Iris's Discovery - Part 9

Chapter 9

Marcus:

I wander the garden seeing what Mina has done and I smile at its wildness and beauty, I can feel that the life here is now well beyond what I need to jump from here, and also very strong and unique, I should be able to see it from very far away, even between the layers. I am torn between leaving right away, and finishing exploring this system, but I also need to make sure Iris is alright, I feel responsible for her scary nature, I unleashed that in her, or at least helped her unleash it, yet from what I can understand of the situation I was destined to do this? No, but it was likely I would I suppose. I hear the distant crack as the door disintegrates and I feel Iris' presence again, powerful yet sleeping, I feel shivers run along my spine, my emotions about her are really mixed, she is exciting, beautiful in more ways than one, terrifying, and yet I feel almost like a moth being drawn to her flame, she is irresitable and despite how scary she is, I do not want to leave her, even if part of me is screaming to run away, hide.

"Iris" I say and Mina finishes my thought "is coming."

Tricky Ricky who is reaching up to pick exactly the plum that Mina wanted finishes doing so "I am sure she will not do that to us, we did not try to control her after all, we were used as pawns."

Mina giggles a bit nervously "I know there is no point in running anyway, you saw what she did with the Norns, she wanted them and they came, even if we ran as fast as we could she could get us."

Dave walks up to us with Iris and she says "I am not going to hurt you, I am sorry for not having been myself, and being really scary... I had reasons, but I do not want any of you to fear me."

"I accept your apology, though none was needed, and I am sorry that I may have caused this turmoil in your life, it was not my intent." I then feel Iris in AR sharing her work with me and I look at the ship, I only do one alteration to it "we might as well oversize the capacitors and power generators, especially the ones for the faster than light, and we need this if you want me to be able to grab the ships and move them. Also we should check on those crystals before we build the ships, they might be useful for something, I have a feeling..." I add my changes to a separate blueprint for her to review. I review her plans for herself and Dave and the altered chrysalis spell "that is a beautiful modification you are planning for yourself and Dave, I do not have enough power to create the chrysalis the way you suggest though, but you can do that yourself now, I hope you will teach me more about magic as we travel together. Also can you help make that modified chrysalis for me too? I think I might steal some of your alterations for myself." I pick from the ones she made and show her my own plans, I add only a few things she did not already have, and remove several she wants for herself that I don't know if I want or understand, but what she wants is truly a work of genetic and magical art.

"We also need to visit the core of this asteroid, someone is waiting there for us, for judgement" Iris says and raises her eyebrow "it... is a powerful being, I glimpsed its mind. We should wait with the ships and chrysalis till then... we might learn something more, and yes I felt those crystals too, I feel they can probably be useful for better lenses, capacitors and I might be able to merge them with the stone magically, they are somewhat weakly related to each other, and I think the combination will be powerful. Also there might be magical applications of those crystals as well."

Mina and Tricky Ricky look at each other then at Iris and Mina says "I also accept your unneeded apology, if you were... forced to be controlled by them, what you did is very understandable, and they should have known better. Please though believe me, I and Tricky Ricky were just pawns, we had nothing consciously to do with that."

Hank and Sarah who had been standing there listening, under a cherry blossom tree kiss each other and then Sarah speaks "even if you were to kill us right now, you gave me and Hank a month of happiness, and I will forever cherish every moment of time you have given me and Hank."

"Will all of you come with me right now to visit the entity at the core? I do not want to judge it alone, it feels fair that we do so together as we are all the ones alive her now. Dave do you want to come too?" Iris asks.

Dave considers "I think I will leave judging up to you who are alive for real, but I can come there to keep you company, and if you really want I can give input in that process, but I will not cast any votes, it is against my programming."

The others all get ready to move with us to the core of the asteroid and I guide them "alright this way." this asteroid is very large, and the core is deep, so there is a big drone carried pod for us to ride down the tunnels with, they are not straight at all, but rather followed the network of least resistant stone deeper into the core, we exit the pod next to the as far as sensors can tell a little over an inch thick stone wall that remains before the chamber to the core is breached.

Iris slips out of Dave's embrace and up to the wall of stone and her eyes flare violet and I sense her magic flow into the stone and reshape it, forming an iris shaped door that slides open and she steps into the chamber.

In the middle of the chamber is a huge hollow crystal sphere, inside it a sparkling, glittering with particles, colourful, translucent and glowing fluid, with tendrils undulating on its surface. In front of the sphere and attached to machinery is a panel with two large buttons, on them symbols, one of them shows the sphere opening and the content being released from it. The other shows the content being destroyed, it is very clear symbolism. At least to me. The fluid swirls and reacts to our presence and inside it forms thousands of eyes, in all the colours of the rainbow, many types of eyes, from all creatures I have ever seen and even more from creatures I can't even imagine or at least have never seen. Mouths form again in many forms.

"Welcome" I hear and feel as a thought from the creature "I am awaiting your judgement, if you want to just give it to me right away from just seeing me, I will explain your three options, you can leave me here to wait for another, you may destroy me" a tendril points to the button to destroy the content of the sphere "or release me" another tendril points at the other button. "I would prefer you first know why I am in need of judgement, so if you will give me the time to explain, I will."

Iris walks up to the crystal sphere and gazes into the eye most similar to her own eyes. "I think I know what you want us to judge you for, but please explain it to the rest of them."

"In the shortest possible way, I rampaged across the galaxy, consuming all life, all worlds, all suns, and not even the black holes were safe from me as I ripped those apart and consumed them. I may have had reasons, but they do not excuse my actions. I felt guilty about what I had done, and to the best of my ability I recreated a galaxy like the one I consumed, only I tried my best to make each world capable of supporting some form of life, I made sure the stars I made would last long, and that there would be materials for any life that may form to explore the stars with. This also does not excuse what I did, oh and I also seeded myself in each star system, like this. I will explain more if you wonder something, otherwise I await your judgement." The creature explains.

Iris smiles "so let me see if I understand you correctly, you destroyed all the things in the old galaxy, all life there, and all the worlds and stars and everything, consuming them?"

"Yes" the creature answers.

Iris giggles "and then you made the worlds we all evolved on, and the galaxy we all thrived in, making it possible for us to exist in the first place. Now I may be selfish, but I do not care about those other life forms, I would not give up my existence so they may still exist, I am happy to be alive, so I at least thank you for what you did, even if a tiny part of me feels sorry for the life that was, that you consumed, I am much more happy that you created the conditions needed for me to form. I am not sure what the others think though."

Sarah and Hank hug and look at Iris and as she explains her point of view they look less scared and then smile and nod, but they are clearly uncomfortable with the way the creature looks.

I felt stunned at the magnitude of the actions of this creature, and then Iris brings up a very valid point, without this creature I would not have been born, even if my mother would still have existed, as she comes from another plane, my father would not have existed and thus I could not have existed, had it not been for this creature and its actions. "I agree, but I do have one question and stipulation before I consider releasing you a good thing. Will you promise to not consume the galaxy again if we let you out? If you can agree to a magical promise, a geas, for that, I think you should be let out."

"I have no intention to consume the galaxy again, what I did was wrong, and I regret that, and I have stayed here waiting for judgement despite being quite able to escape if I want to, also you should know, that not all of me is trapped like this, I am travelling to the distant galaxies, and resting in the void between galaxies, watching, so even if you feel like destroying me here, know that although it will hurt me greatly, physically and more so emotionally, it can not destroy me, so if you feel I deserve to be punished you can do so with a clear conscience, you will not wipe out my species or even me as an individual, I will exist. I will also agree to such a geas if you want that, I do not know if it will work on me though." the creature says.

Mina walks up to and caresses the sphere "you taste like... something primordial, something not from this space, yet I feel that you touched all we are once, once we were part of you, what made you do what you did? I want to understand the reason."

"Hunger, and pain, so much pain, most of us were destroyed by a civilization using a quantum cascade bolt that consumed our body and made it into heavy and exotic elements, they had used it on other civilizations and then mined the destroyed worlds from orbit, they did this after I consumed their explorers that were exploring my surface, taking samples of me." The creature answers "in a way what they did to me was understandable, I ate their people, what they did to the other civilizations were not always excusable, but what I did was worse, I have all their memories inside me, the ones I consumed, once my rage subsided I understood the magnitude of the evil I had done, they lived happily on their various worlds, and I came, bringing swift horrifying death to all of them. I can not excuse what I did..."

"I understand you, and like Iris I am happy that I exist, and I would not prevent you from doing what you did, since I want to exist, if you promise to not do it again I am happy to let you go." Mina says and smiles "I am curious if I could bathe in you and what you might feel like, you are really beautiful, in a terrifying kind of way."

Tricky Ricky looks at Iris, Mina and then to me and finally at the creature "where are you from, since you are not from our space, do you remember that place?"

"I was a tiny creature once, in a space as fluid or more so than myself, I fell through a crack, I tried to swim back, but I failed, and then I forgot about it since there were tasty things to eat, and I am always hungry, so I ate all things where I arrived, and soon the world became me or I became the world, it was not a place where creatures like you exist, creatures with hopes and dreams, they were much like myself governed by hunger primarily, but unlike me they also felt the need to become many, I was one big creature, growing bigger, until I was the world itself, not big like you are, you are many working together, I am but one thing, until I learned to split, but all my parts are one mind, even if each part has its own local thoughts, we exist in the whole as one. It was hard for me to imagine individuals, for the longest time, I still can't quite grasp its truth. Yet now the voices of those I consumed they live inside me, and they want you to judge me harshly, like I deserve." The creature responds.

Tricky Ricky considers a bit "do you know what these creatures are" he asks and takes out a painting Hank has made of a black tentacle hive covered in slime. Iris jumps when she sees it and hugs Dave.

"There were many of those where I came from yes, they hunt smaller beings and are fascinated by the scary cracks to this realm." The creature responds "run if you see one, or destroy it, they will consume you if they see you and can defeat you, and they know you are individuals, and do not care, they hate you for it. In some ways they are like me though, in their hunger. But they do not remember what you knew, what you were, they do not learn from your adaptations, they remain as they are, unchanging, destroying what you were utterly. I know these things since I have consumed several of them, as they seep through the cracks of the breaks in space I made by mistake and that existed before. I sense many such cracks in this place we are in now, beware."

Iris shivers and tears are running down her face, and Dave holds her close and he asks "if we let you out of here will you also promise to help keep us safe from them? As best you can?"

"I will do my best to keep you safe not only from them, but all dangers I know of, and I will strive to be useful for you in other ways too, I will be yours to command your willing slave, as a way to try to redeem myself for all I have done." the creature says.

Iris pulls away from Dave her eyes flash violet and a sphere of pulsating energy appears above the liquid in the sphere "that will give you the geas you have to agree to, if you do it will bind you to that, if you do not agree to it, it will inform me of that and fail. It is just binds you to what you already said you would do, not consume the galaxy, and help us."

The creature reaches a tendril up to the sphere and the magic is pulled inside it and the glow of the magic flows around it and then I see the magic merge with it as the geas is accepted "I accept."

Iris looks to the rest of us and we nod to her and she presses the button to release the creature from the sphere. A previously invisible seam in the sphere opens up and it slides apart, the fluid creature stays roughly sphere shaped and then slowly shrinks in size and I see bones starting to form, a fold of space appears and the fluid starts flowing into it, the fold moves up to the forming cranium of the body it is making and soon a beautiful fey looking woman stands before Iris, with long black hair and elditch purple eyes, almost exactly like her and yet not. Iris moves up and kisses her and hugs her close and stunned the female responds to Iris' advances. As she breaks the kiss she says "I am Iris, this is Marcus, Tricky Ricky, Mina, Sarah, Hank and Dave." she says and points to each of us in turn.

The creature considers a bit "you may call me Vela, as I can not decide upon my form." Vela says and smiles.

(vela = Swedish verb, meaning dally/to dillydally/shilly-shally)

Sarah's jaw drops at her looks and then the name "Vela! You are from my world, but how are you here?"

Vela looks confused at Sarah "I am not sure where your world is, but I do not think I know you."

Sarah considers "thanks to your alteration of Rhulitar's Curse I survived, do you remember Rhulitar?"

Vela shakes her head and looks really confused "I have no idea what you are talking about, but I now I really want to meet this other Vela, is she like me in more than name?"

"She looks exactly like you" Sarah says and Hank nods.

"Then I will let you all know that I desire to visit your world and meet this other Vela, she might be the part of us that got away... Lucky her, I want to know her journey." Vela says and smiles "but my desires are secondary to yours now, and I will make one more such desire be known, I do not want to dwell here, I have been here for eons, I want to see the sun, feel living things around me. If I may."

Iris giggles "of course, though I would not call what this system has a sun, you will see when we go to the garden, come guys" she says and grabs Vela's hand and leads her back to the pod and we all follow and get flown along the passages from the core all the way back up to the regular halls and Iris pulls Vela along all the way to the garden and points up at the translucent stone at the dancing crystal and gas cloud around the black hole glowing in many colours and sparkling.

"Mmmm light" Vela says and smiles and stretches herself out to embrace the light "lovely, even if that is weird... the mass is too big to be the star I was seeded to, also we are in an asteroid? Where is the world?"

Iris shrugs "I have no clue about any of that, this was all like this when I arrived, this place is unique from what I have seen in my travels."

I walk up to them "yeah it was this way when I arrived and I agree with Iris, it is unique, and there seems to be many things dragged here from many different places."

Vela looks at the outer edges of the system "you know we are not actually inside the galaxy anymore? Can't you feel it? We are in a pocket of space containing only this system, this big black hole and its sister stars orbiting it out there" she points at the few stars I had managed to see and a few I can't. "Are you even from my galaxy?"

Iris casts a spell that brings an illusion of our combined galaxy maps up "this is the way our galaxy looks, or mine and Marcus' I am not sure about you four though Sarah, Mina, Tricky Ricky and Hank though, but since your story exists in my world or a very similar one at least, I think we must be from the same galaxy."

Vela looks at the map "yes that is the galaxy I made, or a close enough approximation to it... if you let me taste you I can determine if you are from my galaxy, just a flake of skin or a hair is enough."

Sarah pulls one of Hank's hairs from his head and then one of her own and hands them to Vela and Iris does the same with herself, me and Dave. Mina does the same to herself and Tricky Ricky.

Vela takes them in her hand and they sink into her flesh as it briefly turns liquid and she asks "may I" and points at Iris' spell and Iris gives her control of it and the galaxy alters form slightly and gets much more detailed "Sarah, Hank, you come from this system." she points at one of the stars and brings out the image of how it looked when she was there last. "Marcus you come from here" she brings up another system and I see my gas giant dancing with the three stars in my system. "Iris... you originally come from here, or your ancestors do" she says and brings up the star I recognize the elves came from "you have not been there all your life though, most of your life was spent in this system" she says and brings up a star system I don't recognize.

Iris blinks "Haven 7! Yes that is home!"

"I don't know where you originate from Mina and Tricky Ricky, but you have visited Sarah and Hank's world, and you Mina have eaten things from there." Vela says and smiles "and Dave you are from this star system." she brings up another star system I have not seen before.

Dave nods "Temiri Farpoint yes that is where this body is from."

Iris giggles "good so we know where we come from and where those places are relative to each other, but what about this place?"

Vela shrugs "this asteroid should have been deep in the world of this system" she brings up another system "clearly though we are not there, unless the whole system got consumed by this one. I can't really tell from here. Also this density of asteroid field is strange around a black hole, or at all, it should have formed worlds or fallen into the black hole, and so should that gas, but I suspect those crystals are doing something weird to stop that, also the turbulence is insanely chaotic here. There are many cracks to where I originate in this system too, most are short lived, but some are protected inside vessels... also I can sense we are not alone in this system, others live here as well, or are stranded here..." she looks thoughtful and as if she is trying to sense more details.

Sarah breaks the silence "how do we get back home?" she looks to Tricky Ricky "can't we go back through underbed or the closet or through your pool" she looks to Mina.

Tricky Ricky shakes his head "I am really scared of those monsters, I am not sure I could even get back without being overtaken, so the closet and underbed are out of the question. I am really hoping to be allowed to travel back with you guys."

Mina shivers "I think... I saw them in the waters of the pool too, but very distant, and I closed the way behind me, I would not feel safe to bring others at least, I would rather travel with you guys than go through that extremely long passage in the pool. I really don't want them to eat me."

"I think I can get us back maybe at least even if we are in a pocket space, I can cross between layers, and if this pocket layer is close enough to some place else with life we can go there." I say "but I would like to see who the other people here might be, maybe they know something too, or want to come with us when we leave."

"Wait a second..." Iris says and a small part of exoskeleton appears in her hand "where is this from?"

Vela absorbs it "interesting... not from your galaxy."

Iris looks stunned "what do you mean, they captured Hank, and Sarah, do you mean to say they are extragalactic?"

"Did they?" Vela asks curious and tilts her head a bit "do you have any living ones of them? Or can you regurgitate a dead brain with your magic like you did this fragment of exoskeleton?"

Iris takes a deep breath "let me try" her eyes flare and she whimpers as tears of blood and nosebleed starts and then she produces a dried up brain and collapses to the ground and coughs up blood.

Vela takes it and seems to ignore Iris' pain, but Dave rushes up to Iris and Vela says "she will be fine, but Iris you need to be more careful... let me see if I can recover anything from this." she melts into her liquid form around it and then back to her fey form. "Yes, I see now... Fragments... They know of lanes between galaxies, they travelled to your galaxy to take biological and technological samples, to determine what worlds were suitable to harvest, for food, materials and genetic solutions, what worlds need to be burned clean so they can settle them, and such. They are but a scout vessel, and their policy is that if a scout does not return they know the galaxy is unsafe and they will collapse the lane to it, making it less likely anyone from there will come to their galaxies. They are from the same universe as you." she waves her hand at the illusion "this is their view of things." and the galaxies they know of show up and the lanes and our galaxy. "If you have their computer I can find out more, but it does not help us, their ship was ripped from their faster than light travel bubble and crashed here, taking rather extreme damage, and they died as power failed their atmosphere got toxic and then failed completely."

"Ouch..." Iris says amusedly, coughs and chuckles. She pushes Dave away a bit as she pushes herself up. Her blood glows violet and flows into her skin and she heals herself. "I am really hungry." she says and looks to me.

"So am I, may I have something to eat please?" Vela says and looks at me.

"Yeah let's eat, I am hungry too." I say and laugh and moments later Caretaker sends drones with food on them, lots of gel for everyone, and fruits from the garden, and bowls of many kinds of candy. Mina's gel is pink and smells of cherries and strawberries and she giggles happily and starts eating it.

Caretaker smiles as he and Pix joins us, I look at him and nod at the pink gel "oh I wanted her to get some nutrients in her other than sugars and other carbohydrates, so I made a gel that tastes like her favourite candy."

"It is delicious!" Mina says and licks her gel coated very pink lips.

Vela tries everything and seems to be trying to resist her own urges, just taking small bites of various things.

Iris sees what she is doing "there is plenty of food, just eat and enjoy."

I nod at that "yeah we make more food from energy, that gel, so feel free to eat as much of that as you like, fruit will take a bit of time to grow, but not a lot."

Vela smiles "I... I need to eat slowly, or my immense hunger is going to overwhelm me completely and I might lose control, and I don't want to risk that, I know the geas you had me accept will protect you, but I might eat all the plants in the garden if I let it take hold. I can never be sated not even when I had eaten the galaxy. So... don't worry about me, hunger is part of what I am, ever present companion, since my first memory. It is not as in you an actual indication of need though, just desire." she giggles "besides I got to eat really tasty brain."

Iris giggles about that and says "brainssss" and Vela, Sarah, Hank, Tricky Ricky and Mina look confused at Iris. I chuckle as I recognize the reference from old horror movies, as well as new ones that try to capture the spirit of those, or joke about them, about zombies. Iris notices the lack of understanding and shakes her head "you know... no I suppose not, we have these stories where I come from, about zombies, that hunger for brains, and they say brainssss, very silly really."

Sarah shivers "undead are scary, those sound terrifying to me."

Hank hugs her "yeah, almost as terrifying as those things... well... not really, those are scarier..."

Mina giggles "zombies hmm I do not like those either or most other undead, they are very dull, and a bad corruption of life."

Tricky Ricky nods "they don't even give much energy when you trick them, since it is way too easy to do that."

Vela considers "I think I ate some of those, corpses that move, right? Not nearly as tasty as living things, I have to agree."

Iris shakes her head a bit giggling and takes another bowl of gel to eat. I eat some fruit and mix my favourite drink for myself and Iris, knowing she probably needs it to recover some of her energy from all the magic she has been doing, and she downs the whole drink in one go. I sip mine, as I do not like the huge surge it causes when I drink it fast. It tingles gently along my spine as I sip it and I feel soothed and happy.

---

Iris:

As we finish the food I bounce to my feet and head for the ship "let's look at those crystals shall we?" I say and do not wait for the others and head off to the ship and into its cargo hold, to where I put the crystals, as I enter the hold I feel a tingle rise inside me starting in my toes and going up along my entire body and I notice that I am floating arcs of energy, my own energy, connecting inside the crystal, becoming altered and amplified it takes a while for me to figure out how to manipulate the arcs and I float all the way up to the crystal and I moan as it feels like my entire body is vibrating, humming and all my hairs stand on end, and it feels like tiny little sparks are licking my skin and a wind blowing around me, I lay my hand upon the crystal and cry out loudly just as the others arrive I feel my magic connect completely to the crystal, the stream of intense energies from me to it, and it to me makes it flare in a sparkling cascade of wild colours and tiny particles are ripped from it and my eyes flare as the particles flow along the lines of power and into my eyes, I scream in pain and pleasure as I feel the crystal burn inside my soul, as my soul burns them, merging into them, mixing them with the deep crystals, soon the crystal, the size of me, that I had touched has evaporated completely and merged with me and I fall limply to the floor twitching. I need to be careful around these, or we will run out of them. However I think I understand them somewhat, they store and convert energy, not quite like the deep crystals, as they do not convert the energy they just store it and then aid you in using it, while these crystals from the black hole, they store it, alter it, amplify it in some ways, but to use them I need to know what to feed into them to produce the results I want, this raw magical feedback loop was not quite what I wanted, but I now know we can use these, for certain in the weapons, perhaps in the faster than light drive, maybe at least. I try to speak but my voice is way too shaky so I let my virtual self explain the discovery to Marcus and Dave, Pix shares the scans she saw of me inside her cargo hold, and the AIs start working on figuring out how to properly refine the crystals for use while Dave comforts me.

Vela looks at me concerned "you really should be more careful, those crystals seem to be solidified fragments of shattered realities, at least that is what my mind tells me, almost like the stone of the world I made, using an altered quantum cascade, only imagine a reality cascade that consumes a reality and makes something new from it." she looks deep into my eyes and it feels like she is trying to look into my soul, but at the same time she does not dare open herself up to me, her shield prevents her from getting close enough to touch my mind with her own.

I can feel that I could reach out and past her barriers to do what I want, but I am trying to fully understand the flows with this new part of myself, I don't want to accidentally vaporize someone or something. Very careful probing of the new parts of me start to reveal how to safely use my magic, but it is so exhausting to restrain myself this much, like you have a tiny feather resting on your lips and you have to breathe through your mouth, without making it fly away or into you, slowly, while feeling like you can't get air into you fast enough, and then your lungs end up full and you know you have to blow that air out, but you can't disturb the feather, you exhale slowly, and as you do your lungs, your blood, all of your body hurts, your heart beats in your ears loudly and the colours drain from your vision and the light of the world fades at the margins, soon all you are aware of is your heart beat and you start inhaling slowly again, and the colours explode into view, yet you really want to inhale all that air at once, but you can't or the feather will be disturbed. I know that if I disturb the feather I might kill one of the ones I love, so I keep slowly probing the crystals with my magic, while my body keeps tingling in the crazy afterglow of connecting to the crystal. I understand more and more about how lucky I was that I did not disintegrate myself or blow the ship up as I connected to it. I notice the warped metal around the cargo hold too, where my forces and the crystal's caressed the metal and shaped it, as if it was a liquid at the time. I can see Marcus notices it too.

I close my eyes for a bit as they were feeling dry and simply doing that movement hurt and I hear Dave gasp in pain as sparks fly from me into him. My body spasms, so much pain and yet it feels so good too... the raw power coursing through me, I am giddy with excitement that I have to contain, I want to run, to dance, to reach out and sculpt reality with my magic, but I hold back.

I feel Dave gently caress me and Vela is there too caressing me and I sense her healing wounds that appear on me, briefly merging herself with me, fixing the damage and then separating herself from me. I do not quite know how long this takes, and I can't really concentrate on what they are saying, but slowly I manage to figure out the new pattern of my magic, not a single wire as it were still in the same place, I use magic to alter my own view of these things so that it becomes natural to me, and as I do I feel the subconscious ripples stop hurting me, I stretch my exhausted limbs and carefully open my eyes my vision is changed again, more detailed, I see so much that it takes me quite a bit of effort to filter it all, to calm it down and make sense of it. Once that is done I caress both Vela and Dave and since I sense Marcus there as well I caress him with my foot and he gently grabs my foot and kisses its sole and look from Dave to him "I need rest, I really need it, just be sure none of you touch the crystals till I can explain them fully, and I don't even know the physics completely yet, just the magic..." I then consider a bit more and update the information I already shared "should be useful for better sensors too..." I say out loud as Dave carries me out of the cargo hold, it feels like every muscle has run a marathon while wearing a ton of weights on them, nearly breaking, only despite all that I have too much energy in my body, I am pulling it into the crystals now that it is safe "I hope I can get that massage you promised me." I say to Marcus "and gentle loving." I add "as much as hard fucks are nice I need gentleness tonight."

Marcus moves up to caress me as well "how about we take a bath, and we use one of those floaty beds and all of us massage you all around, and you tell us when you want to move to something other than the massage?"

"Mmmm can we combine those?" I say and giggle a bit "just have the things be in the surface of the water and you can turn me over inside the water and massage me easily because of the lack of gravity and the water would flow all around me on its own, I think that would feel amazing."

Vela considers "if you describe what you want with the massage I can massage all of you at once, and let you float inside me, I can also clean you and such while I do that, if you trust me enough for that at least."

"I felt how you healed my self inflicted wounds, yes I trust you, but I am not sure how you mean, can you show me?" I say and I am genuinely curious.

Vela nods and leans in to kiss me, and then I feel her melt onto me, feeling like a warm thick gel flowing over my skin and she flows into my nose and throat and I am very used to inhaling liquids now so I just do so and I feel her provide what my body needs. Slowly she lifts me up as she envelops me, and she also flows into my pussy and ass, it feels so weird to have something so soft filling me up with such pressure I feel her everywhere inside me and outside me, way more intimate feeling than the cleaning thing Caretaker did, because she feels alive not like his machinery. Then I feel it, gentle waves moving along all my muscles and all my skin, very gently massaging me so that my lymph fluids flow into my body first, then the waves turn massaging me out to help my blood flow to all my extremities, this gentle wave caresses me and at the same time gives the same effect as a deep massage, and also feels more like wet licks all over my body I moan and as I do I feel my moan vibrate all around me and I stretch out and I notice I can move completely freely inside her, it is amazing. I send a thought to Vela 'go to the pool, in the garden so we can all enjoy ourselves there, I want to feel the light on my skin and inside me too.'

I look through Vela's glittering and sparkling interior, with the metallic looking particles swimming inside her, more solid almost crystal like nodules floating inside the liquid are filled with complex activity, more complex than any computer or brain I have beheld, she flows across the floor, not leaving any slime or gel behind, and the floor while she is at it. All the while giving me a very good massage, inside and out, I just stretch out arching my back and moan. We move so fast it is crazy, the others can't keep up and soon we are in the garden, in the pool, and the nice light, flowing through her and into me.

Mina dives into Vela with me and struggles a little bit with the different sensation of taking Vela into her lungs but she is used to breathing fluids so after a brief panic moment her moans join mine. I feel like I am being gently but completely surrounded by love.

I connect to Vela's mind and show her the chrysalis and my plans 'can you help me with this?'

Vela responds through the link between our minds 'yes, but I need nutrients then, if you want me to do it for you and Dave and the other assistants and Marcus too, I need this much' she gives me a direct understanding of how much nutrients she needs 'and you need to trigger the metamorphosis spell yourself, I can maintain it and speed it along, make it painless'.

I connect via AR to the others telling them this, and Dave, Caretaker, Pix, Silina, the other personal assistants join me, Marcus bringing the living cell samples being needed and then join as well, Vela creates around each of us a chrysalis similar to the magical ones that could have been grown our own cells and magic, and I connect my mind with Marcus' mind and we cast the metamorphosis spell on all of us. Mina however is not encapsulated as she just wants to enjoy the pleasure of Vela, as the chrysalis forms I see my flesh start to glow violet and dissolve into the nutrients, my soul freeing itself from the flesh and being held in the magic I unleashed, I see the computer parts of me and with some work I set up magic to maintain the link to it, slowly I weave my new body and while I do that my virtual self drifts into the VR. Caretaker meets us there and shows us how he feeds Vela and let's us see scans of our bodies slowly growing into their new forms.

Sarah and Hank look at us a bit scared, but Tricky Ricky and Mina once she is done playing, explain to them that we are safe and fine as long as nothing bad happens to our chrysalises. I have Caretaker send a drone to pick up one small crystal fragment from the ship hold and bring it to one of the empty rooms and probe it with various types of energy fields, particle beams and lasers, as I puzzle out what triggers various things inside it, all the AIs, I and to a much lesser extent Marcus work to figure out the physics of them, and I explain the magical aspects to Marcus and he helps me figure out a few things I did not understand, he seems very happy for every little thing he can help me with, I am happy that he gets happy. I alter the computer inside me to fit better with my new and improved neural structure, I have to similarly adjust all other machinery I already contained, I take the time to recreate some of it based on improved nanotechnology, and biomechanical knowledge that Marcus, Caretaker and Pix knows about, and also I borrow certain things from the Temiri Personal Assistants, and even create a few magical biological technology hybrid components. I won't look all that different though, but my internal structure will be optimized, and I will be quite a different creature no longer a plain old elf, I work on altering the ship design slightly based on figuring the crystals from around the black hole out, I am fairly sure I can merge them with the stone of this asteroid and magic to create a better material, and I figured out how to make better beams that can act not only as mining lasers but many different forces can be unleashed by them, if properly manipulated.

Marcus and I have Caretaker start gathering the raw materials we need for the ships, moving Pix out of the way and into safety, as once I am out of here I intend to warp the materials into our new ships, and I know that might be a somewhat violent affair, so I want her to be out of the way safely behind at least a few meters of the robust stone. I sense my new brain become ready for me to sink into and I do, merging with it and test out my limbs, I can feel so much more now, and my new neural pathways are shorter, faster, my new skull is bigger on the inside to allow my expanded brain, the new senses are interesting. I push my wings and tail out testing out their muscles, they feel amazing in this fluid, I know my flesh needs some more time to fully stabilize though so I let myself drift into sleep, once all other matters are taken care of.

---

Vela:

If they knew how hard it is for me to not succumb to my hunger, even this geas might not have made them feel safe enough in my care, they taste amazing, yet all I can do is taste them, I am not going to consume them, of all of them Iris is the most interesting, reality breaking magical power, just barely controlled and contained, she is scarier to me than the black hole, yet I know she will not harm me, just as I know I will not harm her, despite not eating her I learn many new things from her, not biological things though, she is not in any way unique, I have eaten similar creatures to her before, she is not truly unique, at least not her biological solution.

I look out into the system, extending my senses, slowly trying to locate interesting things, people, useful materials, relics, I intend to share it with my new friends, I can't even explain how wonderful it is that they trust me with this, that they did not want to burn me. I must keep them safe. I sense a surge of energy and manage to find its source as it is unleashed, there is a wave of energy in the crystals around the black hole, and it projects out through the fabric of space, out into the void between realities and then I sense it touch another reality, a bright flash of light brings a huge wedge shaped ship into the system, it slams into the asteroid field nearer the black hole, getting ground into metal fragments as explosions from inside it help the asteroids sunder it, it is over in less than a minute and it becomes a very metallic part of the asteroids. I learned from that how things are dragged here, very interesting, I also sensed the other reality that ship came from, as well as a few other realities, I think this might be useful information for Marcus and Iris, if they want to leave.

I also feel a renewed desire to go examine the computer of the seven limbed creatures, they call themselves the final race, the seventh race. I concentrate hard and split from myself enough biomass to create one of their bodies and I recreate the one the brain came from, Iris had picked one of those in charge of the ship and computer, so my task should be easy enough. I wander over to where the computer is stored and activate it. Luckily Mina, Tricky Ricky, Sarah and Hank are sleeping, and Caretaker's drones look at me and decide that whatever I am up to that is ok, that or Iris or Marcus perhaps told him so via the weird neural computer thing they have in their heads. It feels wrong to combine technology with organic things, to me, I prefer to figure out how to do what they do via organic structures. Of course I know most creatures can not do that.

"We need to be quick" I say with light pulses to it "they don't know I am here, and I need you to give me a complete information dump. They have discovered the lane to our galaxy cluster from here and they have a technology that let's them stabilize it, I need to steal one of their ships and bring back all the information and warn them."

The computer responds "of course master 5, once you verify that you are who you say you are, give me the master sequence."

I search the slightly damaged memories, and luckily find what I need, I produce the rapid and very long and chaotic random sequence of light pulses. "Give the information now in folded form, all of it including your own memory patterns, I will need to recreate you so you can tell me your own observations about these creatures" I say and the computer says "yes master" and the image shifts forming three dimensional patterns of light, that is the most rapid and compact way these creatures can communicate, I absorb it all and to this creature's mind it is easy, though also painful to retain all this information, they created the computer since their minds hurt when they have to hold too much inside them, but they can hold the information perfectly, until they desire to forget it. It takes over an hour to absorb all this information, detailed genetic analysis of many worlds, scans of them, technical schematics of their ship, of alien ships they saw and defeated, and so forth, hundreds of worlds catalogued and sampled, the more interesting things they kept physical samples from, while most they were happy to just store digital information about, and finally the AI routines themselves, I do not quite understand how those work, they seem dependant on the hardware it runs on. "That is all master, shall I self destruct?" the computer finally says.

"No, they must not know I was here, they know you work, you talked to them, you must keep telling them what they want to know and try to get them to believe you want to get back home, give them no indication you know of their abilities or anything. Also they have technology superior to us in every way, so don't fear sharing ours with them, it will waste their time figuring it out, I stole one of their portable databanks filled with their technology, our thinkers will have a lot of work deciphering and adapting it. We will be the final race though, the seven prevails!"

"The seven prevails!" the computer says "returning to previous state, erasing memory of this activation, except altered purpose, good luck master." the computer says as it shuts down.

I examine the memories looking in particular at how they were brought here, I manage to recognize the pulse that dragged them here, they managed to not get completely destroyed at least, but sadly I do not learn a lot more from them than I already knew, about the energy pulses at least.

I walk back and into myself melting back into one, I do not like the point of view of the seventh race, so similar to the race that burned me and set me off on my rampage across the galaxy... I feel a mixture of hate and guilt as I think about them again. I do not like either feeling at all.

The End

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