The machine, Spectra’s cathedral of death, lifts its arms—spires pivot. A shock-wave rips the air. Sand blasts past the visor like shards of glass. My ears ring. Visor cracks.
Aria yells. I roar. Whiplash resists. Meld trembles.
I grit teeth. Focus. My senses sharpen. I smell burnt insulation. I feel Aria’s heartbeat pulsing. I taste ash.
"Now!" I shout.
We strike. The whip-cables reel. Energy arcs. The desert light warps as the impact hits.
And Spectra laughs.
Not a shout. A vibration. Inside the ground. Inside my chest.
"Yes. The child shall lead.
Let them fight their broken bonds…
Let them bleed…
Then unite."
We falter. The whip-cables snap. Whiplash stumbles. The ground cracks. Red light floods the cockpit. I cough. My vision doubles.
Aria cries out.
"Naull!" she screams.
I don’t answer. Because I saw. Just for a moment. Garma’s eyes—gold. Flickering. In the distant dunes like a signal beacon.
And I know.
This fight isn’t just ours.
It’shis.
The battle starts with screams—ours, theirs, the kind that echo through metal and memory like ghosts trying to claw their way into the now.
Whiplash moves like she's rabid, like every part of her's been waiting for this moment, this reckoning. My fingers curl around the haptic yolk and I don’t even need to look—Aria’s there. She’salways there. The Meld buzzes hot, electric, unpredictable. Not a current, not yet. More like lightning on the verge of striking.
We plunge forward into the chaos.
The air’s thick with sand and static and burning ozone. Nexxus mechs pour in like a swarm of metallic nightmares—spidery, slithering, shrieking with twisted protocol. But Whiplash doesn’t hesitate. Her chains sing through the storm, glowing with Trimantium flare. I lunge her forward, spin on the pivot joint, and slam two of the bastards into the dirt hard enough to crack their plating.
"Left!" Aria shouts.
I lean with her. The Meld snaps for a second—too sharp, too raw—but we catch ourselves. Just barely. Her breath is ragged in my skull. Her fear tastes metallic. It’s all bleeding together now.
Then I see it.
Spectra.
Hovering above the battlefield in that… thing.
It ain’t a mech. Not anymore. It’s ascended, like a cathedral carved from stars and fury. Wings of refracted energy flare behind it, like the bones of forgotten gods. The thing hums in my chest like a second heartbeat, and it makes Whiplash stagger—just for a beat. Just long enough for the first hit.
The impact slams through us.
Metal on metal, psychic to psychic. I feel it tear across my synapses like a hot needle dragged through ice. My teeth snap together. My tongue splits. Aria gasps, clutching at her skull.
