Story so far:Neith, Philia's sentient AI, joins the battle to help the Starchasers.

  Prologue 03:

  One Last Message

  "Ingrid? INGRID!" Melrondia yelled as she hurriedly kicked and bsted her way throughout the giant robot's interior. The byrinthine corridors suggested this battle walker was meant for a much rger crew than just five magical girls. Through one malfunctioning power door repeatedly opening and closing, she saw what could've served as quarters for an assault crew. Neith's entrails of wires, conduits spilled out of ruptured wall panels, showing elements that were clearly reverse-engineered from Imperial technology.

  Was Earth pnning a counterattack on the Dark Empire? They didn’t have faster-than-light technology yet. It was one thing to reverse engineer some of the empire’s technology, but despite what most of the pnet thought, most ships were not equipped with this technology. “Cosmic Gates” were mega structures used to bring in fleets wholesale, thus reducing the cost and material to build ships. Very few csses brought their own FTL drives, which made it an absolute imperative that under no circumstance could an Imperial Stelr Fortress ever be captured. Her crew high up in American skies were not just worried about their lives, they didn't want such important technology to fall into human hands and the battle against Neith alone was a harsh reminder of why the Dark Empire put a premium on self-destructive measures.

  "Dammit, Ingrid! Don't you dare die on me!" Melrondia shouted through the corridors, where was the cockpit?

  The sound of heavy breathing drew her to a right-hand corridor. There in the flickering lights she saw a shape staggering towards her.

  The silhouette was all wrong.

  "Ingrid?" Melrondia said, calmer this time.

  Ingrid, Star Lily's true identity was silent, only breathing heavily as she staggered towards Melrondia. The flickering lights made her hard to see, her voice sounding muffled. Her wobbly steps made her reach out to a nearby wall or strut to steady herself.

  Without waiting for an answer, Melrondia held out her hand, creating a sphere of light to illuminate the path ahead.

  When she unched her assault on Earth, she found the Starchasers gathered around their hometown's local theme park, Fluffynd. Ingrid, was in the middle of her job as a theme park employee, a mascot to be exact.

  The sight of a ridiculous, fluffy pink t-rex waddling towards her at top speed, it's head wobbling about, big, bulging googly eyes jiggling everywhere, the sck jaws fpping open and shut and silly long tongue lolling around was too much.

  "It’s Happy Dino!" Hallucinatory Philia said happily as Melrondia burst into ughter

  "You slippery little shit! Get off my Philia!" the fuzzy pink dinosaur said in Ingrid’s voice as it cocked a mitten-like paw back for a punch.

  "AHAHAHAHAHAH! What the hell are you thinki-ughhnk!" Melrondia's expectation of Happy Dino's plushy paws hitting her with the impact of a thrown tissue was shattered as even the Starchaser girls topside felt a mighty tremor that shook Neith's titanic body.

  Melrondia erupted from the side of the hull, virtually blowing out Neith's entire left side as the Dark Queen hurtled with so much speed the air friction literally set her on fire. The angle of her unexpected unch quickly had her hitting the ground, carving up a huge trench before bouncing off a crashed imperial corvette that acted as a ramp. A stray missile knocked off by one of her Stelr Fortress’ point-defense sers hit her head-on. The warhead was still armed and took the impact as confirmation to detonate, harshly smming Melrondia at just the perfect angle to have her skidding and flopping on the ground like a skipping stone. Her inertia kept her going and going, far, far away, tumbling and smashing into everything.

  The physical damage was already immense but Ingrid's punch was wreathed in so much [Ether]-drawn [Mana] that it decimated her own Raiment's and [Mana]-borne defenses. The pain was intense and she could feel the [Ether] rushing into her body, threatening to consume her very own lifeforce. The torque she put on was also immense, the sky and ground spinning around her so fast it was dizzying, the impact that should have been cushioned by her natural protective fields now struck at full force that it felt like she was being pummelled on all sides by a thousand fists.

  She felt like she had broken every bone in her body as she helplessly tumbled about at extreme velocity, the agony rendering her unable to bring up her arms to shield her face as collided into every rock, rubble and debris imaginable.

  A trailer truck carrying a rock band’s instruments was running along the ruined park, using it as a shortcut to escape the fighting, its container was obliterated as Melrondia smashed through it, the drums and cymbals cttering off a mocking punchline as she continued to cannonball across the ground.

  The Dark Queen smashed through a mostly-intact armored truck that was once bound for “The Booty Galleon”, Riverdale’s number one casino. Its occupants were nowhere to be seen; they had long abandoned the vehicle after it got stuck in the forest as they tried to escape the city. The truck disintegrated on impact but the slot machines it was carrying were miraculously spared despite being unched a good twenty feet into the air. They all nded on their backs, spewing newly minted coins in a geyser of prizes as Melrondia struck jackpot on all of them.

  She sailed past a billboard of North Carolina's test homerun hitter Burt "The Squirt" McWrench, whose image of him post-swing made it looked like he had batted Melrondia another good thousand feet away, and right through the hole of a giant rolling donut that had been knocked off from Granny’s Gina's Gzed Donuts (corner of 5th Avenue and Main Street), before tumbling one st time atop a stray crumpled bike, honking its horn on impact.

  Melrondia groggily got up, gritting her teeth in pain. She had expected her SEEDs to fail, she only needed them to soften up the Starchasers before she could take them out at her leisure. She was sure from Philia's own mind that once she stepped in, there should have been no problems.

  Neith’s unexpected arrival did give her a lot of trouble, especially with the Starchasers lending the AI their mana, but all things considered she still should have come out on top. Which was the case, Neith was destroyed, Star Rose, Star Tulip, and Star Juniper were now helpless and out of Mana, their familiars were most likely dead or too injured to be of any help to give them one more chance.

  So what was that power that Ingrid had hit her with?

  Her vision was still swimming. Her feet felt wobbly as she tried to stand, she needed to get up. She didn't see any dust clouds but she knew that damned pink dinosaur was going to catch up to her pretty soon if she did not get to her feet. Another wave of nausea struck her as the [Ether] that was in her system began to react with the [Mana] in her body.

  This wasn't good.

  "G-general Krodd..." Melrondia heaved "S-status report...!"

  "I'm calling off the extraction attempt, your grace!! The prisoner pick-up is compromised!"

  “What!?”

  Melrondia's unsteady eyes tried to find the huge impromptu ndmark that was Neith. She quickly held up the alien equivalent of binocurs. It was essentially a small device that stuck to the side on one's head and dispyed a projection.

  Miraculously there were five imperial dropships that managed to avoid the airforce and had nded onto Neith. The girls were either on the ground or on their knees.

  And so were the troopers they were grappling with.

  Athena was executing a ground pound on a trooper with her bare hands, her fists cracking through the helmet. Cindy had another in an armbar. With a vicious, sudden twist the trooper passed out, all that armor rendered worthless as she put tremendous torque into his joints. Star Juniper got to her feet, holding up the torn-off bloody leg of a trooper crawling away. He didn’t stand a chance as she took a few steps and began caving in his head with his own appendage.

  The rest of the shock troops were in no position to intervene.

  Cecil circled around the girls, firing away at the troopers. His slime body easily shifting around to avoid shots while he returned fire. Macy, the horse-sized nine-tailed fox and Julius, the theropod-like dragon were savaging the others, while Terry the turtle-like monster soared above, bombarding them with his arsenal of ranged attacks. Air support was out of the question, the terran air force was already dominating the skies.

  “Where’s our reinforcements!?” Melrondia demanded. “That can’t be just them!”

  She saw that sometime during the fight at least a pair of Lapnar-Css heavy dreadnoughts had arrived to help the Stelr Fortress, but the US Airforce and Army were already making mincemeat out of them, their hulls already far more battered than the Stelr Fortress.

  The swarms of fighter drones deployed by these reinforcements had no effect either. Melrondia watched in utter disbelief as more pnes like the C5 Gaxy flew in, not to ram themselves onto the ships but to literally nd on top of them, bay doors quickly opening as marines surged out to-

  "We are being boarded!" a panicked office reported.

  "General!" the ensign said "We got them! We got a transport ship with the prisoners!"

  "YES!" Melrondia yelled triumphantly. She quickly found the lone imperial transport already high up in the air, making a beeline towards the Stelr Fortress.

  “All fighters!” Melrondia called “Protect that transpor-”

  She quickly scanned back down at Neith’s body, she only saw dead imperial troops. No dead dragon, no dead slime puddle, no monster fox sprawled on the floor, no turtle with its shell bsted open. She saw one trooper weakly get up and activate his comms.

  “Th-they took our…” the trooper weakly said before succumbing to his wounds.

  The air around the transport rippled as everyone’s sensors detected a surge of energy coming from the vessel.

  "All callsigns this is Star Rose Actual. We’ve boarded their transport, watch your fire." The transport ship said.

  "Overlord copies, all aircraft, do NOT fire on the alien transport ship, USS Damocles, make some nding room for our girls."

  "Damocles copies, standby Overlord."

  Cold sweat ran down Melrondia's neck. She read it on the reports, one of the many retrofitted warships armed with reverse-engineered railguns.

  A halo of blue energy erupted from the side of the Stelr Fortress, no doubt from Damocles's own railgun as it blew yet another hole into its abused exterior.

  “Vector 2, standby while we roll the red carpet for you.”

  A squadron pnes flew ahead of the transport ship, letting loose a barrage of missile to further decimate the breached interior.

  "RAMMING SPEED!" she heard Star Tulip, Star Juniper, and Star Rose yell in chorus, punctuated by a deafening roar from Julius and a howl from Macy. The transport ship accelerating into their newly-made "nding room"

  "Scans are detecting their orbital defense ptform ODIN is about to reach effective range.” General Krodd told her. “... if we cannot get this under control in-"

  "Shut up!" Melrondia said, gripped in the siren song of defiance. “The Starchasers are on our ship! Seize them!”

  “They’re seizing our men!” General Krodd argued. ”And tearing them apart! Even if you command us to lift off right now, they will breach this command center and send this ship back here! We will not be able to muster enough reinforcements!”

  “More terran aircraft nding onto our fortress!” cried out a panicking crewman. “They’ve seized control of the upper decks!”

  “Where’s the rest of the dreadnoughts!?” Melrondia hollered. A lone Stelr Fortress was one thing, its powerful weapons and defense allowed it to hold its ground for this long. If her flying castle was already crumbling after an hour, then a pair of Lapnar dreadnoughts would not-

  "What's with the cross-talk from Moscow?" Star Rose asked.

  "Star Rose Actual, those Dark Empire aliens sent eight dreadnoughts and it tripped their Ekatarina-7 orbital missiles disguised as space flotsam, those two dreadnoughts are the only ones that survived. Moscow’s sending us the bill ter." Overlord replied.

  "So much for winning the second space race." Star Rose sighed.

  “Damn that Melrondia, not only is she the first American export to the Dark Empire, now she just made Russian exports more valuable!” Julius roared. “It’s people like her that’s ruining this country!”

  "See, I told you that moon base defence idea was garbage!" Macy growled.

  "Oh shut it, ODIN's coming up soon... I think?" Star Juniper added.

  "Great, now we'll owe Germany too!" Star Rose compined.

  "You shop at Aldi!" Julius growled.

  "WHOA! WHOA! No doxxing what we do on the line! We're brand-neutral here!" Terry croaked.

  Melrondia didn't have time to express her frustration. A huge shadow fell over her. Looking up, she saw Neith leaping impossibly high, no it was wrong, her legs were fpping about, and was upside-down, that could only mean...

  She quickly leapt back as for a second time that day, Neith struck the earth and created a huge cloud of dust and debris everywhere. Unlike st time however, Neith's descent suddenly accelerated so fast that her back dash wasn't able to get her out in time.

  ___

  Pain.

  Pain everywhere.

  “All ground units, this is Praetor Xarax, be advised, there are huge mobs of terran civilians hunting down everyone! Everyone rendezvous to-” A gruff voice said on the imperial comms.

  “Sharphooters!” yelled another voice in warning “Praetor get-”

  Melrondia coughed, it was dark, but she was sure she had sprayed out some blood.

  "They got Atson... they got Atson!" a crying imperial trooper's voice crackled through the comms, cutting through the static and chaos. A pained bellow cut through as the crowd raised a ragged cheer. The tell-tale sound of a chainsaw only too familiar.

  “Why won’t they go down!?” squealed a voice strained with horror.

  “Aim for the head! Shooting them in the limbs does nothing!” coughed a wounded voice.

  "Spare the bullets, son!" said a gravelly terran voice. "They ain't people enough considering wut they did to our pce."

  The soldier whose comms it belonged to could only snuffle and cough, groaning occasionally.

  "Awright, pops!" said a young voice. "Batter up!"

  "That's a golf club, ya idiot!" yelled another voice, punctuated with a sickening crunch.

  Melrondia coughed, her shields were still holding but the pain was overwhelming, she needed to get out or Neith's weight would kill her for sure. With a scream of pure rage and frustration she let out her aura, wild and uncontrolled, creating space for her to stand again and see the sky as she literally blew off huge chunks of Neith's body using her [Mana] alone.

  "Neith said..." Ingrid's voice still sounded slightly muffled, no doubt still wearing the silly pink dinosaur costume, "...that if she died here or was rendered immobile, to use her to squish you like a bug."

  Well that answers everything, Melrondia thought. Neith didn’t jump and dive kick her. Ingrid tossed the colossal spider robot high into the air then kicked it down to her.

  As the ash and debris cleared, Melrondia saw Ingrid in her Happy Dino costume standing about a hundred feet away. Melrondia was beset with a mix of bewilderment and anger, she was looking at Ingrid, not Star Lily, why was she strong?

  There was no time to guess, she quickly let out a full-auto barrage of ser fire at the figure of Happy Dino in front of her, the ground churned up, more parts of Neith were further destroyed, but the silly pink dinosaur mascot stood unflinching, its head down as if wondering why she bothering to shoot it down.

  "No! Impossible!" Melrondia shouted, firing more and more of her shots, pouring more of her [Mana] so that each shot hit harder, the heat was immense, she could feel the ground around her turning into gss, the air around her crackling with energy.

  Happy Dino just stood there, standing amidst the backdrop of Neith's ruined, burning body like a monster from a "creepy mascot"-themed analog horror. High-tech sers reinforced with magic doing nothing to it, not even the most minuscule of scorch marks.

  Melrondia paused, breathing heavily. The creepy mascot continued to stare her down.

  "You will die if you keep this up, Ingrid!!" Melrondia yelled, her guns glowing as she channeled even more of her prodigious [Mana] into her guns to further charge up the next barrage of shots.

  Happy Dino remained unharmed, not even a scorch mark on its silly plushy pink exterior. Maybe Ingrid had passed out? She wasn't sure, she let off another barrage of fire but nothing was working, she kept firing until she felt her guns begin to overheat, her arms burning with fatigue, and even her own Raiment struggling just to muffle the sounds of her shots and the bright gre each shot produced.

  "Enough!!!" Melrondia yelled, her arms shaking, but she still held her pistols which were starting to feel heavy "I don't want to kill you!"

  "Are you saying that as Melrondia, or as Philia?" the creepy mascot asked.

  "No please! Die already!" Hallucinatory Philia cried cheerfully, waving at an Ingrid that couldn't see her.

  "Shut up! You're not real!!!" Melrondia grimaced after that outburst, she was starting to lose it. She had ALWAYS been seeing Philia. She had always been hearing her as if she was standing right there next to her. She never wanted to admit this to anyone, not with anyone at the Dark Empire as it would erode her image as the Dark Queen. She didn't want to admit it to the Starchasers, lest they be filled with delusions they could "save" her.

  "I see how it is...." Ingrid chuckled. Happy Dino remained an ominous statue, and the way Ingrid's voice felt muffled and distorted was slightly beginning to unnerve her.

  "... so she was always in there all this time..." Ingrid said breathily.

  "No! Never was! Never will be!" In rage she fired again and again.

  The barrage of ser fire from Melrondia's guns were now at their thickest, a storm of golden death rays where the even the impact on Happy Dino's body created a shockwave that rattled the titanic remains of Neith that ringed the two. The ground underneath the path of the sers was beginning to scorch, bubbling and hissing as the heat grew intense. The air around Melrondia was charged with the smell of ozone. Many of the upper panels of Neith's ruined body colpsed from the tremors that tore through the air as each shot was fired, until eventually it created a cascade of twisted metal raining all around them.

  Melrondia's shields protected her from breathing in the thick cloud of dust. She was sure that Ingrid at this point might try to sucker punch her, yet her guns had overheated, pulling the trigger now only meant they would blow her hands off. She threw them away, and just wailed away angrily on the utterly still Happy Dino with her bare fists.

  She struck with enough force to violently clear away the dust around her. More and more debris from Neith's ruined body shook and fell as Melrondoa rained blows on an unaffected creepy mascot.

  "You know as I'm standing here, I realize that you and Ingrid over there really share the same brain cell." Hallucinatory Philia said with a grin.

  "Shut up! Shut up!" Melrondia turned around and shed away at her hallucination. With a gasp of surprise, she attempted to cover up her pse of sanity by attacking Happy Dino with a backhand.

  It was a bad idea.

  She was too caught up in the moment that she was neglecting the fact that every time she was wailing away on Ingrid the mana on her fists kept growing thinner and thinner.

  The backhand she tried on Happy Dino failed spectacurly, it felt like she had tried to backhand a brick wall, but as an ordinary human. She cried out in pain. It was then she saw the network of slightly translucent blue hexagons. It was what prevented a single indentation on the otherwise soft and fluffy mascot body.

  "What's going on...?" Melrondia gasped, backing away as she held her injured knuckles.

  Happy Dino took a deep breath.

  "Criteria met, beginning pyback." Neith's distorted voice spoke through the ruined robot's speakers.

  “TLDR: Ingrid, kill me please! You can't bring me back!"

  Despite her quick but grim intro, the recording of Philia’s voice gave away a tone that was genuinely cheery and not in any way distressed, she spoke the words casually as if she had said something more inane like "Could you pass the ketchup?"

  "Long Answer: Okay, now some housekeeping." Philia resumed, still cheerful sounding but no longer hurried. "After Melrondia snatched Neith from Earth, I rigged my lovely daughter to py this recorded message. There's one for each Starchaser and they're personalized, well mostly. This pys only when certain criteria are met. Among these is that no one else is around to snoop in on this conversation, another is that you've cracked Melrondia hard, both physically and mentally. As you've seen, she's let it slip that she's been suffering from Dissociative Personality Disorder. She's not just hearing auditory hallucinations of me brought up from her subconscious; my subconscious by the way, but she's also seeing and feeling it."

  "Lies! Lies!" Melrondia yelled in denial only to jump in shock as Philia parroted not only her words but even her tone at the exact moment. The recording of Philia ughed.

  "Anyway..." Philia continued "Kill Melrondia, do not under any circumstances knock her out and try to bring me back. How do I expin this? I don't want to come back, nor should I go back. I think I might have lost my humanity, Ingrid, but not in the way you're thinking."

  Philia sighed, her tone devoid of distress, it was the sound one would make when trying to expin a complicated concept in simpler words "When I killed my first alien, it was surreal—like taking out an enemy in a video game, but with the stark realization that it was happening in real life. I ended the life of someone who can reason, has friends, has a family back at home waiting for him, yet I feel no remorse, nothing."

  Philia took a deep breath, trying to corral more of her thoughts into words.

  "At first, I attributed this apathy towards alien life because they're the 'enemy' and I'm fighting to defend my people, my country, my pnet, my species. But the longer I've been here with the Dark Empire, killing aliens while my Melrondia personality y dormant, I can confirm this is not so."

  "No!" Melrondia excimed, filled with disbelief "You've never taken over me! Not once! NEVER!"

  "Quiet. Melly." Philia's recording said "See what I did there Ingrid? I know my corrupted self so well I can predict her."

  "Huh..." Ingrid said, "Neat..."

  Melrondia put a hand on her chest and calmed her breathing. This can't be true! I've killed no one but those who stood in my way to ascension in the Dark Empire!

  Philia continued "This is a stark contrast to our past wars, where the brutality and cruelty of human-on-human violence was tempered under philosophies like Machiavellianism, Utilitarianism, Pragmatism—this 'greater good' rationale. With these aliens however, there's a peculiar middle ground. It feels like swatting a bug, only a hundred times more detached."

  She took another pause, collecting her thoughts before speaking candidly.

  "I'd like to think I'm carrying out my Jack-The-Ripper role here as a continuation of my duty as a Starchaser: protecting Earth by systematically dismantling the Dark Empire’s command structure and sabotaging them from within. The reality, however, is that I'm enjoying this all too much. It's a strange disconnect. Like my entire moral compass had just gone offline ever since I’ve left Earth. Even Earth's serial killers recognize the value of life when they take it. Actually, they commit their crimes exactly because they acknowledge this value.”

  “You’re a savage!” Melrondia snarled “Moral compass going offline? You don’t just shut it off!”

  “It’s really hard to expin, Melrondia. But that’s exactly what I feel… or rather don’t feel when it comes to the Dark Empire’s ummm…denizens.” Philia cirvoyantly quipped. “I’m not trying to be malicious about it. There's no grand satisfaction for my pnet when an influential target is removed, no sense of achievement when a scientist's life is snuffed out, stalling their empire's progress. No little voice in my head telling me I shouldn’t have flooded an entire stadium of civilians with nerve gas just to ensure that the Ulixian Red Cws win the gactic bowl by default. It's just...like the simple pleasure of popping bubble wrap. Fun, brainless, pointless. I’ve indulged my intrusive thoughts here not out of duty but simply because I feel no emotional attachment to these aliens."

  "You…MONSTER! What about Tisaara, dammit!?" Melrondia screamed, a tear streaked down that cheek. “She did nothing to you! To us! She was your… our comfort through all that pain! She wasn’t part of a scheme to mess with our minds! You… you killed her! Mounted her remains so she looks like a… a…”

  “A Crab Sad.” Philia said, “It’s a really nasty slur against aenorisans. Ingrid. Oh, speaking of Tisaara, you know who she was? She's like the good captor while they were trying to turn me into Melrondia. I got the VIP treatment there, daily tortures, daily brainwashing sessions, and in between that I got a gig as a stress-relief punching bag. Look, if it exists in the 'extreme' section of the dark web, been there done that. Now, you'd think that maybe this fuels my actions here, why not? It didn't though. I knew that in the end they wanted to know how to use [Ether] which means they can't afford to kill me, and it's not like you can just dissect it out of someone otherwise they would've learned it a long time ago well before they got to Earth."

  Melrondia was about to burst out into another outrage when-

  "Dog, arch!" Hallucinatory Philia said. Subconsciously Melrondia stood straight up at the command, only to double over and retch in pain. It hurt! This damned hallucination punched her in the gut and it hurt!

  Hallucinatory Philia patted her head , "Good dog!"

  "Damn you..." Melrondia managed to choke out between gasps.

  Ingrid, perplexed by Melrondia's sudden agony, inquired, "What's happening to her? I didn't do anything!"

  "Melrondia's hallucination of me exploited a conditioned response. I developed it during my part-time job as a punching bag." Philia's voice quipped, "Well before they impnted the Melrondia personality into me, I was already brainwashing myself, I figured that the only way they were going to learn about [Ether] was to brainwash me into becoming one of them. In the end, all their sessions did was make things easier for me to hide my personality deep inside Melrondia's subconscious."

  "Ugh, I'm guessing you've at least killed those bastards." Ingrid said, the pink Happy Dino head tilted slightly.

  "I'm guessing you're wondering if I took revenge on everyone who tortured and abused me and the answer is no. The whole thing never registered on an emotional level to me. The same way I don’t get angry over an exercise bike for making my legs burn for a few hours, or someone shoving me in soccer. It’s just all part of the game…and the goal of this game was to dig a cozy hidey-hole in Melrondia’s mind for me to inhabit. Also, I'm the one holding all the cards here. If they went too far with the abuse, then I'm off to my eternal vacation and they've killed the goose that ys the golden eggs. Furthermore, my current situation got me interested in the limits of my own mortality, and if I somehow did escape? Then I'd just emerge tougher and stronger."

  "Well that expins a lot..." Ingrid yelled in exasperation. "Thanks Philia, you've made Melrondia the toughest nut to crack so far!"

  "You lose some, you win some, Ingrid. Just doing my due diligence by keeping myself tough and fit in case I DO escape!" Philia ughed, once again her prescience allowing her to reply to answers far in the future. "That said, I'm happy to report that once they got the Melrondia personality 'operational', so to speak, they did have a lot of fun hazing her to make sure she was a loyal thrall to the emperor. The emotional burden there was solely hers." Philia paused briefly with a malicious chuckle.

  Ingrid too, chuckled as well "You're giving me mixed feelings on whether or not I wanna see recordings of that."

  "I have mixed feelings too regarding this matter, Ingrid." Philia replied prophetically "Given everything I have told you so far. I like it here. I want to stay in the Dark Empire and keep pying Hannibal Lecter. Melrondia's status and power will indefinitely deflect any and all suspicions as time passes. I'm sure I can keep this going until she finally croaks.”

  “You won’t!” The Dark Queen argued. “I will dig you out, and exonerate myself!”

  “You’ll like what I have to say next then, Melly.” Philia replied. “Ingrid… I do miss you and the gang and I do know that Melrondia has her own masters to serve, her own ambitions to follow. This is where I must draw the line. It's been fun, but sooner or ter, Melrondia will gain approval to steer her own flying castle over to Earth and try to take you girls in. Could be tomorrow, could be another year from now. Right now, my crimes, Melrondia's crimes, are being broadcast all over the empire. Even if she succeeds, she will either spend the rest of her life living a fate worse than death, or be executed. Her status right now is actually contentious, so not even the greatest space wyers can cover her. Sorry Melrondia, I still have a pnet to defend after all."

  The tense silence, which sted only a few seconds, felt like an eternity. All color was drained from Melrondia's face at the revetion.

  "Do us a favor, Ingrid. Save us both. Melrondia and Me. I can't trust myself anymore to not be a psychopath here on Earth, I don't want Melrondia taking you girls to experience any of this, and Melrondia, well, all things considered, she's an earnest, hard-working girl. After everything I've said about how I felt towards alien lives, I thought that I'd feel even less towards a brainwashed thrall trying to invade my world, to harm my friends. If things were any different, I'd be happy to coexist with her. So please Ingrid, save her. Don't let the Dark Empire take her alive."

  Melrondia's knees buckled under the weight of Philia's words. Her vision swam, the world around her seemingly colpsing as the Happy Dino mascot's eyes seemed to peer into her soul.

  "Oh and if you try that extremely stupid Life Force shit..." Philia added, her voice now getting angry "I will PERSONALLY follow your dead soul to wherever you go and beat the shit out of you!"

  "Message ended." Neith said.

  "Too te..." Ingrid said, Melrondia could feel the smile behind the Happy Dino costume.

  Next Chapter:

  https:///read/1147707-starchaser-another-/chapter/1170446/