[center][h2]Noel, New Washington[/h2][/center]

The barely-audible hum of the monorail's engine permeated the car, itself full of plenty of people on their way to one place or another. The antique skyscrapers of the capital city rose up into the sky outside of the windows, piercing the clouds like the lances they resembled. Circular holes were carved into most of them, allowing the wind to blow through the ridiculously tall structures. It was a classic building style long since abandoned in favor of block-like, rectangular buildings that barely reached a quarter of such heights. Superskycrapers still existed, but had taken on an entirely new design. They were now encircled by rings, pumped full of negative mass in just the right way so as to bend space-time around the building, keeping the wind from pushing it over. Expensive, yes, but the doctrine of Noellian architecture was "aesthetics over practicality".

Monorail tracks connected all of the largest buildings, with a few exceptions such as the gigantic tower in the bay. It was the highest building on the planet, stretching ten kilometers into the sky. The massive construction was the end result of the original colony, with new buildings continually being built upon each other over the years according to an overarching plan. The sides of the building were covered in holographic projectors, displaying advertisements and propaganda that most of the city would never actually see (the vast majority of the tower was far above the clouds). If one wished to be technical, the tower reached straight into space thanks to the fact that it acted as the base for the orbiting station's space elevators. For obvious reasons, however, they were never counted. After all, they hung down from the sky more than they reached up to it.

"So, how goes the search?"

Fergus' face was projected directly into Dmitri's retina, the message being transmitted across the hundreds of light years thanks to the wonders of quantum entanglement communication. Before they'd left Earth, such a conversation would have costed trillions of dollars. Now, it was commonplace across the League.

"Terribly." Said Fergus, sighing heavily. "The closest thing we found were the ruins of some civilization on the third planet from their sun."

"Are you sure that's not Earth?"

"For one thing, the fourth planet has some stone-age xenos on it, and all the surviving skeletons had three legs. Have you come across any records?"

"No, I don't think we ever plotted a starmap anyways. All you find on Earth are historical records, and half of those are on the Second World War because you founded this place."

"Well, Emily's setting us up for another jump right now. There's some kind of odd energy, according to her."

"I'm just going to assume that's why half the Chiheisen ships left orbit."

"What? She called for more ships? We've got the entire Noellian fleet, not to mention both out flagships! I'm gonna go upload my neural pattern before we throw ourselves into some fucking interstellar incident."

The call ended, and Dmitri looked out onto the bay, sighing.

[i]Dammit, I really don't want to see if God transfers souls to cloned bodies.[/i]

[center][h2]Sol System, Earth Orbit[/h2][/center]

The calm of the void was suddenly broken by hundreds of brilliant flashes, which lit the night side of the Earth as if it was day. Plumes of blue plasma flickered in the darkness afterwards, bringing the innumerable number of ships into orbit around the planet. Old satellites and space junk hit their shields, disintegrating instantly under the heat of the plasma. Drones fell out of the fleet's carriers like bats from a tree branch, flying in formation around the fleet to ward off any attackers.

Beneath the bright glow of their shielding giant turrets moved about, moving into positions that offered optimal coverage for a defensive battle. Each ship launched a flare, then sent a radio transmission to each of the two flagships to confirm their safe arrival. An electronic warfare ship was the first to send a message afterwards. Though made for electronic warfare, it was more commonly used as a science ship for scouting new systems and, in this case, providing intel for a fleet.

"Atmospheric profile is an 89% match with records, system configuration is identical. Geography is consistent with all archived images. There are multiple orbitals, the surface seems to be inhabited given light pollution levels, though there is a high probability that it is mutated bio-luminescence due to historical records. We have arrived at the homeworld."

The ships turned their turrets away from the surface, not wanting to accidentally bombard their fabled homeworld. The lead ship transmitted a message across the system using simple radio comms, the only system which they would likely have in common.

"Fami ti Domila Emily lasi la Falasoli lasi la Fafare Sirere, dore fasol mimiresi ti fasidore fa resol silasila remifala sirere lasi Terra. Fami sirere titi resol simisido lasi dofa mifare soldofasol, midomisi dore fadosi misolmi dofa?" Said a female voice, pausing before repeating the message in a different language. "This is Immortal Emily of the League of the Twenty Worlds, we are here on a pilgrimage to our lost homeworld of Terra. This planet fits our records of it, please tell us, have we finally arrived?"

((Oh God this is bad sorry sorry sorry))