Upon Vestia: Chapter Thirty-Two

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James went into Armin's room. "Hey man, watcha working on?" he asked, seeing that Armin was sewing.

James smiled a little at that. "Good for the robots. I'm not surprised they managed to stay free. Yeah, if we can get messages, I'm sure we can send them too."

Esk nodded and handed the tablet back. "I'll see you in the bit." Time to go deal with a meeting, eugh. He should go find that random guy who was supposed to answer questions then, that dude was gonna have a lot of questions fired at him huh?

James nodded to Esk, and started looking at the tablet. Then realized he should be checking on his patients, actually. Oops. He'd go do his rounds, partly because he was sensible and partly because he wasn't sure what he was supposed to say to his siblings after ten years. 'Uh, hi guys, I'm back' didn't really seem like it was going to cut it here.

"A large target?" Starr asked, looking back to him again. "Are my people still having to fight for freedom or is it simply this rift you fear endangers us?"

"The things that are on the other side of that rift? you do not wish to catch their attention. If you travelled through their realm, you already have. Getting as far from them as possible is probably in your best interests, before they take it upon themselves to try to reclaim your ship and those on board. I do not pretend to understand what pulled you out again, but ships that have gone in there after you, they do not return. You do not want to remain here." Jarral explained.

Matt frowned.

Esk turned up. "Meeting. Come on."

Matt looked to Esk, then back at Jarral. "Hey Esk, guess who this is?"

Esk rolled his eyes. "I'm in no mood to play games Matt. Can we get this over with? The crew needs to know what's happened, i'm sure they've got a load of questions."

"Web's kid!" Matt blurted.

Jarral looked exasperated. "If I had known I would be such a novelty I would have come better prepared."

Esk hesitated, then stared at Jarral. "He's too old."

"Right?" Matt grinned. "which means, HE fucked up first!" HAH! small victories.

"are you done?" Jarral asked.

Matt ducked his head. "sorry... sorry... just... nevermind." He gestured to Jarral. "Jarral, Esk."

"I am well aware of who you all are." Jarral pointed out, he looked to Esk. "your sister speaks fondly of you, which I always found strange as she herself admitted she barely knew you."

"yeah, we met like.. twice." Esk shook his head.

"you must have made quite the impression." Jarral mused.

Esk snorted at that, then looked to Starr. "Do you need help?" She looked tired, but everyone was tired weren't they? "have you managed to contact your children?" Ahh ever pragmatic right?

"The kids are alive and well." Starr replied then shook her head "It is so strange to think so much time has passed, but they are older." She said before standing again. She had to put a hand to the wall to stay up but she could still walk under her own power if she had to. "I am not so certain we were physically in there, if we were then it is a place where time is sped up too fast to be felt. None of us aged after all."

Tala had been listening quietly, resting against a wall. She stood properly at the news of the meeting, although she was probably nearing the end of her energy now.

Ethan would go to help Starr again if she needed it.

~~
Vestia would start summoning everyone who could go to the meeting.

Ellie would decide to go too, although she was still feeling... really not good.

James and the other medics would have to decide if it was safe for all of them to go or not.

Starr smiled at Ethan, taking his arm again "Maybe we should have a video conference between the conference room and those awake but unable to leave the medic lab yet. You and I should probably go get checked over anyway." She added to Ethan.

Kay looked over the patients. Someone should stay, the patients were stable but it was wise to have one medic remain.

they'd have to discuss who.

---

Armin changed route to go the meeting, Starr would be there.

---

Hewitt slept.

Amity was still MIA but nobody appeared to have yet noticed.

---

Mourn was in NO state to go to any damn meetings despite being concious. He'd been shot in the damn chest. So nope, he was staying here, Kay was very clear on that.

Silence onthe other hand COULD walk and so, her wing dressed as well as it could be, she ambled toward the meeting. She wanted to find her brother anyway.

---

Matt struggled with his crutches, he was about ready to just collapse to be honest.

Esk walked with him, slowly, though made absolutely no move to help him. Even though in long sleeves and gloves he COULD.

Jarral trailed after them, letting them lead the way.

---

Luka checked on Rigel, if he was in any state to go she'd go with him.

--

Swarm was one of the first at the meeting room.

---

Ivor went along too, looking anxious as all hell.

Rigel was well enough to walk, he went with Luka to rejoin the others in this meeting. The Devil would need a lot of work now.

Tori would volunteer to stay with the patients.

James headed off to the meeting.

Vestia would set up video streaming to the med bay so they could hear the meeting unless anyone objected.

~~
"I'm fine," Ethan said with a shrug. "Not like I'll bleed out or anything."

They'd all head up to the meeting room and gather there, although a lot of people looked like they'd rather be asleep right now.

Starr nodded "Still it's better to be healed then hurt, right?" She said though she released him and went to Armin when she saw him "Armin, Luna, I am glad you are well." She said happily.

Luna woke up and chirped, bobbing her head at Starr and standing beside Armin's head since she couldn't get down by herself yet.

Shane and the others came tot he meeting, taking seats where they could, even if they had to sit on the floor.

Kay tiredly went along to see what all this was about. He trusted Tori.

---

Quite a lot of people slumped into seats and stayed there. Eugh, exhausted.

Armin waited for Starr, petting Luna's head softly.
He was very relieved to see his friends were safe. Tired, but safe.
He bowed his head when Starr showed up. "My friend, I am relieved to see you well." He reached out to her, looking like he wanted to hug her, then thought better of it. Maybe that wasn't appropriate.


Matt collapsed into a chair, he was sort of struggling to stay awake.

Ivor spotted Silence and rushed over to her, wrapping his arms around her neck.
She winced a little but carefully hugged him back.
Yes yes, she was fine, he could stop fretting now.

Starr didn't care about appropriate or not, she reached to hug him as well as she could before helping Luna down to cuddle her close. "Thank you for keeping her safe with you. I am glad you didn't have to fight." She said honestly.

Ellie would cuddle up next to Shane wherever he sat, looking miserable and worn out. She didn't know what this meeting was about, and frankly she doubted she was going to care.

Ethan wandered off to some far corner to stay out of the way in case anyone freaked out.

Tala sighed heavily. "So, who is going to do the explaining?" She could do it she supposed, but she was kind of tired and didn't feel like answering the inevitable questions. If anyone else wanted to volunteer, she was all for it.

"I guess I can if nobody wants to," Vestia said, a little reluctantly.

Armin was grateful for her touch, closing all six eyes for a moment as he embraced her gently. He bowed his head. "It was an honour to have such responsibility." that of everyone Starr chose HIM to look after her most precious heir meant a great deal.
"I am relieved to know that you are alright." She looked tired though, drained. He helped her to a seat.

---

"He was sent to answer questions." Esk pointed out, indicating Jarral who was doing a pretty damn good job of literally blending into the shadows.

Shane hugged Ellie as they sat for the meeting. He listened but wasn't too concerned.

Starr glanced around then went to sit, cuddling Luna close as she explained what little they knew. "Apparently we have traveled 10 years into our future and there is a rift into a demonic environment. We have spoken of reconnecting with the kids and Nova and Asher." She said quietly.

Well, Vestia was glad Starr was willing to take the initiative here. She hadn't been looking forward to explaining it all herself.

The androids who hadn't gone to the meeting looked uncertain at the news that ten years had passed, slowly realizing the implications of that. History had gone by without them, there was a rift in the universe? That was... really not something they'd expected.

Ellie shook off some of her stupor at the news. "But... it wasn't that long... was it?" Oh, it had been a long day, parts of it had felt like they'd stretched for decades, but she knew that was an illusion. Not reality.

"All the news we get through the wifi supports this, it's 2800." Esk confirmed.

Kay tensed, eyes widening. Ten years? Where was Asher?

A rift? demons? Swarm asked, buzzing with questions.

Matt lowered his head, part of him wanted to go scream into an empty room or something. He still couldn't process all this.

Armin looked to Starr. "ten years? You have been in contact with the children? they are safe yes?"

"It wasn't long for us, but outside of this ship, time went by." Starr said with a shrug "The others are safe and on Unity, waiting for us." Or most were, the reunion had been more chaotic than informative. "They are older now."

Ellie slumped against Shane, looking miserable. "But that means they're ten years old now," she said. "And... my parents are ten years older." That couldn't be right, she didn't want it to be right.
She wiped her eyes hastily, not wanting to cry in front of everyone.

James looked grim. "We have to go see them somehow. I was going to write a message, I'm not sure what to say but... we need to see them as soon as we can."

"vestia has to heal enough to travel before we can go anywhere." Starr said then yawned, covering her mouth. "This is a unique situation, not the first for us, and we will figure it out. Jerral is here to answer any questions we may have about the situation."

Kay looked grim and thoughtful [How soon can we get Vestia up and running again?] She'd taken a lot of damage hadn't she? They might be stuck here a while.

Danika was 10... he'd missed a great deal of her childhood. That hurt. And Asher, where was he? What did he think? Had he found Danika? Did he think they were all dead?
He chewed his lip anxiously.

Matt curled up a little on himself, looking positively miserable and helpless.

"We have Wifi, we can figure out a chat link right?" Esk suggested.

Luka held onto Rigel, tears threatening. 10 years, her family definitely thought she was dead now.
Oh no.
"What... what do we know so far? Where are we? Who are these people? What is this... rift?"

---

"It's going to take a while to get my hull patched up, if they have enough metal to do it here," Vestia said. "I can travel once my hull is fixed. If the star dragons can seal it temporarily somehow, it's possible we could travel sooner."

"Yeah, we can probably chat with them. But what the hell are we going to say?" James asked weakly, replying to Esk.

Vestia would bring up an image of the rift on the video screen helpfully at Luka's question. "We're in the same location where we disappeared, apparently the keeper's death caused some sort of interdimensional anomaly. Jarral can probably explain it all better than I can, but apparently a lot of empires are at war with the beings who live on the other side of the rift."

"I will try to talk to the others again after I have rested up once more." Starr said softly.

Shane shook his head but was glad he had no one close out there but still, ten years was a long time.

"What are they?" Luka demanded.

"Demons." Jarral explained simply. He looked slightly uneasy about the attention, the shadows around him gathering a little darker, a little more thickly.

"There's no such thing as demons." Luka pointed out.

"tell them that." Jarral suggested. "We do not know what they call themselves, only what the united worlds have decided to call them. They are beings of pure chaos and malevolance, they seem to exist purely to hurt, maim and control. "

"Can you elaborate on that?" Esk asked.

"They can adopt the shape of others, worse they can weasel their way into the minds of people, allowing them to overwhelm that individual's will. They lie, they manipulate and they kill indiscriminantly. They seem to have no loyalty to any but themselves, making them an extraordinarily difficult to predict enemy. When the rift began to spread they flooded out, consumed worlds, the united worlds came together to drive them back." Jarral explained.

"And they've succeeded?" Luka asked.

"That we do not know for sure.  Few of them get very far without help, they are weak to iron which is... somewhat useful. But we have no real way of knowing how many have possessed the minds of others and are using them to do their bidding. We have cornered the majority here, slowed their spread, plugged the hole so to speak, but it will not hold forever. Right now the anti magic generators are the only thing keeping those things at bay, and once those fail, the demons will redouble their efforts to consume this realm. "

Luka shuddered.

Matt frowned.

"That's terrifying," James said. "Let's uh, get away from here as fast as possible then. I don't want another war right now." No, he just wanted to go find his siblings and go live under a rock with them for ever and ever, thanks.

Ethan shivered at the thought of beings that could shapeshift and possess people. Well, that was horrible to imagine. "Guess we'd better start investing in iron then," he said grimly. "Stupid other universes."

Tala's ears were perked forward alertly, but she looked like she was drowsing off on her hooves despite her best efforts.