The doll-like little girl had started to explain that during humanities space age, after the inexplicable fusion of space that created new earth. As many new the great war was only called such due to the number of smaller wars.
The first war, the war for new earth had occurred when their world had been fused with a mirror version of our own, the entities there where what humanity had dubbed the Aslan, fantasy elf like creatures.
They came into our dimensions wielding powers akin to magic and lay waste to scores of humanities finest, after all, no one knew anything about magic. By the time the war had started in earnest, with more than half of the population from each side dying, the second war had started.
The war for the new frontier, Zed cast a glance outside, gazing at the planets that the large cruiser had sailed past "Am I boring you?", Zed snapped his vision back to her and shook his head, she squinted her eyes at him and then clapped her hands, a projection appearing next to her.
"Cool". He commented seeing how proud Mercury currently was of herself, although most would find it hard to tell.
The war for the new frontier was when things got difficult, new life from beyond our star system, their arrival was nothing short of catastrophic, their technology, 'magic' and abilities they wielded were far too strange and different for any one side to fight themselves with now subpar populations.
The Aslan and humans shared resources and teachings, they extended the lifespans of humans and taught us magic, we provided them our tactics and knowledge and soon they greeted their first generations of ability users.
The combined might of New Earth had brought these visitors from beyond with their capabilities to equal footing, with the war spanning hundreds of years, humans and Aslan alike where determined to drive off their invaders.
"But then came the Abyss beasts". Zed added and Mercury nodded moving her hand across the hologram as it changed shape to reveal a creature with a bone like carapace, its long worm like body and tail ending in a curved claw like stinger.
The creatures head looked like a wolfs with one side of its face being melted and filled with squirming black feathered maggots, yellowish pus like liquid dripped from its mouth, one of its eyes glowing red and the other filled with black maggots.
Zed looked at the creature and shook his head, Mercury quickly swiped the image away and continued her explanation. The first scouts to spot the an abyss beast in deep space died almost instantly, at the time neither side had understood quite what this meant.
The creatures where dubbed the actual aliens, this star system was said to be their origin, their madness inducing forms and strange yet perverse powers that were neither Might nor magic, it took quite some time for us to develop a means to resist their madness, in this regard the humans and Aslan forces where superior.
These days there's almost no difference between magic and standard abilities, the sole reason for this indistinguishability lies in the energy that shields us from it, the now united galactic federation divided them into classes.
"Are you aware of their divisions?" Zed nodded his head, while Mercury swatted the projection towards him, zed took a moment to marvel at the nature of it and pondered how it worked and looked back to Mercury "Just touch it and talk".
"The abyss beast divisions start with the Seeker", The screen pulled out the image of the wolf with the melted face "This is the lowest grade of abyss beast, almost no combat ability, if left unchecked it turns into a swirling portal of black mist called and abyss gate, they travel in groups of three, with the leaders possessing horns, gates rank is determined by number of leaders appendage".
He was about to continue when the shadows around them stirred and started to from into the shape of a human, Mercury's father had manifested into the room, "Sup kid, sorry to interrupt your playdate but we got a mission, the cruiser will have to take a long detour getting rid of our guests"
Mercury planted an elbow in his side and he lightly coughed " I mean drop off, anyway a ship had been prepared for you guys to reach the base no need to return it, it's yours now". He placed a hand on his daughter, both of them sinking into the shadows.
This just left Zed standing in the bar by himself and the hologram floating in front of him with a baffled expression on his face 'He didn't tell me where the ship was' he looked around him and did a quick check of his pockets 'He didn't leave an ignition key either'.
While he was lost in thoughts the shadow under his feet squirmed again and a petite, doll like hand extended from beneath him holding a small circular silver disc, which was then promptly placed in his hands with the hand giving him a thumbs up and returning to the shadows.
Zed held the small silver ignition key to his face with curiosity and muttered under his breath "That's one problem solved" he clicked the small red button to the side and a holographic arrow appeared on the discs screen pointing him in a particular direction.
Zed frowned slightly when he saw this 'This actually feels like something that happens a lot' ship trackers where often different from the ignition keys, simply because one could equally use their maps to markers and achieve the same effect, he looked at the map again, which seemed to be outlining his environment. 'A map?'
He had started to follow the arrow, while impressed he also wondered what could have prompted her father to include this function on an ignition key, especially with the reduced functionality it would imply, tossing the ignition key in his hand he thought aloud "Maybe he's forgetful or something".