With Bob’s return, the timeline resumed from where it had left off. For the majority of people the entire affair had been but an instant, a strange waking dream where they caught glimpses of another life. And so most of them shrugged and continued on, unaware their entire reality had been at stake. The event would be heavily discussed but at the end of the day it changed little for the average person, perhaps save for a sudden appreciation for their loved ones and the frailty of life.

Those present at the Battle of Time knew better, however. After Bob explained the circumstances behind Wilson to Londyn, she immediately called for a Council meeting, and they agreed to call off the search for Bob. After seeing what the world had become without him, and learning of Wilson’s villainous intent, they were no longer willing to pursue Bob off of Wilson’s testimony. The ILS officially announced the global text had been a villain’s scheme, filled with falsehood.

 

Not that it would have mattered either way, as Bob had vanished shortly thereafter, once he had taken care of some last affairs, especially regarding Nemesis.

 

And so life continued on for those who remained…

 

---

 

Captain Hot Devil heaved a sigh, adjusting some papers on his desk. He had finally, finally retired, for good this time. A new generation of heroes had come into their own with Aurora Legion at their head, the AVS had reduced villain activity as a whole by providing a legitimate place for villains to belong, and Nemesis was keeping watch in the shadows. There was no longer a need for Captain Hot Devil to fight.

And after seeing what had become of his alternate self, all he wanted to do was go home and hold his family. Which is what he did…until after a while they got annoyed and sent him back to work that is.

 

Which is why he was here now, preparing for the greatest and most important battle of his life…

 

The door to the room opened up and students began to file in, chatting to one another as they found their seats. But there was one in particular that filled the Captain’s heart with dread…

Samantha grinned and waved at him from her seat. Captain Hot Devil heaved another sigh.

Despite all of his efforts to subtly convince her otherwise, his daughter had enrolled in the Academy, intent on following in his footsteps. He and his wife had been fine with it at first, it was a rare individual who could endure the hero program without any powers.

 

Until Samantha accidentally set her bed on fire, that is.

 

She had already enrolled at that point and honestly she did need to learn to control her abilities in any case. And both Jim and Eleanor knew the look they saw in her eyes, for they had often seen it in Jim’s. She would not be stopped, by them, or by anyone.

He took a deep breath and called out to the class, quieting them down as he took attendance. He steeled his heart.

 

If he couldn’t stop her from following this path…

 

Then he would do everything he could to make sure she did it right. He would spare her as many of the harsher lessons that he could, and give her every tool to succeed.

 

That’s what it meant to be a hero…instructor, after all.

 

And so Mr. Roberson began his first class…

 

---

 

Linda heaved a sigh as she walked towards the office. She fully expected to find an empty room, leaving her to run an organization the size of a small nation on her own, yet again.

So she froze in shock as she opened the door and found Arachnalich seated at her desk, clutching her head and gritting her teeth. Arachnalich looked up at Linda and immediately sat up, crossing her hands in front of her.

 

“Mistress…you’re…”

 

“Hi, you must be Linda. Call me Adrianni, please.”

 

Linda froze again.

 

“...who…are you?”

 

The mecha-spider-woman heaved a huge sigh.

 

“I’m the one from the other timeline.”

 

“How is that possible?”

 

“My alternate might be an idiotic, impulsive, especially dumb imbecile who I’m pretty sure is mentally deranged at this point…but I’ll begrudgingly admit she has some skill in the mystic arts. When my body faded for the last time she managed to activate her ritual on me…and now of course she stuffed me into this horrific monstrosity of a body under the assumption that I will do all the work on her behalf.”

 

Linda just groaned and clutched her head.

 

“That idiot Mistress!”

 

Adrianni’s mouth curled into a smirk.

 

“Oh, she’s dumber than you know. Which is why I’d like to make a proposal, Miss Linda. You see, because she shoved me in one of her spare bodies, it seems these stupid bot pieces are connected.”

 

Linda’s eyes widened slightly.

 

“So in other words…”

 

Adrianni’s smirk grew into a full grin.

 

“I know exactly where she is at any given time. I have access to all her records in fact. Already recovered my phylactery she thought she hid away.”

 

Linda started to grin as well.

 

“Well well well, I think we have a contract to negotiate, Miss Adrianni.”

 

---

 

Arachnalich crawled out of the emergency exit tunnel she had her spiders dig.

She started to cackle.

Free!

She was finally free!

No more paperwork!

No more meetings with stupid politicians!

No more skipping lunch!

She was finally free to hunt down that stupid faceless minion and enact her vengeance!

 

“Hehehehe…ahahahaha…MUAHAHAHAHAHA!”

 

She stepped out into a brand new world…

And walked headfirst into a giant spider web.

 

“Oh my, did little ole’ me get caught in a web? Here I thought spiders could avoid their own traps.”

 

“You! What are you doing here?! You’re supposed to be working for Linda!”

 

“I am. Boss, if you would.”

 

Arachnalich heard footsteps and turned her head. Her eyes widened and her body trembled.

 

Doom approached her.

 

“L-L-Linda, w-w-what are you doing here?”

 

Linda just crossed her arms.

 

“That’s what I’d like to ask you, Mistress.”

 

“I-I’m not the Mistress, she’s the Mistress now.”

 

Linda sighed.

 

“It doesn’t work that way, Mistress.”

 

“She’s me!”

 

“Not legally. The law is a bit unclear on time doppelgangers but as genetically identical twins are treated as distinct entities I see no reason not to do the same here. In other words…Miss Adrianni here is not bound by any contract signed in your name, nor does she have the legal authority to make decisions on your behalf.”

 

“T-T-Then I’ll give her the authority! Come on, don’t you want to be in charge?!”

 

Adrianni just heaved a dramatic sigh.

 

“Not after watching you. I have my own contract now. Did you seriously think I was just going to do all your work for you? Forget that!”

 

“I saved you! You owe me!”

 

“You kidnapped me and used me as bait is what you did. Come on now, don’t be upset. You know you would have done exactly the same in my position.”

 

“You monster!”

 

“You’re the one who kidnapped me from my reality and stuffed me in a monster bot body, you know?”

 

And so Adrianni dragged a screaming Arachnalich back to her office.

She had signed a contract with Linda as a special assistant. She would hunt down and catch Arachnalich anytime she tried to run and was otherwise free to do as she pleased. If Arachnalich managed to work diligently at her duties without running off, then Adrianni would help out as an assistant on a lighter schedule, four days of the week at most.

So in other words, Arachnalich could try to escape and watch her alternate lounge around all day when she inevitably failed…or she could diligently work and so force at least some small amount of work on her new twin.

 

It seems the last thing Arachnalich caught in her webs…was herself.

 

---

 

Wonder Knight fidgeted. The boy was sitting in a chair, looking at a large monitor split into several views. He frowned.

 

“M-Maybe I should go check…”

 

Londyn was standing behind him. She crossed her arms.

 

“Wonder.”

 

The hero jumped a bit.

 

“Y-Yes, Director?”

 

“Look at me.”

 

Londyn locked eyes with the hero.

 

“If you want to lead, you’re going to have to make hard choices. You’re going to have to send people into danger, often alone, while you sit safely behind. Even your friends. And sometimes…they’re going to end up hurt. Sometimes you’ll KNOW they’re going to end up hurt. You’ll have to make that choice anyway.”

 

Wonder’s eyes began to quiver, but Londyn pressed on.

 

“Because that’s their role, and this is ours. Honestly, this mission is as low-risk as it gets, with a team far too experienced to be tasked with it, much less to request mercenary support. So if you can’t keep a cool head now, you might as well give up.”

 

Wonder Knight trembled slightly but he shook his head. He closed his eyes and took a deep breath.

 

He opened them and locked eyes with the Director once more, with no further movement or trembling.

 

“No, I’ll see this through.”

 

Londyn dropped her arms and smiled slightly. She patted his shoulder.

 

“There’s another side to this too, Wonder. Trust in your friends. Trust in your heroes. No matter how bad things get, they won’t let you down.”

 

His eyes widened for a second before he nodded back at her. He turned towards the screen, his shoulders dropping slightly as they relaxed. Londyn nodded.

 

“Well then, take it away, Mission Commander.”

 

Wonder Knight focused on the screen and unmuted his mic.

 

“Aurora Legion, you are cleared to engage. Begin the operation.”

 

With that, Aurora Legion nodded and began their assault. Pink Star led the charge, wrapped in a clone of Wonder Knight. She rushed forward and smashed through the gates of the facility ahead. The moment the doors swung open Chronolock flickered and vanished, strolling through time until she found the security center. She returned back and retrieved Voidspeaker, and together they disabled the security system. The alarms remained silent even as the doors fell off their hinges.

Pink Star and Icy Rose rushed through the facility, copied superpowers and blasts of icy wind disabling every guard and automated defense in their path. Chronolock and Voidspeaker worked together from the security center to monitor their progress, hacking or disabling every defense in the two girls’ path.

 

Chronolock’s speed and understanding of technology had grown by leaps and bounds recently. She had been working hard to find evidence that a certain someone was hacking her matches.

 

Which ironically made her quite the competent hacker herself.

In any case, Pink Star and Icy Rose made it to the central chamber without much resistance. Chronolock and Voidspeaker reappeared at their side with a flicker. Pink Star nodded at the bunch and then pushed the doors open.

 

“It’s over, Brother Ion! Surrender now!”

 

For the majority of people, the memories of the other world gave them a newfound appreciation of their present lives.

For some though, some could not let go of what they had seen. Such as Brother Ion, who in the original timeline was something of a scientist.

 

“You are too late, you evil Lightless! I cannot believe you would fall so far as to call this mere invention a ‘super-serum’, but I will admit it provided a suitable base! And now…now I have discovered how to fuse it together with the Sacred Light in a manner most holy! And once I begin to spread it across the world’s water supply, the Blessed will rise once again, and all will know the touch of the Sacred Light!”

 

His face curled into a snarl.

 

“And for you…you particular evildoers who ruined the New Dawn, I have prepared a special welcome! Behold, the Children of the Dawn!”

 

With that, Brother Ion pressed a button on a remote. A large number of metal doors opened behind him, revealing a large pen full of metal cages. And a huge number of mutated animals covered in glowing tumors.

 

Who were all lying on the floor, whimpering, as a man stood over them.

 

A handsome, muscular man with gorgeous hair. And a greatsword shining with golden light resting on his shoulder. He glanced over his shoulder and flashed everyone a smile, holding out his free hand to give a thumbs up.

 

“Never fear, for it is I! The Contracting Chosen One! The one destined for great deeds and glorious profits!”

 

As it turns out…now that Londyn understood the full circumstances behind Nemesis and their leadership had undergone a slight change…there was ultimately no reason the ILS couldn’t also hire the mercenary squad. And utilize them to preemptively support operations even before the ILS had secured all the necessary authorizations to deploy.

Arvid, in particular, even offered a friend discount for operations involving Aurora Legion. Because he was friends with them. Yes. Friends. With all of them. Not just one fair maiden in particular or anything. So he was working hard to support the team behind the scenes with increasing frequency.

Such as ensuring a certain sketchy research foundation couldn’t make good on its plans and taking on the horde of mutated animal experiments it had secretly gathered.

 

Brother Ion’s eyes sank until their sockets.

 

“Oh.”

 

---

 

A boy and a girl walked together through the cemetery, carrying bouquets with one hand and holding each other’s hand with the other. Eventually they arrived at their destinations, four graves side by side.

Kiyosuke and Saydaa glanced at each other, looking into each other’s eyes. Tears welled up in both of them, yet both of them smiled.

 

They nodded.

 

And they moved to place their flowers on the graves.

 

And they weren’t alone.

 

Sadid stood in front of one of the graves as Saydaa walked up to it. He slowly turned around as he heard her approach. He smiled sadly at her and patted her on the shoulder, then took a step back to give her some time with her mother.

With help from Nana and the USB Drive of Demonic Binding, Saydaa had found a way to free Sadid from the lamp. The next step was determining a way for the genie to live in peace. He obviously needed to move out of Morocco. Yet, he couldn’t bring himself to move.

 

Because that’s where Samima rested.

 

It was Kiyosuke that proposed a solution.

 

The shinobi villages were largely abandoned, though with one exception. Each village maintained their cemeteries, honoring all those who had died in their endless struggles.

Cemeteries in an almost completely uninhabited region of Japan, about as far from Morocco as could be.

So they had moved Samima’s remains to the Amano family grave. Sadid had then volunteered as a caretaker for the cemetery, sharing the job with the shinobi.

 

And so both families had helped each other to find peace.

 

As well as hope.

 

For there was one other person in their group.

 

Another girl stood behind the group. She fidgeted as Sadid approached.

 

“Um…hi…Dad?”

 

He smiled at her.

 

“Hello Saydaa, I’m happy to see you.”

 

Yes, the alternate Saydaa had made it to their timeline as well. Just before she faded, Saydaa remembered her father Sadid. In a stroke of inspiration and with Nana, Elise, and Chronolock’s help, she managed to seal the alternate Saydaa inside a lamp. That managed to preserve her even after her timeline faded from existence.

 

They were still arguing over what to call each other, however.

 

Sadid had been quite surprised at this turn of events, but it did not take him long to whole-heartedly accept the other Saydaa as well.

 

Shortly after, Kiyosuke and the original Saydaa returned to the group. They were just discussing what to have for dinner when Kiyosuke’s phone started to ring.

 

“This is Amano.”

 

“Hey boss, looks like some guy calling himself the Quantum Herald is about to activate some doomsday device. Seems like real bad news.”

 

“Quantum Herald you say? Didn’t we already tip off the ILS about that guy?”

 

“We did, but looks like his secret identity is an official envoy. He has diplomatic immunity at the moment. The ILS can handle it, but looks like it’ll get messy if they do. So…they’re willing to pay to make the problem go away.”

 

“I see. We’ll handle it then.”

 

Turns out an unaffiliated, legally gray team of mercenary supers was still extremely useful, especially as the AVS had become a legitimate organization. And so Nemesis’s work continued on, only with a new person at its head. Kiyosuke hung up the call and turned around. The two Saydaas grinned and nodded at him. He smirked back.

 

“Well, you heard it. Looks like the ILS is getting lazy, so we’ll have to clean up the mess this time.”

 

Saydaa grinned.

 

“So dinner’s on the Aurora Losers again?”

 

“Looks that way.”

 

Alternate Saydaa grinned and pulled out her phone.

 

“I’ll start looking up some options. Let’s see, which one of these has the most dollar signs on it…”

 

Kiyosuke heaved a sigh and chuckled as he pulled out his sword, cutting another hole in space.

 

“Lazy heroes…are so annoying.”

 

---

 

Antonio took his seat. He honestly could have graduated with Aurora Legion, but had chosen to stay behind. Most of his teammates in the Nova Guardians still had a while to go, and he wanted to graduate alongside them.

 

After all, his place was with his team.

 

So here he was, attending homeroom and some electives while helping out around the Academy and interning with the ILS.

The class settled down as their homeroom teacher entered the room.

Miss Gabriel Le Blank swung her hair and scoffed as she took attendance. She had something of a breakthrough, seeing the true horror of the Day of Sorrow, and so had come to appreciate the ILS for their defense of beauty. Then, with Dr. Ueda’s help, she had overcome the shadow of her father and his hero obsession, and started to develop an inner-confidence and sense of self-worth. And so she had started to lend the ILS her support, commuting part of her sentence to a community service at the Academy. After all, as a successful self-made actress and super-model, she had a lot to offer that a regular educator or ILS hero did not. She opened a door for super-students to the world of showbiz.

 

“Pay attention, children, for I will only state this once. It seems a new student will have the honor of learning under me. Let us hope that a small part of my beauty may rub off on her.”

 

All eyes turned to the classroom door.

 

Antonio’s jaw dropped.

 

“Um, h-hi everyone. My name is…Hirose Emao. Nice to meet you…”

 

Yes, Nana had returned to the Academy in something of an open secret. With Nemesis’s increasing cooperation with the ILS, Londyn thought it would be helpful to familiarize them with ILS procedure and hero methods. She was likewise hoping an outside opinion from a veteran member of the rival group may provide new insights to improve Academy training.

 

Well, that was the official reason at least.

 

Unofficially?

 

Nana had been paid generous sums for an extensive and grueling tutoring program. She was, after all, the only one who had proven capable of making a significant impact on Voidspeaker’s grades. So she had been offered anything she wanted, after which she and Chronolock shoved Voidspeaker into a frozen time classroom to bring him up to speed.

Londyn had paid mainly in cash and top-of-the-line gadgets. She wanted Aurora Legion to take a front and center role in the ILS moving forward, but she couldn’t do so while some of its members remained students. And she couldn’t threaten the credibility of the Academy by passing Voidspeaker with extra credit. He had to, at the very least, pass a bare minimum number of exams.

 

But she wasn’t the only one paying for the tutoring.

 

Yes, the Lord of the Abyss himself had reached out to the kunoichi. He was very much invested in Voidspeaker’s public image, as the first positive representation the Void had gained across every reality. So he was very much determined to see Voidspeaker pass.

And so Ueno Nana became the first void shinobi ever to exist. Even now, she worked tirelessly to integrate the powers of the void into her chakra and research its interactions with the USB Drive of Demonic Binding.

After all, Bob-sama had entrusted her with the safety of the Earth and of humanity. She would not fail in this task, no matter what she needed to do.

 

Yes.

 

No matter what.

 

No matter how long.

 

Or how grueling.

 

Or how annoying.

 

But now that task was over, and a more pleasant one would begin. She was now at the Academy, not to infiltrate but to cooperate. To learn how the ILS worked and to establish connections within it, in case she needed to support humanity’s primary defenders in the future. And now, since her true identity was an open secret and…that had ‘graduated’, she could rest easy, attending without constantly looking over her shoulder.

 

And…

 

She blushed slightly as she saw Antonio wave at her.

 

For the first time since she developed the ability to use chakra, Ueno Nana got to experience life as a normal girl.

 

And in doing so…started to build a life of her own.

 

---

 

To be fair to Londyn, there was a reason the ILS wanted to avoid messy situations and get its most popular heroes officially into action.

 

Some time later, Londyn stood in a command center. All around her, technicians sat at stations, calling out their status one by one. A number of checks turned green on Londyn’s monitor as the last technician called out.

 

Silence reigned.

 

Londyn took a deep breath.

 

“Let’s fire her up.”

 

Dr. Fraser smiled and pressed the button. The entire structure began to hum and shake. The view outside the window began to shift...

And the entire structure began to lift into the air.

Londyn smiled.

 

The Elegant Falcon lifted off the ground, ready for its maiden voyage.

 

The ILS’s new flagship named after two of its founding members who gave their lives against the Vophae, The Elegant Falcon was a fully-fledged space-going craft, the equal of any Vophae battleship and just as capable in exploration as combat. Londyn’s engineering team had leaned hard into their expertise with gravity technology. The ship was equipped with several large Mass Suppressors, capable of propulsion, generating protective barriers, attacking hostile forces directly, or even aiding with the mundane loading and unloading of supplies and personnel. The Vophae tech they had reversed engineered provided the power source and FTL-capabilities, as well as a comprehensive upgrade to sensors and other systems. The Elegant Falcon was now ready to take to the stars, and bring humanity beyond the boundaries of the Solar System.

 

And it was joined by a sister ship.

 

This one was almost a complete replica of the Vophae’s designs, save for the enormous death ray sitting on top of the hull. The AVS’s flagship, The Spider’s Web. The AVS had managed to catch up to the ILS thanks to a joint development contract with Tanifuji Inc. It turns out that Kanna’s work on the Mental Unifier and the NSLICE program data made her uniquely suited to deciphering the Vophae’s psionic technology. As a result, the joint AVS-Tanifuji recovery teams could interface with some of the more intact wrecks directly, so the AVS had simply repaired one of the ships in best condition.

 

With some…creative modifications, of course.

 

“The Spider’s Web is reporting all systems green and ready! Awaiting your orders, Director!”

 

Londyn grinned once more. Oh, she fully expected that the end result of this trip would be a mind-numbing increase in her work load and extremely annoying incidents they couldn’t possibly predict.

 

And it would be a ton of fun. Something the entire Earth dreamed of but no one had accomplished before.

 

She was about to be the first human to step beyond their star, guiding all of humanity into a new future.

 

And honestly?

 

She loved this job.

 

“Let’s get to it. Intergalactic League of Superheroes, move out!”

 

---

 

Elise was sitting at a console, her fingers flying across the keyboard and mouse when an alert chimed in her internal UI. She glanced back at the screen, which was just displaying ‘Victory’ in large green letters.

 

“Smug Greeting: As much as this unit enjoys increasing her indefinite win streak, she must now depart. GG ez noobs.”

 

She signed off the game even as Chronolock screamed into the voice chat. But the noob could wait, Elise had something important to take care of.

She rose from her chair and made her way to the door, patting napping Cerberus on his heads along the way. The door slid open with a hiss. Elise stepped outside into the metallic hallway of her ship.

To everyone’s great surprise, Elise had not raised any objections when Bob had left on a long trip. She had not even requested to accompany him. She had surprised them all by apologizing and requesting some time to herself instead.

 

Because she had something she wanted to do. Needed to do. And something she needed to do on her own.

 

The first thing she did was rush into space, locating the most advanced Vophae wreck she could find. High Admiral Siendir’s flagship was in remarkably good condition, as Xiong Huang had targeted the High Admiral specifically when she assaulted the craft, and so hadn’t obliterated the entire thing as she had with many others. Between Elise’s own Vophae-tech implants, her mini-Mental unifier to interface with psionic systems, her Mass-Energy Manipulation Array to replicate any power she needed for any given task, and her budding techno-organic cultivation that she could use to forge new connections with machines, she had all the tools she needed to repair the ship at lightning speeds. So by the time the ILS and AVS had even reached beyond the atmosphere, Elise had already flown away with the biggest prize of them all.

 

And then she began work on her true goal.

 

Elise made her way to a special chamber on the ship. It was something of a hybrid between a medical laboratory, a robotics workshop, and a wizard’s ritual chamber. Computers linked to growing vats and assembly lines of robotic arms, delivering components to a magic ritual formation engraved into the floors and walls with machine precision and then overlaid with circuitry and wires. The formation’s lines centered around two spots in the room. One of them had a large metal cylinder with a round glass top. The other had a rotating chair.

Elise sat in the chair. A wire extended out from the metal cylinder, she grabbed it and plugged into a port in her own head.

Then she closed her eyes and focused, silently spinning the chair back and forth.

Her Mass-Energy Manipulation Array hummed to life. She began to grab the qi flowing through her meridians, as well as the electricity and data flowing through her circuits, and twisted them together, looping them through her body in an ever-accelerating cycle.

Once the cycle had reached sufficient speed, containing a great portion of her qi, she looped it into the formation on the floor.

The lines of the ritual formation began to glow as qi filled the lines. The circuitry hummed to life as well from the electricity entwined with the mystical flow, resulting in a glittering constellation as lights began to flicker and flash all across the formation.

The lights made their way across the room until the entire workshop shone like the sun.

 

And then they coalesced onto the casket.

 

Inside rested a body. In perfect condition, but lying completely still with pale skin, no blood flowing through its veins.

The power from Elise flowed through the cylinder and into the body, cycling around it in a pattern her new components had recorded during their first activation…

 

The body’s heart began to beat. Its skin began to color as blood filled its veins.

 

And a number of cybernetic components installed in the body began to light up, a core in the center of their torso humming to life.

A notification passed in front of Elise’s view, even as her eyes were closed. She moved to the next step, connecting her cybernetic components with that of the body’s. And activating the mini-Mental Unifier within her, linking to the body’s mind just as blood started to flow through its brain.

She reached into herself, pulling something stored directly within the mini-Mental Unifier through the established link to the body.

 

“Profile loaded…”

 

Eventually, her mini-Mental Unifier began to slow. The light in the formation began to recede. Elise exhaled a deep breath, her qi levels largely depleted, her components lagging for a moment as they reclaimed the memory used to transfer a truly enormous amount of data.

 

But she ignored all these things.

 

She rose from her chair, walking over to the casket. The top popped open, the floor of the casket rising to lift the body out of it.

 

The body was slowly breathing as its heart beat in its chest. Its core was shining bright.

 

Its robotic eye began to glow…

 

The woman opened her eyes for the first time. She opened her mouth…

 

“Status Report: All Systems Online. Running diagnostics…all systems normal.”

 

She began to glance around the room, eyes shifting this way and that until they rested on Elise. The organic eye widened slightly.

 

“Surprised Query: Liberator…?”

 

Elise smiled softly at the woman.

 

“Welcome, NSLICE-21NS, to my reality. And happy birthday, in this timeline.”

 

As it turns out, there was an enduring side effect after Elise used the Mental Unifier to link to every NSLICE unit simultaneously in the alternate timeline. Even after the Mental Unifier was deactivated, all of the NSLICE units remained in a network that went beyond just their cybernetic network uplinks. Their organic consciousness remained connected as well, networked with Elise as the central node.

And so in the final battle, when all of them were present and all of their organic and cybernetic hardware began to fade away, when Elise bid them farewell with longing in her heart, her cultivation had responded to her subconscious intent and reached out to the network.

The Mental Unifier had preserved their organic consciousness. Her Vophae psionic-tech implants had stored the cybernetic side. Elise’s memory suddenly jumped to nearly full.

So the moment she had returned to her own reality, she rushed to the Mental Unifier Bob had used to save her, transferring all of the NSLICE consciousnesses to it.

Then…

Using all the data she had stored, including the records her new cybernetic components had logged during the ritual Bob used to revive her, she developed a method to replicate and activate new NSLICE bodies, based on the genetic data stored by the Concordat itself on their test subjects. One for every consciousness stored in the Mental Unifier.

And then she used her own qi, full of the powerful life-force of the Blazing Dragon Flower, to activate them one by one.

It was a difficult process. The first one had nearly drained her completely, and even now it still took quite a long time for her qi to recover.

 

But ultimately, she had succeeded.

 

Even now, NSLICE Defender, built directly into the former Vophae flagship, guided the craft through the cosmos, searching for useful resources. Other NSLICE units, led by 83NS, gathered the resources, researching and developing new upgrades for Defender and their new siblings under construction, building a new community for themselves. Elise had entrusted all operation of the ship to them now, focusing on recovering her qi to awaken more of their siblings.

 

And with each NSLICE unit she awakened, her qi recovered just a little bit faster, flowing a bit stronger through her meridians.

 

After all, with each occurance, Elise was learning more and more how to cycle her qi and meld it with the electricity running through her implants. She was nearly at the stage where she could do it without relying on the Mass-Energy Manipulator at all.

And…

Each time she conducted the ritual, she was connecting the organic and machine through her own cultivation. Establishing connections, expanding the new NSLICE network, expanding her own consciousness and fulfilling one of the deepest desires in her heart. Building upon the foundation she had started to develop in the alternate universe…

 

In other words, Elise was cultivating cyborgs.

 

Xiong Huang’s jaw would actually drop the next time she met Elise, and found a cultivator of the Eight Realm, with an entirely unique and uncharted method of cultivation.

And Londyn’s, Arachnalich’s, and Aurora Legion’s heads would pound when they ventured out beyond the solar system and first made contact with a civilization outside of Earth. And discovered they were not, in fact, the first humans to step beyond the Solar System.

 

Because they found a large and growing NSLICE network, already in the beginning stages of colonizing a new planet.

 

Chronolock would actually scream.

 

---

 

And as for a certain faceless minion…

 

Bob groaned as he landed on the ground. He rubbed his sore back, heaving a sigh. Xiong Huang stood before him, a frown on her face and her arms crossed.

 

“Come on, Bob, I know you can do better than that. You fought that stupid alien for goodness sake!”

 

Bob shook his head.

 

“That was with an extremely expensive super suit, you know? I always tried to avoid ending up in fist fights.”

 

“Excuses, Bob! Come on! You need to make some progress today! If I don’t see some improvement, then we can’t wrap it up and go on our d-d-d-d…g-get back up already!”

 

Bob chuckled and shook his head as Xiong Huang quickly spun around, hiding her face from him.

 

Well, it wouldn’t hurt for him to try a bit more, now would it?

 

His new boss was calling for him, after all.

 

And fulfilling her deepest desires and making her dreams a reality?

 

Well, that’s a job for a faceless minion if he ever heard one.

 

---

 

A few years later…

 

It was a quiet day inside the research facility. There were gray metallic floors with gray metallic walls and, you guessed it, a gray metallic ceiling, lit by occasional incandescent bulbs.

Suddenly the wall exploded, flames bursting through and filling the facility with red light.

 

“Sam, wait! Stick to the plan!”

 

“Hahaha, Captain Hot Deviless makes her own plan!

 

And as Captain Hot Deviless and her team rushed to confront Professor Drunken Siren...

 

One of the Professor’s minions ran from a hole in the wall, panting for breath as he escaped the facility. He paused until he had recovered, taking a final deep breath as he straightened his back. He heaved a sigh and spoke to himself…

 

“Heroes…are so annoying.”

 

And so another faceless minion ran off into the night…

 

The End...?