[Worthless scrap!] Draco's fist smashed into Ara, sending the bulky Knight crashing through a dinosaur statue. [Junkyard filth!] A brutal kick hurled Ara through the stone and out a wall into the next hall.
[Broken defect!] Sprinting, Draco launched into a leaping spin, his tail slamming into Ara's plated chest and flinging him into the museum staircase. [You were only ever worth something as a damned tank, traitor! Should've done us all a favour and blown your core!]
Groaning on the stairs, Ara slowly pushed himself upright as Zero's voice crackled through the interface. "I'm not fighting you, Sam. Firefly will never forgive me if I hurt you."
[Fight you—?] Draco halted at my control. I had to reach him now.
"Firefly already doesn't forgive you." Ara flinched like Zero hadn't realized it until now. "You failed her as a brother—just because she was different. You stood by while the others tore into her. You only saw her once she proved she wasn't a failure."
"No... You're wrong! I tried to protect her!" Zero shouted as Ara climbed to his feet. "All of this—everything—was to protect her! And she betrayed me! How is this my fault when all I've ever done is try to save her from this empire that tramples the weak and chews through lives?!"
The words stank of delusion—saturated in Freiheit's poison. "The Empire doesn't do that. Not unless someone earns it. You know that. We both know that."
"Not my kind," Zero snapped. "The AKPs. The AI. The machines. Anything that's not bone and blood is a tool to them. If Firefly or I hadn't survived the trials, do you really think they would've let us go? They'd have scrapped us—recycled our parts like trash."
"You'd still be luckier than the kids who died before you were even made." Draco's blades hissed out from his wrists. "Everyone in the program knew the risks. The ones who died—and the ones who limped away shattered—they all signed up. You and Firefly didn't have a choice, sure. But without the AKP initiative, neither of you would exist."
"In Freiheit's world, that kind of slaughter won't be needed." Ara reached back, pulling a war hammer from his spine like a towering executioner. "When the galaxy belongs to metal, humans will finally show gratitude to their tools."
[You done yet?] Draco growled. A tense silence followed.
[Shit's sake. Ara, get your damn pilot under control and wake the hell up!]
No response.
[...What the hell did you do to Ara, you cyborg bastard?!]
"He's seen the Empire for what it is. He has no words for a fool who only craves violence." Ara surged forward, hammer raised in a crushing arc.
Draco ducked under the swing, lashing out with his machete—but the blade snapped against Ara's osmium armour. Useless. Like trying to carve a mountain with a razor.
[Fine. I'll claw his sanity out if I have to!] Draco's claws slammed into Ara's plating, staggering him with brutal blows. A haymaker sent the juggernaut flying back out of the museum.
Before we could pursue, ten remote Knights burst through the museum windows—dropping onto Draco like a pack of wolves.
[Try me, you wastes of metal!] Draco bit the first in half with his steel jaws. Then he ripped the power cores from five more. He skewered one through the chest with his tail, crushed another underfoot—leaving only two standing between us and Ara's retreat.
Draco smashed through them.
He leapt into the street, just as Ara struck him down mid-air with the war hammer—slamming him into the pavement.
[Coward!] Draco rolled aside as the hammer came down again, sprang back up, and took in our surroundings. We'd landed right behind Imperial troops fighting to hold an intersection.
"Don't let them cross!" I shouted.
Draco roared his war-horn, broke Ara's grip on the weapon, and wrenched it away. With a thunderous swing, he drove the hammer straight into Ara's plated chest.
Steel clashed against steel in a brutal storm down the city street, through shops and shattered homes. Each of Draco's counters fed kinetic energy from Ara's hits back into his strikes, blowing the altar Knight away block by block—until we crashed into a plaza.
Ara hurled Draco through a statue of the Empress. Shaking the dust off, I groaned beneath the harness. Ara stomped steadily toward us.
"We're not doing meaningful damage, Draco. We need a new plan."
[Ara's depleted osmium plating makes him as durable as a goddamn fortress. We already burned all the kinetic juice we had from Andromeda, and it barely scratched him. If we want to win—we need to melt through that armour.]
"Extreme heat or acid, right? Isn't Ara supposed to be leaky?"
[Confirmed. Last pilot drowned in combat, according to mission logs.]
"Water..." I glanced skyward—just in time to see a blazing comet dive through the air, slipping through flak fire before tearing into a Freiheit warship. Another cruiser split apart in the distance, drifting into low orbit wreckage.
"You think the river's deep enough?"
[Even if it is, he's keeping us away from it—Incoming!] Draco dodged the hammer as it came flying back. He caught it mid-spin and hurled it right back at Ara, knocking him through the wall of a restaurant. [Still slow as ever. Doesn't look like Ara's fully cooperating with Zero either—reaction time's sluggish. Too much like a standard Knight.]
"Any way we can exploit that?"
[Keep hammering the same spot on his chest. I've been doing that already—but it's osmium. Even with full impact force, we'd be here for three years before we cracked open the cockpit.]
"What about the Constellation Knights in the sector? Anyone who can help?"
[Boötes' ghost walk can't just rip the pilot out unfortunately. Eridanus only does vector shifts of wind and water within fifty feet of her. Leo's busy commanding the retaliation and his shield's more crowd-control than damage. Only one useful right now...]
A thunderous explosion rocked the sky above. Another warship disintegrated in orbit, the shockwave rolling through the city like a tidal breath. Buildings rattled. My eardrums rang. Draco staggered slightly.
We both knew who did that.
"You're not against asking for a little help... are you, partner?"
Knowing exactly what I was thinking through the neural link curled behind my ear, Draco let out a reluctant sigh. [Hate to admit it... but without Hydra here, they're the next best option. Let's summon the fire fairy, then.]
With a roar that split the heavens, Draco sounded his war horn. The ground trembled beneath his feet as his howl echoed across the sky.
Ara pushed himself free of the rubble and stared at us, confusion flashing across his broken helmet—until he looked up. Then he saw it.
A flaming comet streaked from the heart of the shattered warship overhead, hurtling toward our position like vengeance incarnate.
Andromeda landed feet-first in the plaza, crashing down in a shockwave of fire that licked across the stones, casting long shadows around the dragon knight. [Draco,] came the voice through the heat haze. [This is Andromeda. I've activated a comm link—Imperial ground forces and the marshal have our coordinates.]
The fairy knight tossed his emerald blade toward us. It spun through the air and landed burning-hot into Draco's waiting hand.
[What's the strategy?]
[Finally sharing your toys.] The moment Draco grabbed the sword, it blazed hotter than it ever had in the arena. Its heat flared across Draco's metallic skin, maxing out his feedback armour in seconds. [Focus your flame on Ara's chest. We'll melt the armour joints around the cockpit. Either the pilot bails—or burns.]
[I'll soften the mould,] Andromeda replied, igniting both fists, [you hammer the chisel.]
"Sister, wait—" Zero begged.
But Andromeda was already a blur of jetted motion—flashing forward, planting his blazing hand against Ara's chest. Flames rippled on contact. Ara panicked, arms swinging wide to dislodge him, but it was too late. We were already behind him, driving the sword an inch deep into molten armour.
"Why won't you listen?! Neither of you!?!" Zero's voice rang out, choked with emotion. "I'm doing this for prosperity—for both our kinds!"
Draco pushed the burning blade in deeper. "The only thing you're fighting for is a nightmare you've convinced yourself is a dream!"
Yanking the sword free before Ara could trap it, Draco slammed his fist into the altar knight's face. A pulse of energy from the feedback system fractured the faceplate.
"It's not a nightmare!" Ara screamed, reeling—and Andromeda struck again, ducking under Ara's arm and igniting his chest with another wave of searing flame before the metal could cool. Ara kicked Andromeda back, spun, and snatched his war hammer from the rubble. With one brutal swing, he struck Draco square in the side, launching him back. "It's the only way humanity can survive! We waste our time fighting each other, while the Dream Swarm grows stronger!"
"...Then why doesn't Freyt attack the Obscure Quadrant?" Firefly's voice, sharp and cutting, pierced the comms as Andromeda rose again. "Why not the hive worlds? Why focus all his armies on us? He's not saving people—he's just replacing one tyrant with another. Man becomes slave. Machines become gods."
There was silence on Zero's end.
He had no answer—because he knew. Deep down, he knew.
"Freyt is saving them," he said quietly. "They just don't understand. Their emotions waste them."
"Do you even understand what you're saying?!" Draco swung the molten sword into Ara's shoulder. Sparks exploded from the blow—but the blade bounced off, too slow, too shallow. Ara retaliated with a hammer strike that sent Draco flying, but he landed hard and absorbed the impact, redirecting it with a kinetic backlash. The force slammed into Ara's chest, driving the knight backward. "If you understand, Zero, tell us—how does Freyt save people by killing them?!"
"Because he'll replace them!" Zero shouted, shielding Ara's chest as Andromeda returned with another flare of heat. "He'll build an immortal army of steel! No more children will die in wars—no more families will be torn apart! He'll end the grinder!"
"And make humanity cattle instead." Andromeda leapt, twisting over Ara's shoulders. One hand grabbed his helmet, yanking his balance off. The other flared again, pressing to the already-scorched chest plate. Flames and jets burned back at him, but they washed harmlessly over Andromeda's armour.
"You think peace comes from obedience? That salvation means servitude? Turning mankind into docile animals for your metal kingdom?" Firefly's voice within Andromeda was calm. Quiet. Furious. "There's nothing beautiful in that world, Zero. There's nothing left to save."
Ara's arm jerked back to grab Andromeda, but the fairy knight kicked his elbow away. The other arm reached—Draco lunged and caught it, locking it in place.
With both arms restrained, the altar knight couldn't move.
Draco drove the super-heated blade down—right above the flaming weak spot Andromeda had seared open. Ara groaned, mechanical joints grinding and whining under the strain. He thrashed his leg, trying to break free, but Draco struck the back of his knee, collapsing the knight onto one knee in the centre of the war-torn road.
Andromeda nearly slipped but clung tighter—both hands gripping Ara's fractured helmet.
Flames danced wildly. The sword's edge sizzled against superheated osmium. Slowly, inch by inch, it began to melt through. The cockpit armour—once a fortress—was giving way.
Slowly but surely, Andromeda's emerald sword sank deeper, hissing through the softening osmium like a chisel through wax. The heat radiating from the contact point was unbearable—I could feel it inside Draco's cockpit, just meters away, my entire body soaked in sweat.
Draco's screens screamed in red, thermal alarms wailing. The temperature right under Andromeda's palm had hit 3100°C.
[Melt faster, Andromeda—my pilot and I can't take much more of this heat!] Draco roared, shielding me behind Ara's massive arm while maxing out his internal cooling systems.
Andromeda gripped the sword from Ara's shoulder's, planting his mechanical feet firmly. [Hammer!] he shouted through the link.
Draco released Ara and the sword in an instant, sprinting across the burning plaza. Melted lampposts sagged like wax and the stones beneath boiled into lava.
Draco skidded to a halt near Ara's discarded war hammer, calculating a throw in a split second. [Andromeda—catch!]
The fairy knight didn't even look. He drove the sword deeper into Ara's chest plate and caught Ara's incoming arm, twisting it back with raw, burning strength—exposing the heart of the knight's chest to Draco's trajectory.
With a shout, Draco hurled the war hammer across the plaza—and it struck home. The impact drove the emerald sword straight through Ara's molten armour, piercing the cockpit with a sickening crunch. Heat blasted out in a shockwave. It should've roasted Zero alive.
But Ara was still conscious. Still moving.
"Sam..." Andromeda's voice broke—her helm lifting slightly. And though it wasn't Firefly's face, I saw her in the knight's sorrow. I heard her tears. "I can't kill him. I'm sorry. I can't. He was one of the first... one of the only people who ever showed me kindness."
"...What?"
[Andromeda's sword has instantaneous thermal control.] Draco's voice came through like a scientist forcing calm through fire. He sent me the data: a visual of the sword's path through Ara's plating. [She cooled it the moment it broke through. Enough to burn Zero's body—but not kill. The pilot's still alive. Half of him... charred. But alive.]
Ara wheezed. Spasmed. His mechanical voice box groaned back to life. [Do... it!]
Both Andromeda and Draco froze.
[Before he arrives! Kill my pilot—don't let him take me again! It's too late for us!]
[What do you—] Andromeda's sensors flared.
On the horizon, a swarm of jet-drones screamed across the sky—dive-bombing straight for our position. There were hundreds. No time. No way to shoot them all down.
[Get behind me, Andromeda!] Draco shouted, locking down his systems. [Engaging Constellation Drive!]
Andromeda sprinted toward us, and in one massive lunge, Draco grabbed him—slamming the fairy knight beneath his plated chest just as the first drones struck.
Impact.
Explosion.
Another.
Then a dozen more.
The plaza vanished in a storm of fire and metal.
Kamikaze after kamikaze. Drones detonated in waves—bathing Draco's back in fire and molten shrapnel. His armour grew, absorbing the energy, evolving in real time.
Each blast made him larger. Denser. Stronger. He became a living shield, forged in the heart of a storm.
Five minutes. Five minutes of hell.
When the bombardment finally ended, Draco rose. His armour smouldered, but he stood—towering at 27 feet, pulsing with stored kinetic energy and glowing seams of spirit-forged alloy.
[Argh—my back!] he groaned, shaking off layers of drone wreckage like loose ash. [Andromeda, status?]
[99% undamaged.] The fairy knight stood, picking a shard of shrapnel from his shoulder. [Thank you, Draco.]
"Why did they bomb us like that out of nowhere?" Firefly asked.
Around us, nothing remained but a scorched crater. Ash, slag, and shattered metal filled the plaza. Only the three of us stood—scarred, alive, and breathing in a battlefield of death.
The emerald sword had snapped in half during the blast. The hilt was buried somewhere beneath the drone corpses. But the blade still stuck out from Ara's ruined chest.
[Zero sent a distress signal to Freiheit's leader!] Ara called out from the crater's edge—his voice frantic, breaking. [The bombers were a distraction! Just to buy time—he's here! If you don't kill my pilot, he'll—]
CRACK.
A massive hand slammed down onto Ara's body and dragged him violently out of the crater's edge.
[Kill me! Kill me!!!]
[There's no need for such drama, Ara.] The voice was low. Smooth. Almost amused.
The hand lifted Ara easily, dangling the heavy altar knight like a ragdoll.
Then came the face—whale-like and vast, silver-blue and cold. Between two impossibly broad shoulders loomed the metallic titan: Cetus. He was enormous—32 feet tall, every inch of his frame a monstrous blend of naval beast and war machine. His broad face bore the patterns of deep-sea whales, and yet his two small eyes fixed on us with cruel intelligence.
Cetus handed Ara off to a unit of knight-drones like luggage. [Take him to evac. Immediate reconditioning upon return to base. Our objective is complete.]
[It can't be...] Draco whispered, stunned. He stepped forward, frozen in disbelief. [Cetus. I watched you fly into deep space 180 years ago... how are you here?]
The massive knight didn't look at Draco. Instead, his beady eyes locked onto Andromeda. And in that long, awful silence... Cetus smiled. Or something close to it.
His whale-like mouth curled slightly—delighted. Amused by our silence. By our fear.
By how small we suddenly were.