don't."

"What have you got to say, minnow? How did you get in contact with the RA?" Killer asked, flipping Typhon over so the dragon was forced up to look up at him, trembling in terror and spasming in agony as he crawled backwards across the keyboard, shaking his head desperately as he whined: "I don't know him, I don't know him...! I only ever talked to a bunch of pathetic mortals... scientists and intermediaries. I gave them my orders, and they delivered the stuff! I... I discovered the RA only due to a comment made by Thanathos while we headed to a meeting of the Council of the Seven Gods! Thanathos said that the mortals had achieved the unthinkable with their technology... he said... he also said that a group of mortals was selling ultra-sophisticated weaponry to some of the Hellish Princes and Lords..."

Killer grunted in frustration at that, pushing Typhon hard back into the screen, toying with his tiny body like he was nothing but a fly with the wings already torn off. Typhon's story was another dead end, the hundredth one. They had interrogated him very thoroughly in the days that had followed the conquest of Heaven, but little of what he had said was truly useful, since they had no idea of where Thanathos had gone hiding. Manticora and Kimera had been particularly savage as they exacted their revenge on their abusive father. All the years of suffering they had gone through were condensed into countless hours of fearsome ferocity as they beat Typhon to a pulp, humiliated him, tore him apart, mulched him by slowly, methodically stomping their glorious hooves down on him, grinning at the sound of his bones crumbling and his organs bursting out of his flattened, destroyed body. Then, only half-regenerated, Typhon had been forced to lick their glorious hooves clean from his own remains... only to then have to use his own hands to squeeze blood out of his guts, using it to carefully paint crimson every inch of their mighty hooves and every nail of their fingers. Typhon had shrieked in anguish, in denial, in horror, tears streaming down his cheeks, but all he had gained was to have his daughters tear inside him, dragging out his insides and strewing them around like ribbons and streamers as they destroyed him bit by bit. They had wrapped themselves in his guts and split his chest open, tearing his ribcage apart with their bare hands, breaking off his ribs one by one and stabbing them through his arms, pinning him to an altar until what remained of his body became almost comfortable.... A sort of seat with cushions made of flesh and organs. And then they had laid down literally inside him, into his devastated body, to be savagely fucked by Killer, rolling over and around in the blood and the gore, tangled up in coils of intestine as they took turns in leaning forwards, pushing muzzle to muzzle with him as he gargled and spasmed in shock, their teeth biting into his face and their claws tearing into his sides, before they began to devour his insides, burying their heads inside of him. They had eaten his heart in little bites... and all the while both Kimera and Manticora had screamed their lungs raw for Killer as he leaned over all three of them and easily covered every single inch of their bodies, his hulking form flexing with terrifying, endless, omnipotent strength as he snarled like an animal, his huge muscles splattered in blood and gore and covered by a splendid sheen of sweat, not due to fatigue but to sheer, overwhelming, excessive virility. Killer had grown terribly stronger after absorbing Juggernaut and Typhon and Heaven, and the most amazing part of it was that the energies absorbed were actually just a fraction, and almost ridiculously small, of his new force. He had, more importantly, learned to permanently open more floodgates within himself, allowing more of his power to regularly pump in his veins... and he had needed a week to learn again how to restrain his terrible force. For the best part of a second week he had been unable to size down under the 38 feet of height, towering like an absolute titan even among his goddesses. As a result, the sex was bestial, monstrous, endless, ferocious, terribly rough, as the dark god slammed deep inside both of them at once, using both of his titanic cocks so that the voices of the two sisters mixed in a wonderful yet scary chorus while his body flexed and rocked above them, while he snarled and ground savagely into them, his muscles flexing with fearsome power as he almost lost control over himself... until finally he had sat up, breathing hard as he kept both females impaled on his titanic members, squeezing them against his chest before realizing how enormous he was and how he had grown even bigger sometime during the act. Both goddesses were barely alive, exhausted and bloody, bruised and sore but also delighted, and Killer had been able to savor their emotions as they groaned in ecstasy, their hearts pumping to a rhythm that was almost a song as they reveled in his power, in their being together again as well as in revenge, while Typhon by then was smeared all over their bodies, crushed on the floor, caked on the walls and even squished onto the ceiling, not even able to gargle anymore but only miserably blowing bubbles in his own blood and gore.

Even that had not been the end. They had used and abused him again in the following days, and no secret he might have tried to hold on to was spared. Every memory and thought his brain had contained had been torn out, explored, and assimilated. The brain matter itself had been mercilessly toyed with. Manticora and Kimera had developed a special taste for robbing their father of all his energies, and so whenever his body managed to regenerate a little bit of strength they made sure to rip it all out of him to give it all to Killer. The dark god had only needed to relax and enjoy while their hands smeared not just innards and gore but Typhon's very soul along his cock, while the usurper of Heaven could do nothing other than bleed and cry and drool helplessly on his knees. Typhon had been forced to watch as all his power and essence was absorbed inside Killer's shaft, which was too much of a behemoth to even notice those additions, while his body became weaker and weaker. By the end of it every hint of his ancient power was well and truly gone: he no longer regenerated at all unless his daughters healed him to drag the game longer, and when they had stopped he was so scrawny and drained that he literally couldn't stand up to his feet if he was in the same room as Killer. The god's breath was like a hurricane smashing him around.

Typhon could not have lied, or hidden anything. Killer's attempt to ask him questions directly in front of Cerberus was just a desperate attempt, just to make sure that nothing was left untested. He had not expected to find out anything new from Typhon's side, but he had dared keeping alive a tiny little flame of hope that Cerberus would betray himself somehow at the sight of the miserable dragon.

They no longer had any doubt, after all: Typhon's clones and all the technology he had used to conquer Heaven and fight back Hell had come from the RA. The dragon had established contact with the RA well before Elelyon left Heaven. Well before the beginning of the war between Hell and Heaven. Apparently, the meeting between Typhon and the RA's "intermediaries" had been made possible by a casual comment dropped by Thanathos ahead of a reunion of the Seven Gods at the presence of Elelyon. Thanathos knew that some of Hell's princes were building up their forces thanks to mortal technology and he had tipped Typhon on how to get in contact with those same scientists... but the god of Death had not shared that information with Elelyon or with any of the other seven, and Typhon, of course, had been just as silent if not more. It was now clear, with the benefit of hindsight, that Thanathos's comment had been absolutely intended and planned. It had not been careless at all: Thanathos knew exactly how Typhon was going to react, and he had purposefully pushed him in the RA's direction.

Taranis had discovered the secret of Typhon's clone Paladins only much later, when the clones had been used on the battlefield for the first time. The God of War had the power to see and experience every fight and he immediately noticed the lack of emotions and the synthetic nature of those super-soldiers, but nobody else could pick up the same signs. Taranis had kept the secret to himself. He said nothing to Elelyon and nothing to Typhon, secretly seeking out the RA instead to secure his own share of the latest mortal technology while beginning to plan how to capitalize on the nascent war between Hell and Heaven. Taranis had talked to Vera Raider, the Suicide-Maker, who spoke on behalf of the RA, and the collaboration between the god of war and the secret alliance had been particularly profitable and crucial for everything that had happened after that fateful day. Killer had easily squeezed the whole story, in great detail, out of Taranis after defeating him and breaking him into a fucktoy, a cuckold slave. The actions of the god of war had been decisive and had made the RA immensely stronger, putting the basis for the disasters that had followed. Taranis, in his arrogance and ambition, had approached the RA like a conqueror. He had threatened to crush "every last of you mortal bugs" out of existence if they didn't supply him with weapons good enough to enable his servants and worshippers to conquer the three worlds in his name. The RA had complied, but judging from the following events it didn't do so out of fear. With Taranis's help they had secretly smuggled into Heaven enormous shipments of truly high-tech weaponry, designed specifically to be better than what the same RA had supplied to Typhon and to the Princes of Hell. They had also been forced to install a Spirit device into the neck of Xaar, the incredibly powerful but completely uncontrollable draconic monstrosity that had been born from Alcana and Taranis's disastrous marriage. The Spirit had allowed Taranis to control his son and use him as a living weapon, and with the other two sons, Deimos and Erra, the personifications of fear and disease, he had started secretly enslaving distant, alien worlds, away from Elelyon's eye.

The RA was able to convince Taranis that they were going to be able to arm him with even better equipment if he carried their scientists on some of those alien worlds, and Taranis had accepted, giving the RA's technologies an incredible boost that had allowed them to make true generational leaps into the future. The RA had also asked for the fog of war, the supernatural cloud of perennial stormy darkness that had made it impossible for Kesteven to spy the kingdoms of the east, beginning with Cerberus's own. That fog had puzzled Killer for a torturing eternity, shutting any kind of sensor out, blocking every kind of electromagnetic noise, making it impossible for him to discover what the traditionally hostile kings of the east were up to... and even Alexis's powers had never been able to pierce that cloak in any way. It had left them wondering and thinking that the RA was certainly hiding somewhere under it... but when they had forced Taranis to dispel the fog, nothing at all had been revealed. And yet, I can't believe it was just a diversion. Killer looked down at the laptop, studying Cerberus's terrified expression for a moment and wondering, not for the first time, how much of that fear was sincere and how much of it was exaggerated. Cerberus, after all, knew at least one thing: that Killer and Alexis did not know where he was hiding. That put him in relative safety, no matter how powerful the two ligers were, and the old arrogance typical of the Raja family could still be guessed even behind the tears and the misery of that king groveling in the sand.

"The clouds that covered Alfaya for years. You want to tell me that you never noticed those, either?" Killer finally asked, glaring at the king of the east and causing him to recoil visibly, hands held up in a prayer for mercy as he hurriedly replied: "Oh, no, your highness... everyone in Alfaya has been very, very aware of the forever stormy sky above our heads! It made the weather here cooler... and initially we liked that, but years without ever getting to truly see the sun have had unpleasant consequences on nature and on every one of us. We've lived in the shadows for years in a row, my great god, and that has turned the desert almost cold. It killed off plants and cultivations and crops, it caused famine and misery for all of my people. And we have all looked at the sky and thought that those clouds were a curse. Many have claimed that the clouds were the manifestation of the gods' rage against me. They said we were doomed! That the kingdom would sink into the darkness forever because of my failures!" Cerberus 's voice broke down at that point and he seemed to sob and break into tears before adding: "Because of it many friends have turned their backs on me. Many of my trusted guards turned into enemies, saying that I needed to die to satisfy the gods... it has been source of great suffering for me and my people. They tried to kill me, to offer me in sacrifice to the gods to beg for their mercy!" The tiger trembled, looking horrified and furious at the same time as he added: "I was betrayed by my generals, they wanted to get rid of me... I had to kill them all, oh yes... all of them..."

"That is not what I wanted to say." Killer venomously remarked, and Cerberus trembled and clasped his hands together, dropping his forehead against them as he cried out: "I don't know anything else about them, my god! Please, pardon this worthless servant! I know nothing, I swear...!"

Killer and Alexis traded a quick gaze and she made a grimace of distaste, shaking her head slightly to let him know that she couldn't read anything in his mind suggesting that he was lying... and yet, something about the whole thing didn't feel right. Killer gazed upwards, meeting Riaku's eyes as the black-furred tiger looked at Cerberus with an expression that gave a rather clear idea of the violent mixture of emotions in the male's mind: he was clearly amazed to see Cerberus so humiliated and terrified, but he also wished for it to only get worse, because their alliance had fallen apart in the worst of ways.

"What are you going to tell me next? Are you going to claim that you don't know Riaku?" Killer coldly enquired, and the black furred male leaned down to look at Cerberus with distaste and intense anger. Cerberus seemed to shrink even smaller under that glare, hugging himself up a little before hesitatingly replying: "Oh, no, my god of gods... I know the Black Lightning well. We used to be allies."

"Yeah, until you betrayed me." Riaku snarled, pointing a finger at the tiger on the screen, and Cerberus shivered before turning to Killer to squeak: "He was in the RA too! He must know more than I do! He... it must be his fault...!"

"We know very well that Riaku was in the RA." Alexis countered, dropping her chin on one hand and looking down at the king of the east with boredom and absolute distaste, before tilting her head to the side with a snort of annoyance as Riaku growled and leaned closer to the screen, hissing: "How dare you... how dare you lie so shamelessly, you vermin... You were the one who gave all the orders back in the days. You are the one who convinced me that Kesteven had to fall!"

"You wanted revenge against your father, Black Lightning, and I wanted Kesteven weakened. You planned out the campaign, and you and your army carried it out! I'm not responsible!" Cerberus countered, and for a moment he seemed to almost grin, slyly enjoying the rage on Riaku's features, but he shrunk away again as soon as Killer's eyes narrowed. "Almighty god, it's true! I did not invade Kesteven; I only supported the campaign with money and equipment."

"Is it supposed to make me any less angry...?" Killer coldly asked, and Cerberus bowed deeply, whimpering his prayers, while Riaku barked: "You bastard, you still, even now, continue to lie. I never was in control of the RA's actions. As soon as I went against your aims, you turned against me."

"I know when you lie, maggot. I suggest you don't try that again." Alexis venomously reminded, and Cerberus pushed his face in the dirt again, begging for her mercy.

"I admit, my goddess, pinnacle of perfection, that I... manipulated Riaku. His rage, his craving for revenge made him very useful. I... would never do it again now, but... back then, I wanted Kesteven weakened. I wanted you busy elsewhere. I was terrified that your empire would expand all the way to my kingdom. Your conquests seemed to never end! I... please, try to understand... I did not want to... to lose everything!"

Killer made a grimace at that, but he did not find any word to offer as counter. After conquering Kendrew he had rapidly expanded his empire, killing dozens of kings and taking away their territories. He knew how much terror he had caused among the other sovereigns, and it was easy to imagine Cerberus worrying because of his expansionism... but he suspected that the real reason why Cerberus had wanted to keep him busy was far more sinister. Taranis himself wanted me dead, or at least weakened and stuck in an unwinnable war in the Mortal Plane, in the hope that I'd never enter Heaven and Hell. That Elelyon's plan to have me trained in Heaven could be killed off before it even started...

Taranis had told Killer about how he had encouraged the RA to use every possible method to give him hell. The god of war knew that the RA had contacted Riaku, bastard son of Killer, and he had urged them to make good use of him and his rage. Exactly as the Prophecy of the Endwar says... Azura had seen it coming: "for a son will rise against his father..."

Taranis knew nothing about the Anchors and their immense power. He only wanted Killer dead or tied up elsewhere while he conquered Heaven and Hell and usurped the throne of Elelyon. That was his plan, and he had only ever had an incomplete understanding of the Prophecy and of the Amon-Ra, the savior. The god of war was afraid of Killer only because he saw him as a guardian that Elelyon wanted in place to keep everyone in Heaven under check while he was away.

But someone else, out there, knew more. Someone else had known more all along. Killer and Alexis were by now convinced that the unknown entity under the name of Lord Skyfall had pulled the strings from the very beginning. Were Lord Skyfall and the RA the very same thing? It looked more and more likely the more they discovered. Did Cerberus know more than he let on...? They suspected he did, but somehow he was resisting even Alexis's attempts to dig deep into his mind, his thoughts, and his memories.

"Why did you turn against Riaku?" Killer tiredly asked, already knowing the answer but knowing that they needed to probe Cerberus in every possible way, trying to get him to commit a mistake, to betray himself somehow... And if they could keep him on video for long enough, maybe Siegfried could locate the source of the signal. How I'd love to get right behind him, right now... but I can't teleport like this. Not without the slightest idea of where he is hiding. Not without sensing at least a hint of his energies. If he is not the idiot he looks like, trying to reach him with a blind teleport could end in a very nasty way.

Killer had thought long and hard about just trying to teleport into the room he could see, or better, imagine, in the video feed. In theory, he was powerful enough that even just thinking of the flag visible on screen might suffice to guide him in exactly the right place, but they really weren't sure about it, and when teleport failed it usually did so in a very painful way. He had tried to teleport blindly at times, and when he had ended up materializing inside a spot already occupied by another object the result at been a massive explosion that had left even him badly wounded. And there were even worse potential dangers: if Cerberus was indeed pretending and knew more than they did, it meant that he had extraordinary powers, or some kind of truly advanced technology shielding his mind. Teleporting against a barrier of that kind could end up in disaster. Cerberus looked up with a blink apparently surprised by the question... but there was a glint in his eyes, and a hint of smirk that almost made Killer snarl with rage and frustration. Even in his panic, Cerberus never looked entirely sincere. Never entirely reverent and humble.

"He was determined to let you two get to Glacial without a fight! He was determined to end the war with a traditional duel, against Alexis... and I knew he was going to lose it. I could not allow the campaign to end that poorly. The huge investments I made needed to give me better results than that." Cerberus meekly explained, before bowing deep again as he begged for forgiveness for daring to obstacle the great gods. Killer did not bother listening to his flattery, instead thinking of Vera Raider, the Suicide Maker. She had been the most notable of the RA intermediaries that Taranis had worked with, and she had played a key role with Riaku as well. And Killer and Alexis had had to fight against her to survive an assassination attempt, and earlier still to try and access information about the New World Order Army's funding lines. She seemed to be involved in everything, both inside the RA and inside the NWOA, and that added to the confusion. What were her aims? Where was she hiding, and what was she preparing? Her precise role in the complex flow of the events was still very much a mystery.

"Vera Raider." Killer said, adding nothing else and instead looking coldly down into Cerberus's eyes, studying his reaction, looking for any weird sign.

"She was the Black Lightning's mistress!" Cerberus immediately exclaimed, again sounding too cheerful, too teasing, too arrogantly ready to deliberately taunt Riaku even while Killer and Alexis were present. It only lasted for a brief instant, but Killer and Alexis did not miss it. "She must be a powerful element within the RA! She is the one who recruited Riaku. And she was the voice of the rest of the organization. Vera is a connection link between the boxes that make up the RA. I communicated with the rest of the organization through her. I don't know where she hides, though... she always came and went, vanishing for months at a time. I... ask it to Riaku! He must know more, they used to be lovers!"

Riaku blushed visibly at that, and Cerberus again almost grinned because of his embarrassment, which was not due to the young male being shy at all... but due to the fact that Vera had been a real mistress to him. A dominatrix. They had not been "lovers", but sex partners. She had used him many times, ferociously, squeezing everything she wanted out of him and then leaving him, sweaty and sore and panting, confused... and eager to be used again.

"I... am not proud of it, father. But I adored her. I've never been with another girl with that hunger, with that energy. Nothing comparable to her. She was ravenous, and strong, and... she could fill my mind with images of her screaming, of her riding me. I... never was able to resist her." Riaku admitted, whispering in an attempt not to be heard by Cerberus, and Killer gave a little nod of acceptance. He couldn't blame Riaku for it: he had not been immune from Vera's beauty and lust himself, and he had experienced the terrible power of her psychic abilities. She could literally override the senses of a victim and fill their minds with images and thoughts that she crafted. It was how she forced her victims to commit suicide by leaping out of windows, or stabbing themselves, or shooting into their heads... she could even drive them insane with pleasure or fear or a mix of emotions, torturing them until their heart literally burst. Her psychic powers, and her magnetism that rivaled that of major demonesses of Lust, were definitely powerful weapons: they had awakened Alexis's own powers during a fight that now felt like it had happened in a completely different Era. Riaku could be excused for falling under her spell. In fact, he had held up surprisingly well, if anything. "She definitely worked for the RA. She brought me... "suggestions", which of course were really orders." Riaku continued, raising his voice as he turned to glare at Cerberus, coldly adding: "Your orders."

"I took orders from her too, I swear!" Cerberus hurriedly countered, looking imploringly up at Killer. "I don't know who she answers too. I haven't seen her in a long while, even when I was still working with the RA, I don't know what happened to her... I used to think she was from Ire, or something. They are known for having formed experimental special units with people gifted with supernatural abilities like hers, it... it always seemed like the only sensible answer."

Killer did not reply, instead arching an eyebrow with an impatient snort, and Cerberus panted, looking vainly from side to side as if hoping to be given suggestions by someone or something, rubbing his hands nervously together, until he cried out: "Come on... you... you know it just as well as I do! Ire was the biggest country and had by far the largest armed forces. The biggest budget, too. Was I truly that insane to believe they might be the real core of the RA...? Maybe... maybe they use the RA as a way to experiment with advanced and immoral technologies without the rest of the world leaping at their throat with accusations and... and everything."

"From my point of view, it would have been impossible to think of Ire as an ally." Killer coldly countered, making a bit of a grimace. "Ire has always been the main enemy and the worst threat to the whole of the Northlands... but your kingdom is the special case. Your family sold kingdom, honor and dignity to them many years ago. Didn't it?"

Cerberus sobbed brokenly at that, shrinking away under Killer's gaze while he tremblingly admitted: "Y-yes, we... we worked hard to get on their... good side. They wanted our oil: they were willing to pay, at certain conditions. Trying to resist at all costs would have just resulted in the end of our dynasty. They would have invaded us and taken the oil by force. What could we do...?"

"Seek the help of the other kingdoms, simply. Without oil, Ire would have never been able to become a military powerhouse. Without oil, their technology would have never developed at the pace it has. And tigers would have continued to dominate the world just with muscles and swords. Everyone would have helped, had the matter been posed in these terms." Alexis coldly replied, shutting Cerberus for good. "But you have always been a bunch of cowards."

"It's true, your highness, it's true... but... your magnificence, please, we only tried to safeguard our status! Is it not something that even gods can understand and appreciate?" Cerberus pleaded, and the femme fatale looked away with a snort of distaste, but without finding a proper, honest counter to that observation. Cowardly as it might seem, the actions of the ancestors of Cerberus had been astute and had made Alfaya much more secure and powerful than it had been before. Cunning deserved respect, if not approval.

"Vera trained me for a while. She was the one who brought to the surface my own supernatural abilities." Riaku added, and Alexis nodded, no doubt remembering how dueling against the psychic Doberman had caused her powers to activate, before the black furred male continued: "But she... she is not the head of the RA, or anything like that. She takes orders from someone else. And she was... nowhere near happy because of it. I think she... she is a prisoner of sort inside the organization. Either they know some kind of secret that allows them to blackmail her, or they control her in some other way. She always seemed disgusted by the RA's actions, but she only ever said to me that she could not run away. She never trusted me enough to say more..."

Killer rubbed a hand over his muzzle, registering that one bit of information with interest. Of course, Vera had been... flirtatious with Alexis and him. She had treated them more like friends than like enemies, even when fighting them. And yes, she had made no mystery of the fact that she did not believe in what she was part of. She seemed resigned to what she perceived as inevitability of the success of the RA. She knew what kind of technology and forces the organization could count on and she had warned them of how monstrous they were. But now that he and Alexis were so much stronger, he couldn't help but wonder if she still thought the same or if her evaluation had changed. There was something about Vera's position that he did not understand but that saddened him. Instinctively, he sympathized with her. The word that Riaku had used seemed particularly appropriate: imprisoned. Vera had given him exactly that impression.

And he wondered whether her work with the New World Order Army had anything to do with that. Maybe she was trying to use the NWOA to break free from the RA's grip...? The NWOA had suddenly stopped fighting against Kesteven and had focused all its efforts against Alfaya, without any early warning of such a shift. Something had changed, swiftly and radically, inside the terroristic organization, but what...? Had Vera taken control of the entire force and adjusted the aim of it?

"Riaku, did you know that Vera has been involved with the New World Order Army as well...?" Killer calmly asked, looking up into his son's eyes, and Riaku recoiled in genuine shock at the revelation, baring his gritted fangs before growling: "Those cowardly murderers of children...? She worked with them...?"

Riaku had never been able to put to rest the terrible images of death and destruction and devastation that he and Killer had had to deal in their youth, during the war against the NWOA. There had been suicide bombing attacks, vehicle-borne bomb attacks, and a series of terrible massacres inside schools in Kesteven. Terrorists from the NWOA had stormed classrooms and gardens armed with hand grenades and automatic rifles, shooting indiscriminately at the young tigers with the declared aim of erasing an entire generation of "oppressors". Getting inside the devastated schools to flush out the terrorists, killing them one by one, had been one of the most traumatic experiences in the whole of Killer's life, and Riaku remembered every single detail of those smoldering classrooms crammed full of horribly maimed little corpses. They crowded his nightmares, and not just when he slept. Riaku had sworn to fight against the NWOA forever, until every last one of the terrorists was ripped into shreds, and now his hands trembled in fury and horror as he thought of Vera, of all the time spent with her, and of what she might have been part of. "I... I had no idea, father. I... think you know. That had I known... I would have killed her. Slowly. Ripping her apart small piece by small piece."

Cerberus looked shocked as well, gaping and shaking his head slowly, but whether that surprise was sincere or not was debatable. Killer just couldn't trust the tiger, no matter what. Something about him always seemed treacherous, no matter his tears and his cries. "I... I can't believe it... she was among us so many times! She had countless occasions to kill me... or Riaku... but... she never did. I never had any reason to suspect she was an anti-tiger extremist. I... how did you find out?"

Killer took Riaku's hand in his own and gave it a gentle but firm squeeze, shutting him down before he could voice his rage any further. "Don't jump to conclusions just yet. In those days she must have been little more than a baby. She was not involved in those attacks. And even her work with the NWOA today might... have different explanations than you may think." Killer calmly remarked, and Riaku calmed down somewhat, nodding slightly to acknowledge that she could not have possibly played any part in the attacks against Kesteven's schools, but still growling: "But if she is with them, Killer... I don't think there can be any attenuating factor. Working with those monsters is... is..."

"It might be a way to hurt this asshole here." Killer calmly said, jerking his head towards the screen to point at Cerberus with clear distaste. Riaku frowned for a moment, looking confused, but then his expression began to change as Killer insisted: "The NWOA army changed methods and targets in recent times, hasn't it...? Did you make Vera angry, Cerberus...?"

"I... I don't know what you are trying to imply!" Cerberus babbled, before shaking his head briskly as he insisted: "No... no, it's impossible... even if I had, she could have attacked me while she was in the same room... she had her chances."

Killer grunted bad-temperedly at that, unsure of whether Cerberus's words were worth any consideration, and the king of the east panted a bit, looking exhausted and terrified and looking nervously from Killer to Alexis to Riaku to the zebra goddesses behind, and back. He visibly gathered all his courage and blurted out new prayers, probably in an attempt to preempt any further question from the huge male. "Almighty god, master of all... please... I beg you... show me mercy. My time is running out. The NWOA will soon be here. Please, I... will do everything you command, renounce to any and everything you might want, but... please, save me!"

"I'm still not seeing any good reason for you to survive, Cerberus." Killer coldly replied, crossing his huge arms on his chest and smirking coldly down at the tiger. "Why should I save you, an enemy, someone I despise, someone who was definitely part of the RA and responsible of monstrous crimes...?"

"Someone who hides in a dark hole instead of fighting alongside his warriors." Alexis venomously added.

"I... will fight, I promise... once you are here I will be outside with you, to worship you and to fight with you if you'll so command! But please, please! Please, come and save me!" Cerberus hurriedly replied, almost literally clutching at straws as he desperately looked for words, for motivations to offer, for a good prayer, until he finally howled: "The NWOA is your enemy too! Once it is done with us it will push on towards your empire! It has taken the lives of so many friends of yours... if not for me, then do it for revenge, and to keep your kingdom safe!"

"The only reason why the NWOA still exists is that I want to kill them slowly. I want to chase them down and listen to their begging and to their crying. Helpless, miserable gnats like them are too weak and frail to have any space in my thoughts, but I'm having some fun watching them punish you for your arrogance and for your stupidity. It's the only good thing they ever did, so I'm tempted to give them some time. I'm in no hurry to erase them: in any moment I can take a piss over their army and wash it all out of existence. They are nothing." Killer easily replied, and Alexis grinned predatorily at that, licking her lips slowly while one of her hands slid under the table without any shame or hesitation, stroking down his spectacular abs and then gripping into his monstrous cock, making Cerberus stare with a gape of envy and shock that only added to Alexis's amusement, making her chuckle for a moment before she teased: "You'd love to watch it happen, huh, little faggot...? You can't even imagine what it is like when Killer pulls his cock out, huh...? Oh, but you saw the images of Ire's capital corroded and shattered, a pile of rust and rubble... the capital of the most powerful nation this world used to know, destroyed by Killer's mere scent... and the crater left by his cockhead, too immense to ever be bridged... an abyss too immense for mortals to deal with. You've jerked your little dick to those images, you little faggot, I know it." She licked her lips, her eyes glowing with cruel amusement as his eyes finally betrayed him, as some of his memories and secrets emerged from the darkness as she reached deeper into his mind, and Cerberus swallowed thickly and curled up in shame, dropping his face to the ground as she mercilessly added: "Oh, yeah... you imagined, dreamed to be him... and then cried and whined because you are not and you can never be even remotely similar. You are just a little faggot whore. You have a hard time deciding what you'd like the most between being Killer and watching on in awe as he rules the universe. What would you give to be in my place, squeezing on his godly beast of a cock...?" Alexis mercilessly teased, grinning down at Cerberus while leaning over Killer's hulking form, kissing his broad, masculine chest, her eyes glowing with cruel amusement as the tiger on the screen blushed and swallowed, his face betraying a new and level of shock as all his secrets were laid bare by the great goddess. Killer smirked in amusement at that, but his eyes also narrowed slightly, studying Cerberus with even greater attention, because something in his instinct told him that the fear on Raja's face in that moment was deep and fully sincere... while his earlier reverence and adoration, to some degree, was exaggerated. Alexis had had the very same sensation and now she mercilessly pushed against Cerberus, making him stare in shock, in awe, in fear, in envy, the tiger sweating visibly as she teased: "Don't worry, little Cerberus... greater males than you have become little bitches in front of Killer. It's not your fault, bitch-boy... he is just overwhelming."

"Goddess, please... I... please..." Cerberus whimpered, his eyes open wide and his maw hanging open as Killer grinned and pushed his chair back, his hulking, massive frame flexing slightly; his monumental musculature rippling with power, huge chords pushing outwards, veins bulging over his form as his muscles swelled arrogantly even with that tiny movement. Great, gargantuan biceps bulged, not needing to flex to display their majesty; hard pecs thrummed, heaving slightly with his breath, bulging and powerful, and the liger spread his legs a little bit wider while Alexis reached down to tug playfully at his belt.

"I... I surrendered all my best females to you... I gave you my kingdom... please, I... I just want... my life." Cerberus begged, but Alexis grinned sharkishly and shook one finger, taunting: "That's a big ask, useless vermin. That life is not yours... Killer owns it. Those females you sent along... they were never yours to begin with. The kingdom... you can't give it to Killer because he already owns it. You have nothing to offer, bitch, because Killer already owns it all."

"B-but... I... this is my life... all I've ever done..." Cerberus whimpered, helplessly hugging himself while Alexis began to undo Killer's thick belt while ravenously rubbing and licking at the monstrous bulge in the leather loincloth. And Killer smirked because the bulge was truly obscene at that point: he had grown even bigger with the release of more of his power and the assimilation of all what he had ripped out of Heaven, Elelyon, Typhon, and Juggernaut. He had been able to finally restrain himself to a height of around 23 feet, inch more or less, but his musculature was hulking, more spectacular than ever and his titanic cock was now a monstrous behemoth that when erect pushed past the 153 inches with a diameter of nearly 60, a mammoth member that had left even Alexis moaning weakly and drooling helplessly at the end of a particularly intense night. And now the goddess grinned cruelly in front of Cerberus's lament and simply countered: "Nothing of what you did matters one iota. Killer can erase everything you did in just one instant... and just as easily replace it all with something more, something greater and better. How can anything ever be "yours"...? Can you ever say no? Can you ever defend something from his grip...?" She paused, smirking as her words burned themselves deep into Cerberus's mind, and then she pushed the god's belt off, licking her lips as it fell heavily onto the floor along with the plate of black armor before she pushed the long leather loincloth out of the way to reveal the monstrous, unbelievable python of black meat as it flexed with arrogant laziness, as if to evidence how everything around it was insufficient, inadequate, while it thickened, widened, and yet barely stirred at all. That infinite black serpent thrummed and throbbed, great veins pulsing across its humongous length, and Killer rumbled low in his throat as his enormous testicles pulsed, seeming to throb larger with every moment that passed. Cerberus gasped audibly at that astonishing reveal, and he trembled visibly as Alexis gripped firmly into the titanic black beast and hefted it up, her biceps flexing with the sheer weight of it as Killer snorted in entertainment and rested one heavy hand on her head while she bent the humongous cock back to guide it past the edge of the table. Riaku couldn't help but stare at it in shock, gaping as the goddess took a few short, sloppy strokes right beneath the fat, enormous head still covered by the thick foreskin of the huge male, and Typhon squeaked in terror, vainly trying to run away by jumping down from the edge of the keyboard, almost falling on his face when his legs bent painfully on landing, and then he sprinted as best he could across the table, crying in horror and denial. Alexis snickered and put down her hand in front of him, however, leaving him staring at the insurmountable barrier made up by her fingers before she effortlessly scooped him back towards Killer, holding the gigantic cock aloft with her other hand. She grinned predatorily down at the tiny being while pumping the colossal cock slowly in her other hand, dragging the thick foreskin back with her thumb as she kneaded the enormous, fat head before nonchalantly pushing her index inside the vast maw of the immense member, causing Cerberus to flinch instinctively, his cheeks flushed with a mix of arousal and terror as he shuddered, probably feeling his own dick aching at the sight of the goddess's finger pushing deep inside, right down to the knuckle as Killer only let out a grunt of bliss.

"Holy shit..." Riaku commented with a gulp, staring at the titanic cock and suddenly feeling small and weak, far more than ever before. Sure, Killer was godlike and his presence intimidating while clothed... but naked, with that monstrously massive cock on display, he looked even more glorious, especially as Alexis roughly twisted her finger into the flexing cockmaw and then pulled it back, shiny with potent cockslime. She lined a second finger with the huge, hungry maw and easily slid both inside as Typhon squealed miserably, falling over on his ass as he attempted to avoid an enormous drop of thick, virile fluid as it smacked onto the table like a veritable meteor. Cerberus swallowed thickly at that, then whimpered: "No... no way..."

Alexis laughed at that, shaking her head slowly as she squeezed firmly into the fat, immense serpent of black flesh and was rewarded by another nightmarish throb of heat and power as the mammoth member swelled even thicker and longer, while she taunted: "Oh, but you know it is true... you know that Killer can.. and you know that this is still nothing. You know that you are less than a microbe in front of him... less than a speck of dust... and you love that, don't you? Love it and hate it at the same time!"

"Y-yes..." Cerberus breathlessly admitted, crawling closer to the camera, his eyes fixed on the monstrous black shaft and on the hulking, masculine body behind it, before crying out in fear as a huge blast of precum exploded out around Alexis's forking fingers, the massive volley arching high up past the laptop but splattering to loudly in the wall at the opposite end of the room that Raja heard it clearly, shuddering in awe and fear. "Oh, my god... your glory is infinite and indescribable... what are we males ever supposed to do when your presence eclipses us all?"

"You are not worthy to claim to be males. He is the male. You are the babies, the cucks, the femboys." Alexis mercilessly remarked, and Cerberus swallowed and nodded in trembling agreement, whimpering and mewling pathetically in a mix of fear, humiliation, frustration and submissive adoration, murmuring that it was true, that he could only ever beg and serve. "I'm not worthy, my god... and you are so... so much. So great. I... I can't even imagine the extent of your strength..."

"This bitch-boy right here used to sit on the throne of Heaven." Alexis easily said, grinning as she looked down at Typhon, and Cerberus let out a sob-howl of awe at that, before staring at Killer with wide eyes as the hulking titan rolled his massive shoulders and smirked, calmly stating: "No God or Goddess can ever stand before me. No hero, no monster. All kneel, all serve, all bow. All things serve my will, all beings tremble before my strength. I'm God. I am supreme. I am the Alpha, the Master. The Only."

"You are... you are..." Cerberus whimpered, trembling in awe as the massive muscles of the titanic male flexed and bulged, perfect and omnipotent, before Alexis licked her lips and allowed the flaccid, impossible shaft to drop heavily down on the table, smacking it with terrible force and a loud, scary slam while Typhon threw himself to the side as best he could, his shriek nothing but a pathetic little squeak as the colossal member nearly crushed him. It was like not just a mountain, but a whole range of mountains, stretching out in the distance and looming over him, titanic and invincible, and Typhon cried desperately as Alexis hefted the colossal girth of cock again, pointing it this way and that to cast its murderous, unforgiving shadow over the puny dragon, who instinctively ran away from it, rushing first in one direction, then in another, his eyes ringing with the laughter of Alexis, of Killer and of his daughters as tears fell from his eyes while he uselessly tried to reach the edge of the nightmarish shadow. "Run, bitch, run! Faster! It's going to squish you into a stain! Run!" Alexis urged and taunted, allowing the colossal cock to smack the table again and again, narrowly missing Typhon on purpose, just to strike even more terror into him... and she laughed darkly whenever the massive impacts rattled the heavy table and sent Typhon flying off his feet to crash violently into the hardwood a great distance away to the left or to the right... where Manticora and Kimera easily caught him in their hands and sent him sliding painfully back towards the behemoth cock, laughing of his desperate howls of denial.

"That... that is how you treat... other gods...?" Cerberus incredulously asked, his eyes open wide with a mix of terror and insane fascination, and Killer smirked, letting his immense cock do the talking as it thrummed with awful power and swelled even further, with Alexis eagerly, slowly stroking along the top few feet of colossal length, squeezing firmly into the solid meat until her fingers bumped against the thick crown of the fat, enormous cockhead, showing how the titanic black python gained easily another fifteen inches with just that one lazy flex. "This is how I treat them when I'm generous, bitch." Killer teased, grinning as an enormous globe of thick precum pushed out of his cockmaw, squeezing out around Alexis's working fingers with enough force to push them out as she growled in delight and hunger... and then Typhon broke in a miserable wail of terror and insanity, and Cerberus whimpered as monstrous, titanic sperms began to push out in a tangle, smashing audibly down onto the table, the smallest of them more than a foot long from the massive head to the end of the thick, muscular tail.

Cerberus found himself screaming as those monstrous beasts of virility stirred near Typhon, dwarfing him to insignificance and casting him in their murderous shadow as a tidal wave of incandescent seminal fluid ran after him, the lake of masculine essence spreading rapidly even though the hypervirile stuff was as thick as tar. Cerberus whimpered pathetically, grinding his thighs together while his pants betrayed the hardness of his member, a stain rapidly spreading on them as the tiger whined and fell back on his ass, staring in a mix of awe and fear, eyes bulging as he felt his strength vanish away, his member painfully aroused and yet unable to grow, to swell towards erection, instead shrinking smaller and smaller by the moment as his balls felt weightless, empty, dead, useless. On screen, Typhon ran around in circles, crying helplessly as the monstrous sperms bullied him, running circles around him, walling him into a narrow prison with their muscular bodies and swimming past him at absurd speed, their force so absolute that the tiny dragon was sent crashing on his face every time... and that was when Alexis slammed the titan cock down, dangerously close to his tiny form, sending him bouncing hard up into the air while the entire huge table rattled and cracked and dented. "This is what the real Alpha looks like." Alexis said, grinning widely as she looked down at Cerberus with an amused, knowing look that made his penis flex in delight and, at the same time, shrink even more humiliatingly smaller. "And you love the sight, I can tell it. This power, this size, this omnipotence, this endless fertility... All that power! I bet you want it, too, to feel it, don't you? You want Killer's mega-cock, don't you, sissy-boy?"

"It's... it's too much..." Cerberus helplessly blurted out, and as if to drive the point truly home, Killer's cock pulsed again and grew even bigger, not even hard yet but truly monstrous already. "I... I can't... I can't..."

"I know, bitch. You can't and you don't even deserve it, anyway." Killer easily replied, before grinning as he added: "I don't expect a worthless fuckrag like you to be very good at anything except wiping off my cock. And even that is questionable."

"Oh, God... I... don't know what to say... I'm scared and... oh, please, please... let me see more of your power...!" Cerberus breathed, groveling before Killer, his sanity visibly shattering as he clung to the camera on his side, almost nuzzling the screen as he whined: "It's too much..."

"What, are you scared? Am I too much male for you, little sissy?" Broken, already, while I'm still thousands of miles away...? What are you going to do when I'll tower over your puny little body?" Killer smiled and patronizingly tilted his head sideways while Alexis, Mriya, Elaine, Manticora and Kimera laughed and tittered, looking with contempt and mockery down at the trembling cuck. "Or are you jealous, is that it? Jealous of the toys I keep around, of my slaves; not of my power, but of those who get to feel my abuse and my strength? Do you envy little Typhon here...?" Killer grinned and spread his legs a little wider, monumental shaft throbbing powerfully as he rested back, and yet Cerberus cried out loudly, feeling like he was shrinking even smaller as the behemoth liger loomed over him, even seated comfortably, his cock a monstrous, throbbing beast, even flaccid the head so fat and thick that Cerberus could imagine it slapping his head right off. Hell, that colossal flared head was bigger than his head, and that goliath cock had to weight literal tons. It could crush him into pulp without even needing to fully harden up. "You enjoy being powerless in my shadow, a plaything in my hands, don't you? It terrifies you and yet makes you hard. Emasculates you and turns you into a drooling, needy bitch. I taste it. Your fear, and your lust. Your pride, broken and gone..."

Cerberus hesitated for a moment, looking at the laughing goddesses, blushing and trembling in horror at being so belittled and mocked by the beautiful females, suddenly horribly aware of how the titanic god towered over him, how his muscles bulged, how his enormous cock loomed there, huge and heavy, the fat head larger than his face, flaccid and already so enormous. He stretched one hand out to fearfully touch the gigantic cock, but he only met the screen instead and whined weakly. "I want to be you..." The tiger whimpered, panting as he looked at the beautiful Alexis sensually pushing into Killer, grinding against his mighty body, in worship, in adoration, as the gigantic cock twitched arrogantly, almost bored by that slavish love, clearly used to that and more. Killer snorted in entertainment at that, and Alexis laughed cruelly, shaking her head slowly before mocking: "That's impossible. There is only one Alpha... and it is also false. You're nothing but a toy to Killer and you know it and you love it. You long to be down there with Typhon, don't you? You are in awe of Him. You're just afraid to admit it, bitch... but you are just a little faggot whore in awe of the only, invincible Master."

Killer laughed a bit at that, before saying softly: "It's only natural... You can't help it, you're nothing but a whore faggot, and I am your God, I am Emperor, I am Everything."

"You are... you are..." Cerberus helplessly cried, half-curling up on himself as he drooled uncontrollably and tears streaked down his cheeks, eyes open so wide it was almost painful, as he felt the full, crushing weight of Killer's power and the sinking feeling of complete impotence. He could do nothing. He could not hope. He could not pretend to be anything other than a miserable zero. And he leaned forwards, to worship, to praise, to admire his unmatched power, to lick and taste his astounding virility, to be soaked in his musk and masculinity, to be his and his alone, panting hard and trembling as he lost control of his body and of his mind... and he felt Alexis's psychic "fingers" dig deeper into his thoughts, and his heart raced so quickly that it felt like it would soon explode, and the voice of his own conscience spoke Alexis's words as the goddess licked along the immense black shaft and whispered: "you are drawn to Killer because his power is utterly absolute. Because you know he is Greater, he is God... No, more than that... what a paltry word that is to describe him. Inadequate. Insufficient. Weak. You know he is far past that... Typhon here is "a god", and look where he is living his eternity... It's insultingly inadequate to call Killer "god". But your little, limited mind can't understand that. And you are scared because of how much you enjoy it... not just his power, but being beneath his power. But that's fine, bitch... that's how it should be, how it is and how it'll always is. You'll better accept it, sissy-boy, and embrace your new, better, purer life. As his toy. His plaything and property. That's what you want anyway, isn't it?"

"I... want... it..." Cerberus whimpered, his eyes losing their expression and becoming blank for a moment... before Alexis snorted in irritation as she felt a pulse of weird energy push her mental fingers back for an instant, and Cerberus's gasped as if re-emerging after having been underwater for too long, and he scrambled blindly for the buttons near the camera.

The screen went black as Cerberus closed the call with a panting, breathless scream, tears streaking down his cheeks as, almost literally, half of him attempted to run away in fear and shame and humiliation while the other half desperately craved for the humiliation to continue. Siegfried slammed his fist on the table and cursed loudly, slapping his laptop backwards, away from him, snarling in frustration. "Fuck. Fuck, fuck and fuck! What the hell is he using? I've never seen a transmission half as tangled up as this one!"

"I guess that means that you couldn't locate the source of the transmission." Killer mildly commented, and his younger brother looked at him flatly, his eyes narrowing into a glare.

"Thank you for trying, Cold... but we're not surprised it hasn't worked. Cerberus hides too many things. Whatever his role in this war, he is not the victim he wants to be seen as." Alexis calmly said, sighing a bit and muttering: "It's a shame, though. He was about to break completely apart. I was having fun..."

"Yeah... but don't worry, he has just delayed the inevitable by a little while, that's all." Killer agreed, smirking as the goddess vengefully grabbed Typhon and smeared his weak form against the titanic, semi-hard black shaft, stroking him hard up and down, smearing a streak of crimson over the dark flesh... and then grinning savagely as the almighty member easily absorbed even that little tribute, stealing it away from Typhon. The usurper howled in pain, his voice even shriller than before, and he shrieked as the thick, potent, virile cockslime of sweat and precum covering Killer's shaft coated him whole and nearly burned him out of existence. "That's for sure." Alexis agreed, pulling her hand back and handing the ruined, broken, tiny heap of bones and loose hide of scales that Typhon had become back to Kimera, who gave him an easy but cruel squeeze before tossing him into his little cage.

"Maybe he is just exploiting leftover RA material. He might just happen to have secured a few high value items, such as quantic communicators. That would explain why we can't track the signal..." Riaku suggested, his cheeks still furiously flushed as he did his best not to look at the colossal black shaft, trying to clear his mind from the uncontrollable need to submit and worship and serve the superior, the greater god... He did his best to focus his mind on what he had heard and observed instead, playing devil's advocate for a moment. Alexis hummed idly, taking note of the observation but making it clear that she didn't consider it likely.

"It might be, but I don't think it would explain how he resists to Alexis's mind-reading. Technology on its own is unlikely to be able to achieve such a result. A while ago maybe, but not now. She is way too powerful." Killer mused, before the femme fatale stood up from her chair with a curse under her breath, muttering: "We almost had him in the end. He was breaking down, and more of his thoughts, the real ones, were becoming apparent. Had he been here, I don't think he would have been able to put up what little resistance he managed."

"You two are freaks." Siegfried commented, ogling his brother's colossal shaft with an expression of shock, envy and disbelief. "Especially you. How do you feed blood in that monstrosity without fainting...?"

"You wish you knew, huh...?" Killer easily countered, standing up and allowing the mammoth member to swing majestically off the table, dangling between his legs and making his hulking figure look even more imposing. Siegfried looked away with a grimace, but he couldn't help peeking a moment later, especially as Manticora bent over, caught the semi-hard monster in one hand and pulled it gently up and back between his thighs. It protruded, incredibly enormous, out behind him more than any member had ever jutted out of the front of other males, and Kimera shamelessly knelled down to kiss it, licking around the edge of the massive flared head and then opening her jaws as wide as she could to take it in her mouth.

Siegfried gaped and stared in shock, vainly trying to mouth a protest, and Riaku blushed furiously, unable to tear his eyes off from the scene even as he valiantly tried to focus on Killer's words when the dark god commented: "This face to face wasn't useless, though. It helped me understand Cerberus a little bit more. He's even more of an asshole than I thought, first of all... and he clearly isn't entirely mortal. But, more importantly, he is a little bitch. Now that he promised to come out and meet us on the battlefield I'm confident that we can extract every last bit of info from him."

"It clearly is a trap, though. Cerberus is luring you exactly where he wants you. And since he is not a pure mortal like he pretends to be, he represents a far worse danger than we earlier thought." Adrasthea cautioned, opening the door leading to the catwalk running around the front of the island. A pleasant breeze came in, and Killer enjoyed its gentle blow in his mane before turning to the goddess with a calm smile, replying easily: "Of course it is. But we are short of alternatives, as always: leaping right into it is the fastest way to find out what we need to know."

"I feared you'd say something like that." The goddess of strategy countered, rolling her eyes a bit but looking amused rather than frustrated. She walked inside and stroked a hand languidly over her own abs while looking at his enormous cock as Kimera and Manticora took turns suckling on it, and she admired the colossal, ponderous testicles squeezing against his muscular thighs because of the way his shaft was bent backwards. "You want a hand with that...?"

"Or twenty?" Vesta cheerfully asked, peeking her head inside and speaking for the other goddesses who had stood guard outside, enjoying the dawn. The sun was high on the horizon at that point and the activity on the flight deck was becoming more intense, with a couple of Typhoons launching and a second standing guard on deck, ready to take off at a moment's notice. Helicopters kept coming in from other warships of the task group, and the visibility had improved compared to the early hours of day, when some fog in the distance had kept part of the fleet invisible. Riaku now could see several more ships in the distance, in direction north and north-east, while the coast was now visible on the horizon when looking south. The Ark Royal's group was on a south-east course towards the shores of Alfaya, and with the seas getting calmer it was comfortably cruising at over 20 knots, bringing them closer and closer to the margins of the immense Ohara offshore oil field. They were going to avoid those heavily polluted waters, in any case: the entire area was still contaminated by radiations concentrated enough to rapidly cause the hair to fall off heads. Mere minutes of exposition were enough to die and even though all the warships could seal hatches and operate as enclosed citadels with an internal overpressure that kept the contaminants outside, nobody wanted to deal needlessly with such dangers. Especially not on the carrier, where all the hundreds of people regularly busy on the flight deck would have been required to wear the uncomfortable CBRN suites and take regular decontaminating showers. The aircraft would have needed their own wash downs as well, and everything would have become more complex.

The weather had completely turned around since the night and was now excellent, and Killer smiled warmly but shook his head slightly. "I think we should leave this for later, much as I'm tempted to play."

"Aww. That's no fun." Manticora complained, and Kimera nibbled at his massive shaft, squeezing it in her stretched-out jaws as best she could, before slowly pulling back until the fat, colossal head popped audibly and wetly out, swinging ponderously forwards. Showing amazing self-control, Killer was still only semi-hard and he bent down to pick up his belts and loincloth from the floor, leaving Riaku gaping as he noticed how the colossal shaft literally sprawled on the floor like a tanning serpent, before the god straightened again and struggled to put it away behind the long leather band. Not long enough, at least until his cock wasn't back to full flaccidity. Mriya walked behind Riaku and taunted him with a whisper that nobody else could hear: "Why don't you kneel and kiss it, little cuck...?" Riaku swallowed at that, looking at her with a little gape of shock as she moved past and winked at him with a smirk that had him hard in a heartbeat... before Elaine walked past him on the other side, grinning as she added her own merciless whisper: "Vera. Killer. Boom. Her pussy ruined. Her body KO-ed. Sorry, little boy."

Riaku shivered, definitely not because of the breeze as he followed Killer, Alexis and the goddesses out on the catwalk as the four X-57 fighter jets began to fly long and slow orbits around the carrier as they came in to land, establishing communication with FLYCO. They watched as a first pair lined up with the carrier and slowed down in midair until it was only a few dozen knots faster than the ship, as a number of hatches and doors opened in the dark, stealth skin of the aircraft and the engine nozzles angled downwards, helped by two large fans right behind the cockpit. The two jets went into VTOL mode, hovering by the side of the ship, and then slid sideways onto the deck, just like they were helicopters but causing a far more powerful, far hotter downwash that nearly scorched the surface of the runway as they aligned precisely with the white lines marking the operating spots. The handlers on the deck, standing at the edge of the localized hurricanes caused by the massive jet engines, spread their arms and began to flap them to signal to the pilots that they could land, and both jets vertically descended, almost at the same time, until they touched down with a bump, and their engines were throttled back, their deafening whine fading gradually. Handlers rushed immediately forwards and began to make their coded gestures to instruct the pilots strapped in the fully enclosed, window-less cockpits, and both large jets rolled meekly forwards and then steered towards parking spaces close to one of the lifts leading down to the hangar.

In the meanwhile, the other couple of X-57 approached from the stern to repeat the same manoeuvre on the landing spots that had just been liberated. "Well, we should go down and meet... myself... and the boys." Alexis cheerfully said, and they all headed to the stairs to descend to the flight deck. They got there just in time to see the first X-57 rolling to a stop and folding its wings upwards to reduce its deck footprint, while the handlers began to lash it to the deck with a multitude of chains. The X-57 was a beauty: black, sleek, threatening even when motionless, with its twin rudders angled outwards and the attractive curve of its "neck", the two air intakes looking almost like the gills of a shark on that muscular, smooth-skinned structure. The X-57 was massive for the standards of fighter jets due to need to carry all weapons in internal bays to reduce the radar returns it generated in favor of enemy sensors. Not only that, its long and aggressive body had to contain a large cockpit with two people in tandem, both laying down almost horizontally on their backs; an immense amount of fuel and two huge engines plus the two cold-air fans that were engaged when landing vertically or taking off with extremely short runs. Next to the Typhoons, the X-57 looked gigantic but also graceful, purposeful, quick and deadly, and the impression was reinforced by the impressive number of small grey bars drawn in orderly rows on the two rudders. There were dozens of them, and each represented an enemy aircraft downed. There were also little ship shapes to commemorate Ire warships that the aircraft had sunk during the war. The winged sword pierced through a sabertooth skull, symbol by now of the Northern Empire, was painted in grey on the black fuselage, as was the Grim Reaper with an anti-air missile in one hand, symbol of the Squadron, which appeared on the rudders and near the edge of the air intakes. Everything, even those symbols and the victory bars, were drawn with low-visibility paint because nothing was allowed to make the Shadow any more visible, to the naked eye as well as to radars and infrared sensors, than it needed to be. Invisibility was its key advantage.

The cockpit of the X-57 slowly opened upwards, revealing the almost horizontal seats meant to help the pilots survive the tremendous gravity forces that crushed them during high speed, high angle maneuvers. Both seats were surrounded by screens and had a control stick on either side, each one covered in buttons which, as much as possible, had unique shapes and textures to ease the pilot's memory and make the job more instinctive. Alexis was just sitting up, looking fresh as a rose and grinning from one ear to the other as she reached up to undo the large helmet with its intelligent visor, which integrated a display with night vision and targeting functions. Thanks to special cameras built into several spots of the airframe, the X-57 had no blind corners: the pilots not only laid down in wrap-over cockpit-displays giving them the illusion of flying in open air with nothing around them, but they had the images automatically projected on their helmet-mounted displays when looking down at the floor. It was like seeing right through it, as if it didn't exist, and the embedded sight could lock missiles on targets. Vocal commands further eased the engagement. Look at a target, speak the word, and it dies.

The Weapon Systems Officer in the back seat was clad in a thick and cumbersome anti-G suit and when he managed to pull off the helmet he looked devastated, but Alexis wore nothing of the sort: her godlike body could easily take any stress the hypersonic X-57 could cause, and far more. Her abs bare, her spectacular chest squeezed into a black tank top and her legs clad in camouflage pants, she looked simply stunning and everyone on deck couldn't help but stare as she shook her golden hair after taking the helmet off, idly pushing up the proud bangs of her Mohawk. She easily extracted herself from the cockpit and helped her exhausted WSO do the same before squeezing his hand and leaving him in the careful hands of the deck crew. A whole team of specialists had immediately surrounded the aircraft to help the pilots out and then to plug in laptops and tablets into various ports in the aircraft's body to check the status of all onboard systems and plan out the maintenance to be done in the following hours. She leapt down from the tall fighter with ease, ignoring the ladder pushed forth by the ground personnel, and she spread out her arms with a wide smile, exclaiming: "Awesome! Simply awesome! More rewarding than using my own wings!" She paused and then winked, adding: "But, of course, much slower. And a lot more cramped."

Killer snorted in entertainment at that while Riaku gulped, before the liger's eyes roved over the fuselage of her X-57, right near the edge of the cockpit's opening: one of the aircraft's engineers, probably hoping to get a little bit of her attention, had carefully written her name there, even though she wasn't the actual pilot in charge of the machine. The writing Col. Alexis Archer Huxley, in elaborate italic letters, was anyway going to stay in place forever, he was sure of it, especially as a trio of navy and air force photographers snapped a multitude of pictures of that historic moment. And sure enough, when they were done, the goddess bent down to give a little kiss to an engineer rushing towards the plane, and the bulky tiger almost fainted right there, making Killer snort in entertainment as she strolled past between the cheers and whistles of the other technicians. The lucky engineer froze in place with a wide, stupid grin on his face, admiring her dreamily even as she pushed her chest into Killer and wrapped her arms around his waist while he tightly hugged her.

"Jealous...?" Alexis playfully asked, and they shared a little laugh before kissing passionately. The second Alexis, the one who had taken part to the events up in the admiral's quarters, vanished a moment later, giving them a wink as the goddess went back to a single manifestation of herself.

The aircraft right next to hers, decorated with an even greater number of victory bars and with the drawing of a feral tiger in mid-leap towards its prey, propped up its cockpit cover as well. Ladders were immediately pushed in place and a couple of officers rushed up either one to help pilot and WSO out. Richard "Talon" Huxley carefully stepped out of the cockpit, his legs trembling visibly even though he did his best to steady himself. The effort requested to push the X-57 to the limit of its envelope was extraordinary and despite the near-horizontal seats and the special anti-G suites, even the muscular son of Killer needed quite a bit of rest between a mission and another, depending on how much maneuvering at high speed had been part of it. Alexis had wanted to dogfight, dogfight and dogfight to find out everything the aircraft could do, so he was probably going to crash into bed for the following 14 hours at the least... but only after eating and drinking appropriately to reintegrate all he had lost during the flight. After the long nap, he was going to hit the gym for pumping some iron and, more importantly still, carry out a specific serial of exercises meant to strengthen his body, and in particular his neck, against the effects of extreme gravity forces.

Richard was not just an extraordinary pilot, but also a handsome young man, his features similar to his father's but gentler, and his rebellious mane much shorter and less pronounced but still regal, making him an extremely popular figure inside the Empire. The image of his masculine beauty, of his piercing blue eyes and of the flight suit taunt over his powerful musculature was on almost every recruitment poster, and plenty of jokes were told about how most of the female pilots had enlisted merely to get him to train them. His WSO, David "Maverick" Harrow was equally famous and just as respected, because he was older than most within the air force and had trained most of the current generation of pilots and weapon systems specialists. He had been in more air battles than anyone else and his knowledge of avionics, weapon systems and electronic warfare was second to none. He was a walking encyclopedia as well as the most respected of teachers. When he had been wounded during the air battle over Glacial, the whole air force community had repressed a shiver of horror and dread. Every squadron had sent good wishes and messages of support and everyone in the service had prayed for him to recover, almost holding their breath until reassuring news had started to filter down through the ranks. He was a very demanding teacher and did his best to never let his affection for his pupils show. During the drills he pushed them to the limits and beyond without any mercy: nothing was ever done well and rapidly enough. To gain a pass from him, excellence was the bare minimum requirement, and many good pilots had been scolded and treated like failures until they had either found ways to improve further or had moved on to other parts of the air force, to work on supporting assets such as cargo, air tankers and intelligence-gathering platforms. And yet he was like a father to all the young and impetuous boys flying the Typhoons, and a true celebrity: almost nobody had ever been able to look at him with something other than respect and affection even though he did his utmost to appear cold and aloft during training. His pupils had long since understood that even when he slapped and insulted them, it was for their own good. Maverick had lost many friends in the air and had learned that only excellence allowed young boys to survive the career of fighter pilot in war time.

Maverick was still recruitment poster material, but definitely not for his physique. He was a cheetah, not a tiger, so he was regularly dwarfed by even the smallest of his students. He was slender, almost skinny, and could almost become invisible behind the girth of a single one of Talon's arms, but his serious expression and the alert, intelligent eyes always left a lasting memory in all who met him. He was also the living demonstration that the Empire rewarded and valued excellence no matter where it came from, and that had encouraged many non-tigers to attempt a career in the air force.

Killer and the others watched on as the slender cheetah was reverently picked up by a bulky engineer and carried down the ladder before finally, tiredly setting his feet down on the deck, taking off his helmet and panting, his chest heaving visibly under the anti-G suit. He gave them a thumb-up nonetheless, and Richard approached and wrapped a huge arm companionably around his shoulders, discreetly half-hefting him up and helping him walk forwards.

In the meanwhile, the other two X-57s completed their landing and one of the two rolled forwards to park alongside the others, while the fourth headed directly for one of the huge lifts, carefully marshaled by the gestures of a young deck handler. Killer and Alexis admired the long list of victory bars and the dragon drawn on the side, with its long, twisting body reaching almost all the way from the tail to the air intakes. When the cockpit opened, Fenrir "Shadow" Wales, son of Riaku, and his WSO, Harry "Eagle" McNay dragged themselves out of the seats, slowly making their way down the large ladders. Each X-57 had a pair of much simpler and steeper ladders which could be extracted from behind two well concealed ports in the fuselage beneath the cockpit, but whenever it was possible the crews were helped with much larger and more comfortable stairs. Their legs, after all, were always shaky after hours in the cockpit. The X-57 was definitely not a "normal" fighter jet. It was probably at the very limit of what a manned platform could do without killing its crew. Fenrir resembled Riaku as much as Richard resembled Killer, but amazingly he was even taller and bulkier than his rival. Fenrir was half-a-head taller and his muscles pushed even more prominently against the anti-G suit, and his eyes glowed ruby like Riaku's... a trait that had gotten into them because of Riaku's mother, Diana, who had also passed on her uniquely black fur. Fenrir's hide turned almost white on the chest and the abs, however, unlike Riaku's fur which was completely dark.

Fenrir was as much of a hero for the air force of Mottram as Richard was for the empire, but now they were part of the same squadron. The facto, Mottram as a whole had become part of the empire and now the two rivals were the polarizing figures within the same, unified air force. They had their fan clubs, quite literally. "Talon" and "Shadow", who had been dueling so viciously in the skies of Kesteven during the early phases of the war and had then gone on to collaborate in a desperate dogfight against advanced Mantis stealth fighters of the RA, had ended up working together as a result of the RA turning against Mottram and of the demons invading the mortal world. Their rivalry remained as strong as ever and extended to their two experienced WSOs, but the two crews had never considered each other true "enemies". There had never been true hate between them, not even when they were on opposite sides. They had only ever been interested in making clear to the other who was the true ace, the boss of the sky, and had tried not to think of the very real risk that one of them might one day die at the hand of the other. Reciprocal respect and admiration made things a lot easier when it came to fighting together, on the same side, against a common enemy. Shadow and Eagle were truly extraordinary pilots, with exceptional skills and instinct, and "Talon" had immediately campaigned for their inclusion in the secret programme for the formation of the "Magnificent Dozen", the 1st Squadron "Night Spirits", the special unit equipped with the first batch of X-57s.

The two crews had started training on the X-57 on the very same day, because Talon and Maverick had refused to start their own studies if their rivals weren't allowed in. The highest officers of the air force and the navy of the Empire had been reluctant at first, worried by the prospect of sharing the secrets of their most capable weapon system with two former enemies from another kingdom, but in front of such ultimatum, and with Killer's blessing, they had capitulated. Nobody had had any cause to regret it, anyway. Shadow and Eagle had proven loyal and irreprehensible as well as formidable, and the two pairs of aces had ended up writing most of the huge manual of tactics and combat maneuvers for the new aircraft.

The other pilots and WSOs within the squadron were all veterans of the air battles of Kesteven and Glacial as well, and with new X-57s in production, a second squadron was being slowly pieced together, including some excellent crews from Mottram, personally selected by Fenrir.

As the endless lists of victories on the rudders of their aircraft immediately made evident, Talon and Shadow had played an enormous part in Sandy's successful naval war against Ire, Lunis and the demons.

The four aces walked slowly towards Killer, doing their best to look martial even though their bodies ached and their muscles spasmed, and the king smiled and moved towards them, reaching up to squeeze Riaku's shoulder and invite him along.

"Your majesty, it's an honor to witness you." The four airmen said when Killer and Alexis reached them, towering over all four. As big as Fenrir was, he still felt like a child in presence of the two gods, and none of them could repress the shiver of fear and awe that went down their spines as they bowed deeply.

The massive liger, however, immediately reached forwards and gently helped them straighten up, telling them to relax and doing his best to put them at ease as he cheerfully replied: "It's an honor for me to visit this ship and everyone on it, and you in particular. I've read the report and listened to the stories Sandy had to tell about you, and it is clear that your efforts have been clutch in this war." He paused, then turned towards Richard, offering him a warm smile and a quick hug. "Well done, son. Well done."

He squeezed the hands of everyone, using particular care with Maverick's small fingers, and Alexis and Riaku did the same. The king of Mottram hugged his son and congratulated him warmly.

"There are medals ready for all of you, naturally, but there will be time for that. I know that in this moment you only crave a shower, some food and a comfortable bed." Killer finally said, and the four airmen smiled gratefully for it, glad that the king had been and was a soldier first and foremost, so that he understood when it was better to leave formalities, however pleasant, aside. "I just wanted to say thank you."

"We are the ones who have to say thank you, father." Talon replied, looking at his father with genuine awe. "You've destroyed Ire's fleet; conquered Hell; cleansed Heaven... all our achievements pale in comparison to that."

"Still, we have to thank you for the fact that so many ships are still afloat." Killer gently insisted, turning his attention on Fenrir. "It is great to have you on our side, too."

"Considering your power; it is very fortunate for me to serve in your forces." Fenrir respectfully replied in his deep, handsome voice, before he turned back towards his aircraft with a little smirk. "And with the aircraft we have here, there is no other place I'd want to be in."

"I'm told that equipment is only good when Maverick and Eagle say it is." Killer playfully replied, looking down at the cheetah standing by Talon's side and at the older, short orange-furred tiger half-hidden behind the much larger bulk of Shadow. The two WSOs were intimidated by the presence of the emperor and god, but being asked about the technical aspects of the aircraft made the fear go away as they traded a look and a nod. Maverick spoke for both: "The X-57 is formidable. We are very few complains to make, in no small measure because we were involved in most of the design phase. I was there when the original X-57 was carefully dismantled, analyzed, studied and then pieced back together, only to be slowly dissected again and progressively modified."

"I joined the programme when they were piecing it together for the second time, and I had a lot of catch-up to do, but Maverick was very patient and spent gods know how many hours going over the important details with me." Eagle added, his face beaming with happiness as he talked of his beloved creature. Like Maverick, Eagle had no sons or daughters of his own but pretty much considered all of the younger pilots on the squadron like children he had to protect and instruct. In addition, he treated the squadron's aircraft like babies, showering them in endless attentions and demonstrating infinite patience with them when he had to spend days chasing for bugs in the many millions of lines of code; or when he had to replace a faulty component deep inside the airframe, dealing with the extra complication of having to be really delicate to the special radar-absorbing "skin" of the aircraft. "I had the chance to bring my own suggestions to the table early on, so most of what I really wanted made it into the final design."

"Today's X-57 has relatively little to share with the original prototype your majesty captured in Chattam." Talon remarked, looking at his WSO with a smile full of friendly affection. "These two started marking up the design with red pencils and kept making corrections. It's because of them that the aircraft now performs so well."

Killer nodded at that, then smiled as he observed: "I take it that the X-57 is Maverick and Eagle-approved...?"

"Absolutely!" Maverick replied, and Eagle nodded enthusiastically. "Using it in combat and trying to keep it flightworthy inside a cramped aircraft carrier hangar has given us a few new ideas for minor improvements that will make it into the MK2 design soon to enter production, but other than that there's nothing in the world that comes close to our X-57s."

Killer nodded, then squeezed lightly around Alexis's waist and asked: "And what do you think of her...? Is she as good a fighter pilot as she brags...?"

Talon and Shadow traded a look and gulped, looking embarrassed as they admitted: "She... she won every single simulated dogfight. She pulled more G, pushed faster, turned tighter, and constantly outmaneuvered us, like she knew our intentions before we even formulated them in our minds."

"Well, she does know them. She's a living cheat." Killer playfully replied, and Alexis snorted in entertainment and explained: "I read minds and the flow of energies, so I can see several seconds into the future. Don't lose your sleep over it, boys: you have not lost your touch all of a sudden."

"That's reassuring." Talon admitted, and Shadow added: "I'm just thankful we serve you and not against you."

"Yeah. But you are great pilots, boys. I'm sure that years ago, before my sixth sense awakened, you would have won one or two merges." Alexis teased, winking at them. They didn't dare reply, and not just because she was their empress and goddess, but because they knew that as a young wing commander Alexis had been an ace with a formidable scoreboard. She had collected numerous victories during conflicts against Ire and the NWOA, and when Riaku had invaded Glacial, Shadow had run the very real risk of facing her in a dogfight. The only reason why that had not happened was that she had had to abandon her role in the air force in favor of a return to the army, where her terrifying strength and skills as sniper were needed even more urgently. Unfortunately for her, Riaku had gotten to her family before she could stop him, and when he had taken her three sisters as hostages she had been forced to surrender.

Even back then, Alexis was a terrifying force to grapple with: Shadow had been initially impatient to face her in a dogfight but he had to admit he had ended up feeling greatly relieved when he heard she had gone back to the ground battle. Riaku himself had not dared facing her in a loyal duel, and that was why the queen of Glacial continued to look at him with contempt.

Talon, Maverick, Shadow and Eagle finally excused themselves and made their way to the island, dragging their feet in exhaustion as they made their way to their quarters, while the deck crew worked carefully to bring all of the X-57s down into the hangar.

Killer and Riaku stood at the edge of one of the great aircraft lifts, watching as it slowly descended, when Diana rushed out of the stern island and ran towards them.

"Can I...?" Riaku hesitatingly asked to his father, and when Killer smiled and nodded he ran towards her, gently seizing her by the hips and easily lifting her high up as he spun on the spot. Mother and son hugged tightly and traded quick bites of the story of their last few months. The war in Heaven for Diana; the struggle against the demons up on the mountains for Riaku... and then the male proudly told Diana about her nephew, Fenrir, telling her all about the role the fighter pilot had played in defending the fleet and telling her at least thrice that he had her same ruby eyes.

Killer watched them from a distance, smiling warmly. Diana loved her son, and sorely regretted having let herself go, almost willingly allowing herself to die when he still needed her. She had been a loving, wonderful mother to the young Riaku, and she had been the most dedicate and loyal of lovers for Killer. Back then she was one of the "Forbidden Ones", the females that were part of the harem of the king. She was, in theory, property of king Seth Huxley, the father of Killer.

Everyone knew that, like many other Forbidden Ones, she was actually one of the favorite lovers of the prince, but she had valiantly denied and had done everything she could to shield Killer from the accusations. She had always pretended that Riaku was the son of Seth, not of Killer. She told that same lie even to Killer himself... who all too gladly decided to believe to it, ignoring the evidence.

When Killer grew bored of Kesteven because of the peace he had created by defeating Dark and the NWOA in battle, he left to wander the world in those that would later come to be known as the infamous "seven years of the fury". Diana was suddenly alone with her young son, and she felt abandoned and rejected. She had been one of uncountable lovers of the prince, yes, but their relationship had always been special... and she couldn't believe it was all over. Diana was seriously ill at the time but she had not wanted to reveal it to her lover. Killer often told himself that, had he known about her conditions, he would have made different and better choices, staying at her side... but every time his conscience reminded him how impetuous and reckless he was back then, and he had to admit that it would not have lasted. Without wars to keep him busy, Kesteven had become too small and boring for him and there were only two options: depose his father and take the throne, or leave. And despite stealing away so many of his females, Killer truly respected and venerated his father too much to do the former.

Diana fell into a terrible depression. She refused to eat, she barely slept. She allowed Killer's absence to gradually cancel even the thought of Riaku from her mind, and from caring, loving mother she became an oblivious, irresponsive husk. The sickness and the depression combined to destroy her body and weaken her mind and, all too soon, she died, leaving Riaku alone. Too soon, too cruelly, leaving him full of anger.

Diana had suffered horribly during the wars of Kesteven and Glacial. From Heaven she had watched with horror as the rage in her beloved son turned him into a monster and a threat to the lover that she still craved and adored. She knew she carried a lot of the fault on her own shoulder.

Nobody was happier than Diana for the change that Riaku had undergone. Nobody was prouder for the way Riaku had stood up for the safety of the people of the Empire. Diana was finally seeing their family reunited, and it was the dream of her life come true.

When Killer walked up to them and tightly hugged them both to his chest, her eyes glinted with tears of happiness while her hands kept sweetly caressing her son's cheeks.

"I'm so proud of you, Riaku..." She warmly repeated, and the black-furred male smiled warmly, leaning his forehead against hers... before closing his eyes in bliss as Killer nodded and added: "We both are. And we are lucky... we have the time to put things right. We have a second chance... I have a second chance to do what I should have done but didn't."

"Thank you, dad..." Riaku quietly replied, before looking down curiously as Diana pushed a hand gently against his chest, and Killer did the same with his much larger one. He opened his mouth to ask something, but his mother gently shushed him and pushed a finger against his lips, smiling. The tattoos on her shoulders and even the KO mark on her thigh began to glow brightly, and Riaku gasped as he felt warm, soothing energy flow inside his body... before Killer's own great force flooded him, causing his back to arch as his eyes glowed solid ruby and his muscles swelled larger, stronger, bulging outwards and thrumming with awesome power, his biceps swelling as he instinctively spread his arms and slowly flexed his fingers, feeling his height increasing and growling as his force mounted and mounted, until he felt godlike and unstoppable... and a simple collar of white leather with a golden, roaring lion head took shape around his throat, glowing with the energies of his father.

When Killer and Diana pulled their hands back, Riaku couldn't help but flex his new, formidable, hulking form, looking down at his hands in awe. He felt incredibly, impossibly powerful, able to crush a planet - or more, much more... - into dust in either hand. It sent a shiver down his spine... followed by a more violent one at the realization that, even with all that strength, he still felt like a gnat in front of his father, who seemed to dwarf him even more than earlier. Riaku swallowed thickly, realizing both the extent of the gift he had received and the impossible, unfathomable immensity of Killer's power. Earlier he had looked at him with the eyes of a mortal and had been awed by his ability to conquer the entire planet just by dropping his flaccid cock on the world's only "superpower"... but now he looked at him with the eyes of a god and it only allowed him to realize that for Killer it had been less than child play. He could do far, far more... and without as much as a flex. There was an impossible amount of power beyond that, which Killer could in any moment reveal if he just wished to. It was unbelievable. As a mortal he had felt like a helpless microbe in front of him. As a god he felt infinitely smaller, and only comforted by the fact that everything else around him now looked puny and frail. _ _

Even with the terror he felt whenever he looked up at his father, his new body felt fantastic, and his power awesome. Suddenly, everything felt possible... even easy. "Thank you, dad... mom... I... will forever strive to show that I'm worthy of this gift."

"And I'm sure we'll be proud of you." Diana softly replied, kissing his lips gently before idly touching his new collar, adjusting it better around his neck.

"It's good to have you back, Riaku... and sorry for all I should have done for you and didn't." Killer added, hugging him tightly... before Alexis wrapped her arm around his neck and yanked him to the side, grinning as she looked sideways into his eye. "Welcome to the family, Riaku. But be sure to behave, because I cannot forget the past. Drown it out with the present, I suggest."

"I'll make it up to you, I promise." Riaku quietly but firmly assured. The femme fatale snorted, but she was smiling despite all when she seized his new collar and yanked on it a little. "Remember who you are, Riaku, always... and even more so, remember who your father and master is."

"I will." Riaku promised, and the next to approach him were Mriya and Elaine, who circled around him slowly, gazing thoughtfully all over him, grinning slightly as they measured him up.

"Better. Much better than before." Mriya commented, and Elaine agreed with a little snort of entertainment as they brushed closer to him and whispered: Big, but still just a boy in the shadow of the Alpha. Don't you get cocky... They winked at him, teasing him mercilessly while putting him in beta territory right away. Not that he needed to be told, when a look at his father made everything all too clear. The younger of the three zebra goddesses, a wonderful beauty with tribal tattoos covering her abs, currently stretched out of shape by a huge pregnant belly, walked up to him as well, her eyes glowing with merciless amusement as she felt his eyes moving over her splendid body before getting caught by the large KO mark on her skin. She came close enough to him to bump lightly into his front with her enormous belly, and she whispered teasingly: Killer filled this up. Don't think you'll ever be able to do the same, boy. God or not, you are just a cuck...

Riaku swallowed, scared by the shudder of pleasure that their cruel taunting sent down his spine, and Savannah grinned knowingly, tilting her head slightly to the side and purring: don't fear, boy... you are just accepting the truth, that's all. Don't fear, I'm sure daddy will let you lick his cock if you ask nicely...

Mriya and Elaine smiled predatorily at that, their eyes flashing with entertainment, and Riaku swallowed a bit at that, before the expression on the faces of the three young goddesses softened, Savannah smiling and hugging him warmly, welcoming him and kissing his cheek... before murring in his ear: don't fear, Riaku. Being Killer's cuck is a good life.

"I guess that now you truly are our brother, now. Welcome, little bro... just remember: girls rule, boys drool." Elaine playfully remarked, idly flexing her arm to show off her huge bicep. Diana considered intervening to slap down that warning, but she decided not to. Considering how their huge, weird family worked, it was a fair warning... Riaku was going to be loved and protected and taken into the family, but there was no changing his beta boy status. Killer ruled supreme, the girls were beneath him... and the beta boys came last. Diana had her own KO mark and she was proud of it: there was no going back, no denying the truth. Not even for her son. Diana smiled in relief, though, when Mriya and Elaine hugged Riaku, accepting him into the fold. She didn't know what the two goddesses had whispered into his ears to make him pale, but she had a pretty good idea... and for all her love for him it was clear that Riaku could consider himself lucky not to have been given the very same warnings directly by her.

The other Disciples gave Riaku their welcome and their own warnings, more or less playful, with Sekhmeth shamelessly gripping into the crotch of his pants hard enough to make him yelp weakly as she teased: "Uhm. I might even use you every now and then. Sometimes I miss having a male I can break, instead of one who breaks me!"

Siegfried hesitated for a brief moment when it was his turn to welcome Riaku, the two males looking at each other awkwardly, both thinking of the days in which they had been enemies in the streets of Kesteven... but then Riaku murmured to ask for forgiveness and Siegfried smiled and let the past go, squeezing into his new "brother's" arm and dragging him into a quick hug. "Well, it's better to have you as brother than as enemy", Siegfried commented, before lowering his voice to a whisper as he added: I know what our sisters told you... been through that myself. But believe me: as evil as they are, you'll end up loving their teasing.

Riaku did not reply, but nodded his head slightly. For a moment, he bit his lower lip, tempted to admit that he already loved it. The three goddesses, however, grinned at him with predatory amusement, and he realized that they could read his mind so easily that he might as well have shouted it from the rooftops. All three of them languidly drew circles around their KO tattoos with the tip of one finger, smirking at him as he helplessly stared, before Mriya nonchalantly said: "Good boy... nice to see that you know your place. "

"Now, now... don't be too harsh on my boy." Diana playfully intervened, wrapping her arms around Riaku's neck and pulling him back against her strong body... before sensually pulling up her long leg, half-wrapping it around his waist so that her flowing robe slid down her thigh to reveal her own KO mark. She kissed his cheek lightly, but her finger slowly ran over the K and the O, dragging his eyes along like they were connected to her digit. "You'll learn to love it all, Riaku... as for them, don't fear: they are pretty evil, but they care for you."

"Sure we do." Mriya gently said, and Riaku's heart jumped in his chest as he looked at her in wonderment, until he shivered in a mix of pleasure and fear as she easily added: "We'll keep you safe, little bro. Nobody gets to hurt you... other than us, I mean."

Killer and Alexis observed it all with matching smiles before walking a few steps away from the group, almost to the edge of the flight deck, looking down at the waves. They traded a silent gaze that was worth more than a thousand words, and then sighed, knowing that it was time to move on to less pleasant matters.

The rest of the family understood it as much, and they all walked up behind them, waiting in silence while

Killer looked up at the clearing sky, the sun burning brightly high up on the horizon. The change of climate was already evident, and despite the sea breeze they were starting to feel the heat of the desert. But the liger could only think of what was going on in the colder ocean of the west, on the other side of the world. He could imagine the Judge advancing rapidly towards Lunis and he tried to figure out how Sandy and Galen could move their submarine past the many lines of escort ships surrounding the monstrous super-battleship.

"There's a difference of 8 hours between here and Lunis. It's still night in there... which means Sandy has a few more hours of darkness left to exploit. According to the calculations we put together, he should be taking position near the Judge right now... today will be decisive for the whole operation. How is the weather around Lunis?"

"It is clearing up in there as well. Within a couple hours the RA will be able to resume all helicopter flights." Siegfried announced after a quick check on his laptop, connected to the ship's information centre.

"Well, it looks like I'll have to step in, then. Storms and darkness are what Sandy needs, and he will get them." Killer immediately replied, and Siegfried swallowed a little, knowing that, no matter how unbelievable it still felt to think of his brother as God, he was going to see thick, dark clouds on the screen at the next passage of the satellite.

"I've also done what I could to enhance their submarine, but my powers have still some trouble affecting the characteristics of mechanical items. My specialty is organic life and nature... I'm still limited when it comes to technology." Killer quietly added, and Siegfried grunted in a sort of grouchy satisfaction, mumbling: "I'm grateful to hear there is still something you can't do. It's already more than scary enough as it is." He mumbled something else under his breath and went back to working on his laptop, but within a couple of seconds he froze and slowly looked up, wincing and asking: "She is behind me right now, isn't she...?"

And sure enough, a second Alexis was right behind him, arms crossed, glaring into the back of his skull hard enough that it looked like his head would be pierced from side to side... and he hurriedly whimpered a "Sorry, sorry!" before she smacked him on the top of the head with the back of her fist.

"I said sorry!" Siegfried protested, turning towards the "main" Alexis, but the goddess shrugged with a smirk and replied: "I'm not sure you truly meant it, though."

Ever since Alexis had learned how to warp the flow of time to achieve omnipresence she was regularly abusing of it to affectively making fun of "Cold", her nickname for Siegfried. He was the favorite target of her antics.

"Well, we should go. It seems that visiting Alfaya is something we definitely must do." Killer finally said, and the goddesses around him nodded but looked at him with concern. They had no idea of what they should expect from the trap that, they were sure of it, waited for Killer and Alexis. It could turn out being something puny and laughable, considering the power of the two lovers, but Thanathos was still somewhere out there, as was Sikanjal. And they had no clue about what, if anything, Cerberus could do, nor did they have any information about Vera's position and intentions. Uncertainty ruled sovereign in their minds as they all went through hundreds of possible scenarios.

"There is a trap waiting for us there, and we are going to purposefully set it off. Alexis and I will go alone. Not only will this keep you safer, but it will not generate suspects in our enemies: they are luring us in with the excuse of annihilating the NWOA, an extremely easy task. They will get worried if we show up with a heavy escort just to take on a bunch of mortal bugs." Killer explained, but Adrasthea made a bit of a grimace and countered: "I'm not sure it is wise. You said it yourself: Cerberus somehow resisted Alexis's psychic powers. This tells us that he is strong, probably extremely so... and that he is lying. He knows that we know, Killer." The goddess of strategy paused and looked straight into his eyes, silently urging him to think very carefully about it. "He probably hoped the NWOA would be enough of a bait to have you running there right away, but it wasn't so, and he had to talk to you again and again, and resist to Alexis's mind attacks, and hide the truth from you."

"He is aware that we suspect of him. And he seems to have accepted the fact and turned it into the true bait. The NWOA didn't work, so he is using himself, his own dishonesty, as bait. He wants you to get there, Killer. He knows you will go because you want to discover what he's hiding. And he seems determined to run the risk of us being present." Vesta added, while Adrasthea nodded in agreement before continuing: "He ran a huge risk today. He nearly lost it. But something... or someone... protected him and allowed him to run away just in time. If he is willing to run such a risk, he probably doesn't care whether we are present or not."

"But there's a chance he might." Alexis calmly countered, crossing her mighty arms on her chest and looking at the ocean past the edge of the flight deck. "If we spook him and he calls off the ambush, we might never find him. At least not until he feels ready to pop up with an even worse threat. Remember: we still don't know where he is hiding."

"What if the trap sets off without him ever showing up? There's no guarantee that he will want to be involved in the dirty phase of the job." Ira cautioned, before looking at Killer with concern, frowning a bit and then sighing: "You are willing to go all the way. You are willing to let them capture you."

"If necessary." Killer quietly admitted. "If it proves to be the only way for me to get to whoever is pulling the strings of this war, I might have to do just that."

"Dad is stronger than us all. Even if we escort him in, we might not be able to protect him." Mriya coldly observed, and when the other goddesses looked at her in surprise she snorted and shrugged, keeping her arms crossed and squeezing almost viciously into her own biceps as she hissed through gritted fangs: "I hate to admit it, and I hate even more the idea of not going with him, but I'm just being realistic. If they think they can take on dad, they can take on all of us. No ifs, no buts. If we walk into the trap as one big, merry group, we might just do them a goddamn huge favor."

"I need you to stay safe." Killer calmly said, after thanking Mriya with a smile and a nod for the unpleasant but key observation she had made. "If I end up in real trouble, you can only help if you are not already tied down in the same big mess as me. And I still have a big ace card to play if shit hits the fan: one Seal yet to break."

"Are you sure you can actually break it...?" Vicky asked, reaching forwards to gently grip his wrist, looking up at him with concern. "Don't take chances with your life, Killer. We are in this together, and we will follow you everywhere, and always."

"And that is what gives me strength and a reason to keep going." Killer softly replied, reaching up to cup her cheek in one hand, smiling at her with affection. "But yes, I'm sure I can shatter it. There is no doubt on that... what worries me if what might happen afterwards. I... don't know how much of my self-control depends on it anymore. I fear what might happen if the beast within me rips loose."

"I look forwards to it, instead." Sekhmeth cheerfully piped up, grinning widely, and when he gave her a flat look she smiled and winked, tilting her head to the side. "Don't worry, I remember my promises. But I like it a lot when you don't limit yourself. When you truly bend the universe to your will... and I know this..." She walked forwards, her hips swaying delightfully with her natural, supreme grace, and she easily reached up to wrap her arms around his neck, pushing muzzle to muzzle with a loving smile. "I know that there is no beast you can't defeat, no force you can't control. I feel no fear: I know that, when the time comes, you will be the beast but you will also be in full control. I'm sure of it. Because there is nothing you can't do if you decide to."

"And that's all what matters." Alexis remarked, looking at him with affection. "We won't hesitate, whatever your decision. If you'll want to devour hope and destroy all light and precipitate the universe into your shadow forever, we will cheer you on. If you decide to fill the universe with your light, we will cheer with the same happiness. Your choice will be our choice too."

All the goddesses looked at him and nodded firmly, with no hesitation, their eyes glowing with energy and love and loyalty, and Killer swallowed a bit before nodding slightly. "Thank you. For believing in me, and for always staying at my side."

"We will be on high alert here, ready to intervene as soon as you need us." Pamela promised, and the Praetorians nodded in steely, supreme determination.

"I will need you to keep an eye on the Ice Eden as well." Killer softly said, and Gaia and Kathy were the first to step forwards, followed by Diana. "And on Hell, too. I fear that someone might directly attack the Anchors while I'm busy elsewhere." Ira, Kimera and Boadicea, High Queen and princesses of Hell, nodded solemnly and their eyes glowed with power, their gazes telling him that they were going to spare no effort to keep the obelisk in Hell safe.

Riaku frowned at the mention of Anchors, but his eyes widened slightly when his mother stepped forth to offer herself as protector for the Ice Eden. He had never visited the depths of the incredible temple himself but he had heard countless stories about it and the holiness of the place was a given for all tigers. Every kingdom of the Northlands held the place sacred and all kings, from countless centuries, swore to protect it even though very few people knew where the temple was. Hidden deep under the eternal ice of the North Pole, the place was the stuff of Legends, mentioned in countless ballads and epic poems, but only the kings of Kesteven knew where to find it.

Riaku half-stepped forth, following his mother and stretching a hand towards her before hesitating, wondering how she would react to an offer of assistance, and moreover sneaking a worried look up at Killer. The massive male, however, smiled reassuringly and nodded in approval, softly saying: "Riaku, I'd like you to head to the Ice Eden, to help my father keep the place safe. The true reason for the holiness of the place is a long and complex story, better left for another time, but... you only need to know that it is very likely that the RA will attack the place sometime real soon. They haven't precisely located the temple yet, and that's the only reason why they haven't already attacked. It is only a matter of time."

"I will immediately head there, and offer my sword to your father. He, and you, can count on me." Riaku promised, and Diana smiled at him with affection and pride, gently reaching up to squeeze into his massive shoulder, guiding him closer to her side. Riaku's cheeks flushed at that, but he beamed, delighted by that warm welcome. He had lost her early on when sickness and depression had consumed her vital force, and having a second chance to spend time with his mother made him happier than he could ever hope to explain.

"Well, it is time to move out." Alexis urged, cracking her knuckles and flexing her massive musculature, and Killer nodded, closing his eyes and slowly rolling his shoulders, feeling nervous but eager to go. With a bit of luck, Cerberus and the NWOA would prove to be nothing more than they appeared and they would get rid of both in matter of seconds... but none of them expected it to be that easy. Their instincts were alert and uneasy. They knew something was wrong; they just couldn't understand what.

"Be alert, and careful." Killer recommended, before hugging his beloved Disciples, one by one, trading a few whispered words of love and reassurance.

"With a bit of luck, this is the beginning of the end of this war."