15. Meeting with the last surviving Martian inhabitant.

Mars.

Abyss.

Caelicetus POV

I floated above the void of the Abyss as I looked through the wormholes, making a new one in front of each of my four eyes. Changing where they lead at regular intervals, meaning I saw four different things simultaneously.

Each room was constantly changing places and was all similar, made with the usual black metal with the green light pulsing. 

Different containers filled with transparent liquid were objects that looked like different body parts such as a horned head made of metal and trinkets could be seen slowly drifting in them.

And the things that interested me, the main room or control room, whatever. It has a pedestal with a bluish and translucent dodecahedron, it was held by two robotic arms that made it levitate by using some sort of powerful magnet. Behind it, we're the blue line of an octagon on the wall.

In front of the dodecahedron was a control panel, more like what I think was a control panel, it was on a pedestal and had multiple symbols, probably in their languages.

'Now how do these things work…', I thought as I inspected the things, I was like a senior trying to use a smartphone for the first time. I then brought the green cube and put it in front of the control panel.

Nothing, not even when I passed in front the short of black magnetic lock in the form of a square. Tech these days. 

And so I forcefully opened the magnetic lock, magnetism might be stronger than gravity in this case but that doesn't stop me from simply utterly crushing the lock. 

Here violence proves it's worth it again, I'm not gonna look around to open some puzzle, it's real life, not a video game.

An alarm started to blare as the sickly green light and force fields became a deep crimson red but I completely ignored them. 

What looked like turrets were popping out of the facility, I promptly twisted their barrels that looked like a mix between a Gatling gun and a rail gun but in the same theme as the facility.

Like I was going to let them shoot unknown projectiles with unknown powers at my poor and defenceless body.

I then shoved the cube into the square-shaped hole, it made a clicking sound. The alarm stopped and everything became just like it was before. Silence. 

All wormholes shut down at the same time as I jerked back in shock. Something was alive inside and not at the same time. I instantly calmed the whole Flock down but Kenny still managed to fly like a rocket and die by slamming on the wall of the Abyss, now he was in the form a purplish stain in the now dented compacted stone.

I felt something touch my mind, making me shudder, trying to get inside, it was sneaky but not enough so it failed. I sensed through the brief link that the thing that tried to do it was even more shocked than I was.

I didn't let it in my mind, it was foreign and it felt wrong to even have something like this in my mind.

That is why I sent a mental probe into its own prob. Overpowering it easily. I have the equivalent of three superpowered minds and an entire hive-mind of undying flying fish at my beck and call.

I calmed myself, resisting the urge to crush the mind of the thing and the whole facility with it, instead, I sent back a feeling of amusement but with a clear warning that trying again won't end well.

I didn't know what it was but it wasn't weak, not at all, just that it was taking more than it could chew. 

It heeded my warning and receded its mental probe and sent another mental probe. 

This one was clearly announcing its presence and I sent one of my own to meet it. Not letting it enter my mind. No matter how harmless it seemed or how weak it was, one slipped up from me at the wrong time and I could become a vegetable.

Arrogance works if it is backed by the capability behind it.

[Hello strange creature. My name is Al-An, the last Architect and I deeply apologize for my rash decision to even attempt to attack your mind.], I telepathically heard him, it was a male voice, his voice was very respectful, was a bit robotic and he seemed curious and at the same time incredibly terrified of me. 

He also didn't lie and he couldn't lie to me even if he wanted to, it's the intention that is translated when you talk by telepathy. If he lied I would have known and it wouldn't have ended well for him. I also didn't hide what would have happened if he did that.

[Greeting, Al-An last of the Architect. I also apologize for damaging your strange metal box. My name is Caelicetus, the sovereign of this planet and also the most powerful being on it.], I thought to him, it clearly must have sounded arrogant, even if I didn't try to particularly sound arrogant, it's like nearly everything I say no matter the way and context, will always sound arrogant.

He was even more terrified now but he kept himself silent. I could sense him thinking a lot as if he was going through his memories. 

[Where is the three-headed black flying monster?!], he asked me, he was starting to have a mental panic attack as if he was going through a trauma. Which he probably was. Understandable, his whole species was exterminated.

I reopened multiple wormholes in the control chamber and saw something quite interesting.

[Eaten by yours truly. Now stop this. Your body is getting created.], I gave him the equivalent of a mental slap.

I then heard him profusely thanking me for avenging his species, I didn't try to clarify his delusion. Why should I? It's his fault, not mine. And it's better to have him grateful. If he realised later on he could only blame himself.

In the decahedron, a robotic body was getting built, Al-An body, each piece and object I saw earlier getting grabbed by robotic arms and brought over to the control room.

Arms, hands, legs, artificial heart, torso, barrel and a horned head with a purple visor that served as a face. It was essentially a robotic centaur that was three-time higher than a human.

Two minutes later his new body was finished. He froze as he saw all of my four eyes through the wormhole, looking at him, and he broke down laughing like a mad man for twenty minutes before suddenly regaining an approximately normal composure. Did I break him already?

He was testing his body while speaking a language I didn't understand, six arms appeared with different tools and floated behind his back. 

Suddenly, he glitched in and out of existence and nearly instantly appeared in front of the control panel. He didn't teleport, he just moved incredibly fast.

However, he was still scared shitless of me, his body hiding it easily but not his mind as he still didn't break the mental link. He wants me to decide.

[I wonder, do you have data about what happened in the last million years?], I curiously asked the robotic centaur that passed through the five stages of grief in record time, his robotic body was clearly at play. And I didn't have much hope with what I asked.

[Yes, Your Majesty. The archive contains what happened after the Day of the Apocalypse… oh oh…this is…], he trailed off as he started at empty space and Your Majesty? Did he submit it like this? He didn't need me to hammer it into his head for years on end. Anyway, I wasn't exactly used to others calling me like this, with very little social interaction and talking in general. I still cringed a bit.

I was pleasantly surprised that they indeed were something and going to say I didn't see anything but stopped myself when he pressed a button and a hologram appeared right in front of one of my eyes. All of my eyes went wide in stupefaction.

The hologram showed a picture taken by a now-destroyed Architect satellite that Al-An informed me of its number 3#7528+ and that the picture was 30.785 964 Martian years old.

In the picture was an all-familiar shape of a space whale but it wasn't me, no, it was another, it was a she I instinctively knew it. She emitted a sky blue light instead of golden light and she had six eyes of the same colour. 

She was gravely injured, neon blue blood, burn, claw and bite marks covered her whole body, she missed half of her tail and her two front flippers on her left side and most of her fins were shredded, her lower jaw was broken, she had hole going through her rostrum and her belly was bulging, she was pregnant.

'Mom?', I instantly recognised her. It was obvious. And I didn't like the emotions that I was currently going through. At all.