Pangea was silent.
The strange calm of the post-battle quiet stretched across the city like a funeral shroud. Yet, there was no sign of mourning. Underneath the gleaming skyline and sky-scraping towers pulsing with faint energy signatures, life continued, with the Imperium finally gone, the city finally returned back to it's normal state.
With those force to hide away, now able to step back into the light.
No longer needing to pretend, the non-human inhabitants could now walk out in the open, openly. Nikkes from the Goddess of Victory project, T-Dolls from Girls' Frontline, constructs from Punishing Gray Raven, Automata from Nier, even the androids of Detroit and scattered remnants of civilizations torn from other timelines—they moved through the streets with joy and relief openly on there face. They worked to rebuild alongside their human, synth, and alian neighbors. Children played next to and with alian, human, and Synths children. Synths repaired infrastructure with Construct engineers at their side.
But inside the command nexus at the heart of Pangea, Dr. Dew and his inner circle weren't celebrating.
A storm loomed, invisible and unnamed.
The meeting table was alive with holograms. Celeste Starfire Cassidy leaned over a starchart, flicking solar bodies aside with one glowing hand, her Nova Kid brand pulsing dimly with residual stress. Leonardo da Vinci sat with one leg crossed, fingers steepled under her chin. Paracelsus quietly scrolled through warp data, lip twitching with each contradictory pulse in the simulations. Tesla muttered equations under his breath, adjusting shield matrices and power flow scenarios. And at the head of it all, Dr. Dew stood with arms crossed, brow furrowed, watching silent footage on loop of the Death Guard and how they tride to invade Pangea.
Most importantly, the warning of there arrival truly meant for Pangea and it's inhabitants.
"It was a small offshoot of the true force we are going to face have to face eventually, rather if we like it or not." Dew said finally, breaking the silence.
Paracelsus nodded to Dr. Dew comment.
"If that was there true force, then warp tear would have stayed open. if they had sent their real force... we'd be fighting an endless army of rotting, decaying, pleg infected super soldiers backed by an unending army of unclean, rotting demon's of all shape and size."
"But if we really needed to... we could fight them forever, quiet literally." said Cassidy "We've got respawn tech, the Sierra Madre modra vending machine, you name it. They'd break before we do."
"sadly No," replied Da Vinci. "They wouldn't. You're mistaking them for human's with human limitations. They are now a part of the warp and Chaos. It's would be impossible to beat them in a battle, we only stand a chance since our solders dont need to eat or sleep and can regenerate lost limbs. That's not even mentioning the respon machine and that they can turn off there pain receptors. In order to defeat such an unorthidox opponent, you need to remove there benefits that grant's them there power."
Everyone in the room fell silent.
Cassidy leaned back, boots on the table, arms crossed. "So what's the move? Fight 'til they get bored?"
"That's the best-case scenario," Dew replied. "An eternal stalemate. Our military can't die of old age and can never run out of stamina. But living forever in a never ending war while covered in filth, while your sky bleeds out puss and every disease in the universe on top of us sounds like a living hell. And one I would rather avoid. "
"So we evacuate?" Tesla asked.
"That would mean we would nee to destroy the planet after after we evacuate everyone." Paracelsus added, voice flat.
The thought lingered in the room.
Obliterating Pangea. Scorching the land. Detonating bunkers, labs, and every other building in this city. Leaving no trace of their technology behind so it won't fall into the wrong hands. A final, absolute firewall.
"I built this place to be our home, a place for peace." Dew said quietly. "Not to become our tomb."
Da Vinci stood. "Then we don't let them find us."
The others turned to her. She smiled softly, light reflecting in her eyes like prisms.
"We disappear."
Dew raised an eyebrow.
"A planetary cloaking device," Da Vinci explained. "Not just visual. Total sensor silence. We become the background radiation of the cosmos. Hide our energy signatures. Shield our orbit. Make us look like dead space."
Tesla looked up, suddenly intrigued. "It's possible. We'd need anchor arrays in orbit and surface grid harmonics. But we've already got the Isu lattice—just need to amplify its field."
"I've got drones that could do the orbital part," Cassidy added. "We mod their stealth cores and tether them to a mirror-shield network. Doesn't have to be perfect—just impossible to detect with conventional or psychic tools."
Paracelsus murmured, "It won't block the warp. Not completely."
"Doesn't need to," Dew replied. "We just needs to buy ourselves enough time. If they can't find us, they can't attack us."
They worked in silence for a few minutes, outlines forming, specs flowing between hands and hard-light screens. Plans came alive. Layers of redundancy. Backup redundancies. Redundancies for the redundancies. Cloaks on cloaks.
But then Dew paused, staring at a projection of a corrupted Chaos Marine—its armor bloated, its insides crawling with living sickness.
"That won't be enough."
Everyone looked up.
"We can cloak the planet. But that won't Garrity our survival, what if thay they find us again... we need more."
"What?" Cassidy asked. "Another army?"
"Not another army but," Dew said. "A different kind of solder."
He walked to a second console, hands flying across the interface. Blueprints opened—long-forgotten files buried beneath layers of classified security. Not from Fallout. Not from Starbound. From another dimension altogether. The schematics shimmered—organic shapes, crystalline cores, light-based constructs.
Gems.
It was tenology from Steven Universe.
Dew replied. "Gem soldiers."
"Not these ones," Dew clarified. "We're not only making a new race of people. We're also making hybrids. Gen 3 Synth solders, but also being half gem. The Synth part gives them a greater potential since they would be a permanent fusion. The gem being a machine without a soul should grant them some resistance to the warp, but not completely."
"Smart," Merlin's voice called out from a side alcove, appearing suddenly through the arch. "Biological minds are weak to Chaos. Mechanical minds are inflexible. But this—this could thread the needle."
"Plus there wouldn't be standard gems only," Dew explained. "Some will have gems as large as a shed. And since gem are born with no history or personality, we can control what there exposed to making sure they don't become evil murderers like the original gem empire. Simply size the some of the gems up. And therefore the larger the gem, the stronger and bigger the soldier are."
Tesla leaned forward, rubbing his chin. "And if the gem human hybrid fall to Chaos?"
"Then the gem can forcibly make them respond but inside of a custem respone machine that would remove the warp."
There was silence again—but this time, the weight of dread was replaced by potential. Cassidy finally smirked.
"Alright, Doc. Let's make us an army of fleshy_crystal super soldiers."
Paracelsus chuckled darkly. "It's not elegant alchemy, but it's efficient."
Da Vinci only smiled. "Let me work on the custem respond machine and devices for creating or should i say grow the gem, well also need to find a good location to stet up the kindergarten so we can grow the best gem soldiers."
Dew turned toward the lab corridor. "Then it's settled. We cloak the planet. We grow the army. And if Chaos comes again... we make them regret ever coming here."
He paused, then looked back.
"But let's hope we stay invisible long enough and are giving enough time, we should prepare to evaluate the planet just incase things don't work out."
Cassidy laughed. "Hope for the best but prepare for the worst."
In the hours that followed, Pangea roared back into motion.
Up above, satellites launched. Stealth drones tethered to orbital anchors. Holographic projectors began spooling interference across the planet's surface. Sensor jammers masked geothermal signatures. The cloak began to form—pixel by pixel, wave by wave.
The planet began to vanish.
And deep in the central spire, Dr. Dew watched it all.
They were safe. For now.
But safety was temporary.
And he knew what was coming.
End of Chapter Forty-Five