”Nice to meet you, hope we can be friends.”
“I must say you speak quite casually for one of a family of such status as yours.”
"Perhaps?" She wasn't there to make friends, but she wasn't totatlly opposed to it. "Its not like I'm royally or politically important or anything."
“You seemed quite focused with your work so it was not my place to interrupt or announce you.”
"I can appreciate that.
She would stare at Hugo curiously as he seemed to be formulatig something.
:”Hello? Anybody there? Colony ship to Hugo, please reply. And for the record, me and my sisters aren’t really related to Dark Force, remember? At least I don’t recall anybody in my family fighting it, and that’s including my crew. Neither anybody in ARKAS or Immortal Steel outside that queen clone unless I missed something. Stephanie, Katherine and Amaterasu don’t have anything to do with it either… Right?”
Nei looks at the rest of the party with questioning eyes.
"Well, not directly..." she says, stopping to consider the implications of her words, "But I do think I feel it's presence on the fringes."
He reaches to headpat Nei and give it some scritches for good measure, which actually looks kind of adorable, though it might be a little embarrassing for Nei since he's scary good at them. "Hang on, sweetie, daddy's doing a little math in his head.
I don't know why yet, but the way past and future are getting mixed up in our current timeline is starting to feel more and more intentional. Either someone is crazy enough to use Dark Force as a catalyst for something bigger, maybe as a trigger... or someone wants all that rage and conflict here. It could even be Dark Force itself trying to gather strength. We know for a fact it has resurfaced throughout history no matter how many times it has been defeated; maybe it's looking into a way to gather all of its strength from multiple timelines at once in order to crush us once and for all. But I don't think it could do that alone."
Stephanie nods, "Indeed, gathering all your strength at one point is a good way to do things."
"Murasaki, you just earned yourself a smack on the head for missing the point completely.
Here's the thing: Dark Force may have taken on new forms, but it was consistently the same entity throughout. The simple fact that it has changed depending on who it controlled and which methods it used each time suggests that it's learned from its mistakes. And yet it sees a consistent pattern of failure because each civilization adapts to fight it too.
Now bear with me because we get a little bit hypothetical, but what if it is intentionally manipulating time so that it can analyze the exact reason for its defeat and immunize itself? If it can get everyone that ever defeated it at each other's throats, hey, bonus.
If that's how it goes, we have another item on our list besides stopping a potential future genocide war on all organickind.."
"Even more intriguing,"
:”An interesting thesis, which makes me question if this Dark Force in this scenario wouldn't be an ‘evolved’ version from many future cycles, and thus much more dangerous than its previous iterations, growing stronger with each defeat. In that case getting the ones that defeated it before to stop fighting each other and join our cause may be the best path to success. More important, this way I would be able to experience the pure bliss of serving queen Alis.”
Stephanie smirks at the last bit, she doesn't know this person but she had a good idea this was a bit out of her normal visible character.
Taking a moment to listen to the other details she would let it simmer a bit before speaking again. "If handling or defending civilians is in question, I could call in Team Silver. she would mess with the HARO that was under her towel, making it bob in the water. "Even if this wasn't the case, Master Northridge would definately be interested in the presence of the Dark Force. As far as Red Ring Rica, my starship is watching her as well as the other Nei while making sure both of those armies behave. I suppose I myself could run reconnaissance, but I'm only one person and it sounds like we need more."