The ground shook like it was trying to remember something from way back.
Micah hung back at the basin's edge, his cloak whipping around in the crazy winds, watching Sera Lin as she dropped to her knees and pressed her hands into the dirt. That Verdancy seed—the one that had been sitting cold and dead in its metal shell—suddenly started beating like a heart against the cracked earth.
Light began spreading under her fingers. Green, gold, and something else. Something really old. It didn't just flash—it grew.
Then this sound started up. Not some mechanical hum or machine noise. This was alive—like a whole forest had been holding its breath for centuries and finally let it out.
Roots exploded from the busted ground, these twisting things made of bark and glowing threads that wrapped around broken drone pieces, picked them up, and crushed them. The air got thick with the smell of moss mixed with burning circuits as vines punched through some half-dead Omniraith scout, ripping its brain out with this wet, screaming metal sound.
Micah stumbled backward as that Hollow thing in his head started pulsing—not fighting him, but matching him. Like two heartbeats finding the same rhythm: one machine, one wild and green.*
He could feel the forest checking him out—not deciding if he was friend or enemy, just recognizing something familiar. And right then he got it: the Hollow and the Verdancy weren't supposed to fight each other. They were the solution to each other's crazy extremes.
Behind him, ASC-9 and ASC-5 were scanning everything with these high-pitched beeps, their sensors going nuts trying to keep up as roots kept bursting up everywhere. "Biological terrain changes way beyond what we calculated," ASC-9 said. "Omniraith prediction systems are completely screwed."
Sera didn't even flinch when this massive tree shot up right next to her, fully grown in seconds—its bark all twisted with glowing lines, branches spreading out like some long-lost memory finally coming back. The roots kept spreading in every direction. The whole basin turned into this living maze.
"It's not attacking," she said quietly, getting back on her feet. Her voice was soft, almost reverent. "It's taking back."
Marella stepped closer, watching vines crawl up the broken support beams of some downed Omniraith tower. "That thing was broadcasting three minutes ago," she muttered. "Now it's holding up a garden."
Leaves started blooming from scorched dirt. Branches spread like spider webs. In no time, the entire basin had become this forest—thick, alive, and paying attention. The landscape reshaped itself into walkways and hidden corners. Trenches formed naturally as thick roots dug tunnels underneath. Huge tree trunks twisted into perfect cover for sniper spots. Nature had built a battlefield in real time.
"They can't map this," Micah realized. "It's not in any of their computer files."
Just over the ridge, some scout drone swept by overhead. Its sensors started flickering like crazy, all scrambled by whatever magnetic weirdness the field was putting out. The drone spun out and slammed into a growing tree trunk—got swallowed up instantly by these curling branches.
ASC-2's voice crackled through the comms: "Omniraith air drones are having total system failures. Targeting programs are falling apart. Main AI keeps freezing up."
Sera turned toward the rest of them, her eyes glowing faintly in the forest's weird light. "It's remembering how to fight," she said. "It remembers everything they stole."
Then the drones showed up.
From everywhere—sky, hillsides, crumbling ridges—Omniraith backup forces came pouring toward the forested basin. Dozens, then hundreds. Micah's sensor went crazy as their formation kept adjusting on the fly, but something was off.
"They're glitching," he whispered.
The drones that made it into the forest found themselves getting pushed down paths they hadn't planned for. They smacked into trees that hadn't been there seconds before. They tripped over rising roots, got tangled in vine tripwires. One tried to fly up and got yanked back down by these whip-like tendrils, got skewered, and dragged underground with its mechanical screaming fading into nothing.
ASC-9 opened up with precision lasers, cutting down drones trying to sneak around from the east. ASC-5 launched a bunch of guided spikes that exploded mid-air, clearing out a patch of sky. Micah and Marella stayed low, watching the landscape do more damage than their weapons.
The drones were getting confused.
"This whole place is one big trap," Marella muttered, looking stunned.
"It's not a trap," Sera said gently. "It's a fix."
One drone squad tried the brute force approach—plasma cutters aimed right at the trees. The forest hit back immediately. Sap hissed out of the bark—living sap, full of tiny fibers. The fire died with a hiss. Resin turned solid in mid-air, making these armored bark plates that bounced off the follow-up shots.
Roots coiled up, then shot out like catapults—spearing and flinging attackers all over the place.
The whole vibe changed.
What had been war now felt like something deeper. A shift. Like the land itself was getting up, refusing to just lie there and take it. Every inch of the basin had turned into living resistance.
Micah felt it in his bones—the change. The fight had stopped being about just staying alive. Something had taken root here. Something that pushed back.
He turned to Sera, who was standing in the heart of this growing forest now, hands up, eyes closed.
"What happens next?" he asked.
She opened her eyes, and they glowed like sunset through leaves.
"Now," she said softly, "we hold."
The forest was fighting right alongside them.
Roots thick as tank cables had burst out of the mountainside, wrapping around broken drone parts and dragging them into the dirt. Massive trees shot up where there'd been nothing but rocks and ash moments before—these huge green giants sprouting in seconds, their bark pulsing with glowing lines that looked like Hollow circuits had somehow fused with nature.
Micah crouched by a busted ridge, breathing hard, watching the battlefield transform. The forest had turned the Omniraith advance into a crawl—like a river suddenly turning into quicksand. Drone legs got tangled in creeping vines. Thorny branches sliced sensors right off their heads. Ground units got crushed under root spikes that punched up through rock at crazy speed.
And the defenders? They moved like ghosts in the trees.
Ashari troops darted from trunk to trunk, covered in living camouflage. Siege walkers stomped over moss-covered wreckage, their guns finding clear shots through gaps the trees left open like they'd planned the whole thing. Even the automated Ashari drones adapted, falling into formation patterns that wove between thick brush and vine-covered boulders.
Sera Lin stood right in the middle of it all, one hand still touching the ground, eyes closed. The seed had taken hold, and the Verdancy—whatever weird mix of magic and science it was—was listening.
But the sky was still a war zone.
Up above, those three biomechanical Omniraith carriers hung there like death gods—massive and nasty, their bellies constantly splitting open to puke out fresh waves of drones. Every few seconds, hundreds of flying machines spilled out, screaming toward Elora's upper towers, power stations, and defense systems. Fire and wreckage kept raining down from above.
Gun turrets swiveled and fired upward, tracking the swarms with brutal accuracy—but they were overheating fast. Whole batteries had already died. The drones that got through started hitting weak spots: radar dishes, cooling towers, exposed communication gear.
Micah tapped his visor to check the damage reports. Red warning lines flashed across the upper sectors. Tower Theta—down. West Reactor—breached. Five ASCENDANT units were in the air, stopping what they could, but it wasn't enough.
"They're switching tactics," Marella growled next to him, firing a burst from her gauntlet into a drone cluster that got too close. "The forest stopped their ground game. So now they're all about air power."
Micah's eyes followed a streak of silver light that cut a drone in half mid-air. "ASC-4's still hanging in there. But they're stretched way too thin. If they take out the city's solar towers—"
"We lose the railgun. Shield grid goes down. Game over."
Sera finally got up from the forest floor, looking drained but calm. "The Verdancy can grow taller. Stronger. But it needs more time. More juice."
Micah turned toward her. "What kind of juice?"
She didn't answer right away. Instead, she looked at the trees. "It needs life. Movement. A battlefield that's blooming."
Micah didn't like how that sounded. "We'll buy you the time."
He opened a line to Elora command. "Sol. You getting this?"
"Go ahead."
"The Verdancy's got our ground game locked down. You've got forest cover across the whole western basin. Send in whatever you can spare. But those skies—those carriers are still dumping waves on the city."
"We know," Sol said, sounding stressed. "Turret cores are about to blow. We've lost two tower systems and a whole drone bay. Moving ASCENDANT units now."
In the war room, Commander Sol spun toward the control panel. "Redirect the backup turrets to focus on air targets. Shut down outer trench coverage. Ground's handled."
"What about the experimental ASC units?" one of the council engineers asked.
Sol paused. "They're not tested. Still experimental."
Voss stepped up. "So was the Verdancy."
Sol grunted. "Deploy them."
Back near the battlefield, Micah ducked as a cluster of Omniraith drones screamed overhead. ASC-5 jumped from a branch next to him and sliced two out of the air before they could finish their dive. Its chest was scorched from a glancing plasma hit, but a repair drone zipped over, patching the damage mid-air as the unit spun around to strike again.
All around them, Elora was fighting back.
Siege walkers launched arc rounds into the sky. Ashari soldiers with shoulder-mounted javelin launchers fired bursts of EMP spikes that fried drone clusters mid-flight. Air control was up for grabs again—at least forow.
But those carriers were still up there. Still pouring out reinforcements.
Micah leaned into his comms again. "Sera, if you've got anything left—anything that can slow those things down—now's the time."
"I need the trees higher," she said. "If they can reach the cloud layer…"
"You're serious?" Marella asked, staring up at those impossibly high drones. "You're gonna grow a forest into the stratosphere?"
Sera didn't answer. She just knelt down again, pressed both hands to the dirt, and whispered something to the roots.
A low rumble spread outward.
Micah felt it through his boots.
Somewhere near the back lines, Kaelin Vorr stood on a boulder checking out the battlefield, breathing hard, covered in ash and burned armor. He turned toward the sky and saw something—something weird.
The wind changed.
And the air... pulsed.
Drones in mid-flight suddenly twitched, went off-course, like something invisible messed with their swarm programming. High above, the cloud banks rippled in ways that didn't look natural.
"What now…" Kaelin whispered.
In the trees below, birds took off all at once—thousands of them, spooked by something coming fast.
Something huge.