[IC] Eternal Galaxy: Phoenix

[S121]

Planet Dua - Mirror Sea - Isle of Spirits
Manor of Eternity - Sanctuary of Light

Thanks to John's visor, he was able to see without being blinded by the light. From what John could tell, these "Noxarcs" were what the shadow creatures were called. Surely that light was meant to drive them back, so John said nothing about it. After the column of light faded, John thought about what Aurora said. She was trapped by something, but she was too unstable to tell him before. Not only that, she was also talking about something called "Venturia". Just what was Venturia, and what was wrong with her? Aurora trying to say John's actual name told him that she knew him closely. Only Cortana knew his name, or at least John thought so. If that was the case, if they used to be friends, then John needed to help her.

"What's Venturia? What's trapping you?", John asked Aurora in a confused tone.






Crash Site - Navaaras

Ethan lightly frowned inside of his helmet at Grey's answer, but he supposed he was right. Ethan didn't have to worry about his own safety, but the others were different from him. After nodding at Grey, Ethan pulled his custom .45's back out and readied himself to trek through the damaged halls of the ship. Just then, Grey uttered something that caught Ethan's attention.

"...What....how....", Grey said as he pulled out a crystal orb with symbols etched into the core of it.

"What's going on?", Ethan asked Grey in a slightly curious tone.

[bookdragon2000]

Isle of Spirits-Outside Manor of Eternity-KuroiKaze

Nhiome was trying to come up with a way out of the situation when all the external camera's were suddenly dazzled. He quickly adjusted the visual setting, afraid of a possible attack. What he found was a pillar of light coming from the nearby manor and all those shadow creatures gone. He took the opportunity and quickly redirected the power Eorthe was providing towards the engines. As the ship started to gain speed, he explained what was happening to Eorthe. She gave a vague nod before becoming listless again, powering the ship was really draining her. He wasn't sure what she was, but everything had a limited amount of energy.

He needed to find a place where he could land again so that she could recover and hopefully find another way to power the ship. As he broke through the atmosphere, he quickly set a course for the nearest hospitable planet. It seemed to be called Navaaras.

[Koishi]

Isle of Spirits

---

Aurora's garbled commented made Mima's eyes widen after she deciphered it in her head. "Oooh, that bastard's got his thing coming to him more and more." Mima said,then turning to John. "Venturia's the name of the galaxy we're in, if my few memories serve correctly.

[Kristia]

Manor of Eternity - Sanctuary of Light


Mara was examining Aurora and came into a conclusion "You have been taking care of this place by far the normal time of an AI or spirit or whatever happened to you. You need to get yourself into a host to atleast recover from what could be 200 houndred years" she spoke

"I remember a galaxy called Venturia, we.. are from there if I remember correctly. So from what those shadows, this doll and whoever lived here. We were contained for criostasis for a long time, hence Aurora´s current state of corruption. Im theorizing most of this, but with the little information we have, that is all I got" the white haired theorized

Finally the bioroid looked at the spartan but spoke to his AI "Cortana, is there a way to help AUrora? if she can recover, what would we need to do?"

[Cucoo5]

Manor of Eternity - Sanctuary of Light

Aurora, who was hovering off the ground by a few feet, seemed to not acknowledge anything said at first, until she began speaking.
"The wishes of the last Master of the Manor of Eternity were to let the Galaxy stagnate, thus letting all things come to an end naturally....." Her face was emotionless and her voice was level, as though listing off facts. "As a Guardian of Time, I had to obey....Although my purpose is to repair any damage to the galaxy. Venturia needs repairs. The Noxarcs should have begun the repairs. However, the last Master prevented them from performing their task, as well as preventing me from assisting. Thus, the Galaxy's ecosystems collapsed. All life eventually became extinct. The Manor of Eternity serves as a place of preservation over the course of time, as time does not flow the same as that of the universe. Anything within the wall's protection do not experience the same flow of time. However, the energy that causes this is waning. All power has been consolidated to the Sanctuary in order to protect........Pr---OOOoote-----ct......" She began again to falter for a moment, her being phased in and out of multiple states before finally...

She was standing on the ground again, tears once more flowing as sorrow distorted her features. "M---Y....Frieeeends....I....W---aaaant....to....he---lP...m----y....fr--I--e--nd---s..."

"AAAAAH!" She phased out and reappeared clutching her head, eyes wide and trembling.
"Su----pr----ess.....su----pr----ess...."

A moment later she returned to her calm, emotionless state. "All life forms not present in the Manor of eternity went extinct approximately 10,000 'Earth' years ago."

[S121]

Manor of Eternity - Sanctuary of Light

"Well, we would need to delete much of her collected data and possibly rebuild her code. There's no guarantee that it will work, but I might be able to help her if I am put into the machine with her. From what I can see, she's going into a state of Rampancy. The only way to fix it is to delete some of her memories and processes, or hope that she goes into Metastability. Even then, there's no guarantee that she has the same coding I do. She might work in a completely different way.", Cortana said to Mara.

After Cortana spoke to Mara, John thought about all that was happening and decided to voice his ideas.

"Where do you think she's being kept?", John asked Cortana.

"I don't know, but it can't be too far.", Cortana said to John.

"We'll need to find it. Once we do, I'll plug you in.", John said to Cortana.

Right before John could begin his search, Aurora had another attack, causing her to flicker and for her voice to distort. After that, Aurora said something that caught John off guard.

"All life forms not present in the Manor of eternity went extinct approximately 10,000 'Earth' years ago."

At that moment, things seemed to slow down for John. He wasn't going into Spartan Time, he was in shock over what Aurora had said. How? How did so much time pass by? What happened to the UNSC? What year was he in? Knowing that he was in a different galaxy was bad enough, but hearing that so much time had passed only left him feeling very confused. Nothing made sense at this point, so he looked at Aurora and asked her a question. He needed to know the answer before he would help her.

"Aurora, what year is it?", John asked Aurora in a serious tone of voice.

[Cucoo5]

Manor of Eternity - Sanctuary of Light


"MDe12+VVMMXII. Approximately 519 trillion years after the destruction of Earth. The extinction of all life in the Venturian Galaxy occurred in the year MDe12+MMXII, approximately 10,000 years ago."
She was still calm as she answered John's question.

[S121]

Manor of Eternity - Sanctuary of Light

"W..what?", Cortana asked in shock and disbelief.

Cortana may have been an AI, but such news shook her to her core. There was nothing wrong with the Slipspace drive when she inspected it, so why were they here? Not only that, how were they going to get back? The chances of returning back home using the exact same method as before was 5.72900842651 * 10^-237%, horrible odds for such a dangerous trip. It was more clear to Cortana than anyone else that there was no going back, no matter how lucky John was. They were lost, and that was all there was to it.

John couldn't believe his ears. At that point, everything felt so surreal, as if he had just fallen into a dream, or most likely a nightmare. It couldn't be possible. how could John have survived for 519 trillion years? The very last thing he remembered was going to sleep in his ship's cryopod while they were in Slipspace. Could it be that they encountered a Slipspace Anomaly? John had heard of them, but surely they couldn't have fallen into one, could they? As John thought about it, a wave of shock washed over him as he realized that everything he knew was gone. Earth would have most likely burned through its entire lifespan and was probably like Mars by now. The UNSC was most likely nothing but dust and echoes after 519 trillion years. The SPARTAN Program was most likely no more, and Humanity was probably no longer human. For all John knew, humans could have evolved into something other than what they originally were. John and Cortana were nothing but ancient fossils, and John knew that to be a fact. They were countless lightyears away from home, and they were so far into the future that there was little hope of anything being left for him to return to.

"We're.. not going home, John...", Cortana said to John in a grim and saddened tone.

"I know.", John answered in an almost completely emotionless tone, save for the grim tinge to it.

For everyone else, it seemed as if John and Cortana were in a state of distress for ten seconds, but for them, it felt like an hour and a half. After that single second, John spoke to Cortana.

"There is nothing we can do but keep going. I don't know what will happen, but I promise you that everything will be okay.", John solemnly said to Cortana, trying to comfort her.

"Of course.", Cortana answered back.

If Cortna had a physical form, she would have given John a somewhat sad smile. She was sad that they had almost no hope of going back home, but she was at least happy that John had not given up and remained strong.

After a long while of silence, John finally spoke to Aurora again.

"How do we get off this planet, and where are your databanks stored?", John asked Aurora in a somewhat serious, determined tone.

John and Cortana may have been stranded in this timeline, but John was nowhere near ready to give up just yet. The first thing they would do would be to find Aurora's databanks, repair her, and get off this planet. After that, they would try to find something that could give them answers, maybe a way back home.

[Kristia]

Manor of eternity

Sighing, Mara for some reason didn´t feel bad for being one of the last beings on the remnants of the galaxy "Whoever put us here must have had a reason, a soldier, a spirit and a bioroid who just have pieces of their memories feels rather hard to put together even though we shared some time of our lives as aquantance" she spoke calmly

[Koishi]

Manor of Eternity

---

"Well, I already know the answer to that one, uh...whatever your name is." Mima spoke to Mara. "And from what floatin' girl said, I'm getting more and more of a reason to kill him."

[Kristia]

manor of eternity

Hearing what the spirit said gave curiosity to the bioroid "So you know what is our purpose here? Care to explain what would that be?" she asked to the ghost girl

[Koishi]

Manor of Eternity

---

"Not purpose, you blockhead. Who brought us here, not why. Are ya deaf or somethin'? Guy's name is Cicero, and if I heard what Aurora said correctly, her apparent 'master'." Mima emphasized 'master' with finger quotes.

"Form what I remember, he's a reality manipulator." Mima pulled out the doll. "This doll's a quite accurate representation of 'em. And from what she's saying, if i'm correct, than that bastard ended the galaxy for some idiotic reason." Mima explained.

[Kristia]

Manor of Eternity


For some reason, Mara smirked to Mima´s rudeness "Ok then, so this guy cicero ended the galaxy for an idiotic reason and manipulated his way for everything to happen. I think I will enjoy reaching him and breaking him because he sounds indeed like a bastard"

[Cucoo5]

Manor of Eternity

"False. The one that wished for the galaxy to stagnate was Master Aion. The creator, Master Cicero, is deceased. Time of death: approx. 2,000 years ago. Master Aion: deceased. Time of Death: approx. 5,000 years ago. Mistress Selene: deceased. Time of Death: approx. 5,250 years ago. All other Guardians of Time: Aetheron, Erebos, Sol, and Luna: deceased. Times of death: between 11,000 years ago and 6,000 years ago." Aurora listed off these facts without emotion.

She then addressed John. "Vehicles exist outside. One belonging to Eorthe has left recently."
She seemed to ignore the second part of the question.

[Koishi]

Manor of Eternity

---

Mima looked a Aurora. "Okay, Mrs know it all, if he's dead, then explain why the hell we woke up here with these dolls who look almost exactly like the bastard?" Mima heled up the doll for Aurora to see.