Yeah, I Know That Feel Too. It’s Just This Event From The Past Was The First Thing To Cross My Mind.

@ pkmn-trainer-touko-tajiri

Don’t you mind, if I write a fic about this? With links and everything, of course!

so this one time, I had a great idea for pokemon fic.

It was basically about this older gruff jaded trainer who finds a little kid wandering around the route, calling for his fearow. Like little tiny babby’s first time training trainer.

So he asks the kid ‘Yo kid, you lose your starter or somethin’?”

Kid: “Yeah, it’s my fearow, he flew off after some raticate and now I can’t find him.” Older trainer’s like goddamn, who gets a kid a fearow as a starter?

“Your parents uh get you that fearow?” Cause he’s gonna have some words with this kids parents if that’s the case. Kid’s still like looking in trees and bushes and shit.

“No, caught ‘em myself out by the powerplant, saved up and bought the greatball myself and everything!” Kid’s super proud of that, meanwhile the older trainer’s thinking, weird, there’s no fearow out by the power plant, meh, maybe one flew there by accident.

Long story short, it’s not a fearow. A storm front rolls in and the kid’s like, ‘welp, there’s my fearow. Finally.’ Older trainer gets the heart attack of his life when fucking zapdos lands next to this kid out of a goddamn thundercloud and starts preening little kid’s hair.

“That’s not a fearow.” Is the only thing older trainer can say.

“What are you blind or something mister?” Says the little kid. “He’s got the spiky fearow feathers and everything. I can’t believe you call yourself a trainer. Come on Fearow, let’s go find a real trainer to battle.”

Some worldbuilding for my fic - Corporations, part 1.

In this universe, two megacorps - General Industries and Tunguska Technologies - over decades, mutated from classic corporations to some weird hybrids of corporations and states. Here is some info about internal political systems:

CEO of the corporation, which is pretty much President by any other name, is chosen by the High Economical Council, as opposed to classic Board of Directors.

The High Economical Council consists of the highest level managers, which are also representatives of the Employee Unions (which are pretty much Parties). There’s a lower border on how efficient manager needs to be to enter the High Economical Council, so employee-beloved idiots cannot get in it - corporation still needs to be profitable! In short, it’s a corporate-ed version of the classical Parliament.

There is also High Security Council, which is pretty much High Command and, as you may have already guessed, it commands... no, not only the Security Force, which is more like police, but also, and mostly, full-scale Corporate Army and some of hosted Private Military Contractors. In addition to everything above, they are responsible for choosing the Commander-in-chief.

Each time someone become a corporate employee, he/she is put on watch. When he/she proves himself/herself useful enough, he/she receives a single share and, because of this, becomes shareholder. While these shares do work somewhat like the normal shares (additional payment), their main purpose is indication of the “citizenship” of sort, because only shareholders may join Employee Unions and become managers. Shares of these corporations cannot be bought, sold or transferred, they may only be given to those who serve corporation well or revoked for internal crimes. The worst corporate punishment is full termination of the employment along with nullyfying shares and blacklisting biological ID data, because from this very moment, those who were punished in this way lose all of the corporate protection and rendered persona non-grata in all of the corporate-owned territory, which means they are now left to the Official State, which does not like corporates at all. Of course, those, who may give out important information, are either relocated into closed facilities and psychologically conditioned back into loyalty (if corps still need them), or suffer a deadly accident/simply disappear very soon after the employment termination (if corps have absolutely no further usage for them and they are too dangerous to just release outside of corporate territory).

As a matter of fact, total Employee Unions shares exceeds those of High Economical Council, shares of which exceeds those of CEOs, but individually, each of the High Economical Council members has less shares than CEO and each Employee Union member has less shares than member of the High Economical Council, so lower-key majorities can veto especially bad decisions of higher-key managers. This is deliberate to enforce sorta-democratic regimen, which has already prevented several CEOs from breaking the corporations apart one way or another.

Because of their wealth and power, corporations have a small Enclaves here and there. Most of time, these Enclaves have no name, instead being called like “Eastern Enclave №6″ and such.

Inside of these Enclaves, life is similar to both Azoth Kingdom and LaRousse, save for even more technology and automation, but Pokemon ownage and usage is heavily restricted. When not in the specified Training Complexes, Pokemon must be outfitted with a special restriction device, which prevents them from using any attacks. Also, to even own a Pokemon in these Enclaves, one must have special Pokemon Owner license, which is pretty hard to get. However, in the Tunguska Technologies-owned Enclaves, especially ones in the Soris region, there are special indulgences for the Soris Flygons, which allow to get Pokemon Owner license for them more easy than for other Pokemon. To some extent, this is also true to General Industries-owned Enclaves, but overall, GI Pokemon Usage Restriction policies are more, well, strict, than Tunguska Technologies ones.

The most prominent of these Enclaves are GI-owned Eastern Enclave №6 and TT-owned Southern Enclave №2. Both of them are heavily militarized, feature electrodynamic launch facilities (think LEO Shuttle from the Deus Ex) and more classic lauchpads for normal rockets, have airports and big airship-dedicated airfields, which can take up to four “Flygon” (GI)/”Altaria” (TT) Heavy Assault Ships (slightly bigger than canonical J’s airship) as well as several smaller airships and VTOLs at once. Even more - thanks to very high levels of automation, these Enclaves can, theoretically, operate even without help of humans, including defensive and offensive military operations, so, each of them is a very tough nut to crack. They also have some tactical fusion missiles at disposal, which are intended to be used in case of danger to entire Enclave, so, only truly insane can try taking on them.

 At the present time, General Industries has only one airborne aircraft carrier at it’s disposal - the very high-tech anti-gravity lifted “Saffron”, along with two modified “Flygons” for escort (two more are still being built), while Tunguska Technologies already has fully operational rigid hydrogen dirigible-type “Scimitar”, almost finished “Shamshir” and 75% finished “Yatagan” with modified “Druddigon”-class Medium Assault Ships for escort (three for each carrier). While significantly lower-tech and weaker than GI machines, Tunguska Technologies airships are far easier to build and maintain, following this corporation’s general line - “Easy to create, Easy to repair, Easy to replace” - so, for the time General Industries takes to finish a second “Saffron”-class airborne aircraft carrier, TT fleet will have at least five “Skimitar”-class carriers at it’s disposal.

In my headcanon (and fanfic once more, forgive me for mentioning it again), this walkways are protected by a forcefields (like the exponats in the exhibition hall), so you can’t fall from them for as long as they have enough power. I’m reading your “Obsession” now and I, actually, like it very much.

If you’re interested in my fanfic, it’s written in russian and called “Над землёй ничто не может связать меня...”(Above the ground, nothing can tie me down), and yeah, the name for this fic is derived from “Ware wa Collector” lyrics. This fanfic is about accidental traveler from our world, which managed to end up in Jiri’s body (Jiri’s full name here is Lawrence Gelardan the Third, but both real Jiri and traveller dislike theirs second name (Jiri - for family reasons, traveller - to uphold Jiri’s persona and just because he likes it that way) and prefer to be called simply Lawrence the Third) and recieved some of his person’s traits (his scientific genius, part of his collecting obsession and his memory (though he needs to actively search in it to found something as opposed to simply remembering)). The universe here is VERY different from what is shown in the official production, because there are megacorps with their own armies (in canon, there are yakuja teams with their own stadiums and casinos, acess to military-grade equipment, heavy armor vehicles and highly advanced biolabs, so why megacorps can’t also get some nice bonuses?) which even have their own airborne aircraft carriers (General Industries have an anti-gravity powered “Saffron” (which is somewhat similar to the “Daedalus” from SRIII), TungusTech have a rigid-hydrogen-dirigible-type “Scymithar”) and thermonuclear devices (mostly used for excavation and other peaceful purposes, like in USSR and UA back in the 60′s-80′s, but there are some TBMs and ICBMs with thermonuclear warheads), generations aren’t as rigid (there are already Skarmorys and Rayquaza, but time here is set mostly during the Orange Islands ark) and megacorps having enough political weight, so they are as powerful as the official goverment and can give some of their’s employees corporate immunity, which is much like diplomatic immunity, but even more powerful. Jiri here was a corporate employee (engineer-inventor) even before fic starts, and he was a very important one (here he was the one who invented anti-gravity technology, forcefields and the source of nearly limitless energy), so he had a free work graphic (to work at Flying Palace on whatever project he considered to be interesting, because it will always prove itself useful for General Industries) and a corporate immunity in his work contract (because I wanted to justify him being very wealthy, but not seeming to have a full-time job and being able to deploy weaponry on Legendaries without any problems with law). I specificially prefer to write original memories of the protagonist in a such way, so minimal amount of information can be derived from it - I’m fed up with fics about accidental travellers which are full of “For the Glory of Mother Яussia / USA / Great Britain / %insert_country_name_of_an_accidental_traveller’s_origin_here/%” moments, forgive me for my small rant. Fic is located here (russian only, no translation currently available) - https://ficbook.net/readfic/3693118 . Sorry for this wall of the text.

@mgrgfan let’s talk ships. So, we both seem to be in agreement that the Hikoukyuu is for the most part fully automated. Though how it would land…you do propose an interesting idea, but that would suggest either that all landing pads are specifically built for that one ship or that there are other nearly identical ship out there.

Mew.

170 FOLLOWERS GIVEAWAY!

Moddychu here!

Thank you so much for following me! I really appreciate it! IT’S TIME FOR GIVEAWAY!!!!

Ah yes. 6 Smol mythical mons design for giveaway Rules: 1. Must be following me! New followers are welcome to join! But please don’t unfollow me after this giveaway.  2. Like and reblog if you want to participate. If you just want to boost it, please tag Boost in the tags. 3. Also, No raffle/giveaway blogs! 4. One entry per blog please! 5. Also, please tag the pokemon you want (Mew, celebi, jirachi, shaymin, victini, marshadow) if you just want to win specific design. Reminder that this giveaway ends in February 20th!!!

Sounds like a Guzzlord to me. Guzzlord - Real Space form?

St. Louis Post-Dispatch, Missouri, April 25, 1897

Missed it. However, there’s still a chance it might be a troll.

op gets their ramen rated

Weird dream is weird... yet again.

Several weeks ago, I’ve had another weird dream. Again, it was more-or-less random, though this time it was kinda “justified” by me loading “saves” in it. Among many scenes, which include flying helicopter in Airstrike 3D-like dream game, dealing with someone in warehouse on the second “playthrough” (I knew this time warehouse will be flooded, so I’ve took diver goggles. Don’t ask, it makes sense in context) and such, but there was one even weirder moment.

After loading one of the “saves”, I’ve found myself in some sort of clinic with eqiupment looking like it was from... later 80′s I think. In one of the rooms, there was an old man, who was giggling and such and looked like a little loony. On the table near his bed, there were several albums with rough drafts and blueprints. When I’ve took one of the albums, I’ve found it was mostly filled with my own drawings (and I’m pretty bad in it. Like, really bad.), but among them, there were this man’s drafts and even sort of blueprints for, guess who? Magearna! Even more, this man, for some reason, was calling her “quartz grandma”. Сould it be Nikola, who was somehow sent back in time into the Ancient Soris Empire and had gone crazy? Who knows.

The last one looks for me like some unholy hybrid between insect, Endymion FRS Mk 3 (from Einhander game)

and Vic Viper (frome Gradius game series).

Some of the new Pokemon that have been leaked today

Some worldbuilding for my fic - Azoth Kingdom, Alva, part 2.

In my fic, cabinet minister Alva is a child of the not very famous, but still pretty well-known arcane researchers Ogden and Nancy.

During his childhood, young Alva was a pretty lonely boy, whose main and almost only interest was the arcane science. Because his mom and dad were too much into arcanics to pay enough attention to their son, Alva spent most of the time reading the Ogden’s and Nancy’s books, trying to study the arcane science himself. While Alva’s parents were proud of it, they still paid too little attention to the boy, so Alva had to pretty much fight tooth and nail for his social progress from the position of the simple researchers son to recognized arcane scientist to the (much later) cabinet minister. However, Alva still loved his parents very much and they loved him too, though, again, payed too little attention to him.

Both Ogden and Nancy died in the accident (one of the catwalks above the big city gears, due to metal fatigue, broke and fell down along with people on it right into the working mechanism. The results were far, far from the pretty), when Alva was 19, so, from this moment, lavender-haired boy could only count on himself. Thanks to his parents library and his own skills, he was able to quickly take a position of the arcane science student in the local technological university and earn a degree in just five years. Overall, professors thought of Alva as a very promising student, so he was able to take a position of the junior arcane researcher.

At this point, Alva started to grow dark. Seeing, how Kingdom used pretty much the same technology as in the Nikola’s times with little to no advancement (how else would you explain such hi-tech control systems in the Nikola-built and then unmodified Flying Fortress?), how safety rules were violated from the very founding of the Kingdom (his parents died because of badly-placed and undermaintained catwalk, after all), how not-very-young corporations started to slip in the traditionally Azoth-monopolistic airship market (Tunguska Technologies, SaL-12 “Charizard” Assault Ship Aerodyne, which, thanks to high resilience and durability, low price, great fuel efficiency along with ability to use pretty much any liquid, gaseous or even gelatinous fuel, wide range of modifications and very easy repairs became widely-used platform for different machines, including even the VTOL cargo fliers and passenger transport) and how royalties weren’t doing a thing about it made him angry. After understanding this, Alva chose to become at least cabinet minister to try to, in the best case, influence royalties to take actions, or, if they won’t, take over the Kingdom and do it himself. Considering his genius, it didn’t take a long time.

The true reason why Alva sympathizes Raleigh is because cabinet minister sees himself in the young prince and does not want such a childhood for this young boy. If not for this, his plan wouldn’t even included Raleigh after the Alva takes the control over the Kingdom - he would’ve simply exiled or even executed everyone from the royal family and become the sole dictator, but friendship with the prince made Alva change his plans - in the new version, after the Alva takes control over the Kingdom, current king and Kimia are stripped of their positions, but left alive, Raleigh becomes a new king and, until he reaches the adulthood, former cabinet minister takes control of the Kingdom, while continuing to teach Raleigh arcane science and, as a part of preparation to become the king, politics and economics.

On top of everything above, the reason Alva is doing all of this is because he loves Azoth Kingdom very much and wants it to become mighty and prosperous once more, even if by such a dirty means.

Past of the future, future of the past...

Chapter 6. On the brink. "Do you think it's time already?" the Empress asked her husband. "I do," replied the Emperor, who has arrived to the palace via his own supersonic tiltjet not even ten minutes ago. "Look, dear, with this machine in orbit, we can declare pretty much whatever we want." "I don't really think so… but yeah, this allows us for much more freedom. Okay, tuning up to Nation's comm." The Empress opened the communications app on her computer and initiated call to her delegates, which were supposed to participate in talks with Pokemon Nation. Right now, one of the primary priorities will be what to deal with the corpse of Rayquaza - a pretty big radiological hazard... ---- "We're the guardians of heavens / Protectors of the skies / We'll fulfill our duties / We've been born to fly…" the pilot was quietly singing, to, surprisingly, no annoyance of the rest of the crew in the CIC. "About that - it's about time we rotate the shifts. The first shift will take the stations in a few minutes." said the XO. "Aye-aye," replied the rest of the officers. When the first shift came back, the rotation went without problems… but the captain was slightly unnerved by the contents of the transmission, which came to the ship in the meantime. Apparently, there was a possibility, that they'll have to deploy the retro-missiles today… ---- In the Meteor Village, things weren't easy. Right now, Damien and Elder were talking. Even though the head of the man was still somewhat aching, he could work through it. Because of how the Rayquaza was brought dead by the sorisian space warfare ship, the prophecy was rendered nil, and the sheer radioactiveness of the corpse of the Sky High Pokemon made any attempts to recover it equal to the suicide. And, as if to humiliate them even further, right now, there was an announcement on TV about how Soris Empire sent their giant nuclear-powered dirigible to recover the remains of Rayquaza for burial in the radioactive waste storage facility, as well as quite a few government agents, sent to oversee the extraction and make sure, that everything will go smooth. Even though most of the Draconids were against it, Damien has managed to convince the Elder that it was still the best thing to do, since sorisians, given their proficiency with nuclear tech, must have a great experience with decontamination too. Several especially head-strong Draconids, who decided to not listen to his words, got to look at Rayquaza's corpse and got radiation poisoning, only made the talks with Elder easier.. Of course, it was not normal for Draconid to be like this… but Damien was not a normal Draconid. Besides, having a girlfriend, who was a nuclear physicist and, as he recently learned, was involved in Castelia Project, helped to understand full ramifications of nuclear technology involved major time. The only thing Damien was really worried about was how, thanks to the actions of Soris Empire, now there wasn't anyone to stop the Groudon and Kyogre, should the awaken and rage again... ---- Not too far away from Zemlino, the giant launch assist sled track was, after many years of disuse since the pause of the "WHITEBIRD" project, finally repaired and prepared to be used once again. The hypersonic spaceplane for it - the "Dreamwing" - was already loaded with everything and almost refueled with liquid hydrogen and oxygen, awaiting the load on the sled and launch. This machine, unlike the Space Shuttle of the Pokemon Nation or Project 21A Space Ferry, was long, sleek and even somewhat ominous, resembling unovan SR-71 strategic reconnaissance aircraft. It had two short, somewhat angular vertical stabilizers near the the tail, alongside with two similar horizontal stabilizers. However, the most unusual thing about this human creation were three long, boxy engines, suspended beneath the fuselage. The engines of the spaceplane were hybrids between usual scramjets and pure rocket engines. They've needed the spaceplane to be pre-accelerated to more than 1320 km/h before they could be started, but once they were up and running, they would accelerate the spaceplane to more than 7 times the speed of sound and get it to the edge of atmosphere, where it'll switch to internal oxygen supply and finish the orbital insertion. As big as this spaceplane was, there wasn't too much place for payload bay, crew cabin or like this - the machine mostly consisted of giant fuel tanks for the liquid hydrogen, because such was a price of being an SSTO. Because of this, the crew was forced to live in conditions somewhat harsher, than aboard the 12-meter LRV, though they didn't really mind it too much. ---- "Your Majesty, the "Dreamwing" is fully loaded and installed on the launch assist sled. T-1 hour and counting," said one of the technicians in Zemlino. "The "Red Explorer" is ready to receive the cargo," continued the other one. "Wonderful, just wonderful…" the Emperor replied to them via videolink, looking beyond merely pleased with how events were unfolding. "Notify me of any anomalies or mishaps. I'm sure our guys up there'll like this little present…" ---- "Vanya, please, can you explain to me - what's up with all those launches in such a short time?" Empress Svetlana asked her husband. "First - we need to make sure, that our big ship is supplied with everything they need, and there wasn't really too much of a place on the "Water Dragon" to cram everything we needed. Second - we need to get our launch infrastructure up and running again, if we want to continue to hold our advantage in space over the Pokemon Nation." "And the third one? I feel, that there's a third reason for it." "... Yeah, there's one - it's a chance for me to challenge the Pokemon Nation to a space race." "And why do we need it?" "Because it's the future!" the Emperor snapped in all sudden. "Space exploration and exploitation is the answer to almost all questions! The medical researches on both Space Lab stations showed amazing results, but the special drugs, developed during those researches, can only be manufactured in microgravity, as well as some of the ultrapure materials! The orbital solar power plants can easily supply us with enough energy to start rerouting our nuclear fuel production from being used for powering planetary grids to be used in space for engines of long-distance interplanetary ships. With heavy spaceships out there, we can easily deal with any asteroid! And with colonies out there, even if something happens to Earth, humanity will persist!" The Empress was taken aback with the sheer fervor in the voice of her husband. She was always worried about his intense desire for space exploration, but he never got that excited and angry. "However," Ivan calmed down no less suddenly, "we must not forget, how challenging them to the space race will also allow us to subtly steer them in directions we desire." "But they can try to do it to us too." "Yeah, but it doesn't mean, that we shouldn't try. Oh, by the way, the "Dreamwing" will be launched in one minute! Gonna watch it…" "Nearly forgot to ask - why did you resurrect the WHITEBIRD? I've thought you'd rather go with the BLUEBIRD…" "I'd really like to do it, but the BLUEBIRD nuclear spaceplanes are still in process of development, even if nearing the final stages, "Water Dragon", while reusable, takes decent time to prepare for launch again, so, the cheap WHITEBIRD, with pretty short turnaround time and non-extensive refurbishment, is our current best ground-to-orbit ferry." "I guess I can see that." ---- "...Three, two, one, launch!" sounded words of the operator in comm. Crew of the "Dreamwing", trained as they were, still were somewhat surprised by abrupt acceleration. On the outside, the sled, loaded with huge spaceplane and propelled by both electromagnetic forces and hydrolox engines, started to move and gain speed almost as fast as an adult Garchomp. In less than a second, the sled passed the 100 km/h mark and continued to accelerate, soon entering the "ramp" portion of the track, which was going on for several kilometers both in length and in height. The engine ignition on the spaceplane happened mere moments before the sled with it passed the highest point on the ramp and performed the separation. After that, one human-created machine stopped on accelerating and continued to slide down the rails - now towards the depot, where it'll be prepared for another launch assist procedure, while the second one steadily accelerated and climbed into the skies, continuing to squash its own pilots with g-forces in the desperate attempt to pass the atmosphere, the horrible thief of velocity and heat-giver, as soon as possible. A few minutes after, the airflow through the scramjets thinned out to the point, when it was no longer sufficient to sustain the engine operation. The supersonic combustion ramjet engines went silent for several moments, as the air intakes were closed, injectors were reconfigured and nozzle extensions were deployed, before starting again - this time, as pure rocket engines. ---- "Another launch detected from the Soris Empire," noted one of the operators in the Mossdeep Space Center. "Apparently, this time, it's some kind of spaceplane, if we go by the trajectory and acceleration." "They sure do a lot of launches these days," grimly replied one of the generals of Hoenn Self-Defense Forces, who got recently transferred here because of the actions of Soris Empire. "Let me guess - another supply mission to their space battleship?" "We don't know for sure, since the plane is still in the atmospheric phase and yet to begin the actual orbital insertion…" "Whatever. Still, they've decided to bet on their space tech… and Arceus-damn it, they now have a space battleship with WMDs above our heads! And I'm sure, that they're now stuffing even more weapons in there… Can't wait, until usage of Legendaries for warfare is decriminalized again…" Most of personnel, present there, paid no attention (or, at least, played paying no attention) to a horrible, bloodlusty smile, that has appeared on general's face. ---- Several hours after the launch, the "Dreamwing" spaceplane was finally docked to the "Red Explorer". Even though this was mostly a cargo mission, with three retro-missiles for reloading the ship's storages and some provisional supplies, the cosmonauts from both vessels still've had a small chat about the events both on Earth and in space. Pilots of the "Dreamwing" were astonished by the deeds of the crew of the battleship, while their colleagues from the "Red Explorer" were pretty surprised to hear the rumors from the ground. Alas, all good things come to an eventual end, so, after four hours in docked state, the "Dreamwing" separated from the battleship and began the deorbiting burn, with resulting trajectory ending right on the airfield of Zemlino, while the ship continued silently orbiting the planet. Inside the ship's CIC, the things were pretty professional and quiet. The thrill of battle and victory was gone, the tension of the diplomatic talks on the ground (which, apparently, weren't going exactly good, if a few whispers from the crew of "Dreamwing" were to be believed) was in the air and… the very fact, that they've manned a humongous weapon platform was pretty unsettling by itself. Suddenly, the comm came to life and the words from it made the blood of the officers chill: "Zemlino to "Red Explorer" - this is the Emperor speaking. Prepare to perform the Operation D-2." "Acknowledged," said the commander, concentrating and trying to stop his panic, then gave an order to the weapons officer. "Prepare the nuclear ordinance for planetary bombardment." "Aye-aye. Nuclear ordinance is now ready for planetary bombardment," replied the officer, who held himself only so well. "Arm the retro-missile #6." "Retro-missile in silo 3-25 is now armed." "Enter the confirmation code: 12-342-24-553." "Confirmation code entered. Retro-missile is now ready for launch. Key it, captain." "Zemlino to "Red Explorer" - the launch permission is granted, I repeat, the launch permission is granted!" "Acknowledged. Three, two, one, retro-missile away." As those words were being said, both the commander and the weapons officer inserted their respective keys into locks and turned them at once, sending the final confirmation signal to the ship's ordinance systems. On the outside of the ship, one of the round hatches opened again, much like back in the battle with Rayquaza or recent resupplying procedure… but this time, it was different. A small explosive charge ejected retro-missile, shaped like a short cigar, out of the ship. After clearing some distance from the ship, it turned around, received a final package of guidance data from the ship, then activated powerful chemfuel engine, decelerating from the orbital speed and preparing to drop down the gravity well. Onboard microcomputer calculated the burn with great precision to deorbit the retro-missile at designated coordinates. A few minutes later, heat started to build up on the retro-missile, which prompted for separation. The now-empty and useless propulsion bus got detached, while the front cover fell apart, allowing all individual warheads to leave their nestings and enter the terminal phase. The atmospheric ram pressure burned the fronts of conic machines, but arcanotech-enhanced ceramic held well, allowing the vessels of death, now engulfed in plasma, to continue accelerating towards their targets. Tiny steering flaps helped the warheads to constantly correct their trajectories, all of which were converging on the island, placed between Soris and Sinnoh. Roughly 40 seconds later, all warheads reached their target points. In each of the machines, altitude triggers sent signals for the airburst detonation... but there was nothing to respond to it - the thermonuclear devices inside were replaced with mockups, since this retro-missile was a dummy one, loaded on ship purely for demonstrational purposes. All six warheads impacted the ground not even a second later, vaporizing in the bright kinetic explosions. "Wonderful," came voice of the Emperor from the comm. "Great job, guys. We've filmed it. Stand by for additional orders… and deactivate the habitation centrifuge for now. I feel like you'll have to do some maneuvering soon." "Aye-aye, sir," replied everyone in the CIC, relaxing. Of course, the fact, that they've had to launch a dummy retro-missile instead of live one, helped them to get through it, but the possibility of actually using nukes for attacking the targets on the surface of Earth still persisted. A few more stressful hours passed, before the comm received another transmission from the Empire: "Zemlino to "Red Explorer" - this is the Emperor speaking. Perform the trans-lunar injection and enter the Moon orbit ASAP, I repeat, perform the trans-lunar injection and enter the Moon orbit ASAP!" "It will be done, Your Majesty, but… why?" the captain decided to go slightly off-protocol. "We've shown them the power of our weapons. We now need to show, that they'll only be used for self-defence - after all, you'll need several hours to travel from the Moon to Earth. If something really bad happens down there, you are authorized to open the code packages and perform the global thermonuclear bombardment - the hundred PBRM-1 retro-missiles with MIRVs and another hundred with big booms should be more than sufficient." "I don't quite follow that logic, but okay, we are already preparing and will activate the bomb drive in three minutes." "Acknowledged. Good luck to you, guys, and thank you for all of your deeds." Soon after those words were said, the pulse engine started thumping once more, setting the ship on the transit trajectory to the Moon. ---- Young Latias looked in the skies, seeing small white flashes. Even if she didn't know about that, those flashes, which belonged to the working nuclear pulse engine, marked the definite end of the usual flow of destiny, the true beginning of the new age and the new fate of this world - fate, which was not shaped yet. Now, it was up to the inhabitants of this world to create their own fate. ---- "Ram heating has reached threshold #2. Atmospheric ionization detected, blackout imminent," reported the pilot of the "Dreamwing", looking at the MFD. "Acknowledged, "Dreamwing", we're tracking you, return safe," replied the flight control center shortly before the radiolink got drowned in static. "Aaand we're deaf again," noted the commander. "Well, good to fly our birdie again!" "Uh-huh," mumbled engineer, looking at his own MFD. "Wow!" "What's that?" immediately asked him both pilot and commander. "Some kind of a directed flash of arcane energy - draconic one, of Legendary level... or was it? Most likely, just interference from ionization hitting the sensors, like back during the third test flight..." "Draconic, you say? Let us really hope, that those were merely interferences..." grimly said the commander, turning his gaze towards the window. "Because if it's not - we're in the world of trouble..." Author's notes: The launch sequence of the "Dreamwing" is partially inspired by the Silbervogel project and the launch of "America" hypersonic spaceplane from the "Silver Tower" by Dale Brown. SSTO - Single Stage To Orbit. MFD - Multi-Function Display. Hydrolox - a type of binary rocket fuel composed of liquid oxygen (lox) oxidizer and liquid hydrogen combustible.