Kanden took a step further away from the ship.

He was on one of the balconies outside the main ship, looking out into deep space. Turning, he heard Tallest Red speak. “Oh, that’s just greeeeeeeat, isn’t it? He finds out where we are and instantly he’s here! Did you even plan for this???” Kanden smirked as he heard Tallest Purple’s reply. “Did I plan? Did YOU plan?? Why is it always ME that has to plan for these things??”

Kanden took another step out into space. The balcony he was on was purely decorative, it didn’t even have an oxygen field. But hey, he didn’t care about that. He’d just managed to track down two of the people he knew would be his enemies in the future, and he wasn’t going to let a little thing like no atmosphere bother him.

He wondered if they even knew he could hear them.

“Damn it Purple, it was your job!!” Apparently they couldn’t. Kanden leaned back and floated for a while to pass the time. They weren’t exactly proving their innocence by keeping him out like this. He looked around him. The Massive was as massive as ever. Not that he could remember ever having been on it before, but he’d heard about it. Particularly when he was on Vort.

Kanden floated a little higher and sighed. He hoped they wouldn’t try and kill him. Not that they’d succeed of course, but it would be a shame to have to take them out so soon.

Thinking back over his past, he remembered all of his allies over the years. Would they be enough? A Yautja, A Jedi, and all the others.  There were even demigods and a goddess he was pretty sure he could count on. Past them, there were species from every end of the galaxy. He had a small army’s worth of fighters ready to help him, but he knew it most likely wouldn’t be enough.

The Irken empire was only one enemy they would be facing. He knew that much. But then, he’d known that ever since he’d woken up on Irk without a PAK. He’d been attacked almost instantly, and the city had been destroyed. Kanden closed his eyes out of respect for the innocents killed, but he knew there could hardly have been any Irkens that he could consider innocent there.

Kanden heard the air-locks being activated again and landed. The tallest walked out to greet him, now that the atmosphere had been returned to the balcony. “Oh, you.” Tallest Purple began. Not a good start. “So, you want to know what we’re doing out here, do you?” Kanden nodded, staring tallest Purple straight in the eyes. Kanden was only a matter of centimetres shorter than him anyway.

“Yes. I do. Why is the Massive so far out into space? Who are you meeting and why is it so important to keep it secret that you don‘t have a guard?” Tallest Purple blinked. “Was that a more in-depth questioning than you thought you’d get? I could ask more.” The tallest raised an eyebrow, but Red cut over him. “Your name is Kanden, right?” Kanden nodded. “Yeah.”

“Well, Kanden. We aren’t gonna tell you. It’s that simple. What we want to know is, why do You want to know?” Kanden folded his arms and laughed. “Hah! Isn’t it obvious? I’m not going to hide anything from you because I’m not afraid of you, so I’ll say it. I know you’re here to meet someone and I know that you’re planning some sort of ultimate invasion with them. I’m here to tell you that whoever it is, I’ll stop you. I am far stronger than you know, or else you wouldn’t come so close to threatening me. So again, who are you meeting?”

Both the Tallest glared down at Kanden. It was Red that spoke first. “Oh really? Then we have nothing else to discuss. Get off our ship or we’ll remove you.”

Kanden bristled and the air around him suddenly became static. “Was that another threat?” Tallest Red took a step towards him. “You can bet your glowy green ass it was.” He put his face near to Kanden’s, and Kanden returned the favour. “Really bad choice, Red. Really. Bad. Choice.” With that, Kanden teleported away, leaving Tallest Red to stumble forwards.

Tallest Purple turned to him. “This is why you should plan things. I mean, sure he’s not a threat, but still. It would have been nice to capture him…” Red regained his balance and glared at Purple. “Oh, shut up. Now, I think we were having snacks..?”

-----

That was three months ago. Now, in various areas of space, there have been reports of fluxes in dark matter. Readings have gone haywire, and astropaths of all kinds have gotten past their usual demented screaming in favour of a complete, solemn silence.

A very strange breeze is blowing on the cosmic winds…

Then, unnoticed at first but soon visible from nearby planets, a tiny orange speck appeared in space. It began to grow, shimmering at the edges and looking almost like a liquid with its strange, wavy surface, sometimes darker and sometimes lighter.

On the fourteenth planet from the sun, Scientist Kam looks up from his tinkering. “Strange… Sirpak? Do you see that?” His SIR unit, made from scavenged parts and his old Pak, breaks free from a mound of wiring and stumbles up to him, tilting his spiked head skywards. “…YES. I HAVEN’T SEEN IT BEFORE.” Kam frowns slightly, but shrugs and goes back to fixing his favourite giant robot.

Far further into the galaxy, another orange dot appears. This one is harder to notice, as it is in the center of a planet. A very particular planet. Irk, to be precise. Scientists across Irk scatter backwards and forwards and those gifted with psychic power huddle together in groups, regardless of whether or not they had known each other before.

Xemirka sits high above the streets of Irk, looking around herself in contempt. Irkens. Pathetic. She spots one in particular, and reaches out with her own particular brand of power. She feels his emotions for an instant and realises something is wrong.

Then, in a rush, she can feel it too and she crouches, catlike and on all fours on the top of the building. In front of her very eyes, an endless mass of orange, rippling but completely solid, blossoms from the ground. Her eyes widen in a mixture of curiosity, excitement and horror and then her world goes dark as it covers her.

She’d only wanted to eat Irkens.

On a mountain, high above the sea level of the planet Lucrezia, Talina sits stroking one of her prized holiphaunts. It nudges her with its big, shaggy head and she scratches behind its ear, whispering to it. “I know… I know.” She looks past it to the bottom of the mountain. There, a sphere of some foreboding orangey matter has been growing for the last few hours. She sighs and hugs the holiphaunt. “Stay here girl. I’ll be back, don’t worry.” She gets to her feet and gives the sphere another look.

Then, with a heavy heart she turns around and enters her idyllic home, returning moments later with a large, elven forged great sword. She puts it into its case and straps it to her back. Giving the sad holiphaunt one last look, she starts walking down the mountain with a determined expression. The sphere seems to acknowledge her and enlarges even as she approaches. With a crackle of static, she walks into it and doesn’t look back.

Flying through space like a burning asteroid, Kanden suddenly stops dead. His mate, Rana, is at his side. -…what is it?- she asks through her thoughts. Kanden puts a hand out to silence her and puts another to his temple. -I…… oh… no…- He floats in space for a long moment, before a bright, orange spark rolls into existence a few miles away.

“*sigh*… Flying through the air is getting less interesting…” Pit flapped his wings one more time, then looked for somewhere to land. He spotted a small clearing in the forest below him and slowed down, brushing the tops of the fir trees below him.

He circled around a few times but eventually came to a stop in the air, dropping the last few feet to a tree stump below him. He stretched his wings out and leaned backwards, flattening them against his back as he stared into the sky.  “Hmmm…” He thought to himself. “Why is that?” He put his hands behind his head and crossed his legs, bouncing his foot in time to a melody he’d once heard. He closed his eyes and started humming it too… “hm-hm hmm… hm-hm hmm…” Mid-low-high... it was distinctive, that was certain.

He remembered what had happened the first time he’d heard that, that time a long time ago in the windmill…The sky had grown dark, the giant wheel in the middle of the mill had spun faster and the man playing his gramophone… thing had gotten only more bizarre in his actions. Of course he hadn’t been there in person, but angel land’s mirror was handy for spying on people. The young boy who had played the tune had laughed and run out… kids those days had no manners. Pit laughed. Kids never had manners.

He’d meant to follow that kid’s story but things had gotten out of hand in Angel Land, forcing him to take leave of that kid. How long ago was that now? Pit concentrated for a while. “hmm….” about… six hundred years? He laughed to himself. Being an angel had its perks, and long life was one of them. He opened his eyes once more and sat up, rubbing his head slightly.

He thought back over the events of the last six centuries with a small smile. New gods had appeared… Continents been flooded… invaders came and were thrown back, old enemies re-fought. Pit sighed and got to his feet, stretching slightly. “welp, I guess now’s as good time as ever to use up my days off. How many do I have left now, I wonder…” He got out a small, round device that Palutena had given him. “…eight years…” He frowned slightly. Eight years was a long time, but the last time he’d been given a break music hadn’t even been invented. Such was life for Angel Land’s guardian. Still, there hadn’t been any serious issues in the past century… Ashera hadn’t been seen in a while. The three goddesses were practically silent. And as for medusa… pit grinned at the very thought of her returning.

No, for now the only gods worth mentioning were Palutena, Zephos and Cyclos. The three never really got along, even though Zephos and Cyclos were brothers.

He thought back to the other things he had witnessed, in other parts of the world… Young Princes leading their nations to victory,  Princesses saving their lost heroes, and even, strangely, an alternate version of himself from another world.

That one was strangest of all, pit thought. When he died he merely turned into a statue, as did the other inhabitants of that world. Pit shook his head in confusion. It was clear that there were things not even angels could comprehend, and whilst it wasn’t his place to question the gods, he had to wonder why that world’s version of Palutena did not simply defeat Tabuu herself… But then, that universes had things he had never come across before or since, from Flying machines to Rats with power over electricity, to plumbers who fought dinosaurs (or whatever that thing was), to……

Pit sighed once more. Trying to understand the cosmos was like trying to hold hot soup. You could do it, but it wasn’t a good idea to do anything else at the same time and it hurt.

Pit looked around the clearing, which was littered with rocks. Then he realised something. He had been sitting on a tree stump. That meant someone had cut down a tree here. He perked his ears up to listen out for anyone, but nothing could be heard apart from the distant sea. He tensed suddenly, sensing a presence behind him. A twig snapped and he immediately unsheathed his swords, forming them into a bow and aiming the arrow at the head of his intruder. In front of him a young man froze. He was wearing a long black robe with a hood, and he had red eyes and a strange red mark on his forehead. “Who are you?” Pit demanded of him. The man looked momentarily shocked by the sight of a bow-wielding angel in front of him, but managed to compose himself quickly. “I am Soren.” He said.

Pit tightened his bow and glared at the man. Soren appeared to realise something, and raised his hand slightly to show that he was not a threat. “…Why are you using a bow? …I thought… I thought Laguz didn’t use weapons.”