INITIATING UPDATE
SYSTEM IS UPDATING
For several seconds there was silence inside the citadels. Everybody was staring at the hologram on the ceiling and waited for the voice to return, to tell them the update is finished and if there is anything new added which was not mentioned in the previous announcements.
"It is about to happen. I am sooo excited!" The Teddys squealed in unison. Their whole citadel was ready for it.
The second citadel was also in an uproar: "Time for a slaughter!" The Supreme King Geddos shouted from his throne, the other Geddos copies screaming in joy and laughing violently, happy for the slaughter they wanted to happen.
"We may die gentlemen, but we will die lazy." One of the pheddie copies muttered and the others just smiled. Their citadel did nothing to prepare for the update, they were just laying around.
The Teddy Emperor sat on his throne made from metals he ripped out of walls he thought were unimportant. "Finally." He whispered, "Finally, I can add more Teddys to my collection." His gaze shifted around the room, he loved the sight before him. Hundreds of Teddys doing their jobs, clothed in his hand-made outfits.
The citadels filled with Max and Lukas clones were getting ready to explore. While the Max clones wished to just watch and hide for the time being, the Lukas clones wanted to explore, maybe fight and pillage or make new friends.
"Deploy the shields and load the hyper-drive. Set goal coordinates to the asteroid belt around the center and hide between the rubble." A1 said. The bridge was manned more heavily than usual because of the update. His gaze shifted down from the system message towards the lower floors, landing on A24 who was being carried into the medical care section of the citadel.
The forty-eight thousand Lukas clones were waiting, hoping that the other citadels — which may be hostile — had slaughtered each other and had a similar small number of remaining people. It was a rather scary thought to fight one hundred thousand enemies, which may or may not have stronger armor and weapons.
On the eighth citadel the Teddys are just as happy as the Teddys on the first citadel while the Geddos copies — each bound to a Teddy copy so they would not kill each other — were annoyed. Would they have to socialize? That would be awful.
"We're fuuucked." A Max clone said, sitting in a bean bag with a Pheddie copy on his lap. The Max clones had been influenced by the laziness of the Pheddie copies and turned into lazy but happy people. The last remaining Geddos on their citadel had taken the captain position and stood on the bridge, ready to fight for the life of his subjects.
SYSTEM UPDATE COMPLETED
***
Without a moment of hesitation the first citadel entered hyper-space and shot towards the center of the universe.
Captain Teddy was standing in front of the stool they made for her and looked straight ahead. She was excited at the possibility of making friends and hummed a song they made up over the last year.
But in her hand she held a small remote with a singular button. One of her toe beans was hovering above the button, moving from side to side, ready to press at any moment. Captain Teddy would open the valve inside the cage in the lower districts to shoot out the thing she has trapped down there. She hoped it would protect them if there were any hostile beings, but she was not sure it would.
"Lowering speed to exit hyper-space. Hold on tight!" Pilot Teddy said.
The captain shot her a glance before sitting down: "Everybody heard her, sit down and put on the seatbelts." She commanded, "Please forward this to the lower floors."
One of the Teddys, the one sitting at the microphone, pressed a button and moved her mouth in front of the microphone. Her cute little lips parted and she began speaking into the microphone: "We are about to exit hyper-space! Would you all please sit down? The captain does not wish for anyone to receive any possible injuries. Thank you."
Once she released the button everybody on the citadel sat down somewhere they could hold onto something without damaging it or themselves.
"Leaving hyper-space in 3… 2… 1…" Teddy said and the citadel halted abruptly and entered a slow movement. The citadels have a diameter of about 10 kilometers and the citadel now moved with a speed of 4 kilometres per second. The center was still a minute or two away with that speed.
Pilot Teddy deleted the coordinates and started circling the center. She did not wish to stop in case there were enemies and starting movement took slightly longer than accelerating.
"Activate the scanners and announce any movement which appears to be coming towards us." Captain Teddy commanded and stood back up. "Tell them they are allowed to stand back up." Captain Teddy walked onto the elevator and pushed the holographic button in a certain movement. "First 1, then it was double 0… hm… 2, 0, 9, and then 0 I think and lastly 9 again." She thought while entering the code and the elevator closed.
"Where do you think the captain always goes?" Pilot Teddy asked.
Another one answered: "Well, she certainly doesn't go onto the lower floors. Maybe there is a higher one than the bridge?"
After having heard her thoughts, Pilot Teddy took a deep breath, looked back out the window and said: "That doesn't make sense, there is no button." She continued thinking how the captain entered the elevator: "Wait, she always moves her hands around the buttons so much when going to the secret place. Maybe there is a code which we haven't thought about."
The Elevator door opened into a small chamber and Captain Teddy stepped out. The remote for the valve was now bound to the top of her hand, or paw. It was not very secure and could fall off at any moment but she did not care.
The room she had entered was the console room which can be used to control everything inside the citadel as well as reconfigure systems and rebuild the entirety of the citadel, which could become dangerous without anti-vacuum seals. Of course those were the only functions which Captain Teddy knew, but there were more than that.
She sat down at one of the consoles and activated the regeneration arms. A pair of robotic arms came out of the console.
Captain Teddy took off the tape from the remote and grabbed one of the arms. One of their fingers turned into a small scalpel and she used it to cut open her soft skin in the shape of the remote. The second arm, having registered an injury in the console room, turned into a small laser with regenerative abilities and moved towards the wound. Teddy put the remote on her skin before the hand reached the wound and it was turned into part of her body.
"I can't get used to that smell." She said and looked at the molten skin on her arm which was merging with the remote and regenerating. "What a disgusting view. I should cover this up but how?"
While her hand was relaxing and cooling from the heat she searched the console room for the design table, which she could use to design and produce objects without wasting resources.
Having found it she sat down and designed a type of cape for herself that would cover her left arm with the remote. She quickly finished and produced it and covered her arm.
A few minutes later she entered the bridge again. "I heard the signal, what is happening?" Captain Teddy asked. She was hurrying back to her spot in front of her stool and looked out the window.
On the window a hologram was being displayed a multitude of faces. 5 different faces. All of these people were wearing a captain-like outfit and were smiling into the camera.
"Other citadels have found their way to us and wish to speak with you, captain." One of the Teddys on the bridge said.
Captain Teddy looked past the hologram into space. There they were, 5 different citadels. All of them looked the same and were hovering in a circle.
"We wish to formally meet with you all." Said a Teddy from the citadel filled with Teddy and Geddos copies.
"She's lying." Screamed the Geddos who was bound to her. He was pressing his fluffy face against the camera lens.
"Could you please stop that?" Asked the Teddy with a hurt expression, "I'm not lying." She tried pushing the Geddos out of the way: "I apologize for the interruption. We have bound the Geddos copies to our arms in order to stop them from killing each other."
Captain Teddy began speaking to them: "It's alright. Does everybody agree that we shall meet and introduce us to one another? If so, please show that by raising your hand." Captain Teddy raised her hand and the Teddy who had the idea also raised her hand.
"Can I… can we get a hug once we meet." Another voice asked. It was a Lukas clone from the seventh citadel.
"Agreed!" A second voice came from the third citadel, "We Pheddies would love to cuddle with the Teddys." On their screen hundreds of Pheddie copies were visible, completely covering the floor and the walls.
Captain Teddy looked at the screens, she was completely mind blown. How could they just ask something like that? Do they not possess any sense of self preservation, or is it a trap? She tried not showing any kind of negative emotions in her face: "That will be a problem for another time. First we need to negotiate terms on which we all agree and which will be followed by all citadels."
"Agreed.",
"Then, we will activate the connection hall and meet you there." Captain Teddy said and turned away dramatically from the screens as they were turned off. "Draw the halls out and send me a fighting unit."
Captain Teddy left the bridge and went to the entrance of the connection hall.
"I can't believe I am going to walk out of the citadel and into space. Just so I can meet these people… these potential threats." She rubbed her forehead with her right hand and sighed dramatically.
***
Somewhere in the confines of this simulated universe a citadel — or, after all the rebuilding, a super-weapons — was dashing through space. It did not even look like a citadel anymore, they redesigned the entire station to resemble the head of their supreme king Geddos.
The inside was in uproar. The floors were filled to the brim with Geddos copies running around and equipping themselves with guns and swords and wands and poisons. Of was even carrying a flame thrower. Where did they get the gas? No idea.
On the bridge of the citadel, which now had about 8 times the volume then it had at the beginning, a throne stood tall and a giant plushie was sitting on top. He was resting his head on his arm and was covered in scars. Almost 80 centimetres tall and a menacing aura around him. "I can see them! Here they are." He laughed.
Before them, beside the stars and galaxies, he could see 6 little dots inching ever so closer. The smile on his lips was growing with every second.
"Get the weapons ready!" He screamed and stood up from his throne. His eyes were shining with an intense dark energy as he stared at the citadels coming closer.
The weapons were aiming at the citadels, charging to shoot. Ginormous lasers were aiming at the bowl in the mouth of the giant metal head, also charging.
"No!" He screamed, "That is not entertaining enough. Send the fighter-ships.",
"As you comm—",
"Is the prototype ready? " He interrupted, "Wait! Are the stasis chambers finished?"
They had started prototyping a small spaceship with a not-tested teleporter that would teleport people it hit into a stasis chamber, freezing them indefinitely.
"Both finished! Sending them now." The Geddos copy said.
After he finished his sentence, a dozen of small fighter-ships shot out of the head and in the middle were two small teleporter-ships. The teleporter-ships, for some weird reason, were donut shaped with a bite taken from which they would shoot the laser.
In an instant they had reached the weird bowl between the 6 citadels, connected to each of them and started firing. Dark bolts of light shot from all twelve fighter-ships and bashed into the halls, destroying them.
From the holes flew a few people out. A handful of humans, not clear if they are Max or Lukas clones, started choking and writhing around violently. The plushies which were sucked into the endless void which was the space around them then held onto the broken pieces of the halls and catapulted themselves towards their respected citadels.
"Kill them. Kill them now!" The supreme king shouted, foam forming in front of his mouth and saliva spilling onto the floor.
A Geddos copy nodded and started speaking into a headset.
The fighter-ships surrounded them and started firing. A few of the plushies died on impact and exploded into a wild mess of cotton wool. The only one who survived this was Captain Teddy from the first citadel. She picked up a piece of rubbish as a shield and attacked the incoming fighter-ships, blocking their shots.
She jumped onto one of them and started destroying the glass after which the pilot flew out. Captain Teddy climbed in and started using the fighter-ship to attack the eleven others. She managed to destroy a handful more before…
"STASIS! I WANT HER ALIVE!" The supreme king screamed at the top of his lungs and in the same moment a green beam of light hit her.