Empress Vodain watched as the doors to the room opened and the Empresses of the other two Empires walked into the room, taking their places at their chairs. She only had to wait two hours, thank the Goddesses for the small blessings she supposed. She started speaking immediately. "I'm not going to get into pleasantries this time around, as something of great importance has arisen."

Empress Kocans glared. "It had better be, I didn't cross that damned wide river for nothing! What do you want this time Vodain to try and get us to capitulate once more? The Arkeil Empire will not submit as I have repeatedly told you."

Empress Vodain shook her head. "No, I come with news of a new grand power, just to the Southeast of my territory." She pulled out the sketches her scout had drawn up to begin with and flattened them on the table for the others to see by the light of the candles and windows. "I met with the ruler of these beings, and this is but a mere fraction of what I have seen, the magical items they have boggles the mind." The sketches showed a Deathclaw in power armor, plasma rifles, jeeps and trucks, even tanks and aircraft. Spread out on about ten different parchments.

Empress Ulgo of the Scras Empire rolled her eyes with a huff. "You honestly expect us to believe this pile of Lilliger Shit?" Her tone was unamused and flat.

Vodain's eyes burned with fury. "This is no joke! I have seen these things with my very eyes, technological advancements that make my muskets and cannons look like a children's toy! I witnessed them fire, I witnessed how powerful they are, they have beasts made of steel that can crush things beneath their massive feet, soldiers who stand unwavering and unaffected from thirst, or hunger. I have seen things that make me question my very sanity, so don't you tell me this is Lilliger Shit when I've seen it with my own two eyes." Her eyes narrowed onto the two rulers.

Empress Kocans huffed and stood up suddenly without warning. "I will hear of these lies no more, your little games, tricks, and lies will work no further nor again, as of this moment the Arkeil Empire is officially declaring war!" She flipped the heavy wooden table as if it was light plastic and stormed out of the room, slamming the doors behind her. While Empress Ulgo stood calmly and walked out slowly.

Empress Vodain looked at the destroyed table, then to the large doors which now had a web of cracks running through them as if impacted by a musket ball. And sighed. "Goddesses Damn it."

-----------------------------Jinks--------------------

When Jinks had woken, his eyes snapped open in an instant. He was nude, and in some sort of bed made of animal furs. Then he remembered the orders about locals and damn near facepalmed his head into dust. Sitting up he noticed his clothes and items next to the bed on a log used as a small table, and quickly slipped his clothes and glasses back on.

That's when one of the locals walked into, what seemed to be a hut, that he was in. The moment she saw he was awake she grinned. She had odd designs painted onto her skin, and seemed elderly compared to the photos of the corpse that had been taken and shown to everyone in the colony to show what the local dominant species looked like. "Seems you're awake, little one. What was a defenseless male like you doing so far from your tribe? I know you came from the strange tower."

Jinks slowly flicked the safety off his compact plasma pistol and set it to stun, in the event things got violent. "I was taking a walk, then a nap. I'll be leaving now thank you." He stood and tried to walk past, only for her to grab his wrist.

"Now now, I have some questions for yo-" Before she could finish Jinks instinctively grabbed the wrist holding onto his, what he didn't expect was the slickening wet crunch of bone and muscle while the elderly woman shrieked in agony as her wrist was essentially turned into pudding. He panicked and jammed her with a stimpack from his medical bag, and watched as her wrist snapped back into place and healed, as did the skin and burst blood vessels.

He was scanning her wrist with his glasses, a holographic screen on the lenses showing her bones. "Fuck fuck fuck fuck I'm so fucking sorry oh fucking Jesus Christ on a stick!" He was flipping his shit so much he didn't notice she had stopped screaming, nor the other Manukan warriors with stone spears pointed right at him. Extremely panicked human noises ensued.

----------------Former Caribou Empire------------

It was a day of celebration for the troops of the Crystal Empire, almost all Caribou Rebellions had been stopped within a short period of time. Resistance cells were exterminated rapidly like crushing insects. Now, rebuilding could begin in earnest. The former Caribou Empire's annexation was finally complete. Truckloads of supplies and building equipment was shipped in from Zebrica, along with a new wave of robotic troops to ensure peace was kept. And Rose absolutely hated it. She understood it, to be honest she really did, she was a simple doe when the old king died, then his son took his place.

Rose had seen both attacks with her own eyes, she was thankfully not in the former capital when it was turned into glass, otherwise she wouldn't even be around to be having such thoughts. She understood why they had to do it however, former military and thugs kept trying to poach their territory after the fall of the new ruler, you don't just let a kingdom next to you dig its teeth into your side and steal from you. She sighed looking into her bag, several 'Empire Standard' ration bars, they kept you full but didn't really satisfy you. No real flavor, but since the rebels had stupidly destroyed their own peoples farms assuming the invaders needed the food from them for their troops, it left little for the caribou themselves to eat. At least the Crystal Empire didn't starve them. She shivered thinking about what she had been told about the Abyssinian side of the border.

They had been given a large section of the former Caribou Empire as reparations for the fact the former government attacked them. She looked up at one of the purple snowflake banners flying free on a flagpole, and was glad it wasn't the Swastika of the cats, their side was said to be brutal in their punishments and fines for misconduct. Beatings, being starved, flat out having your home looted, resistance meant being shot. The Crystal Empire was by far, the better of the two choices. Worse yet the poor caribou on the cats territory couldn't cross over to the Crystal Empire's because of an actual wall built with guns to keep people out of either side. Rose was glad to be alive, her situation may not be ideal, but others had it much, much worse.

-------------Abyssinian Empire Side of Border-------

Mala flinched when he heard another gunshot go off, the crack of a Luger was unmistakable. Another one bit the dust, he supposed. Doing his best to look unthreatening he continued to walk to what remained of his home with his saddlebag strapped to his back. Only to stop when an Abyssinian soldier in full armor, gasmask and all stepped in front of him, holding a paw out. "Halt, you have been selected for a bag check to ensure you're not carrying any illegal firearms."

"Sorry sir, I have nothing on me of the sort, but I really am in a hurry so I'm afraid I can't stop and need to go now." He tried to walk past only to get the butt of a rifle slammed into his face. He rubbed his jaw as he glared at the jackass in combat armor, his smirk making Mala want to tear his face off. Having removed his combat helmet Mala was able to see the ugly fleabags face. He reached down grabbing Mala's dropped bag and started ruffling through it.

Mala could only watch with the eyes of the soldiers squad mates trained on him. The Soldier began pulling out the food he had purchased not too long ago, throwing it behind him like it was trash. “Man do you have any good shit in here? It’s all garbage.” The soldier said to Mala's face as he threw the rest of his food on the ground and stomped on it. “Serves ya bastards right! Attackin our Grand Empire. Come on fellas lets go check some others, this stupid fuck ain't got no firearms on em.” He and his squad laughed as they walked away.

Mala could only continue glaring at them before sighing and looking at the mess. “Damn those Cat bastards, as if our lives aren't already shit because of them, now they think their superior and we’re just prey for them to play with.” He thought in his head to himself as he grabbed what few scraps of food that were edible and put them back into his bag to continue his journey home. That food had cost him nearly a months worth of pay at his old job! Now he'd have to do with far less than he planned. Seems he'd be going hungry for awhile. At least he hadn't been beaten to death like his neighbor was, the poor elderly doe didn't deserve that.

------------Crystal Palace-----------

I smiled looking at an old episode of Dan Vs, the perks of having downloaded the entire content of the internet was I could watch any old show I wanted anytime I damn well pleased. Chrysalis was down the hall in the royal spa enjoying herself. The royal spa was something I never really used, so I was glad it was finally getting some use out of the thing. Just as I was considering joining her, my pipboy beeped and a message came onto the screen. My eyes widened. "What the fuck? Who's attacking my colony from orbit?!"

A report was coming in that a small fleet of starships had shown up in orbit over the planet, and began trying to bombard the colony command tower with some sort of ion cannons. Thankfully the shields were up to full power before it began so nothing had been destroyed. It wasn't the zetans, they used plasma not ion weapons. So I tapped a few buttons on my pipboy and with a flash I was on a small starship. It was an automated one so I just punched in the location of the colony world and with a brief flash of blue, I was in orbit. Staring directly across at long oddly shaped starships, which seemed to have large solar sails at their fronts.

Pressing the transmit button on the control console before me, I spoke. "This is territory of the Crystal Empire, cease all attacks immediately or face termination."

What I saw on screen looked odd as hell, it looked like a centauroid...deer? Almost, it wasn't the correct color, and didn’t have the right facial features, but it had antlers like a deer did, so Centauroid Deerfucks. When it replied it was rather clear it was male by the sound of its voice, unless this species worked oddly. "We are the Grand Fleet of the Holy Hegemony, your claim to this world predator." It spat the word with so much malice it nearly took me by surprise. "Is illegitimate in the eyes of the Empress and the Grand Goddess, you will hand over your ships and be subjected to processing and collaring."

"Processing and Collaring? What does that even mean." I asked, I had an idea of what it meant, but I wanted to have it confirmed from the source before deciding a course of action.

"It means you will have a slave collar placed on your throat, and you will be a subject of the Holy Hegemony and become a personal servant to whomever bids the highest, the same fate awaits the rest of the filth who dare to consume the flesh of another." The cockiness in this things voice was so thick you'd be able to smoke it.

"No." Typing a few commands into the starship, the Combat AI took control and as per my orders to not destroy the ships, fired two dozen Mesmatron cannons at once all directed at this odd little fleet of no more than seven starships. And on screen the aliens head burst open like a rotten watermelon, the blood a bright purple color as its now limp body sank to the floor. Within a moment two dozen of the Crystal Empire's starships appeared with small instant flashes of blue, these one's were crewed. "I want those ships boarded, I want nothing destroyed." The ships moved to obey, and I glared at the dead alien on screen. Today was turning out to be far more interesting than I had wanted it to be.

Author's Note

Hello! Wanted to write more, but didn't feel like it at the same time lol. Sorry I haven't been writing much lately, hope ya liked it, don't forget to comment. If you don't know what Centauroid is, just google it, think Tirek but an alien lmfao