80 Carelessness

Now-General Ralfot entered the room with an air of confident dominance surrounding him.

He'd just received the promotion of his life and was filled with thrilled determination, despite the worrying political circumstances. Filled with this attitude, he turned and addressed Apophis. "I need to speak with you in private. Do you mind joining me in a more secure room?"

Apophis answered, "Very well, but Antanria comes with me."

Ralfot nodded and led them through several hallways to a huge glass elevator. Inside, Apophis and Antanria had an incredible view of the huge city-planet of Terra. There were skyscrapers as far as the eye could see, and the atmosphere seemed to shimmer in the trails of all the vehicles passing through the sky. In moments, the elevator began its descent.

The Secret Service building itself was immense, over two kilometers high, and made up of over three hundred floors! The building had been expensive to build and continuous upkeep costs, but it was all worth it. In the immense geopolitical jungle of the galaxy, the Federation relied heavily on its intelligence network to maintain power.

The three former teammates finally passed below the ground level. Shortly after, they disembarked and moved to a huge room in the basement of the Secret Service building. It was totally surveillance-proof, having been built with the galaxy's finest dampening materials and signal-jamming technology.

In the middle of the room lay a vast table made of ancient stone, carved with markings in an unknown language. Ralfot beckoned Apophis and Antanria to sit down, then theatrically spread Apophis's file on the table between them.

"Multiple homicide," said Ralfot. "Looting, unauthorized military expedition, violation of another nation's sovereignty, use of unknown and dangerous technology, failure to comply… and, finally, conspiracy against the state. Your criminal record is impressive, Apophis, especially since you've accomplished all this in just a few months! If you went to court tomorrow, you would never see the light of day again. 

"Believe me, the Federation has quite a lot of experience when it comes to subduing even the most powerful Ascensionists. Good luck escaping with a Vk.5 mecha watching you every hour of the rest of your life. Nevertheless… I may have a solution for you."

However, Ralfot said all this in a sardonic tone of voice, which communicated that it was all a cheesy and overly dramatic show. He and Apophis both knew that it would be nearly impossible to keep an Eternal imprisoned, since Apophis could simply kill himself and respawn elsewhere. It seemed that Ralfot was enjoying playing the role of a detective in a terrible movie.

While Ralfot was giving this monologue of bullshit, Apophis was thinking about the message which Colonel Zareil had dropped in his cell. It was a simple phrase in ancient Zetark: "Only the black sun Oralia reigns."

Unbeknownst to Apophis, this was a phrase which the Supremacists used to identify each other, but to Apophis, the message was truly cryptic! He couldn't remember anything about this message or Zareil himself from his first life.

However, Apophis had to assume that, since Zareil had been powerful enough to hide all his system information, that he was truly a Rank-A Ascensionist. That was the highest power tier someone could achieve before reaching divinity, and there were only a handful of them across the galaxy. Apophis was pretty certain that he knew the identities of every Rank-A character at this time… but apparently he was mistaken.

There should have been only three of them at this point!

To reach Rank A was to have the power to destroy an entire fleet, army, or city all by one's self. It was the power of a real supervillain! The Great Space Nations cherished these people when they rose among their nations, seeing them as symbols of national power…

But they also watched Rank-A individuals as closely as they would an unstable nuclear plant.

For NPCs, it was almost impossible to achieve Rank-A power. Only one out of a billion people were even born with the potential to achieve it, and the odds of any random person having access to the training and resources to achieve such power were absurd.

To complicate matters further, it was nearly impossible for nations to detect individuals with such potential. Any space nation might have several billion inhabitants at once, so they couldn't easily index every single one of their inhabitants, no matter how hard they tried.

After nine years of gameplay in Apophis's first life, only about twenty thousand Rank-A NPCs had ever been indexed.

Apophis's train of thought was interrupted when Ralfot leaned in close. "What do you say, Apophis? Surely you see what a fantastic deal this is."

Apophis was slightly embarrassed to realize he'd missed every detail of the monologue, but didn't let it show. "Listen, I think I agree with most of what you are proposing, but the details are just blurring together. Give me a quick summary."

Ralfot wasn't expecting such a straightforward response, given what he knew about Apophis. He took that as a good sign, as evidence that Apophis was truly eager to continue working with him, but was putting on a show for the sake of his pride. "I'm offering you amnesty for your crimes—besides a military promotion—if you help us stop the Supremacist plot."

Apophis thought about this for a moment, then nodded. "Very well, but I also want diplomatic immunity for Antanria and myself. Not just protection in the Federation, but diplomatic protection outside it! Also, 10,000,000 GC, right away!"

Ralfot breathed a sigh of relief. That was all? It seemed that he did know how to handle Apophis, after all. He extended his hand, offering a handshake. "Deal!"

Apophis grasped his hand. "All right, then! What's my first assignment?"

Ralfot gave a slight smile, grateful for the opportunity for dramatics and unaware that Apophis truly hadn't been listening. "You will kill Grand Admiral Azerof, of course!"