Apocalypse Redux

Story 4: First Contact (Dr. Isaac Thoma)

2095, Milky Way, unexplored area

Space really was beautiful, regardless of it you simply let yourself drift in it, or were viewing it through the twisted spatial folds of an [Alcubierre Bubble].

Right now, Isaac was doing the latter, hurtling himself across the universe at velocities that exceeded the speed of light by several orders of magnitude, technically. The math flew over his head anytime he wasn’t fully immersing himself in his cognition and science-boosting [Skills], but apparently there was some weirdness that technically let you stay below the limit while still speeding through the universe far faster than a mere three-hundred-thousand kilometers a second by warping space around yourself.

Elena was also in the general area, cosmically speaking, exploring another world. They’d come out to explore the universe together, yes, but they’d long since learned that just because they could spend every second of every day within an arms reach of each other, or even closer than that, that didn’t mean that they should.

They’d had their day jobs (which they likewise only did because they wanted to, not because they had to), their own hobbies, and since they barely needed to sleep, they could spend all night doing whatever the hell they wanted to do with and to each other.

And even light years away from the sun, free from the embrace of a planetary gravity well, they still made sure to do some stuff separately.

That kind of “ritualistic” separation might have sounded weird to most, and might have broken some couples up in a matter of days, but it was how their relationship worked.

For over fifty years, and likely would for at least fifty more, hopefully longer.

Of course, having a life expectancy that most pre-System civilizations would equate to outright immortality meant that there was no real urgency for “advancing” their relationship. Marriage, possibly even kids … not something they were opposed to in the slightest, in fact, they’d even talked about it a few times positively, but ultimately, it hadn’t gone anywhere.

Isaac got up off his chair and walked around the small FTL pod he was currently occupying. It wasn’t an actual spaceship, just a box the size of a pickup truck that could collapse to form a simple bracer up on command when not in use. But when deployed, it was just barely small enough to fit inside an [Alcubierre Bubble] without requiring extra energy on the part of the user and acted as a kind of mini-apartment so you weren’t hanging inside a bubble of warped reality, staring into the blue-shifted universe ahead or reading a book while, well, hanging in space.

It had been a gift from Arthur, sent via the [Round Table], along with a second one for Elena, and some gourmet food from their favorite restaurant back on Earth.

Once he’d retrieved a glass of cola from the fridge, Isaac returned to his chair, and flipped his book open once again, a sci-fi novel about humans getting themselves into trouble exploring the universe, but he felt his thoughts drift.

Obviously, Isaac and Elena weren’t the first to go exploring the universe, people had headed outside the solar system the moment the abilities of the Void Dragon Aspect had been discovered, but they’d gone further than anyone else.

Even though there were those who’d used the [Alcubierre Bubble] ability as soon as Isaac had revealed the combination, and shot off using the fastest known means of FTL to go exploring a good fifteen years before they had, there was still a mile-wide gulf between them.

Isaac and Elena were S-Rankers, unaging, near-immune to every natural hazard save black holes, and capable of beating any attacking enemy that wasn’t on par with a [World Boss].

Plus, the [Round Table] could keep the lines of communication open to the end of the universe and beyond, and while distance did fuck with material transfer and personnel transport to a degree, they could receive supplies and even be recalled in an emergency, though the latter incurred one hell of a cooldown.

In other words, they were free from virtually all factors that limited other expeditions.

And they’d taken full advantage of that, looking at every natural phenomenon and sight they wanted to see, finding new, spectacular sights, and running wild on previously unknown life-bearing planets.

Nothing crazy, mind you, but still looking at tons of interesting sights, cute, or not so cute, alien animals, and the like.

Something like one in five sun-like stars had rocky planets in the habitable zone, and of those, maybe a quarter had some amount of liquid water. And of those, a tiny fraction had life and an even tinier one boasted anything interesting to look at.

.1 percent, maybe.

But there were still a lot of star systems in the galaxy, let alone the universe. Even just the fifty-light-year sphere of Earth that had been thoroughly explored contained over two thousand.

Which made it all the weirder that they hadn’t found any intelligent aliens, didn’t it? The Fermi paradox at its finest, a universe full not only of potentially life-bearing planets but actual life, yet not a single life form they’d found could tie its proverbial shoelaces, let alone actually communicate beyond “danger” and “hungry.” Alien critters were cool and all, but …

… he was hurled out of FTL space without warning.

The thing about having been the single most well-informed person on the planet for the vast majority of the last half-century meant that it was easy to forget what he didn’t know, at least when it came to System stuff.

Specifically, he hadn’t known it was possible to disrupt the [Alcubierre Bubble] [Skill] like that. Sure, it didn’t like gravity wells, the larger the bubble, the easier it was to disrupt, but gravity wells were predictable and could be avoided with his [Skills]. And, either way, he hadn’t hit a gravity well. He’d still had a light minute or so to go, and he’d have dropped the [Skill] himself by that point. This was … something else.

The FTL-pod was sucked into a smooth, steely, gleaming bracer wrapping his right forearm while his sword Balmung manifested in his hand. He might not know what had knocked him into real space was hostile, but he also didn’t know it wasn’t, and he wasn’t taking any chances.

***

Anshou Tolosyne, the Tempest Blade, Worldbreaker of the Koinian people, was bored. Very bored.

The [System] had changed a great deal of things, and for a while, things had been good. Then they’d been exceedingly bad as greed and stupidity resulted in rampant destruction, caused by both the people themselves and the powerful monsters they recklessly summoned.

This had been followed by a seemingly endless succession of calm times and crises, until eventually, they’d managed to push a few people to the peak of power, the Level cap, and beyond. Not by breaking the cap, but by reaching it with such high-quality [Classes] that they stood head and shoulders above the rest, holding the power to save the world or, if they had no peers to stand against them, destroy it.

The Worldbreakers.

There had been many other terms in contention for people of his rank and power, but when the war had started, that had been the only option left anyone was willing to choose.

The fact that most clashes had been in the void between Peran and Zelveg and neither planet had taken overly much damage had not taken away from the sheer terror the displays of combat had instilled.

The fact that only thirty, well, twenty-five now, such beings existed hadn’t made much of a difference either. Even one person capable of obliterating cities with a thought, destroying provinces in short order, and potentially living up their names with some creativity … if it hadn’t been for the fact that there were enemies of equal strength that needed to be countered, Anshou might have found himself attacked by his own side out of fear of what he might do.

But that had been then.

Now, things were calm again, and the only battles being fought were against the wards that had ended the war, the enchanted mess of self-repairing, self-assembling swarm of ward stones that floated in the void like a second asteroid belt between the Koinian homeworld and the naturally habitable second planet in their star system.

They blocked all kinds of faster-than-light travel on an interplanetary, let alone interstellar, scale. No portals, no usage of the already-discovered Aspects that allowed for personal interstellar travel, and certainly no workable research into anything that might allow for larger-scale, long-range, travel. Things that could take entire ships between stars.

No one was even powering them anymore, the Skill [Light Speed Lockdown] had been spread far and wide once the Aspect combination that unlocked it had been uncovered, but the existing energy field would be maintained until … until either the system’s star exploded, or someone actually managed to resolve the situation.

That fight was not his to fight, while he could break wardstones and often did, this was a problem that would be solved by engineers and archmages, not warriors, no matter how heavily they might have been involved in efforts to understand the [System]. There were decades of experience and [Class] abilities he simply couldn’t match, no matter how good he might have otherwise been at research and related fields.

Ironically, once striking at each other had become too tedious due to the long travel times, not only had the war come to a screeching halt, the hostilities had also soon died down. It had all just seemed so stupid … to those who lived on Peran, at least. Zelveg had been the ones who got attacked, after all.

Which left him in his current state. No problems he could fight, no enemies capable of reasonably challenging him other than his fellow Worldbreaker-ranked fighters whom he should not challenge until the promised deathless arena was finished, and no more mountains to climb.

He had two planets worth of space to explore, and all the countless asteroid bases his people had built to visit … yet that was hardly interesting to him anymore either. If he’d wanted to go to a place, he’d already done it.

Anshou had never been one for intoxicants, he’d never liked losing control of his actions like that, yet … yet with every revolution of the planet below him, he felt himself getting more and more tempted to try something. Anything. It was bound to be novel, at the very least.

He …

His communicator exploded. Almost literally, with how many different people were attempting to contact him, his decision to allow for multiple simultaneous alerts to sound almost causing the poor device’s speakers to fail.

Anshou ignored them all in favor of the news alert that had likewise appeared, figuring it described the thing that had gotten everyone else so riled up. He just hoped it wasn’t over nothing, that would just make an already disappointing day that much worse … aliens.

An alien, to be exact, but the existence of one indicated the existence of an entire species.

And thus, his day had just gotten interesting.

Of the system’s two habitable worlds, Zelveg not only had the outer orbit, but was also much closer to the newcomer.

“I’ll contact the alien, and deal with the situation if it turns out to have been hostile. Prepare the Augury, we’ll need as much information as we can get regardless of how this shakes out. And …”

Anshou had seen a lot of things, had liked to think of himself as being fairly unflappable. Even in the face of insurmountable danger or historical levels of stupidity.

But when one of the planet’s defensive satellites opened fire, even he found himself at a loss for words. Yes, the alien had drawn what appeared to be a sword, but the action was too belated to be part of an attack, and when firing at a clearly very high-level individual, shouldn’t that have also been coordinated?

***

So, they’d opened fire. With one satellite.

Obviously, an accident. Well, not “accident” exactly, one would hope that an alien race sufficiently intelligent to travel between planets and create, at the bare minimum, peak information-age tech would design their orbital lasers well enough that no accidental discharges would occur. But it was almost certainly not a coordinated attack, and therefore, might not have been this alien race’s intended reply to his appearance.

Isaac’s precognition in [The Meaning of the Name] had been burning at full blast since emergence, prediction being the only way to avoid light-speed attacks such as lasers, so dodging was as simple as leaning to the side while he retargeted [Wisdom of the Simurgh] to search for other defenses rather than the history of the world down below.

There were a lot of others out there, all had been powered up but very few were aiming at him. In fact, there were only two that could shoot him, including the one that had already fired, most of the rest were “just” aiming in his general direction, ready to engage if necessary.

Alright, [Lessons of History], do you work on something that happened only three seconds ago?

The answer turned out to be yes. Barely. With support from Isaac’s other information-based [Skills].

A panic reaction by a controller who would get his or her ass beaten even without his input. Isaac decided that silently watching while eating potato chips when that came to pass was all the “revenge” he needed.

But that didn’t mean he could just stay here and wait until another panic reaction removed peace as an option. So he transformed Blamung into a kabar and sheathed his blade, just to show his “good intentions,” then slid the sheath around on his belt until it sat squarely in the small of his back. An “anchor” of sorts, which he could hold in place using his ability to telekinetically control blades, a much less terrifying method of flight than his usual trick of moving through the skies atop a towering pillar of flame.

And then, reluctantly, painfully aware of how badly this could backfire, lowered himself into the uppermost layers of the atmosphere.

***

Apparently, the alien had managed to deduce the fact that the attack had been an accident.

But now, it was getting dangerously close, and even having dismissed the sword did very little to assuage Anshou’s worries.

Why was the alien so low? Why was it in the atmosphere?

Was it a threat, was it trying to release an airborne weapon of some kind, or was it trying to eavesdro- … that was it, wasn’t it?

The alien was attempting to make itself heard while listening to all the countless conversations going on below in an attempt to learn one of their languages. Or at least that was what he assumed. What he hoped.

Because there was, quite literally, not a single way to share a language otherwise.

Lip reading existed and let one easily communicate in the void when seeing another’s face, true, and Anshou had learned it, but it worked the best when one both knew which language was being spoken and was familiar with it.

Attempting to guess at the language in use was a recipe for misunderstandings.

Learning a language via lip-reading alone was a feat worthy of a legendary [Class] even with [Omniglot].

Learning an unfamiliar language, with unknown roots and a complete lack of knowledge of similar languages from the lips of an alien with entirely different physiology, and, well, alien translations of motions to sounds … well, “impossible” was all that needed to be said on the matter, really.

Which necessitated the descent into the upper layers of the atmosphere. And the alien had figured that out in a near-infinitesimal amount of time.

Would Anshou have made that connection so quickly? He’d like to think so, though if he was entirely honest with himself, he put the chances of that having happened only at one chance in two.

He lifted his communicator to his lips.

“I believe it wants to learn our language, can someone use the public broadcast to read the basic communications guide for [Omniglot] users that was made for the interstellar probes? I’ll be heading in to make in a few moments. And where is the damn Augury? I don’t need to know everything, I just need to know that he doesn’t have a war criminal or serial killer [Class].”

As the protector of this planet, he could thankfully bypass the chain of command as long as he did not overrule any specialists.

And while the communications package began to play, teaching the basics of the artificially created language known simply as “Standard,” Anshou began to slowly ascend, the wind carrying him higher in a manner that should be too slow to trigger any innate biological reactions to threats the alien might have.

What was the correct pose to strike here, the correct image to project?

There were many, many ways he could carry himself, yet this was not a question of what common sense or protocol dictated. It was of what the alien would see.

Anshou was already half again as tall as the newcomer, which was already the kind of thing that tended to lead to fear, and fear swiftly led to outbursts.

So, how could he carry himself that would convey peacefulness?

Approaching with his arms spread wide as though about to embrace the stranger might have worked on another Koinian, but would it look like that to a complete stranger? What if that was the predation method of some lethal animal from the alien homework?

There was only a single creature like that on either of the known life-bearing planets, but the alien’s home was, by its very definition, alien. Who knew what crawled in its shadows? And speaking of animals, there were certain crawling little beasts that somehow sparked a primal fear in Koinians, causing even Level 200 warriors dozens of cycles old to act like terrified children. What if he accidentally reminded the newcomer of their version of a bug?

To be honest, while those questions had answers, he was highly unlikely to get any of these bits of information in time for it to actually matter. Because quite frankly, anything could accidentally set off the alien, and he entirely lacked the information needed to avoid it beyond common sense.

Unauthorized tale usage: if you spot this story on Amazon, report the violation.

As far as he knew, just the sight of him would be a problem, the pale blue of his skin might have been the warning colors of an alien apex predator. Now, it would be a tremendous stroke of bad luck if that turned out to be what was going on, but Anshou would also not find out until the entire situation had already erupted into his face.

Ultimately, while there were a lot of concerns, he could do very little with them. So he settled on what would have been considered a relaxed and neutral pose, with his arms hanging down by his side, and no weapons visible. Though calling his soulbound bladed whip into his hand could be done in an instant if needed.

As he rose higher, the wind of the world falling away below him slackened, dying down to a mere whisper while raging energies emitted by the star at the center of this system began to coalesce around him … at least until he violently rejected them.

The way his [Stormrider] had adapted to function in a vacuum might have been the only way to efficiently fight outside an atmosphere, but it also lit him on fire and resembled the activation sequence of many a combat [Skill]. This could still end peacefully … but a lot of things would have to go right for that to happen, and only a single mistake could derail everything.

He’d been slowly getting closer, having crossed nearly two-thirds of the distance between his home and the alien, when the planetary defense party was finally established, allowing him to communicate with the others using only his mind.

“Augury report?” Anshou snapped immediately.

The Augury was a collection of individuals with exotic evolutions of [Inspect], allowing its members to, collectively, identify almost anyone, regardless of what shape their [Privacy] upgrade did.

“Complicated.”

Gods damn them. Could that have been phrased any more unhelpfully? Because that could have meant anything, from “something embarrassing is keeping up one or more members” to “the alien has a nasty defense and now everyone is bleeding from all four eyeballs” and everything in between.

“What’s the most specific answer you can give me?” Anshou sighed, only bothering to temper his irritation, rather than hiding it entirely.

“We can read his [Class’] names, but there are cultural implications and multiple languages involved, and we don’t know enough to make [Omniglot] work, or when we even need it. Idioms don’t translate well, and some names are simply words that have been used as names for so long that no one really maintains awareness of the fact that they are, in fact, words, and we don’t know if we have to translate the parts that are either foreign words or just names or …”

“First sentence would have been enough,” Anshou cut off the speaker once it had become clear that nothing even remotely useful would follow. “What can you tell me.”

“Like I said, we know the names of his [Classes]. Started out as a [Rouge], then [Undying Wraith], which is epic, legendary [Bladewrath], Heir [Class], Incarnation of some kind of … We’re really not sure, and he has two separate 5th Evolution [Classes]. One is some kind of assassin, the other is called [Challenger of the Apocalypse].”

“Next time, just tell me that.”

This time, Anshou replied evenly, even though he wanted to reach out and shake the Augur until the moron threw up from dizziness. Because that had actually been really useful information he could have had quite a bit earlier.

One, this was obviously a speed-based fighter he might wind up dealing with, much like Anshou himself.

Two, this being was obviously at least a decent person, if they managed to gain a [Class] based around preventing the end of the world.

Three, this was someone powerful and impactful, likely influential as well, on their home world, with both an Heir and Incarnation [Class].

And finally, fourthly, he now almost certainly knew what the newcomer’s capstone was. Because unless their access to the [System] was vastly different, which was doubtful considering the Augurs could read them aside from a few issues that clearly stemmed from dealing with an entirely alien language, the only way to get two [Classes] in one Evolution was to make that one’s capstone.

Though for him, the most valuable piece of information was the being’s obviously at least somewhat good nature, considering their protective [Class]. They couldn’t be that bad.

It was at this point that Anshou got close enough to more easily observe the alien, the lessened distance allowing him to easily pick out small details.

Like he’d already seen, the alien was shorter than him, with skin that was a pale pink while their hair was so dark it seamlessly blended in with the dark void of space around it. Two arms and legs, like a Koinian, but also only two eyes, which sparkled like many a precious gem.

As for the clothing, it might have been an alien style, using alien materials, but it was far easier to decipher than everything else.

Simple, one color for the torso covering, a different one for the legs, made of durable and almost certainly expensive materials that were not overly obvious as such without close examination or an expert’s gaze. Another thing that pointed towards this being someone of means, even if the exact meaning of the clothing escaped Anshou at the moment.

Incidentally, though, this was pretty much exactly how Anshou liked to dress. Not flashy or as if he had someone to impress, but still getting the best quality he could get.

And then, Anshou noticed something peeking out of the alien’s collar and froze.

That was … well, he’d seen many a relict in his time, both of the crafted or [Skill]-generated kind, and this was decidedly in the upper echelons of rarity and value.

Necklace for Humanity’s Savior

The name was the only piece of written information he could detect at this range, but the feelings that swam along with it were undeniable.

A being who’d saved an entire … was humanity a world, or a species?

“His species is called ‘Einherhar,’ and he has a lot of Aspects, including those that belong to World Bosses,” a new member of the Augury confirmed. Well, that settled that.

***

Someone down there had more of a brain than most of the politicians who’d be in charge of a situation like that back on Earth. Or maybe, someone else had come up with the idea of playing what basically amounted to a primer to the local language when aliens showed up, and made the suggestion early enough for it to pass muster and become a part of the protocol.

Or maybe the aliens had just streamlined things to the point where bureaucracy did not slow things in the slightest. If that was the case, then Isaac really hoped that they were peaceful, otherwise, humanity would be utterly fucked.

Also, they’d sent out an “ambassador,” or at least someone fulfilling a similar role.

Inspecting the alien let Isaac know he was dealing with a warrior with control over all sorts of weather phenomena, though the impression he got was that it was mostly focused on using storms and the like. Move fast, hit hard, leave only devastation behind.

All that power, carefully leashed and restrained … in that moment, Isaac got the impression that the alien was approaching him more as though one would approach a skittish wild animal, than a warrior with enough firepower to lay waste to even a metropolis in a matter of minutes.

Though despite all that was going on, Isaac’s gaze was fixed on the alien that was slowly approaching.

Tall, lanky, with decidedly inhuman features including, four eyes, a truly massive hook nose that had to have nostrils somewhere but they were hidden to him where he was standing, six fingers on each hand, and pale blue skin, all covered by clothing that Isaac could best compare to a short-sleeved shirt and shorts.

Both arms were hanging limply by the alien’s side, much like how Isaac was carrying himself, seemingly both desperately trying to avoid looking like they were about to attack … though when the alien flinched, the movement transcended species boundaries and came across very well. And then, the planetary defense network opened fire once again.

***

“The alien has twenty World Bo- …”

“Five legendary [Cla- …”

“There are at least three transformative cooldown [Sk- …”

Half a dozen different voices overlapped in an instant as more information was uncovered and flooded into the party’s communications channel, but one stood out above all others.

“Open fire! We need to …”

And that was all Anshou had had to hear. Oh, those idiots!

Though the alien reacted with alarming speed, evading the beam of coherent light with casual ease, simply being dragged out of the path of the beam by something pulling at the back of its clothing, a levitation artifact, obviously.

Yet with how fast light was, the alien had to have been moving before the attack, which indicated a degree of precognition. And that meant … what exactly? Did a lack of a preemptive counterattack indicate peaceful intent, or was this more a matter of wanting to wait until the Koinian people had firmly established themselves as the aggressors?

Either way, Anshou doubted that this would come down to orbital defenses meant to target troop transports, even the finest technology was hard-pressed to keep up with a being in the 5th Evolution, never mind someone at its peak.

A thought, and a wave of his hand in the general direction of the offending machine, was all it took to crush the satellite like a child’s toy.

***

Now it was obvious, there were multiple minds guiding the efforts below, and only some of them seemed to be calm and rational about this. Because while Isaac would have understood if they acted to something he did, he hadn’t moved in two bloody minutes until he’d been forced to dodge.

And while the pause in the firing could have been a trick, a lure, Isaac had kept sweeping the planet with [Lessons of History] and [Wisdom fo the Simurgh], and figured out a lot. Including the fact that Hanlon’s Razor, “never attribute to malice what can be attributed to stupidity,” was very much applicable to the alien society as well.

Having the satellite destroyed immediately afterwards just confirmed things.

Though being able to read the expression on the approaching being’s face would have been exceedingly useful. Why wasn’t there a “read alien body language” [Ski- …

Isaac. Was. A. Moron.

[Skills] like that existed, and he had one. Sort of.

[Blessing of Innovation] could allow him to borrow [Skills] from low Evolution and rarity scientific [Classes], including ones that ordinarily just tracked and allowed you to retain relevant knowledge which would, in his case, grant him said knowledge.

So, go ahead and borrow the ability to read all body language on any alien race he might encounter … [Blessing of Innovation] refused, giving him the mental equivalent of a sad trombone noise. It either didn’t exist, or was beyond the scope of what he could borrow.

Deciding to go for more low-hanging fruits, Isaac chose to borrow specifically from the alien species he now knew were called Koinians because [Omniglot] was really picking up steam decoding the broadcasts down below.

Now, he still had to be careful because if these people were anything like humans, then far too many of their psychologists had locked themselves into an ivory tower the instant they entered the realm of higher academia. And even when they didn’t, far too many thought themselves infallible human polygraphs the likes of which you’d see as a consultant for the police on many a TV show, and they were appropriately stubborn and unwilling to acknowledge when they’d make a mistake.

When borrowing this knowledge about humans, Isaac could temper it with his own knowledge and experiences. Here, however, he was using entirely academic knowledge entirely devoid of the context any kind of experience with this species would have given him. Even with the ability to read their body language near-perfectly dumped into his mind, misunderstandings were still all too easy.

But he really, really hoped that his interpretation of the “ambassador” being welcoming to him but irritated with whoever had control of the satellites proved true.

The “ambassador” was also well within hearing range now, and Isaac was finally comfortable with his pronunciation. As for what he said … was there ever any doubt?

***

“I come in peace.”

Anshou had never heard something so beautiful, regardless of how utterly horrendous the pronunciation had been, the speaker’s solemn tone carrying across species boundaries … unless the tone was yet another misunderstanding.

“If anyone attacks without a good reason, I will end you,” he whispered into the party. They’d already gotten through two attacks without a major diplomatic incident, they just needed to avoid doing anything stupid just a little bit longer ...

Anshou came to a stop far enough away that an entire house could have fit between them, close enough to easily talk but far enough to at least somewhat complicate an attack.

“In the name of the Koinian people, I greet you,” Anshou grimaced at the stilted phrasing even as he said it. That was going to be in all the history books, damnit.

The alien met his gaze at this point and held it, no longer looking around for threats.

“But not in peace?”

Anshou flinched.

“Would you have believed me if I had said so, after certain individuals panicked and attacked you?”

The alien made a strange movement with its shoulders.

“I suppose not. But just to confirm, your government’s official position is not to attack newcomers unless they strike first?”

“Correct …” Anshou replied, praying fervently that the people on the ground would not make him a liar.

The alien relaxed immediately, a tension that had not been apparent until it was gone melting away.

“There are no plague [Skills] in play, correct?” Anshou asked via the party. “Or anything involving poisons?”

“We can still only see his [Class’] names.”

“What about the assassin?” Anshou sighed. [Challenger of the Apocalypse] certainly sounded like it held a lot of raw power, didn’t it?

A secondary 5th Evolution [Class] seemed like it would be the perfect way to sneak in devastating fire-and-forget powers that continued to unleash devastation while using the primary [Class] for combat.

Or …

“As far as we can tell, the assassin is based around research and understanding your enemy to better kill them.”

… Or the assassin could be the exact kind of [Class] that you never ever ever wanted to let get anywhere near you.

“Was the alien telling the truth about coming in peace?” he asked.

“That’s the truth, as far as we can tell.”

A little voice in the back of his mind began to nag at him, warning that the alien’s seemingly endless well of patience might merely have been a ruse to get close enough to do some spying and become a lethal predator for the people of this world … and he ruthlessly squashed it.

The only aggression had originated from the idiots below and maybe

“How about we continue this conversation on the ground?” he finally suggested out loud, while sending another strongly worded warning through the party to warn them not to do anything hasty, not again.

“Let’s.”

They both dropped like stones as they cut whatever powers were holding them aloft, leaving them falling at speeds that would have made for a lethal impact if either of them had been even remotely normal. As it was, when they did catch themselves, it was more a matter of protecting the ground from them than anything else.

“My name is Isaac Thoma,” the alien finally introduced himself. “I’m a human, from a planet called Earth.”

“I thought you were an Einherjar?” Anshou immediately asked, guard instinctively raised. Sometimes, holes in stories indicated deceit, sometimes they only looked like holes due to insufficient information on his part. Or it could have been a trap, something to suss out how much of the alien’s character sheet he could see …

“Human is my birth race, Einherjar is an evolution.”

Yes, insufficient information leading to him believing he was being lied to. The sheer overwhelming force of the unknown pervaded this meeting between two entirely separate species, and it was feeding his paranoia to a never-before-seen degree.

“And humanity?” Anshou asked another question, one which seemed much less risky than the first one as the necklace had clearly been designed to be inspected and give the inspector information about it and its wearer.

“A term describing the sum of all humans, expanded to include those who evolved from it.”

With every exchange, his mind was flooded with ever more questions, but before anything else happened, there was something else he needed to do.

Introduce himself.

“My name is Anshou Tolosyne, I’m a Worldbreaker-ranked warrior, and the guardian of the high orbitals.”

“Worldbreaker?”

Yes … that title was a tad aggressive, wasn’t it?

“A title given to those with the greatest offensive potential,” Anshou replied.

“Offensive in the …” the alien suddenly stopped talking. “I’m sorry, I almost made a stupid joke, that won’t happen again. So, what do I call you? Do I use your entire name, or one part of your name alongside some kind of title or specific identifier …”

Somehow, Anshou got the feeling he and the newcomer were kindred spirits, in how they were so determined to ensure this went well that they completely overthought things.

“Call me Anshou.”

“Well, you can call me Isaac,” the alien, no, Isaac, replied.

“Do you have titles like ‘Worldbreaker’?” Anshou asked.

“Maybe, we have a category called ’S-rank’ that describes those who are so powerful compared to the average that they are given their own rank to avoid disrupting the averages,” Isaac explained. “What about ‘Worldbreakers,’ how direct does the destructive power have to be?”

“It needs to be personal power, without a dependency on circumstance or environment.”

Isaac pointed up at the sky. “So being able to deorbit the moon won’t count?”

Anshou had to hold back a shiver. To think of that method so quickly … this was a being whose mind was entirely geared toward causing damage and devastation. A being that also came in peace and had a [Class] centered around preventing worlds from ending, granted, but someone with the ability to bring the big chunk of rock that orbited the planet down on everyone’s heads was a persistent fear that had repeatedly been addressed in security conferences.

“No, it wouldn’t.”

So, things had worked out fine, Anshou had brought the alien down onto the planet’s surface without anything happening or anyone panicking, not again, at least.

He knew this would go well … until the first threads of several powerful [Auras] washed over him.

***

You know what?

Isaac was pretty sure he was figuring out what made these guys tick. For the most part.

It had taken him half an hour and only worked while he was burning through some of [Aspects of the End’s] precious time limit by keeping [Wisdom of the Simurgh] active, but with a lot of magic, and a little common sense, he’d managed to understand a literally alien species, at least in broad strokes.

The Koinians were highly hierarchical, fundamentally needing to know where they stood relative to each other. However, unlike humans, there was very little bickering about ranks outside of actual attempts to move up.

Which should have made for a very orderly society … except it didn’t. Because there were plenty of separate chains of command that could just as easily come into conflict as they did on Earth, oftentimes without someone like a president or other designated “ball stops with that you” person.

For example, it was Anshou’s job to take care of stuff in the high orbits, which Isaac’s approach had fallen into … yet the technological defenses were under someone else’s command.

And neither was seemingly in a position to tell the approaching individuals blasting their [Auras] to back off, implying yet another chain of command.

Then, of course, there was the fact that Koinians weren’t just a bunch of near-identical individuals in possession of one extra personality trait apiece. Under the umbrella of “needing hierarchy,” a whole lot of different personalities could exist.

Much the same way that most humans liked having a community and being told they were right, as well as having a near-suicidal impulse to pet anything even remotely fluffy, though the latter could be resisted by anyone with half a brain.

However, “most humans” covered everyone from Adolf Hitler to Mahatma Gandhi, from Nelson Mandela to Jack the freaking Ripper. Relying on his knowledge of a seemingly species-wide quirk for negotiations seemed a little risky. And so did letting anyone else do the same.

Still, even as Anshou tensed up, Isaac could tell that the alien wasn’t afraid of the newcomers, they were afraid of how Isaac might react. Actually … Isaac checked his knowledge of the local language and culture. Calling Anshou “he” was actually correct, rather than the gender-neutral “they.”

But in this situation, Isaac knew what was about to happen, and how he could reply without causing a big kerfuffle. Or at least one that didn’t get unnecessarily big.

“Those three are just coming because they want to know what I can do compared to them, right? They’re not actually coming in to fight to the death, or anything like it? If I defeat them in an [Aura] duel, no major damage, that would be fine?”

“As long as you don’t hurt them too badly,” Anshou replied after seeming to think about it for a couple of seconds, once again incredibly apprehensive. Perhaps he assumed that Isaac would overreact, or feared that “no major damage” had very different connotations for humans and Koinians?

Isaac just grinned and unleashed his own [Aura]. Well, [Auras],

[Titanic Presence] allowed him to use not just the sensory [Aura] that was already blanketing the area, but also the [Aura of the Crimson Dawn], crimson energy fuelled by conflict and emanating the power of a new beginning, hope from despair, renewal from death … all in an overwhelming burst of energy that tore through all three incoming [Auras].

Half a century in, the one extra decade of experience in [Aura] usage Isaac held had much less of an impact compared to the beginning of it all, when he’d had a literally insurmountable advantage.

But it was still an advantage, one Isaac had compounded by diligent practice and supporting [Skills], such as [Burden of Command] and [Death’s Embrace], which he was now flooding into his “attack.”

Anyone willing to “test” an alien and potentially get in a tiff with Anshou was not going to be weak, however, so a purely auric attack was hardly a big threat to them.

Injuries to one’s pride, on the other hand?

Isaac turned to glare at each of the approaching Koinians, concentrating his [Aura] each time until they ran. It didn’t take long.

“Perhaps we should move this somewhere less likely to be interrupted? I have a home nearby,” Anshou made an offer, which Isaac gratefully accepted.

And ten minutes later, he found himself in an incredibly bizarre room that nonetheless worked completely. The decor was, well, alien, but it fit together in, well, in that nothing inside was something some some set designer had thrown in there just for the sake of “being quirky.” No, this was the real deal, completely.

Isaac pulled a half-empty bottle of whiskey from his storage.

“In human culture, one of the ways we celebrate is by drinking together. I don’t know if you have a similar tradition, or if you think it’s too early to celebrate, but I think that went well, didn’t it?”

“That’s toxic to me,” Anshou replied, then narrowed his eyes at Isaac. “To you too, isn’t it?”

Isaac had to suppress a laugh. It would not have been taken the way he’d intended.

“I guess. Humans don’t necessarily avoid everything that’s bad for them, but I’m actually immune to the poison.”

Anshou made a motion that Isaac now knew to be analogous to a human shrug. “If we always made the objectively correct choice, we’d never have fought a civil war. What about your people? What did you do to earn that necklace of yours?”

Isaac sighed. “Can I sit down? This is going to be a long story. But basically, we didn’t fight other people for the most part, we fought our own worst impulses …

***

Isaac grinned as he began his return flight across the interstellar void towards the little planet he and Elena had most recently been using as their home. He could not wait to tell her about all of this, then return to the Koinian’s star system together.

Also, they’d soon be using the [Round Table] to contact Earth, so Arthur could gather some people and make official first contact.

Of course, Isaac was influential enough to make deals on humanity’s behalf that wouldn’t be dismissed out of hand, but that was a terrible basis for any kind of lasting relationship.

This solar system would be fascinating to stay in for a while, until eventually, Wanderlust struck again and they went exploring again. Having found not just alien life but intelligent alien life … knowing it was out there just made him all the more eager to go shooting off into the vast beyond.

Oh, the universe was a wonderous place, wasn’t it?

***

Anshou gazed up after Isaac as the alien left the star system. Certain parts of the government had had a little meltdown at that, however, sending three near-Worldbreaker fighters fleeing with his [Aura] alone had utterly terrified far too many people.

But Isaac would be back, and by then, the morons would hopefully have had the time to work out why friendly relations with other intelligent species were preferable to a battle. Most people had taken minutes to figure that out, politicians, on the other hand … best to give them a few revolutions.