Now standing in a very ‘high-tech’ looking infirmary, Magnus stood alongside the younger version of Lero and a younger version of… EMPEROR VOLTAIR.

  Appalled by this, Magnus took a few steps back away from the thirty cycles younger looking Voltairan Emperor, who physically looked to be in his thirties rather than his actual cycle of fifty.

  Staring at Voltair in shock, Magnus gulped as Lero and the Emperor both stared at something that resided on the other side of a glass window.

  Confused by what he was seeing but wanting to know what Lero and Emperor Voltair were both looking at, Magnus turned his head to the left and saw something so shocking, so appalling that he could hardly even believe it.

  Placed in ten individual incubators were ten newly born childlings.

  Seven of them were boys.

  Three were girls.

  Each of their incubators were marked with Voltairan numbers and Voltairan names.

  The names that were marked on the girls’ incubators were ‘Rayven’, ‘Medo’, and ‘Anora’.

  The names that were marked on the boys’ incubators were ‘Draex’, ‘Xan’, ‘Kai’, ‘Tristen’, ‘Apollox’, ‘Braako’, and…

  “MAGNUS,” Lero muttered, garnering the World-Breaker’s attention once more. “That's the name that you have chosen for ‘my charge’ from Crix, Your Majesty?”

  “Aye… Yes, Lero,” the younger version of Emperor Voltair nodded whilst smirking. “Tis a name that means more than you think.”

  “Really?” Lero asked. “Well, Emperor, please… DO TELL.”

  “No. Grandest apologies, Lero, but some things are better left to be discussed for… another time. Heh, heh, heh…”

  Hit with the sudden realization that the boy in the infirmary that had HIS name, and the boy that Lero had traveled all the way to Crix to retrieve, was, IN FACT, Magnus as a newborn infant.

  Jaws dropped and eyes widened, Magnus stared at the hologram of his younger self, and the other Galactic Deciders, whilst muttering in shock, “I… I am from…”

  “CRIX,” Emperor Voltair scoffed in disgust. “Ugh… Such a wasted stretch of soil and rock. The galaxy, as well as the whole entire thracking Known Universe, would be way better off without its existence, but alas… That shall come later, Lero… MUCH LATER.”

  Unauthorized duplication: this tale has been taken without consent. Report sightings.

  Looking back into the infirmary again, Lero asked, “So, Emperor, what are your orders now that I and the others have retrieved the Crixan Childlings for you? Is our business with one another now complete?”

  “Yes, Lero,” Emperor Voltair nodded. “Our ‘business' with one another is sadly now complete… BUT there can be more… MUCH MORE only if you wish it so."

  “What? You got another ‘gig’ for me?”

  “More like a ‘profession’… An ACTUAL profession. One that you would never have to worry about risking your life-cycle and traveling all across the ‘Verse for again. One that would require you to be here, on Voltaira, at ALL times.”

  “Voltaira??? You mean, you’d allow me to live FREELY on the grandest planet in the whole Galactic Sector?”

  “Yes, Lero… That I would.”

  “What’s the catch?”

  “You mean the profession?”

  “Yeah… THE GIG.”

  Nodding towards the infirmary where the future Galactic Deciders were currently all located, Emperor Voltair said, “You’re looking at them.”

  Looking at the childlings again, Lero asked, “Uh… What?”

  “You heard me, Lero. I did not stutter.”

  Directing his eyes upon the newborns once more, Emperor Voltair explained, “I wish to have you watch over Magnus and have the other mercenaries watch over the rest of the childlings. Teach them. Guide them through their youth and adolescence until their twentieth cycles. Once they are twenty, I shall take it from there.”

  “So... You want me to 'care' for the childling?” Lero asked in reference to newborn Magnus whilst the World-Breaker still tried to process the fact that he was actually a Crixan. “As if I were his ‘father’ or somethin’ of the sort?”

  “No, Lero. ‘Twas NOT what I said,” Emperor Voltair sternly answered. “I said that I wanted you to watch over the childling Magnus. Teach him. Guide him. MOLD HIM.”

  “Mold him? INTO WHAT???”

  “An instrument… MY INSTRUMENT.”

  Grandly disturbed by what the ‘past’ Emperor had just said, Magnus wanted to lash out at Voltair, but just as the previous memory, the ‘second’ memory had ended and a third… FINAL one had formed a half-milli-cycle later…