Virtues Of The Unclaimed Peace [AT, Conquest]

Everything was going quite swimmingly so far. Looking at the readings, the Anti-Destron mixture was doing the job exceedingly well— it was working beyond perfectly in fact, not something that Yatapi had expected! Now, that was an amazing positive but there was a downside; the output of the cognitohazards that would try to eliminate information from people’s brains wasn’t as powerful as Yatapi may have liked. In all fairness, this technology was new territory for him, so some errors were to be expected! If nothing else, those that willingly sought to re-learn the intricacies of Destron weren’t worth saving from a possibly grim fate from the hands of other more brutal individuals such as Lottus. Nothing of value would have been lost at that point.

Eventually, Yatapi’s base of operations would be completed. The control tower and centrepiece of it all would autonomously create drones to send out on waves to eliminate Destron in all of its forms. Yatapi held a sense of pride over his achievement on this day, it would be undeniable proof of his intellect and skill.

For a good while there was silence aside from the humming of super advanced technology as Yatapi continued his work; until his control tower notified him of a drone being physically compromised. The ‘shattered’ drone, being made of nanomachines, quietly reconstructed itself as per the orders from the control tower signal; but only for its most important parts and none of the excess before it stealthily hurried away back towards Yatapi’s location. Upon the drone’s arrival, Yatapi archived whatever it had managed to see and retain in a small personal data bank.

A quick showing of the video feed provided Yatapi with information that was most interesting... The presence of Satsuma. Soon enough, that old prune revealed himself of his own accord, spouting self serving drivel. “Ohohoho, really now?” Yatapi turned to face Satsuma as he approached, hands clasped behind his back with a slight smirk forming on his usually neutral face. “Resorting to kindergarten insults so swiftly? Hmph, I cannot say this is a surprise. The genes responsible for your wit are about as recessive as your hairline.”

Yatapi would be lying if he said that catching Satsuma off guard and tormenting the old fart didn’t bring him some level of joy. From a moment of bewildered stunned silence to infuriated yelling, it was magnificent to witness. “Barely distinguishable from a hairy egg, I know, I know.” Yatapi’s expression went from an amused smirk to a strangely uncharacteristic grin until Iyokan interrupted Satsuma’s meltdown.

Returning to a largely blank expression, Yatapi simply sighed. The sight of that... Fabrication was a complex matter. The original Iyokan had left Plant ages ago of her own volition, and this was but a pale reflection built on the desperation that Satsuma had to regain what he had quite rightly lost with his antics— his daughter. “Still clinging onto the replacement, are you?” Yatapi scoffed in disgust at Satsuma, regarding the reimagining of Iyokan with noticeably more respect. “How is he treating you? Better than his first daughter, I’d hope?” Yatapi asked, genuinely curious for her opinion.

“Is it not obvious?” Regarding the full activation of Satsuma’s blaster with little more than the roll of his eyes, Yatapi turned his attention back to the senior Tuffle. He wanted answers? Well, Yatapi would freely give them! “Secrets? Pah! The only secrets in this place are the amount of corpses that were left behind.” Yatapi gestured to the wider area as he spoke. “I am removing this foul perversion of our people’s intellect because it has no place in my vision for the future. Your oh so ‘precious’ Destron is the creation of cowards and egomaniacs. It is ignorance and arrogance given physical form— our people’s greatest failure.”

Oh what joy it was to see Satsuma writhe and squirm merely at spoken word. Yatapi found much more amusement in this than he could have ever possibly dreamed of! To make matters all the more enjoyable for him, it was revealed that this reimagining of Iyokan had no idea that she was, indeed, a reimagining. “Oh? You mean, ‘father dearest’ over there never told you?” Yatapi raised a brow at this information, glancing at Satsuma before turning his attention back to Iyokan. “He already had a daughter, biologically speaking. She left Plant years ago to pursue her own agenda. You resemble her in name and visage, little else.” Yatapi spoke bluntly, moreso referring to this Iyokan’s lack of emotional range than lack of personality. Still, this reimagining was hardly to blame for much of anything, it wasn’t as though she asked to exist. “Make no mistake, I do not mean to upset you with this revelation, I simply deem it disrespectful that he chose not to disclose such important matters with you on principle.”

Now, as far as Satsuma’s outburst was concerned, Yatapi sighed. “Yes, failure. I know you are not deaf, you old fool.” Rolling his eyes, Yatapi simply let Satsuma rant and rave. He let the laser bolt come, only to snatch it from mid air and hold it calmly in his hand, twirling it around some of his fingers before simply crushing it into energy and plasma dust. “No. Destron was created to murder, maim, infect and petrify. It protects nothing.” Yatapi gestured to the landscape. “The evidence is right here. Destron caused this. By extension you and other pseudo-scientists like you caused this. You never wanted to protect a single thing aside from your ego, if you were even a single quintillionth as capable as you believe yourself to be, you would have found another solution to the problem.” Yatapi chuckled. “Yet, you chose not to. I won’t make the same mistake.”

Taking a quick look at the console near him, Yatapi took note of the numbers, the results of his current work. He needed more time for this to work in his favour, so Satsuma had to be dealt with one way or another, and Yatapi was certainly partial to one course of action in particular. He just wanted to see Satsuma’s blood boil one last time though. Yatapi stepped forward, approaching Satsuma and Iyokan. “Since you fired the first shot, so it is only fair that I return the favour” Yatapi lazily twirled one of his wrists, creating a black blaster with yellow vents and glowing outlines. “Don’t flinch now.” He said, firing a condensed beam, purposefully aiming to have it zoom just a hair’s width away from one of Satsuma’s ears, it zoomed off into the distance before annihilating a small ruined building in the distance in a bright hexagonal patterned explosion. “Oh dear, I seem to have overdone it.” Yatapi said with a sarcastic tone, trying to make a point that since this place was so desolate and devoid of life that holding back was meaningless in an attempt to scare and guilt Satsuma as the state of this place was partially his fault as far as Yatapi was concerned.

Yatapi drew little to no joy however, seeing the remade Iyokan struggle with what she was being told. In fact, Yatapi frowned at such a sight, none of this was her fault, neither version of her was at fault for the rampant ego of their father. Speaking of her father, Yatapi’s attention snapped back to the old man, a ferocious scowl across his face.

“A real father does not lie to their children, be they biological, adopted or fabrications.” His words were wreathed in what could only be described as a raging chemical fire with his growing hatred for Satsuma becoming more and more obvious. That showy warning shot from a weapons demonstration was one thing, but this enraged hateful expression from a normally calm and neutral scientific man was something else.

“Is that so?” Yatapi snarled, referring to Satsuma’s shaky confidence. “Fine by me.” If Satsuma hadn’t reached the conclusion that backing off was the smart move by now, it was no longer Yatapi’s problem. He did give Satsuma multiple chances to make his leave, however subtle, and he took none of those chances. “Don’t be ridiculous. All of Plant itself ceased being your home when you chose to defile it with your twisted machinations.” Working on Destron, experimenting on helpless folk and wildlife, tricking others, lying, deceiving... The list went on, and on.

Yatapi at this point was done talking, so he shook his head, disappointed but unsurprised. “It is clear to me that you know nothing.” Tuffles were better than this, better than Satsuma, and Yatapi knew that if there were more among them like his great grandfather then none of this would have happened. “You really should have stayed in your sad excuse for a garage let alone a laboratory...” Yatapi glared at Satsuma, completely laser focused on the old man, even as Iyokan fired her blaster.

The shot whizzed through the air, causing an explosion that kicked up a massive cloud of dust in a cone shape from where Yatapi was standing, the ground rumbled and parts of it cracked and in this thick haze the whirring of a machine could be heard, and what sounded like the whine of metal. Was Yatapi launched clean into his own contraption?

No.

He still stood. The dust began to clear as the gleam of yellow lights penetrated it, something was moving around Yatapi in fact. “Now that it has come to this, I suggest you run, at least that way, this will be entertaining for me...” The swirling mass around Yatapi soon settled and something clicked into place before a burst of power pushed the dust away, revealing Yatapi had donned something new...

> LIBRARY ACCESSED . . .
> SELECT GENRE . . .

> BATTLE.
> BATTLE GENRE SELECTED: ENGAGE FULL POWER?

> ENGAGE.
> LOADING . . .
> OPEN BOOK . . .
> FANTASIA GEAR: ONLINE.

“Now then, let the experiment begin.”

“Hah!” Yatapi let out one ominous short laugh. “Nice to know you’re still capable of basic mathematics, you disgusting old prune.” Yatapi could tell that his words were having some measure of impact, but Satsuma’s ego was truly something ridiculous. “Your ego rivals a Saiyan’s thirst for battle... In fact, are you certain you don’t have Saiyan genes in there somewhere?” Now this, Yatapi hoped would make some of the greatest impacts out of all of his snide remarks; to liken Satsuma to something he hated with every fibre of his being and beyond.

“Now now, let her speak.” Yatapi wiggled a finger disapprovingly. “Anyway, effectively near zero. We all know that.” He hissed, taking more and more steps towards Satsuma and Iyokan.

Satsuma even went so far as to completely disregard the advice of his surrogate daughter. “I am not so arrogant to think this suit is invincible, but, to be somewhat indulgent— to you it may as well be.” Satsuma could command Iyokan to attack all he wanted, Yatapi was simply playing around at the moment, he was going to savour this, he was going to enjoy beating Satsuma into a fine mist if he could get the chance.

Iyokan spoke up more readily this time, of her own accord. She gave thanks, which was strange, but Yatapi understood. “I wouldn’t dare to blame a child for the sins of their father. You need not worry about that, you are programmed to follow his commands, after all.” The armor Yatapi now wore reverberated slightly, a haze of idle nanomachines swirled together in the blink of an eye, radiating energy as they created another thick layer on top of the original suit in the visage of a winged stone demon of sorts. “I, in turn, hope that my unwavering resolve is not mistaken for anything other than what it is.” The blast was fired, and in the moment before impact, the extra layer of armor lashed out at Iyokan’s shot in defence of its master, going from still as if it was a statue to something like a ravenous beast that was intruded upon. “I would do this no matter who stood in my way.” In this case however, he was absolutely going to enjoy himself.

From Yatapi’s perspective, his points had been made. As long as Iyokan was firing pitiful shots like that, Satsuma wasn’t going to get what he wanted. Even if she fired with all of the power she currently had, Yatapi himself only needed to expend half as much effort. This was something he assumed Iyokan at the very least was keenly aware of. He had to wonder if Satsuma had bothered to program anything resembling a self preservation subroutine within whatever primary directive he chose for her.

“Ahahahaha!” Yatapi let out yet another ominous laugh, though this time it was longer. “Now, what seems to be the matter? Did I strike a nerve? Oh, heavens above and hells below!” Yatapi mocked without remorse. Even if Satsuma couldn’t see his face, it was abundantly clear that Yatapi was grinning ear to ear now. “Did I wound your pride!? Haahahahhaa!!” Surely that would set Satsuma off even more, hopefully into doing something incredibly rash.

Well, aside from commanding his surrogate replacement daughter to keep shooting as he cowers behind her. This time, instead of responding defensively, Yatapi raised an arm as he conjured some sort of horned rifle cannon over one of his hands. “You call that gunfire, Satsuma? What a shoddy design you have made. Allow me to show you a real example.” The cannon whirred with power, shooting off a two-pronged blast of energy that tore through Iyokan’s attack. Though it was weakened, a considerable amount of its strength was heading straight for her!