The Venusian Delusion: Part 3

Several 100 years into the future, the Federation will be caught up in a war with a hostile race of magical Octopoid creatures known as the Hylexans. The war will be mutually destructive to both sides, with earth in particular suffering after the Hylexans bombard it with a combination of their own weapons and the ancient Hand of Ares. Almost all life on the planet will die, except for an elite group of warlocks and witches camped out on Point Nemo who will over the course of 100 years, create a spell that will regenerate the earth and cover it in a magical forest, beginning the age of Tairos. 

Venus meanwhile will have its own struggles in trying to rebuild itself, but not only will it overcome them, it will also ironically be at the centre of a new Federation. 

It all began with the monster known as Claudia McGrath. When I call her a monster, I am using the word in its correct sense. She belongs to a race known as monsters who come from outside our omniverse, who are devoted to the destruction of our reality. Whilst the word monster has come to refer to any unnatural creature, in its true scientific meaning it only refers to this species. Claudia meanwhile was among the only survivors from a monster invasion in the 20th century. She was just a child at the time, but the hunter Celeste Sande, who took part in repelling the invasion took her in and raised Claudia, who after assuming a human form followed in her step mothers footsteps and became a great hero. 

Claudia later joined a group of heroes known as the Spook Family, before she eventually joined the enigmatic time traveller from another universe, Doctor Omega. After travelling back to his home universe, Claudia was later lost whilst defending it, in the nothingness between universes for an unknown period of time, before she was able to enter our world, thanks to a deadly weapon used by the Federation in the final days of the war. 

The weapon was the condensed magic of several worlds. The Federation had been forced to turn to magic (which it had always largely shunned) to keep up with the Hylexans, and had raided the old spells and enchantments from many planets. Eventually towards the end of the war they were able to fuse the darkest spells into one weapon.

The Federation detonated it in the final day of the war having had no time to perfect the bomb and it proved to be more devastating than they could have predicted. The Hylexan fleet was completely destroyed, just as they were about to advance on the final outpost of the Federation. The bomb however also devastated that entire region of the galaxy. Many worlds were ripped apart, and those that weren't, were bombarded by black magic to the point where their people were twisted into abominations and their natural laws defiled. The blast was so powerful that it actually created a small rip in the universe itself which allowed Claudia to re-enter our reality, though Claudia was also unintentionally aided by the surviving ship of a large Federation fleet, whose job had been to hold off the Hylexans long enough for the bomb to be detonated. Nobody in the fleet was actually aware of the bomb however. They simply believed that they were making a last stand against the Hylexans. This vessel meanwhile survived purely by chance, as it fell through the small rip in the universe before the blast completely consumed it like the others. Once the ship was outside our universe it collided with Claudia who headed towards the rip as soon as it appeared. The ships crew, made up of just 30 people instantly took Claudia in, but sadly as soon as they saw she was a monster, they assumed she was a threat and imprisoned Claudia. 

After their vehicle was repaired, they returned to our universe before the rip closed. The ship was unable to head home however, as they found they could not travel through the dark magic that now consumed that part of the galaxy. The ship therefore fled in the opposite direction, and headed to earth's solar system, which was just out of reach of the blast. 

Along the way the ship was attacked by a hideously mutated creature from one of the many planets that had been contaminated. Claudia however was able to slay the beast and in doing so earned the crew's trust, for the moment at least. 

Once they reached our solar system they discovered that Venus was the only world that was even remotely habitable. (This was before the earth was restored. Claudia reportedly burst into tears upon seeing what had become of her earth. It was nothing but a black mass in space. She couldn't even make out any of the continents or oceans, it was nothing but swirling darkness.) 

Venus meanwhile at the very least still resembled itself to some extent, though there were now many barren areas, contaminated oceans and petrified forests as well as horrible mutations. 

The former soldiers along with Claudia struggled for the first few months against the Exosaurs (who had reclaimed the planet once again) and the mutants, until Claudia received a visit from a powerful spectre. Carla King herself. 

In the final days before Venus was b,ombarded, one of the Athyco had attempted to bring Carla, still one of their most celebrated heroes back. Such was their desperation against the Hylexans, this Athyco had been willing to break their most sacred law against tampering with resurrection spells (which had been established after the trouble they had endured from Carla's first visit.) 

His lack of skill coupled with the subsequent bombardment from the Hylexans ensured that the spell was botched somewhat. Carla was not fully resurrected, but her soul was still ripped from the Great Beyond. Everyone could see and interact with her spirit, but sadly her ghost was not able to affect the world at all. She was literally trapped between both worlds, and would now and again even be able to venture back to the Great Beyond for short periods, before returning to our reality. She also was unable to leave Venus either. 

Still even trapped in this nightmarish state, Carla was able to help Claudia and the others. She led them to the greatest citadel on the planet. One that had been able to endure throughout the centuries, due to being made of the strongest magics, which soon became their base of operations. From here Carla would guide Claudia, who had taken control of the team after its previous leader sacrificed himself to save the others from an A.rex, to help the other scattered worlds in the Federation.

Carla knew from the other side what had become of the Federation and the war and was able to through tiny pieces of information she retained to tell Claudia and the others which worlds to visit that they could help. According to Carla, from what she had seen on the other side, the new alliance of planets that they would sow the seeds of here, would discover time travel and actually help the creator and other life forms in the construction of the Great Beyond itself. 

For the next several years, Claudia and the other survivors of the ship would travel through the ruins of the post war galaxy, searching for survivors, and doing what they could to help other worlds recover. 

Sadly they faced many dangers, including a mutated race of creatures called the Ashorkian who believed that they had been elevated by the federation bomb as it allowed them to conquer the darkest forces on their world and utilize them for their own benefit. They sought to bring out the same dark magics in all other planets, believing that only the strong would survive like them, whilst the weak would be consumed.

The devastation they inflicted on Venus during their first invasion was one of the greatest losses Claudia and her team endured. They were arguably her most dangerous enemies and certainly pushed Claudia further than many of her other foes. The creatures over the years were able to harness the dark magics from the Federation's bomb and were able to refine it to the point where they created an ever greater weapon, as they also fused it with magics stolen from many other worlds, and the ruins of the Hylexans battle fleet too. 

Had this weapon been detonated there is no telling the devastation it could have inflicted on the rest of creation and with that knowledge in mind Claudia and her team were forced to destroy the Ashorkian's home planet, by causing the weapon to overload. Claudia watched from space as their entire world was literally ripped to pieces. Whilst Claudia was understandably haunted by the sight for the rest of her life, in the end she knew there was no other choice. Furthermore the Ashorkian's were dying anyway. The magics that had transformed them were so toxic they were ripping their very souls apart, slowly but surely. Within a few years they would all have died in agony regardless, and that was enough time for them to slaughter countless other worlds. 

That said one of their kind did survive the destruction of their planet and later hunted Claudia down in revenge. It spread a deadly plague throughout Venus, before Claudia and her team were able to imprison the beast. After months of research they were able to find a way to cure the beast and restore it to the creature it was before the Federation weapon. Claudia was so overwhelmed with guilt she very nearly gave up on the mission. However it should be noted that it took a considerable amount of Venusian magics to undo the plague on Venus. It would have taken at least 100 times what Venus had to offer to cure every inch of the Ashorkian home world, as if even a small part of the plague existed then it would eventually regrow. 

Still had the Federation ironically still been in existence then it is possible that the resources to duplicate Venus's magics may have been possible, but ultimately we will never know and the fact that one of these creatures was cured haunted Claudia. The Ashorkian in question however named Halka, who had been one of their most vicious and dangerous commanders did not blame Claudia. On the contrary he was so overwhelmed with guilt at what he had done that he joined her cause in the hopes of making up for his past sins. 

Among Claudia's other enemies included the survivors of the Federation who had detonated the bomb from the last Federation outpost. They forcibly enslaved many of the devastated worlds in the hopes of building them up. These survivors now forsook the Federation's old policy of non interference, believing that they had to unite the scattered worlds through force. 

Claudia also faced the some of the surviving Athyco, who wanted to reconquer their home planet. This particular group of Athyco had fled to other Raskian Dinosaur colonies (some of which had been marked out by the Federation.) The first colony they came across was Talcha, a planet that's sun had begun to collapse, though not to the point where it had become a black hole. Life on Talcha was just about able to survive, but not only was it extremely difficult, but the few Dinosaur species that did persevere were twisted and mutated by the solar radiation into hideous beasts.

The Athyco obviously couldn't settle on this planet, but they did return to Talcha and harnessed these mutated Dinosaurs to use as battle mounts in their attempts to reconquer Venus. The Talchan Dinosaurs were referred to simply as Talchosaurs. 

Claudia and the others would have been happy to allow the Athyco to return to their home planet, but sadly this group did not actually want to return to Venus. They were thriving on their new world, and did not want to have to waste time trying to terrorform Venus. Instead they simply did not want Claudia and the others to utilise the dark magics buried beneath Venus. They were terrified of what might be unleashed, and certainly did not trust either a monster or the survivors of the Federation not to abuse them. The Athyco went as far as to try and destroy Venus to prevent the its magics from falling into the wrong hands. 

The initial invasion of the planet by the Talchosaur mounts was one of the most devastating losses Claudia endured. Even the Exosaurs struggled against these mutated Dinosaurs. An almost personal rivalry even developed between Claudia's most loyal Exosaur, an A. rex that she raised, and the largest and strongest of the Talchosaur mounts.

Claudia's A. rex that she named Omega after her best friend proved to be one of her key allies, to the point where she even sometimes brought the beast on missions to other planets. It faced many monsters and creatures on other worlds, but again none were more dangerous than the lead Talchosaur mount, which was a Triasaurus Rex "three headed lizard king." As its name would suggest this mutation, another descendant of the ferocious Tyrannosaurus, possessed three heads. It also stood upright like a Kangeroo and was far larger than even the A. rex in terms of weight, being up to 90 tons. 

This Triasaur would come to be known as the three headed reaper and it and Omega's feud would take them across the stars as the Dinosaurs battled each other on many worlds.

Claudia also faced the emerging threat of the vampire empire. Centuries ago the vampire horde was able to spread beyond the earth by infecting a Martian ship that came to explore our planet. The Martian subsequently went on to infect other members of his kind, with the vampires eventually overrunning and destroying the red planet. After a botched invasion of earth, the survivors of the Martian vampires fled into space, infecting many more worlds. The treacherous and selfish nature of the vampires ensured that they weren't able to truly build a unified empire for centuries, but they did still nevertheless manage to infect hundreds of worlds, and eventually several great powers united in an effort to cleanse their world of the undead menace. 

Sadly this ended up uniting the vampires against a common enemy, allowing them to establish a loose empire for the first time, though it still was not on the level of the Hylexans. Nevertheless the vampires ability to turn other races and therefore absorb their technology and knowledge allowed them to become a truly dangerous force in the universe. 

Claudia first learned that the vampires were headed back home from the only survivors from a planet known as Manask. A group of a few 100 or so of their people had just managed to escape their world when the vampires bombarded it. It was a long, perilous journey through the galaxy that saw most of their crew perish, not just from the vampires pursuing them, but the other dangers they faced in deep space. The last few dozen or so eventually crashed on Venus and after enduring more casualties from its dangers such as the Exosaurs, were eventually taken in by Claudia and the others. 

The vampires proved to be Claudia's greatest challenge and she was even forced to work with a number of her enemies such as the Athyco to stop them, with the battle seeing Claudia endure her greatest losses.

Still whilst the vampires were the biggest threat Claudia faced collectively, her single most dangerous enemy was the Devourer. This monster was able to enter our reality thanks to the rip that had originally allowed Claudia to re-enter. The beast came from outside our entire omniverse, being an etheral creature that hadn't formed properly in the void, the nothingness from which all universes both exist within and come from. The Devourer entered our reality to stablize itself, though sadly it would also be forced to consume more life forms in order to survive. As it was a completely unknown creature, it took Claudia years to find a way to even hurt it. 

Despite these challenges however Claudia was eventually after a period of over 20 years able to establish a new alliance of planets, made up of survivors from the Hylexan war and beyond. She was eventually able to establish a peace treaty with the Athyco clan after the vampire war, which would gradually lead to some of the Athyco returning to Venus.

This new group of planets were referred to simply as the alliance. Sadly despite its centuries of prosperity, after the horrors of the Hylexan war and the desperate measures taken by the last outpost of the federation, Claudia not surprisingly did not want to associate the new organisation with the old. 

The alliance would have a very shaky history for its first few centuries, but after the initial alliance of planets was established. Carla finally felt her role was over and was at last able to cross over back into the Great Beyond. She told Claudia that the battle was not over yet, but that at the very least history was being set on the correct course. 

The earth meanwhile, which would be renamed Tairos after it was restored by magics, did not join the alliance. Ironically for all the grief we gave the Athyco, the scattered human civilisations of Tairos will adopt a similar isolation policy, though in all fairness given their trouble with the vampire horde on their own planet they weren't exactly in a position to join. 

Eventually Tairos did join the alliance several centuries after the vampire war on earth.