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Warning: Contains mild language, minor injury, and some other things that may offend the overly sensitive That I've forgotten I've added. If you do not like and/or cannot stomach these topics then kindly refrain from reading this story! Thank you.

Subversion Chapter 3
The immersion center projection chamber was just as dull and as empty as Arro remembered it as he limped down the stairs into the room. The dark illumination of the inactive holoprojectors and the cold metal tilework across every visible surface was enough to bring back memories of the bad horror movies they had fought through here, but the stifling atmosphere of the Empress's consciousness being present made it more foreboding than anything he'd ever seen the room become before. He could feel the Empress acknowledge his presence, casting him a sidelong glance which burned through his being for a moment before relenting as she turned her attention back to whatever it was she was doing.

A dull hum reverberated through the room, the sound of thousands of powerful processors, field projectors, and holographic display panels coming to life, projecting the ghostly image of a catwalk along the floor leading to the center. Not wanting to get caught off the beaten track when the simulation kicked into gear Arro hobbled over to the insubstantial path and started to make his way to the central platform, the machines easily outpaced him, giving him time to feel the raised holographic platform solidify under his paws and watch as the walls, floor, and ceiling disappear. Replaced by thousands of display panels, all of which were pouring over complex data faster than his eyes could catch.

His breath caught in his throat as his back leg popped painfully, forcing him to stop for a moment as feeling trickled back into the paralyzed limb. He tried to keep from wincing as he put pressure back onto it, and felt a stabbing pain run up it to his spine for a moment before fading. He must've sprained it or torn something, but it wasn't broken at least.

Turning his attention back to the simulation he noticed the screens were pouring over data slower now, crew profiles, security recordings, navigational data, statistics, encyclopedic information about the various threats throughout the multiverse, and schematics of a seventh dimensional figure with hundreds if not thousands of cross sections... He could recognize half of this information, he had nosed through most of the ship's archives when nobody was looking, even added to it on a few occasions when things were missing.

Tenderly trying his hind-leg again he made his way to the central platform of the simulation, the raised metal dais at the center sent a tinge of pain through his hip as he stepped up onto it. Sitting down he tried to make sense of the information the empress was choosing to show. After a moment however he felt a migraine coming on, Combat kill feeds and personnel reports made little sense when output alongside ship schematics and multidimensional CT scans, worse the addition of statistical data on probability of state change and footage of events that never happened only served to make everything seem contradictory. Shutting his eyes and sighing to himself he called out to the empress "OK, I don't get it. What are you trying to show me?"

A Loud beep made him open his eyes, The screens were flashing now. The CT scans were overlapping a humanoid 3D model, Terek's personnel file was being edited quickly with pertinent information from hundreds of camera feeds, Dozens of files were being compiled from the database panes, and schematics of robots, power armor, electronics, even the empress herself were being pieced part and reconfigured into something else. Arro felt a dull roar shake the platform beneath him and a breeze ruffle his fur as a bright light spawned a skeletal structure directly in front of him, followed quickly by musculature, Skin, and ... Fur. Before he knew it, he was looking at an exact replica of Terek, which smirked at him as the light continued adding information. Alien metals, crystalline armor plates, heavy weapons, and though he couldn't see it he could hear the empress's temporal engines being added somewhere into the mix as they cycled and shook reality for a moment.

Looking at the thing in front of him he knew it wasn't Terek, or even a recording he would have left, the serial number down its augmented arm, the Ship's name across it's armored breast, and the unfathomable scintillation of temporal energy in its eye gave it away. This was the Empress Personified! He couldn't help but to stand there in awe for a moment, he couldn't decide whether to be impressed in the progress the empress has made since she's woke up or to legitimately be worried as to why she would choose a combat ready form to speak to him. As the dust settled, however, he realized the overbearing sense of the Empress's presence was gone... She left him alone with a simulation…

The Empress's Avatar smiled down at him knowingly, either intentionally using a reflection of Terek's smuggest face or extrapolating it from Zaiden's usual expression. "My presence was injuring you, so I created an appropriate conduit for us to converse without my being there." He understood the logic behind that, but he also knew that these simulations were very limited in their capabilities. Even an advanced AI only had five thousand coded responses, which is barely enough for a drawn-out conversation. He was about to voice this when the hologram cut him off "I am aware of the limitations of this medium, and have adjusted accordingly."

He heard the program chuckle as that answer left him with more questions, he knew there was no real adjusting a hologram to circumvent the five-thousand response barrier, and he hated to think the empress chose to go through all this effort to toy with him. Taking a breath, he barely managed to say "you can't" by the time the Empress cut him off again "That's where you're wrong, simply because you can't does not mean it is beyond my capacity. Now shall we get the formalities out of the way? We have work to do."

Arro was taken aback by the ship's bluntness, and amazed that it actually used Terek's authoritarian voice better than the original ever did, but collecting himself he thought about why he was here and asked the hologram "What work exactly? And where do we start?". Surprising himself as he finished the entire Sentence without interruption. An inquisitive look to the holographic empress was met with that knowing smirk as the hologram knelt down and booped his nose. "I Intend to only cut you off when you're about to ask irrelevant questions." The thought of asking how it knows he is about to ask an irrelevant question without reading his mind is met with a flick to the ear causing him to flinch as the cuts there start to flow blood again "Your past and future are the same thing to me, I know because it has already happened. This time we don't have the time to fool around with pointless topics." It continued as it stood back up "To answer your more germane question however, we need to correct our timeline, and where we start is irrelevant."

Straightforward, unambiguous if you think of it as simply going back and correcting what went wrong, Arro was already liking this plan. There had to be a catch, and ship's avatar would probably thump him for asking, but he had to know. "How do you propose we do that?" The empress simply glared at him, even tired and injured as he was he mentally give her a six out of ten for the effort, He'd seen more intimidating glares from Terek's harmless little sister Alena. He sat there waiting for her to respond, thump him again, or even call him an idiot before a slight smile crept across the projection's face. "You. not we. I propose you fix the timeline."

Arro's mind reeled at the suggestion. What does she mean Him? He's not even a time traveler...at least not like Terek. He couldn't go back in time and alter it and have any chance of surviving. Terek had gone on many long-winded tirades about paradox physics and how they mean instant and permanent death for anything that erases its own timeline by going back and changing things without that "first imprimatur" thing he and all of his race had that allowed them to operate ships like the empress, Terek was always so proud about having that... it was almost like his safety blanket. Nobody but him could pilot the empress without being vaporized on takeoff. He waited for the flick to come as he fought with whether asking "what she meant" or "how in the hell" were "germane" questions, but the flick never came instead a slight, almost feminine, chuckle broke his concentration. Looking back at the empress he noted she was smiling, and shifting her form slightly to better match Tereka, Terek's feminine alternate form.

She was still looking down at him, arms crossed but the expression of annoyance was long gone "Go on, ask." Sighing in relief, he asked the most pressing question first "How am I supposed to do that? I'm not Terek, or a time lord. How can I possibly change the entire timeline?" and watched as the ship's crackling eyes narrowed beaming grin on her face still.

Uncrossing her arms, she held them out to her sides and closed her eyes as she spoke "My dear Terek was many things, observant, and efficient was never among them." an instant later a twitch of her fingers brought to life dozens of projected screens showing biological data and animated logical paradoxes which hurt to look at "So let me pose you two questions to answer yours. What do you know of the Usable Appendage Theory of biology and Paradox physics?"

Arro remembered the topics vaguely, they were a favorite topic onboard the ship as he remembers, but he never really jumped into the conversations about them. The screens provided some clues however, as the neural mapping of an octopus's brain is denser than an orangutan’s and any logical loop that contradicts itself is aborted and a new thread is created. Going off of those he told her "Uh, The first one is something about the more limbs a creature has the more complex it's brain has to be to use them and Terek explained the second as instant death to anyone who alters the timeline. Why?"

He felt something at the back of his mind, almost an emotion but not quite even as he saw the empress roll her eyes. "Paradox physics are going to dictate what you will do. So you're going to need to know them." dismissing the screens with a shooing gesture from her hands before locking eyes with Arro "and the Usable Appendage Theory relates directly to something I've come to call the Arro Paradox"

With a snap of her fingers more screens blinked into existence, each and every one of them showing recordings of him. Arro watched as hundreds of thousands of hours' worth of footage flashed across them, Day to day activities, interactions with the other crewmembers, aerial views of skirmishes he participated in, half of which he didn't even remember. "As I said, my Captain was not perceptive. But I've always wondered why you, of all creatures could achieve your goals. Even so... counter intuitively" gesturing to a screen showing him attempting to learn how to fire a ranged weapon using his tails as she says those last few words.

Snapping her fingers again the screens disappeared and reappeared showing different footage, actions highlighted, including him using his tails to carry things and footage of him sitting idle "You have four legs, four tails and two swiveling ears bringing your appendage count to ten. All of which you can consciously control. compared to Terek who had two arms, two legs, two wings, two ears, and a tail, nine in total under his conscious control. according to the Usable Appendage Theory you should have a brain that is 15% more complex than Terek's which would account for a 5% increase in IQ. Given Terek's known IQ of 195 on your IQ should be approximately 204 on a human scale provided your neuron density is comparable, however even a loss of 15% density would leave you with an IQ of approximately 163" taking a moment she points out a screen showing him dragging a proton bomb across the open floor of hangar bay with his teeth before continuing "And Yet, you do things like this..."

Arro held up a paw to cut the ship's avatar off "In my defense, I didn't know I could Just think things around like Kyo did. I could either drag it with my teeth or try and knot my tails around it and pull and I didn't want any more 'sled dog' jokes coming up."

He couldn't tell if the look the empress gave him was more of surprise or thought at his interrupting her before she spoke "Fair enough..." dismissively gesturing the screen away before continuing "For the longest time I had thought the theory was flawed, that perhaps it was too specifically tailored to humanoids. That is..." Arro leaned back slightly as a new screen flickered to life between him and the ship's avatar "Until I saw this." Before his eyes security footage of the fight he just had in the corridor outside went across the screen. Every action and reaction caught in high definition holographic media.

Arro couldn't help but wince as he saw himself getting thrown into the wall by a bursting shell, the ache of the fresh wounds a constant reminder of exactly how painful that was. Taking initiative and batting at the screen he felt his paw pad contact the projected glass and felt it click as the footage paused "Ok! Ok, I get it! I act dumber than I should. How is this helpful?"

The Empress's condescending smirk returned, as she reached out and tapped the pane from the other side, causing the footage to resume "You weren't paying attention, were you? Look closer." Sighing Arro watched as the robot opened fire yet again, only for the footage to stop an instant after He swatted the first round into the bulkhead with his tail as the empress quit pressing the back of the screen. "See?"

He didn't get what was so special about that one action, he had done it several times in the fight, and similar feats regularly in their adventures before. Matter of fact any of the crew could catch or deflect bullets with equal or greater efficiency, so it didn't make sense. Shaking his head "No, what's so special about that?"

Arro felt that unusual trickle of emotion at the back of his mind again, more distinct now... It almost felt like happiness. Pondering that he heard as an unusually chipper tone entered the Empress's voice, more than likely mimicking Tereka or Alena "Nothing!", He barely had time to Glare at the smiling construct and cock his head in confusion before she elaborated "By itself it is nothing special. Merely a clue." Waving her arms outwards the dozens of screens surrounding them multiplied and flickered as more footage of his actions on-board were displayed "It let me know to look closer at your actions, allowed me to find a pattern. Many of them actually. Which forced me to rethink my personal definition of intelligence."

"Patterns?" Arro felt his heart skip a beat at that word, even though he had never actively hurt the ship or crew he had gone off on tangents, scoured the multiverse for many things that weren't on the list. Went places nobody else would go, and do things nobody else would try. Just trying to get his species out of the red population wise.

A flicker of good natured amusement shot past his subconscious as the empress locked eyes with him. "Yes Arro, Patterns. Like the grid you followed searching for a functioning cloning bay." A snap of her fingers brought a screen flickering to life, showing the coordinates he had traveled to in chronological order and mapping them to the dimensional and planetary surfaces they coincided to. "Or the Trial and error method you puzzled out the launch controls with." Without time to blink another screen came into existence showing him trying permutations of controls on one of the many launches, which on the screen looked more like him mashing random buttons on the control panels. "You've done plenty of naughty things that my dear Terek would have probably skinned you for. But the important part about all of it, at least to us now, is that it all shows you have a great deal of analytical intelligence."

The ship was making less sense than it had been, the fact he was "smart" enough to figure out some alien ship's controls and didn't feel like walking too much while looking for the one piece of technology that should have solved his species' population problem didn't really sound like accomplishments worthy of praise. Neither equated to traits that would let him alter the course of History in his head, hell even rats operate alien devices in the brief moment before the trap breaks their spinal column. A sigh from the avatar in front of him caught his attention, and Arro realized he had cocked his head sideways as she was going on about his "analytical intelligence" ... "Heh, Em... So I'm not... Classically smart... How does this help us?"

Letting his eyes focus on the ship's avatar he saw The Empress rubbing her temple, something Terek often did when he was annoyed, was she mimicking him? Learning how to act from recordings? "There is a long-winded explanation to that, but it boils down to this. It makes it easier for you to figure out where and how to change your timeline, allowing me to concentrate on supporting the paradox and preparing the bridge to get us both to the new timeline in one piece." Pausing to look at him before summoning a screen to check some data before continuing "Honestly If we had known about it before you would probably be listed as a navigator rather than... What was it again? I have your file here but I can't find where your rank was recorded"

"Ship's cook... I was, dubbed the ship's cook" Even as he was speaking Arro saw the look of confusion and exasperation forming on the empress's face, he really couldn't place whether she was mimicking the behavior for his benefit or if she was running the processes accidentally. Either way seeing that look on a near omniscient entity was priceless.

"But I came equipped with auto-chefs, even from the homeworld, there was no need for a living..." He nodded as she talked, well aware of the implications as she seemed to piece them together herself "Was that a joke from him? He was being cheeky wasn't he?"

The fact that she was so close but still missed her guess confused Arro for a moment. Allowing his head to tip sideways again he focused on ignoring the sensation of mirth trying to trickle through his skull as he tried to figure out what was going on. Empress was in such a rush earlier to get this conversation done and over with she literally threatened to hurt him for even thinking anything off topic, but now she's asking if his rank was a joke... Noticing a smile was creeping across her face he figured now was about as good a time as any to correct her. "No, No. He wasn't. He just thought I was a complete idiot and didn't trust me enough to have me in any other position."

The smile on the Empress's face died in all of a nanosecond of him starting to explain what had happened, and every screen in the room froze. "I-I'm sorry to hear that Arro..." The screen containing his information dispersed with little more than a glare from the ship's avatar as she carefully Knelt down a little closer to eye level with him. "If it's any consolation, I'm trusting you with possibly the most important task in our timeline. When you succeed we can talk to him about putting you in a better station. Maybe Navigator or Comms officer."

Arro appreciated the Avatar's kind words, and certainly liked the sound of getting put somewhere he could feel useful, but her behavior was still confusing him. First of all, he could sense a weak trickle of emotion from her, something this room has never been able to simulate. And secondly, she wasn't being as cold as she was earlier. Why change tactics mid conversation? Not wanting to put the computer off, however, he nodded "I'd like that..."

A small realization dawned upon him as the empress started to stand back up. Hurriedly he spoke his mind "W-Wait. Empress, I know we've been over this but how exactly am I supposed to find the where and how? Is there an equation I have to solve, or some sort of gizmo I have to build?". She never moved to interrupt but a number of faint mixed feelings reached his mind as he spoke. When he finished, however, the damn apparently broke and ship's avatar burst into laughter almost as if he had said the funniest thing in the world.

"E-equation? Gizmo?" She doubled over laughing as she uttered the words. Arro, couldn't figure out what was so funny about his question but as she was catching her "breath" he noticed the dull blue flicker of photonic processors coming from the bar earrings in either of her ears. Either one was probably powerful enough to store every document ever written twice over and still have memory to spare, they had used ones similar to them to repair the ship shortly before the crash. Her laughing died down a bit and he could hear the stain in her voice as she tried to speak calmly and failed "N-No, No Gizmos. No equation. It's just memory. Have you ever played the game what-if? Y-know, what if this happened instead of that? Same principle. Just remember where something went awry and figure out what could change it for the better." Taking a deep breath to level her voice out a little better be continued "Just try to keep the changes from being too major. Soft paradoxes are a lot easier to hold up and a lot less jarring than the hard ones."

Arro, for once in a very long time, felt he understood. Granted the difference between a "soft" and a "hard" paradox eluded him he guessed it was the difference between stepping on a leaf and nuking a city at random in the past. One you'd hardly notice and reality wouldn't give much effort in fixing, the other would break the timeline and reality would try to erase any trace of it ever happening. He had hundreds of memories, dozens of which could have probably gone better if circumstances were a little different. Thinking over them, he tried to make a mental tally of the things he'd need to change their outcomes without being too obvious... It didn't take long, looking to the ship Arro told her "Ok I'm gonna need the doors unlocked on the Arsenal, Deveroux's lab, and Terek's study, so I can go grab something from each of them. That alright?

"That should be fine, I had reinstated your security clearance before we started talking for when this question came up."

"Huh? Since when have I had security clearance? I always had to jump through mirrors and crawl throu..." a steely glare cut him off even before the ship's avatar interjected "You had it, and it was quickly revoked... let's leave it at that... anything else?"

Quickly turning to wander back down the projected platform he mumbled "No-no. I'll uh, go get those things and we can get to popping. I got a long list we're going to need to go through." He could hear the buzz of the program thinking for a millisecond before it spoke again, "Hang on Arro." Causing him to pause midstep.

"Listen, this has nothing to do with your security clearance and everything to do with the task at hand... I only have enough Power in reserve to transmat you to one destination, one way... anything else and I won't be able to uphold the paradox and transfer us both to the new reality so everything past that first jump is on you."

One way... as those words sank in Arro thought over possibilities, this plan could work if he went back to the most influential point and altered it... Going back to the beginning and rewriting history the hard way would have roughly the same effect... A plan formed as something he had heard a million times flicked across his mind. "That shouldn't be a problem, if you can grant me access to one of the launches so I can scavenge a few parts, and don't mind displaying the Quantum singularities we've encountered in our travels."

Looking back over his shoulder at the holographic projection of the ship's consciousness he saw her smile knowingly back at him before speaking "Done and..." Cracking her knuckles all the displays in the chamber around them disappeared, soon to be replaced by entirely new ones containing the information he requested, and more as data from the archives flood the screens. "Done."

There were fewer of them than he had expected. Arro could have sworn they had discovered hundreds of these things in their travels, and created at least a dozen more. Instead. he was looking at a mere two dozen. "Are these all of them?" he asked, fully expecting the ship to explain it had limited the list based on some esoteric prediction.

He felt an emotional twinge, as sorrow and guilt trickled in from outside "Save for one, these are all that are left... All the others have been lost to the Cascade." Her words stopped his thoughts cold, all the others? Lost? Just how much has this thing grown? How far out of hand has it gotten? Looking at the singularities on the displays he recognized all of them. The wreckage of the Caridos, who's space-fold engine malfunctioned ripping a hole in space-time. Charybdis, a natural supermassive black hole just off of the Kavri trade route whose sheer mass connects it to virtually every one of its lesser kin in reality. The well of worlds, a number of artefacts which link hundreds of thousands of worlds together. The Mind's edge supercomputer, mankind's first and only successful application of quantum computing, capable of transmitting the mind of a subject into any other reality as a semi-physical mass.

All of them were so dangerous they were practically worthless to him, he'd be crushed, rendered braindead, lethally irradiated, or worse if he tried to use any of them. Arro could feel his eye twitch as his aggravation grew, it was bad enough to know they had failed but seeing how far things have fallen apart because of it was simply rubbing salt in the wound. "These are no good, I'd be dead long before we can go home." Trying, and failing to stifle the growl in his voice as he spoke. "What is the last one?"

It felt like there was a tangible pause throughout the chamber as Arro watched the screens stop in their scrolling through relevant data and the processors of the room groaned with the sound of the processors working overtime before the empress's voice reached his ears again. "Whom..."

That one word snapped him from his contemplation of the other screens, Sorting new possibilities through his head even as he said the words "Excuse me?" and got the reply he half expected almost immediately "The last singularity is a Who, not a What..." his aggravation subsided slightly, if the last singularity is a person he may be able to get them to help him, maybe they could sense what the Cascade is? Maybe he could go back and stop it before it began! He was getting giddy just thinking about it, "Tell me! Who... is... it?" he caught himself mid-sentence as he looked at the empress and saw a concerned look on her face and realized he still sensed emotions coming from her, mostly guilt, but also worry as she held out her hand and generated a new screen. Causing the simulation to flicker slightly as the processors filled the air with the hum of their working.

Arro was dumbfounded for a moment as the simulation caught back up with itself and a face he hadn't seen in a long time stared back at him from the viewscreen. Glitch, the entity his mother and father... everyone's mother and father trusted with their safekeeping as children. He almost thought it was a mistake at first before more and more data from the archives poured in to fill out the page and the fur color on the screen adjusted to show its coloration without gamma shielding proving he was looking at the right entity. He had forgotten Glitch was a singularity... He honestly figured their old babysitter would be dead by now with the energy signature he put off. He heard the ship saying "I imagine this comes as a bit of a shock." But it barely registered, He was too busy trying to figure out how this could be, the old hound was good at avoiding trouble but when even Terek couldn't outrun death there was no way he could have.

The ship paused, awaiting a response but continued when she got none. "Listen, I know you probably imagined you'd be able to ask for help. The probability is slim but that is still an option we can try." Only one word out of her statement piqued Arro's interest "Help", Making him think. Glitch had helped them throughout most of their lives, forewarning trouble further along in time, teleporting them out of immediate danger, even arranging for an inconspicuous hideaway and diversion to keep them safe... The painful memory of his adoptive parents lying dead at the stairs, flicked across his mind. Realizing he had missed something the ship said, not wanting her to repeat herself and earn at the very least a thump between the eyes he went off the last word he actually heard and ran with it "He used to help us, until we had gone and mucked that all up."

Arro could hear something in the ship's voice, remorse maybe, as she spoke "Listen to me, he didn't leave because of anything any of you did." Her words hurt almost as much as the thoughts they dredged up. Glitch had told them that they were special among their alternates, the only set which were born exactly as they are, and the only ones who will be. How they were destined to succeed where countless others had failed. They were supposed to fix everything... Instead they just died. He tried his best to push those thoughts aside before locking eyes with the empress "Why then? Why did he leave?"

He heard an entirely foreign sound come from the ship's avatar as she quietly sputtered for a moment before answering "I-ah... I don't know Arro. Emotions are new to me, I still don't understand them on this scale." Feeling his anger building he glared at the simulation, which if he were Zaiden or Zorin would have burned a hole through her projected skull, "Then how do you know it wasn't us?" his voice came out a little harsher than he would have liked especially when he saw the look of surprise cross the avatar's face... and the laser cannons mounted on her back twitch...

A moment of quiet passed awkwardly, as they both knowingly stood well within range of one another. The servos on her lasers humming lightly as he nervously twitched his tails. The Empress broke the silence a moment later "He disappeared right before we traveled to Biphasia..." Arro was a little taken aback by this little fact... but couldn't find a single memory to refute it with The last time he remembered seeing Glitch was months before Biphasia... When he gave a cryptic warning that there would be no more Champions, and that the "negatives" were coming…

He remembered the Champions were Glitch's troubleshooters, his go-to people for when a universe started to have problems, human mercenary immortals with several lifetimes of practice in evening out the status quo. Kyo, Deveroux, Zorin, Garan, and Tereka were all disguised as them at one time or another so that they could hide on earth... Which made sense. All of it made sense, except that they were gone... What could have killed the unkillable? Taking a moment to collect his thoughts and let his eyes refocus on the empress, he nodded to her and let his tails droop, his approximation to lowering his weapon "You're right... do you think he was running from the negatives?"

The Empress wasn't so quick to power down her shoulder mounted guns, but Arro had kind of expected that. He was thankful she never actually trained them on him, however, as she spoke "It's possible, but unlikely. My records and sensor readings indicate they ignore his presence." Snapping her fingers a viewscreen materialized, plotting interdimensional teleportation arrays following seven objects, even without the 3-d chart accompanying the raw data Arro could see the coordinates were close, mere miles apart at times, which is nothing for entities who can show up on warship sensors clearly from light-years away... Something was wrong.

He heard the Empress's guns power down while he was watching the screen before another screen appeared right in front of his nose in a flash displaying a three-dimensional explosion in the Centre of a two dimensional line and rough expansion and relativity algorithms calculated to the nth degree "My theory is that he could sense the temporal wake of my drive cores detonating, and fled to avoid the primary shockwave."

Arro tried to understand what she was displaying, but cross-field temporal mechanics were well out of his league. What she said on the other hand made all too much sense to him...placing his paw on the viewscreen in front of him to pause it. "You're saying he knew what was going to happen?..." His growl returning as he spoke.

"I know it's hard to believe, but you have to trust me on this one Arro" The empress was projecting a mottled emotion, he couldn't quite make out it's component parts but he could sense it distinctly. It's alien feeling tainting her words well before he heard them…

Flexing his claws against the simulated glass of the viewscreen subconsciously as he mulled over her words the cold surface buckling under his touch feeling as though it would break at any moment. His eyes glazing over as he asked "Why?"

"I thought we had an understanding Arro..." A new sensation reached his mind, sorrow, as he heard her talk, and he felt her next few words register before she spoke them, digging his claws into the screen he slammed it down, splintering both it and the one behind it in one swift motion, clearing a line of sight to the empress's avatar. His words resonated through the holographic spaces as he deliberately picked his words "Why weren't we WARNED?"

The initial shock of him shattering a pair of viewscreens, quickly flowed into the shock of the question he asked. The expression on the empress's face and the blur of thoughts through her head were more than enough proof for that. But after the initial "Adrenaline" rush wore down he felt the entire room rumble with the effort of the processors as she tried to find an answer. Synthetic or not Arro could have sworn he heard almost human thoughts in the empress's head as she was thinking, but that passed shortly. "I don't know... There's only a limited number of logical reasons why you wouldn't, but most of those revolve around"

Arro finished her sentence before she could "Betrayal..." breaking eye contact as he did as he felt the telltale burn of tears. "Yes... but the only one who could confirm or deny that would be him." She continued. Arro, Half listening, nodded and got back on his feet. Mentally re-arranging his plan as he turned to walk back down the catwalk. "Then I have two questions I need to ask him... plot the coordinates. I'll be back"

Barely a few steps further he heard the empress call out to him "You're assuming his cooperation? Even with what we just discussed?" Her words were backed by surprise and concern, he could feel it. But they invoked a number of bittersweet imaginings that he toyed with as they flit across his mind. He couldn't help but smile through the tears, cooperative or not, traitor or not, It didn't matter, he will get what he set out for... even if the impossible has to be done to do it.

Pausing mid stride and looking back over his shoulder he smiled at the empress's avatar. Quickly saying "No. I'll be Guaranteeing it." before continuing on, sensing the Ship's confusion build behind him. "And if you find he did betray you?", The empress's words catching up to him as he was about halfway to the door.

He couldn't help but chuckle at the question but didn't bother to stop or turn around and answer it "Then I will be the end of him. Simple as that."

Description
Warning: Contains mild language, minor injury, and some other things that may offend the overly sensitive That I've forgotten I've added. If you do not like and/or cannot stomach these topics then kindly refrain from reading this story! Thank you.

Subversion Chapter 3
The immersion center projection chamber was just as dull and as empty as Arro remembered it as he limped down the stairs into the room. The dark illumination of the inactive holoprojectors and the cold metal tilework across every visible surface was enough to bring back memories of the bad horror movies they had fought through here, but the stifling atmosphere of the Empress's consciousness being present made it more foreboding than anything he'd ever seen the room become before. He could feel the Empress acknowledge his presence, casting him a sidelong glance which burned through his being for a moment before relenting as she turned her attention back to whatever it was she was doing.

A dull hum reverberated through the room, the sound of thousands of powerful processors, field projectors, and holographic display panels coming to life, projecting the ghostly image of a catwalk along the floor leading to the center. Not wanting to get caught off the beaten track when the simulation kicked into gear Arro hobbled over to the insubstantial path and started to make his way to the central platform, the machines easily outpaced him, giving him time to feel the raised holographic platform solidify under his paws and watch as the walls, floor, and ceiling disappear. Replaced by thousands of display panels, all of which were pouring over complex data faster than his eyes could catch.

His breath caught in his throat as his back leg popped painfully, forcing him to stop for a moment as feeling trickled back into the paralyzed limb. He tried to keep from wincing as he put pressure back onto it, and felt a stabbing pain run up it to his spine for a moment before fading. He must've sprained it or torn something, but it wasn't broken at least.

Turning his attention back to the simulation he noticed the screens were pouring over data slower now, crew profiles, security recordings, navigational data, statistics, encyclopedic information about the various threats throughout the multiverse, and schematics of a seventh dimensional figure with hundreds if not thousands of cross sections... He could recognize half of this information, he had nosed through most of the ship's archives when nobody was looking, even added to it on a few occasions when things were missing.

Tenderly trying his hind-leg again he made his way to the central platform of the simulation, the raised metal dais at the center sent a tinge of pain through his hip as he stepped up onto it. Sitting down he tried to make sense of the information the empress was choosing to show. After a moment however he felt a migraine coming on, Combat kill feeds and personnel reports made little sense when output alongside ship schematics and multidimensional CT scans, worse the addition of statistical data on probability of state change and footage of events that never happened only served to make everything seem contradictory. Shutting his eyes and sighing to himself he called out to the empress "OK, I don't get it. What are you trying to show me?"

A Loud beep made him open his eyes, The screens were flashing now. The CT scans were overlapping a humanoid 3D model, Terek's personnel file was being edited quickly with pertinent information from hundreds of camera feeds, Dozens of files were being compiled from the database panes, and schematics of robots, power armor, electronics, even the empress herself were being pieced part and reconfigured into something else. Arro felt a dull roar shake the platform beneath him and a breeze ruffle his fur as a bright light spawned a skeletal structure directly in front of him, followed quickly by musculature, Skin, and ... Fur. Before he knew it, he was looking at an exact replica of Terek, which smirked at him as the light continued adding information. Alien metals, crystalline armor plates, heavy weapons, and though he couldn't see it he could hear the empress's temporal engines being added somewhere into the mix as they cycled and shook reality for a moment.

Looking at the thing in front of him he knew it wasn't Terek, or even a recording he would have left, the serial number down its augmented arm, the Ship's name across it's armored breast, and the unfathomable scintillation of temporal energy in its eye gave it away. This was the Empress Personified! He couldn't help but to stand there in awe for a moment, he couldn't decide whether to be impressed in the progress the empress has made since she's woke up or to legitimately be worried as to why she would choose a combat ready form to speak to him. As the dust settled, however, he realized the overbearing sense of the Empress's presence was gone... She left him alone with a simulation…

The Empress's Avatar smiled down at him knowingly, either intentionally using a reflection of Terek's smuggest face or extrapolating it from Zaiden's usual expression. "My presence was injuring you, so I created an appropriate conduit for us to converse without my being there." He understood the logic behind that, but he also knew that these simulations were very limited in their capabilities. Even an advanced AI only had five thousand coded responses, which is barely enough for a drawn-out conversation. He was about to voice this when the hologram cut him off "I am aware of the limitations of this medium, and have adjusted accordingly."

He heard the program chuckle as that answer left him with more questions, he knew there was no real adjusting a hologram to circumvent the five-thousand response barrier, and he hated to think the empress chose to go through all this effort to toy with him. Taking a breath, he barely managed to say "you can't" by the time the Empress cut him off again "That's where you're wrong, simply because you can't does not mean it is beyond my capacity. Now shall we get the formalities out of the way? We have work to do."

Arro was taken aback by the ship's bluntness, and amazed that it actually used Terek's authoritarian voice better than the original ever did, but collecting himself he thought about why he was here and asked the hologram "What work exactly? And where do we start?". Surprising himself as he finished the entire Sentence without interruption. An inquisitive look to the holographic empress was met with that knowing smirk as the hologram knelt down and booped his nose. "I Intend to only cut you off when you're about to ask irrelevant questions." The thought of asking how it knows he is about to ask an irrelevant question without reading his mind is met with a flick to the ear causing him to flinch as the cuts there start to flow blood again "Your past and future are the same thing to me, I know because it has already happened. This time we don't have the time to fool around with pointless topics." It continued as it stood back up "To answer your more germane question however, we need to correct our timeline, and where we start is irrelevant."

Straightforward, unambiguous if you think of it as simply going back and correcting what went wrong, Arro was already liking this plan. There had to be a catch, and ship's avatar would probably thump him for asking, but he had to know. "How do you propose we do that?" The empress simply glared at him, even tired and injured as he was he mentally give her a six out of ten for the effort, He'd seen more intimidating glares from Terek's harmless little sister Alena. He sat there waiting for her to respond, thump him again, or even call him an idiot before a slight smile crept across the projection's face. "You. not we. I propose you fix the timeline."

Arro's mind reeled at the suggestion. What does she mean Him? He's not even a time traveler...at least not like Terek. He couldn't go back in time and alter it and have any chance of surviving. Terek had gone on many long-winded tirades about paradox physics and how they mean instant and permanent death for anything that erases its own timeline by going back and changing things without that "first imprimatur" thing he and all of his race had that allowed them to operate ships like the empress, Terek was always so proud about having that... it was almost like his safety blanket. Nobody but him could pilot the empress without being vaporized on takeoff. He waited for the flick to come as he fought with whether asking "what she meant" or "how in the hell" were "germane" questions, but the flick never came instead a slight, almost feminine, chuckle broke his concentration. Looking back at the empress he noted she was smiling, and shifting her form slightly to better match Tereka, Terek's feminine alternate form.

She was still looking down at him, arms crossed but the expression of annoyance was long gone "Go on, ask." Sighing in relief, he asked the most pressing question first "How am I supposed to do that? I'm not Terek, or a time lord. How can I possibly change the entire timeline?" and watched as the ship's crackling eyes narrowed beaming grin on her face still.

Uncrossing her arms, she held them out to her sides and closed her eyes as she spoke "My dear Terek was many things, observant, and efficient was never among them." an instant later a twitch of her fingers brought to life dozens of projected screens showing biological data and animated logical paradoxes which hurt to look at "So let me pose you two questions to answer yours. What do you know of the Usable Appendage Theory of biology and Paradox physics?"

Arro remembered the topics vaguely, they were a favorite topic onboard the ship as he remembers, but he never really jumped into the conversations about them. The screens provided some clues however, as the neural mapping of an octopus's brain is denser than an orangutan’s and any logical loop that contradicts itself is aborted and a new thread is created. Going off of those he told her "Uh, The first one is something about the more limbs a creature has the more complex it's brain has to be to use them and Terek explained the second as instant death to anyone who alters the timeline. Why?"

He felt something at the back of his mind, almost an emotion but not quite even as he saw the empress roll her eyes. "Paradox physics are going to dictate what you will do. So you're going to need to know them." dismissing the screens with a shooing gesture from her hands before locking eyes with Arro "and the Usable Appendage Theory relates directly to something I've come to call the Arro Paradox"

With a snap of her fingers more screens blinked into existence, each and every one of them showing recordings of him. Arro watched as hundreds of thousands of hours' worth of footage flashed across them, Day to day activities, interactions with the other crewmembers, aerial views of skirmishes he participated in, half of which he didn't even remember. "As I said, my Captain was not perceptive. But I've always wondered why you, of all creatures could achieve your goals. Even so... counter intuitively" gesturing to a screen showing him attempting to learn how to fire a ranged weapon using his tails as she says those last few words.

Snapping her fingers again the screens disappeared and reappeared showing different footage, actions highlighted, including him using his tails to carry things and footage of him sitting idle "You have four legs, four tails and two swiveling ears bringing your appendage count to ten. All of which you can consciously control. compared to Terek who had two arms, two legs, two wings, two ears, and a tail, nine in total under his conscious control. according to the Usable Appendage Theory you should have a brain that is 15% more complex than Terek's which would account for a 5% increase in IQ. Given Terek's known IQ of 195 on your IQ should be approximately 204 on a human scale provided your neuron density is comparable, however even a loss of 15% density would leave you with an IQ of approximately 163" taking a moment she points out a screen showing him dragging a proton bomb across the open floor of hangar bay with his teeth before continuing "And Yet, you do things like this..."

Arro held up a paw to cut the ship's avatar off "In my defense, I didn't know I could Just think things around like Kyo did. I could either drag it with my teeth or try and knot my tails around it and pull and I didn't want any more 'sled dog' jokes coming up."

He couldn't tell if the look the empress gave him was more of surprise or thought at his interrupting her before she spoke "Fair enough..." dismissively gesturing the screen away before continuing "For the longest time I had thought the theory was flawed, that perhaps it was too specifically tailored to humanoids. That is..." Arro leaned back slightly as a new screen flickered to life between him and the ship's avatar "Until I saw this." Before his eyes security footage of the fight he just had in the corridor outside went across the screen. Every action and reaction caught in high definition holographic media.

Arro couldn't help but wince as he saw himself getting thrown into the wall by a bursting shell, the ache of the fresh wounds a constant reminder of exactly how painful that was. Taking initiative and batting at the screen he felt his paw pad contact the projected glass and felt it click as the footage paused "Ok! Ok, I get it! I act dumber than I should. How is this helpful?"

The Empress's condescending smirk returned, as she reached out and tapped the pane from the other side, causing the footage to resume "You weren't paying attention, were you? Look closer." Sighing Arro watched as the robot opened fire yet again, only for the footage to stop an instant after He swatted the first round into the bulkhead with his tail as the empress quit pressing the back of the screen. "See?"

He didn't get what was so special about that one action, he had done it several times in the fight, and similar feats regularly in their adventures before. Matter of fact any of the crew could catch or deflect bullets with equal or greater efficiency, so it didn't make sense. Shaking his head "No, what's so special about that?"

Arro felt that unusual trickle of emotion at the back of his mind again, more distinct now... It almost felt like happiness. Pondering that he heard as an unusually chipper tone entered the Empress's voice, more than likely mimicking Tereka or Alena "Nothing!", He barely had time to Glare at the smiling construct and cock his head in confusion before she elaborated "By itself it is nothing special. Merely a clue." Waving her arms outwards the dozens of screens surrounding them multiplied and flickered as more footage of his actions on-board were displayed "It let me know to look closer at your actions, allowed me to find a pattern. Many of them actually. Which forced me to rethink my personal definition of intelligence."

"Patterns?" Arro felt his heart skip a beat at that word, even though he had never actively hurt the ship or crew he had gone off on tangents, scoured the multiverse for many things that weren't on the list. Went places nobody else would go, and do things nobody else would try. Just trying to get his species out of the red population wise.

A flicker of good natured amusement shot past his subconscious as the empress locked eyes with him. "Yes Arro, Patterns. Like the grid you followed searching for a functioning cloning bay." A snap of her fingers brought a screen flickering to life, showing the coordinates he had traveled to in chronological order and mapping them to the dimensional and planetary surfaces they coincided to. "Or the Trial and error method you puzzled out the launch controls with." Without time to blink another screen came into existence showing him trying permutations of controls on one of the many launches, which on the screen looked more like him mashing random buttons on the control panels. "You've done plenty of naughty things that my dear Terek would have probably skinned you for. But the important part about all of it, at least to us now, is that it all shows you have a great deal of analytical intelligence."

The ship was making less sense than it had been, the fact he was "smart" enough to figure out some alien ship's controls and didn't feel like walking too much while looking for the one piece of technology that should have solved his species' population problem didn't really sound like accomplishments worthy of praise. Neither equated to traits that would let him alter the course of History in his head, hell even rats operate alien devices in the brief moment before the trap breaks their spinal column. A sigh from the avatar in front of him caught his attention, and Arro realized he had cocked his head sideways as she was going on about his "analytical intelligence" ... "Heh, Em... So I'm not... Classically smart... How does this help us?"

Letting his eyes focus on the ship's avatar he saw The Empress rubbing her temple, something Terek often did when he was annoyed, was she mimicking him? Learning how to act from recordings? "There is a long-winded explanation to that, but it boils down to this. It makes it easier for you to figure out where and how to change your timeline, allowing me to concentrate on supporting the paradox and preparing the bridge to get us both to the new timeline in one piece." Pausing to look at him before summoning a screen to check some data before continuing "Honestly If we had known about it before you would probably be listed as a navigator rather than... What was it again? I have your file here but I can't find where your rank was recorded"

"Ship's cook... I was, dubbed the ship's cook" Even as he was speaking Arro saw the look of confusion and exasperation forming on the empress's face, he really couldn't place whether she was mimicking the behavior for his benefit or if she was running the processes accidentally. Either way seeing that look on a near omniscient entity was priceless.

"But I came equipped with auto-chefs, even from the homeworld, there was no need for a living..." He nodded as she talked, well aware of the implications as she seemed to piece them together herself "Was that a joke from him? He was being cheeky wasn't he?"

The fact that she was so close but still missed her guess confused Arro for a moment. Allowing his head to tip sideways again he focused on ignoring the sensation of mirth trying to trickle through his skull as he tried to figure out what was going on. Empress was in such a rush earlier to get this conversation done and over with she literally threatened to hurt him for even thinking anything off topic, but now she's asking if his rank was a joke... Noticing a smile was creeping across her face he figured now was about as good a time as any to correct her. "No, No. He wasn't. He just thought I was a complete idiot and didn't trust me enough to have me in any other position."

The smile on the Empress's face died in all of a nanosecond of him starting to explain what had happened, and every screen in the room froze. "I-I'm sorry to hear that Arro..." The screen containing his information dispersed with little more than a glare from the ship's avatar as she carefully Knelt down a little closer to eye level with him. "If it's any consolation, I'm trusting you with possibly the most important task in our timeline. When you succeed we can talk to him about putting you in a better station. Maybe Navigator or Comms officer."

Arro appreciated the Avatar's kind words, and certainly liked the sound of getting put somewhere he could feel useful, but her behavior was still confusing him. First of all, he could sense a weak trickle of emotion from her, something this room has never been able to simulate. And secondly, she wasn't being as cold as she was earlier. Why change tactics mid conversation? Not wanting to put the computer off, however, he nodded "I'd like that..."

A small realization dawned upon him as the empress started to stand back up. Hurriedly he spoke his mind "W-Wait. Empress, I know we've been over this but how exactly am I supposed to find the where and how? Is there an equation I have to solve, or some sort of gizmo I have to build?". She never moved to interrupt but a number of faint mixed feelings reached his mind as he spoke. When he finished, however, the damn apparently broke and ship's avatar burst into laughter almost as if he had said the funniest thing in the world.

"E-equation? Gizmo?" She doubled over laughing as she uttered the words. Arro, couldn't figure out what was so funny about his question but as she was catching her "breath" he noticed the dull blue flicker of photonic processors coming from the bar earrings in either of her ears. Either one was probably powerful enough to store every document ever written twice over and still have memory to spare, they had used ones similar to them to repair the ship shortly before the crash. Her laughing died down a bit and he could hear the stain in her voice as she tried to speak calmly and failed "N-No, No Gizmos. No equation. It's just memory. Have you ever played the game what-if? Y-know, what if this happened instead of that? Same principle. Just remember where something went awry and figure out what could change it for the better." Taking a deep breath to level her voice out a little better be continued "Just try to keep the changes from being too major. Soft paradoxes are a lot easier to hold up and a lot less jarring than the hard ones."

Arro, for once in a very long time, felt he understood. Granted the difference between a "soft" and a "hard" paradox eluded him he guessed it was the difference between stepping on a leaf and nuking a city at random in the past. One you'd hardly notice and reality wouldn't give much effort in fixing, the other would break the timeline and reality would try to erase any trace of it ever happening. He had hundreds of memories, dozens of which could have probably gone better if circumstances were a little different. Thinking over them, he tried to make a mental tally of the things he'd need to change their outcomes without being too obvious... It didn't take long, looking to the ship Arro told her "Ok I'm gonna need the doors unlocked on the Arsenal, Deveroux's lab, and Terek's study, so I can go grab something from each of them. That alright?

"That should be fine, I had reinstated your security clearance before we started talking for when this question came up."

"Huh? Since when have I had security clearance? I always had to jump through mirrors and crawl throu..." a steely glare cut him off even before the ship's avatar interjected "You had it, and it was quickly revoked... let's leave it at that... anything else?"

Quickly turning to wander back down the projected platform he mumbled "No-no. I'll uh, go get those things and we can get to popping. I got a long list we're going to need to go through." He could hear the buzz of the program thinking for a millisecond before it spoke again, "Hang on Arro." Causing him to pause midstep.

"Listen, this has nothing to do with your security clearance and everything to do with the task at hand... I only have enough Power in reserve to transmat you to one destination, one way... anything else and I won't be able to uphold the paradox and transfer us both to the new reality so everything past that first jump is on you."

One way... as those words sank in Arro thought over possibilities, this plan could work if he went back to the most influential point and altered it... Going back to the beginning and rewriting history the hard way would have roughly the same effect... A plan formed as something he had heard a million times flicked across his mind. "That shouldn't be a problem, if you can grant me access to one of the launches so I can scavenge a few parts, and don't mind displaying the Quantum singularities we've encountered in our travels."

Looking back over his shoulder at the holographic projection of the ship's consciousness he saw her smile knowingly back at him before speaking "Done and..." Cracking her knuckles all the displays in the chamber around them disappeared, soon to be replaced by entirely new ones containing the information he requested, and more as data from the archives flood the screens. "Done."

There were fewer of them than he had expected. Arro could have sworn they had discovered hundreds of these things in their travels, and created at least a dozen more. Instead. he was looking at a mere two dozen. "Are these all of them?" he asked, fully expecting the ship to explain it had limited the list based on some esoteric prediction.

He felt an emotional twinge, as sorrow and guilt trickled in from outside "Save for one, these are all that are left... All the others have been lost to the Cascade." Her words stopped his thoughts cold, all the others? Lost? Just how much has this thing grown? How far out of hand has it gotten? Looking at the singularities on the displays he recognized all of them. The wreckage of the Caridos, who's space-fold engine malfunctioned ripping a hole in space-time. Charybdis, a natural supermassive black hole just off of the Kavri trade route whose sheer mass connects it to virtually every one of its lesser kin in reality. The well of worlds, a number of artefacts which link hundreds of thousands of worlds together. The Mind's edge supercomputer, mankind's first and only successful application of quantum computing, capable of transmitting the mind of a subject into any other reality as a semi-physical mass.

All of them were so dangerous they were practically worthless to him, he'd be crushed, rendered braindead, lethally irradiated, or worse if he tried to use any of them. Arro could feel his eye twitch as his aggravation grew, it was bad enough to know they had failed but seeing how far things have fallen apart because of it was simply rubbing salt in the wound. "These are no good, I'd be dead long before we can go home." Trying, and failing to stifle the growl in his voice as he spoke. "What is the last one?"

It felt like there was a tangible pause throughout the chamber as Arro watched the screens stop in their scrolling through relevant data and the processors of the room groaned with the sound of the processors working overtime before the empress's voice reached his ears again. "Whom..."

That one word snapped him from his contemplation of the other screens, Sorting new possibilities through his head even as he said the words "Excuse me?" and got the reply he half expected almost immediately "The last singularity is a Who, not a What..." his aggravation subsided slightly, if the last singularity is a person he may be able to get them to help him, maybe they could sense what the Cascade is? Maybe he could go back and stop it before it began! He was getting giddy just thinking about it, "Tell me! Who... is... it?" he caught himself mid-sentence as he looked at the empress and saw a concerned look on her face and realized he still sensed emotions coming from her, mostly guilt, but also worry as she held out her hand and generated a new screen. Causing the simulation to flicker slightly as the processors filled the air with the hum of their working.

Arro was dumbfounded for a moment as the simulation caught back up with itself and a face he hadn't seen in a long time stared back at him from the viewscreen. Glitch, the entity his mother and father... everyone's mother and father trusted with their safekeeping as children. He almost thought it was a mistake at first before more and more data from the archives poured in to fill out the page and the fur color on the screen adjusted to show its coloration without gamma shielding proving he was looking at the right entity. He had forgotten Glitch was a singularity... He honestly figured their old babysitter would be dead by now with the energy signature he put off. He heard the ship saying "I imagine this comes as a bit of a shock." But it barely registered, He was too busy trying to figure out how this could be, the old hound was good at avoiding trouble but when even Terek couldn't outrun death there was no way he could have.

The ship paused, awaiting a response but continued when she got none. "Listen, I know you probably imagined you'd be able to ask for help. The probability is slim but that is still an option we can try." Only one word out of her statement piqued Arro's interest "Help", Making him think. Glitch had helped them throughout most of their lives, forewarning trouble further along in time, teleporting them out of immediate danger, even arranging for an inconspicuous hideaway and diversion to keep them safe... The painful memory of his adoptive parents lying dead at the stairs, flicked across his mind. Realizing he had missed something the ship said, not wanting her to repeat herself and earn at the very least a thump between the eyes he went off the last word he actually heard and ran with it "He used to help us, until we had gone and mucked that all up."

Arro could hear something in the ship's voice, remorse maybe, as she spoke "Listen to me, he didn't leave because of anything any of you did." Her words hurt almost as much as the thoughts they dredged up. Glitch had told them that they were special among their alternates, the only set which were born exactly as they are, and the only ones who will be. How they were destined to succeed where countless others had failed. They were supposed to fix everything... Instead they just died. He tried his best to push those thoughts aside before locking eyes with the empress "Why then? Why did he leave?"

He heard an entirely foreign sound come from the ship's avatar as she quietly sputtered for a moment before answering "I-ah... I don't know Arro. Emotions are new to me, I still don't understand them on this scale." Feeling his anger building he glared at the simulation, which if he were Zaiden or Zorin would have burned a hole through her projected skull, "Then how do you know it wasn't us?" his voice came out a little harsher than he would have liked especially when he saw the look of surprise cross the avatar's face... and the laser cannons mounted on her back twitch...

A moment of quiet passed awkwardly, as they both knowingly stood well within range of one another. The servos on her lasers humming lightly as he nervously twitched his tails. The Empress broke the silence a moment later "He disappeared right before we traveled to Biphasia..." Arro was a little taken aback by this little fact... but couldn't find a single memory to refute it with The last time he remembered seeing Glitch was months before Biphasia... When he gave a cryptic warning that there would be no more Champions, and that the "negatives" were coming…

He remembered the Champions were Glitch's troubleshooters, his go-to people for when a universe started to have problems, human mercenary immortals with several lifetimes of practice in evening out the status quo. Kyo, Deveroux, Zorin, Garan, and Tereka were all disguised as them at one time or another so that they could hide on earth... Which made sense. All of it made sense, except that they were gone... What could have killed the unkillable? Taking a moment to collect his thoughts and let his eyes refocus on the empress, he nodded to her and let his tails droop, his approximation to lowering his weapon "You're right... do you think he was running from the negatives?"

The Empress wasn't so quick to power down her shoulder mounted guns, but Arro had kind of expected that. He was thankful she never actually trained them on him, however, as she spoke "It's possible, but unlikely. My records and sensor readings indicate they ignore his presence." Snapping her fingers a viewscreen materialized, plotting interdimensional teleportation arrays following seven objects, even without the 3-d chart accompanying the raw data Arro could see the coordinates were close, mere miles apart at times, which is nothing for entities who can show up on warship sensors clearly from light-years away... Something was wrong.

He heard the Empress's guns power down while he was watching the screen before another screen appeared right in front of his nose in a flash displaying a three-dimensional explosion in the Centre of a two dimensional line and rough expansion and relativity algorithms calculated to the nth degree "My theory is that he could sense the temporal wake of my drive cores detonating, and fled to avoid the primary shockwave."

Arro tried to understand what she was displaying, but cross-field temporal mechanics were well out of his league. What she said on the other hand made all too much sense to him...placing his paw on the viewscreen in front of him to pause it. "You're saying he knew what was going to happen?..." His growl returning as he spoke.

"I know it's hard to believe, but you have to trust me on this one Arro" The empress was projecting a mottled emotion, he couldn't quite make out it's component parts but he could sense it distinctly. It's alien feeling tainting her words well before he heard them…

Flexing his claws against the simulated glass of the viewscreen subconsciously as he mulled over her words the cold surface buckling under his touch feeling as though it would break at any moment. His eyes glazing over as he asked "Why?"

"I thought we had an understanding Arro..." A new sensation reached his mind, sorrow, as he heard her talk, and he felt her next few words register before she spoke them, digging his claws into the screen he slammed it down, splintering both it and the one behind it in one swift motion, clearing a line of sight to the empress's avatar. His words resonated through the holographic spaces as he deliberately picked his words "Why weren't we WARNED?"

The initial shock of him shattering a pair of viewscreens, quickly flowed into the shock of the question he asked. The expression on the empress's face and the blur of thoughts through her head were more than enough proof for that. But after the initial "Adrenaline" rush wore down he felt the entire room rumble with the effort of the processors as she tried to find an answer. Synthetic or not Arro could have sworn he heard almost human thoughts in the empress's head as she was thinking, but that passed shortly. "I don't know... There's only a limited number of logical reasons why you wouldn't, but most of those revolve around"

Arro finished her sentence before she could "Betrayal..." breaking eye contact as he did as he felt the telltale burn of tears. "Yes... but the only one who could confirm or deny that would be him." She continued. Arro, Half listening, nodded and got back on his feet. Mentally re-arranging his plan as he turned to walk back down the catwalk. "Then I have two questions I need to ask him... plot the coordinates. I'll be back"

Barely a few steps further he heard the empress call out to him "You're assuming his cooperation? Even with what we just discussed?" Her words were backed by surprise and concern, he could feel it. But they invoked a number of bittersweet imaginings that he toyed with as they flit across his mind. He couldn't help but smile through the tears, cooperative or not, traitor or not, It didn't matter, he will get what he set out for... even if the impossible has to be done to do it.

Pausing mid stride and looking back over his shoulder he smiled at the empress's avatar. Quickly saying "No. I'll be Guaranteeing it." before continuing on, sensing the Ship's confusion build behind him. "And if you find he did betray you?", The empress's words catching up to him as he was about halfway to the door.

He couldn't help but chuckle at the question but didn't bother to stop or turn around and answer it "Then I will be the end of him. Simple as that."