Chapter 38: 38. Io

The white dragon groggily moved

her eyes behind her eyelids, her mind fuzzy, confused, body stiff, she felt incredibly drained and weak. 

Caelicetus looked at the waking dragon, ready to kill her at any moment's notice, just in case. 

The clasp holding her wings and legs in place unlocked, she stayed in place thanks to a pad below, the cable and tube connected did the same as the claps.

The light permeating the million-year-old city turned off for the first time in millions of Earth years, and backup batteries swiftly took the place of the now disconnected kaiju.

The water of the entire city started to drain and at the same time a giant dome formed above, galaxies, nebulae, star systems, solar systems, etc.

The space whale took heed of this but it wasn't his main focus, the Astrodelphii had a more powerful reaction and were calmed by Corky II

"Are you this 'Lady Io'?",  she jolted awake as she heard three cold voices speaking in perfect unison to her. She tried to land graciously on the metallic ground to only stumble and catch herself with a flap of her wings.

Her eyes slowly opened and she looked up, golden and white pupils met, she kept her gaze fixed on the whale above. 

Her mind froze as she remembered things from a very long time ago and as if a flip inside switched her broken horn glowed as she jumped and directly flew in front of Caelicetus.

'Ah.', the space whale thought as he failed to catch her in his gravitational grasp, it was like grasping light. Something he had difficulty with, too much power needed to directly control it, blocking and reacting to it was fine though.

"You look like her. She succeeded… did what her name hmm, ah yes it's Aergia, did she succeed too?", the pearl white dragon muttered, amazement and sadness could be heard in her voice.

"Are you this 'lady Io'?", he repeated this time it was rhetorical, he finally got a grasp of her as the white dragon let it happen and couldn't keep it up for long either.

"Indeed I'm. I'm Io, titles and everything after are meaningless… but We were known as the Moon… This is in the past and a part of the price for me to be here.", Io said, she remembered things she would have preferred to have forgotten. She looked like a beaten dog.

"Well hello, Io. I'm deeply sorry for what you must have gone through. I'm Caelicetus.", he said, his voices changing from cold to neutral then to somewhat warm. 

Being cold and aggressive was mostly out of his instinctual hate for the Ghidorah species than anything else, he didn't hold any grudge against her and if what the mural said is true then she was an ally, a very reliable one.

He was ashamed of himself for even act this way in the first but she didn't seem to particularly care.

Io nodded, a smile on her muzzle, she landed on the ground panting. She was exhausted, the city as if alive made one of the backup batteries appear out of a hole in the ground and was chugged down her throat.

"Is the city sentient or possibly sapient or just pre-programmed to so so?", Caelicetus asked out of curiosity.

"Yes for the third, it was designed by the Astrodelphii to only do specific and simple tasks such as this… They feared that a rebellion, something along those lines might happen if they made it this way.", her body after the battery was visibly healthier, but that didn't make her magically recover.

"What did you mean exactly by succeeded?", he asked, a wormhole was formed, three batteries filled with energy generated by a machine Al-An, it was the closest thing to a perpetual machine but contrary to one it generated energy with the help of gravity.

She thanked the whale and ate each one but it was like a drop in the ocean, she won't be fully operational for some time.

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"Terracetus managed to give birth to you… It's one of the reasons we even fled, she was always an oddball, she didn't want you to die. At any cost. It started after her mate died.", she breathed in and continued.

"She did something that was considered madness and every one with her paid the price in some way. Moving through time in a universe not designed for this is costly for us and dangerous for the universe… for being of our power level it only becomes worse…", Io trailed off, forcing herself to continue.

"But it was her only choice, the only thing that wasn't always monitored by both the Astrocetus and the Ghidorah. So Terra, her Astrodelphii, We, me and my two sisters … we played with time. Going in the far future, as far as we 'safely' could, you being the most important for her.", she paused.

Caelicetus absorbed everything like a sponge, it was unclear on the dinner detail but Io was probably traumatized.

Ghidorah's heads are more than simply another head, they are one and separate being at the same time, she had the equivalent of two deaths of loved ones and herself.

Giant space monster or not it has an impact on the one going through this. 

He didn't know the extent of what time does as a backlash but how Aergia, he deduced it was the nameless Astrodelphis' name was an example of what might happen.

"You were the only thing that truly counted for her when we finally finished the time jump… I can't blame her. 

I know how it felt, to fear, to despair, to feel your heart be crushed as how your child might die, it's a mother's instinct for me and Terra it was like this… other opinions didn't matter to us.

It's why I betrayed my 'family', they are mere creatures with the only objective being consumption and destruction. Even if their own members. We were also an oddball now that I think about it.", she finished her monologue with a self-deprecating chuckle.

"...I can't really say anything meaningful that would make you feel better but thank you.", Caelicetus said honestly.

"Straight to the point, like Terra. Honesty hurts more often than not but it's better than painting the world to hide how harsh it is.", she nodded with a sad smile, her wing fully expanded and she took flight.

"Where are you going? We are deep underwater.", he inquired, puzzled. She will never be able to even swim to the surface without falling asleep due to exhaustion.

"Ah yes, indeed… very astute.", she landed after those words, curling around herself before falling asleep without a care in the world. 

She was going to sleep outside and absorb the gamma-ray in space but she might have made errors in the judgments of her current capability.

"Good night I guess.", he mumbled, he sent a mental message to the Astrodephii about who is the white dragon, that they need to monitor her and that they are forbidden to do anything harmful directly or indirectly to her without him directly ordering it.

He indeed was deeply grateful for what she has done and will forever be but he was seeing multiple scenarios where everything can potentially turn to shit.

'I will continue to ask questions when she wakes up, if she takes too long I will wake her myself.', the whale thought, plans on how to wake her up already forming in his mind.

Of course, it was nothing remotely bad, she was exhausted and he knew it but he didn't believe that he was patient enough at the moment to wait possibly hundreds of years.

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