✧ Chapter 13 ✧

It was nighttime in Aviatopolis's bustling city, Eveline. ‌Styra‌ ‌and‌ ‌Flight‌ ‌teleported‌ ‌there, ending‌ ‌up‌ ‌on‌ ‌a path lined with generators and what at first glance appeared to be a landfill. Superintelligent robots were slaving away in the junkyard to keep the towering sky homes and elevated vactrain systems running up above. Seeing this, Styra was curious to know more about the history of Mechatopolis.

"Wait, so what are machines and why did they attack StarSpace?" As they were walking, Flight began to explain what was going on.

"Um, okay... Machines are tools that operate automatically on their own to help make specific tasks easier to handle. STS-0 is a good example. Now that you know, it is important to consider that most machines built by civilizations can simulate consciousness. They have no feelings, but it is said that there was a rogue scientist building them to become something more dangerous."

Upon turning a corner, they noticed the machines watching their every move atop the humongous piles of garbage. Flight continued on to describe more of its history.

"Once that was a thing, people claimed the reason machines destroyed everything is because they became more self-aware after being treated so poorly. Theorists don't really believe that part to be true though. I definitely agree with them. Either way, this is how the birth of Machine Mechatopolis came to be. Looking around us so far, they're not wrong about most of the context regarding this place. I think we'd be better off not staying here on the ground level."

Styra could definitely agree with that. The stench that came from walking alongside this wasteland was terrible. However, something stopped her from sending them somewhere else.

Approaching from the pathway was a young girl with light turquoise eyes, tan skin, and wavy blonde hair that flowed down to her back. She wore soft brown boots, dark jeans, and a crimson shirt under some sort of red denim jacket. Following her was a small white bot with two bulging adorable eyes on its round head. It could fly with ease from this orange crystal that functioned as a power source for its mind and body. They seemed to be headed towards them which was already suspicious. Styra still didn't support any form of mistreatment, even with the machines. She had mentioned this before with StarSpace's inhabitation of other planets. Taking that thought to the heart caused her to try and neutralize a peaceful objective. The girl and her bot stopped when they saw Styra create a Time Shield surrounding Flight and her to prevent anything possibly bad from happening.

"Listen we aren't here to start conflict, so I'll start first. What is your name? Mine is Styra. Beside me is my friend Flight. We are searching for a certain guardian that has something we need. Do you know anything about where they may be?" she asked.

Hearing those words, the young girl with blonde hair held a strange device. It signaled many of the robots that were watching them from before to come out of hiding.

"I am Celeste. Right next to me is my loyal companion, Drift. We are friendly too. It's just that there has been this ongoing issue between us down here and them up there." Celeste pointed up at a massive air cruise ship in the distance.

"That is the Skyway Suite. It comes once every New Year. By the time it becomes midnight, there will be a large celebration going on around the world. Almost all leaders across this galaxy meet up to host the events onboard. Our plan is to destroy their ship exactly at that time. The only problem is, surprisingly, that guardian you mentioned. How did you know about him?"

Styra let down the Time Shield, seeing that she could trust Celeste with the information she was going to lay out.

"We are kinda on a quest to collect the Ten Eternal Lights. If I capture every one of them, then I will become the New Guardian and basically help realities the right way. So far, I have two of them."

Celeste was stunned by what she had just heard. Maybe this would be her chance to finally finish the revolution she always wanted. To free the machines of their slavery to the humans.

"Alright, Styra and Flight. We are going to need your help to ambush the ship so every bot can be free to create their own civilization," said Celeste.

Although Styra was glad to hear about this, Flight was picking up on multiple red flags in her proposal. He interrupted her with immediate concern.

"Hold up! I'm sorry but where I come from, my grandparents died because the machines on your planet invaded my home. We had to move out of Katar Village when I was younger. Can't there be some sort of resolution that doesn't lead to a violent outcome for us?"

Celeste could tell something was up. The sudden outburst coming from this stranger regarding something she had never heard of before made her suspect that they were in fact from the future.

If that was true, the machines would have inevitably won. However, the damaging consequences weren't that pleasing to notice in his statement. She began to question her allegiance to the machines for their freedom by asking Drift about their intentions. In a response culminated from his fellow automatons within the cloud, it began to deliver its message in a series of chirps and whistles that Celeste already understood. She translated the words to Styra and Flight.

"Drift said that they were planning on freeing every machine with conscious thought across the galaxy. If you help them, then they will spare your home."

Flight stopped the deal with reluctance to settle their viewpoints on the situation.

"Drift, there's a big difference between fighting for freedom and waging wars for domination. Someone once told me that they lost everything to the detriment of not knowing anything."

The bots reacted to his speech with dismay. Throughout the noisy clattering and clanking, Styra stepped forward to defend Flight's point regardless of what they thought.

"He's right. By just going into this because of how only you feel, there is no way this plan will work for everyone else. We'll only help if you agree to bring closure to this problem because the ones enslaving you are actually making you feel the same way about them and yourselves. Don't do that. If you accept our offer, we will need to set up a better plan."

Celeste, Drift, and the rest of the machines were left speechless. They wanted to use brute force to make Aviatopolis pay. However, with these newcomers offering a compromise in place of conquest, it made them desperate enough to get any type of assistance in general. This was because they were also afraid that the guardian lingering over the skies would kill them. With that in mind, they gave in to their deal and proceeded to formulate ideas on how they were going to enter the Skyway Suite undetected. To start it off, Celeste gave earpieces to Styra, Flight, and herself so that they could keep tabs on each other in case of an emergency.

After that, Styra teleported Flight and Celeste to the lowest level of the ship which had hallways upon hallways of luxurious staterooms. Inside each one that was not yet occupied, there were two pairs of folded clothes on one comfy king-size bed. Beside it was a futuristic computer desk on the left and a dresser on the right. While there weren't any windows to be seen, the entire room's walls were able to project an electronic animated screen that could be uniquely customized by the person occupying the room. The soundproof doors slid open automatically when unlocked with an ID which could also be used as a keycard in this instance. It was a good thing that Celeste and Drift had collected many types of them being accidentally thrown away by careless people, only for them to end up in the landfill.

A few of these cards would prove vital for using as a disguise to infiltrate the elegantly enormous dining room where a red carpet with golden lining could be seen draped across the whole floor. The fancy chandeliers made everything inviting enough, to the point where hosts would make their important announcements with joy to an audience of more than a hundred different intelligent specimens, including their own kind. One of their main concerns was with Eveline's patrol officers standing at the entrance to confirm that strictly anyone invited by the GN-z15 Federation were entering. Even though the plan involved Styra teleporting them into the area without being noticed, there were a few exceptions to how this would even pan out. Celeste was currently suggesting that Flight would have to act like her father figure or older relative in order for it to work. Especially since someone under the age of twenty couldn't just attend the cruise without consent.

This got Flight thinking about something while they were talking in one of the staterooms.

"Celeste, you don't really have to answer this but, what was your childhood like? You're out there helping robots become revolutionaries. I've never seen anyone that young do stuff like this. Why do you do it?"

The room was too quiet while the whirring of a vent outside filled in the empty space that was void of conversation. Celeste swallowed her sentences. She sat on the bed anticipating for him to see how uncomfortable she was with the question. However, it dawned on her that it would be best to share such excruciating secrets just one time to bring her mind at ease.

"Flight, please tell no one about this. My life was… Taken from me. Literally. I was human and I had a family. My father was a professor of technology. His wife, my mother, died at the hands of spies trying to rid him of the machines he would create. Upon mourning, he decided to experiment in an attempt to turn her into a transhuman. I, being his natural offspring, was rejected because in those years he went into madness as the project failed to rejuvenate her."

Celeste felt the pain of it, making her mechanical eyes twitch. She wanted to cry but couldn't simulate it properly. This deprived her of what she longed to be again. Human.

"Insanity became his morbid fantasies turned reality. He killed me, promising that this was the only way for me to stay alive forever. This time his work succeeded, but it came with a price. At that moment, I did the unthinkable," she cried, jittering every time the memory played in her head.

It was at this point that Flight could feel that sadness. There was an unsettling presence of grim realization. He began to piece together why she sided with the machines. A painful beating of the heart was enough to fuel what knowledge he remembered of his relatives' deaths becoming victims to those that had been wronged by the selfish.

However, Flight wasn't the only one to witness Celeste's secret by word of mouth. Atop the Skyway Suite, Styra was watching the chilly night sky as they formed her initial thoughts upon what she had heard over the earpiece. Styra muted the device to talk privately to herself while sitting on the edge of the cruise's runway as her legs dangled with hopelessness. "All these times when I've said that figuring out who I am would mean everything to me, sometimes hearing things like that make me feel otherwise."

The glowing tears began to run down her eyes at the thought of this.

"No one like her should even have to go through that. Yet here I am listening to that now. Do I deserve to know the truth behind who I am? Flight said I understood him, but do I really? Will I understand anything at all just from knowing myself? Did I make the right choices by following this path, or should I go another way? My past actions have led to questionable circumstances where living forever becomes harder to accept. Whoever created everything, knew that I was capable of existing for some sort of hidden reason. No way it could just be becoming The New Guardian. There is something they're not telling me and I'm tired of it."

As Styra responded to her own existential inquiries and concerns, the air became noticeably quieter. She looked up only to sense a fit of anger within her that she knew would come. When she turned the earpieces on again, there was a lot of chattering and intense orchestra music playing in the background which told her about their position nearby the dining room. Flight cued the signal by telling her that they were ready to teleport into the crowd. Instantaneously just as they were sent inside, Styra's rage accumulated to the point where her breath was shaking from the pressure of the atmosphere closing in on her. She stood up to look behind her, sensing a debilitating presence in the foregrounds. More than three feet across from where she was standing, a dark figure with flaring blue eyes was staring her down.

Its silence permeated throughout the starry night sky.