*Two days earlier*
"Master, we are exiting the Makkan sector." Alpha announced, taking a seat in thr back of the ship in a spare seat while Sol stood with his back turned the window and monitors while he was locked in conversation with Ikaris and Arla.
"Did you manage to find anything on your scanners?" Dina who had been bored asked quickly, seeking so form of information to bring colour to her monotony.
"Nothing," Alpha shook her head. "I cannot scan or sense anything, there is just ...nothing."
"That is disappointing," Arla chid even though the smile on her face revealed so level of relief.
"What about you?" Ikaris turned to Sol.
"Nothing," He answered bitterly. "There was resentnt before, lots of it, but the closer I got the more it seed to vanish, by the ti we got here there was none left, It's as Alpha said; an overwhelming amount of emptiness." He finally turned to the monitors staring after he heard a singular ping.
"An unidentified vessel just transmitted a distress signal in the neighbouring sector." Dina leaned over the dash with an expectent glance in Sol's direction. "Should we see what the issue is?"
"Alpha can check it out, if we stop for every sign and signal we encounter it would take years to make it to the Nexus." Sol sighed. "Dina, if you're bored then you can just go back and Spar with soone, you rarely want to leave-"
"My place is at your side, Master, when I go back I am struck with unease and longing, I would rather spend the ti with you looking across vast nothingness than in the presence of everyone else." She admitted tapping her foot on the ground with a small frown.
"Do as you please then, but don't expect to entertain you all the ti, even if its boredom, it is still peaceful for the ti being." He fired back pointing at her frown and watching it slowly morph into a pout. "Understood?"
"I understand-"
"Another incomning distress signal." Alpha announced. "It states that ths ship was shot down and crashed on an undeveloped terrestrial world, but there are no Emporium or other forces anywhere on any of my scans, no pirates, not even a bandit broadcast, there is an absence of all frequencies. The only ship aside from ours that has been anwhere near Makka in over a thousand years is this one."
"That is odd." Ikaris narrowed her eyes. "Who would co all the way here, especially considering the beasts that used to be here?" She asked skeptically.
"Soone with no will to live, maybe?" Arla pondered, but then shook her head. "No, that would contradict their reason for a distress signal in the first place, the only other option is that they ran from soone in the only direction that nobody dares to venture, right?"
"That or they are a smaller part of a larger ambush." Sol huffed.
"An ambush?" Dina perked up as soon as the word fell off the man's lips. "Should I-"
"Arla," Sol turned to her, and nodding the Elf took his hand and vanished a mont later. "I won't allow her to be in any kind of danger."
"Arla is perfectly capable of-"
"Master, there is an audio log!" Alpha seed almost frightened as she announced the incoming file.
[I was sent by a being of omnipresence who calls himself Buche, the resurrrector, I am originally from your Sol Collective, my na is-"
Clenching his fist and reacting out of shock, Sol crushed the speaker that was playing the audio with an expression of horror. "That voice," He looked at Alpha. "There's no way."
"A projection this ti, we are close enough to lock on to the downed vessel." Alpha's hand hovered over the panels. "Master?"
"What's wrong?" Dina asked, but much like Sol, Ikaris was nearly frozen in shock. "What is happening?"
"Play it." Ikaris looked at Alpha.
"Wait, we don't know what's going on, this is definitely a trap of so kind," Sol shook his head, grabbing Alpha's hand before he could play the ssage.
"But what if it is her?"
"The dead do not co back, we've been through this, you said you couldn't because the plain of the dead is sowhere that none, not even the gods that govern it are allowed to go, a soul that has passed on cannot be..."
"That is true, but what if it really is her, what if sohow Jun is alive, or has been brought back from the dead?"
"Ikaris, this is a stretch, even for us."
"I know, but nothing is impossible anymore, even this, we are at realms of power so far removed from the concepts and limitations we once knew that I would believe anything presented before , even if it is the return soone who died over nine years ago in an alternate reality that has since been erased."
"Whoa, what the fuck...?" Dina turned to Alpha. "Is it truly her, is it Jun?"
"I cannot ascertain that it is Master's first-"
"Alpha," Sol warned her.
"Apopogies," She still had her hand hovered above the button. "What will you have do, Master?"
"Please," Ikaris held on to his hand. "For my sake, Dear, do this for my peace of mind, even if it is unexplained, my dead dream that sohow soone else made it out can beco a reality, I will not fault you if it is not her, I will accept the reality that is put before , but I need to know." Her grasp of his hand tightened. "Please."
Sol groaned, stoic as his expression had beco, he was a hurricane of emotions on the inside.
[Play it].
[You've co a long way from the man who couldn't save a single world from a simple demon, Sol]. Jun smiled at the monitor she had recorded through. [I know you have a lot of questions, maybe too much, but it is truly , and I do need help, my ship went through a debris field and I was indeed shot afterwards, it can no longer handle travel, my Master designed this interaction knowing that if I am not rescued, I will remain here until I die].
"There's no way," Sol held his mouth, slowly falling back into his seat and holding on to the sidebar with his forehead full of wrinkles. "There's no way, there just... it's impossible!"
"Sol-"
"I watched her die!" He snapped. "I watched her get tortured for hours, unable to do a fucking thing, I watched the life fade from her eyes, I watched... she was... this can't be real."
"I can sense her mana." Ikaris held his hand. "Which ans you can too, Atlan mana, this is sothing that cannot be impersonated, I can feel the magicul that I created flowing through her, the core, the channels, Sol, it is her, she looked up at the torso projection of the once dead mage. "That is Jun."
"It's not..." He slowly turned his forehead and rested it against her breasts with a deep sigh. "How?"
"If we et her, we might get those answers." Dina suggested, but remained removed from the topic as she observed Sol's walls fall apart one after the other, leaving him in a state she had never seen before.
"Shall I set course?"
"Sure." Ikaris held Sol's head onto her bosom and nodded. "Do it quickly before he changes his mind."
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