The Aegis’ main cannon was glowing hot and starting to warp, but Rylen gave the order to charge it yet again anyway. The crew didn’t argue back that time, and simply gave him the weapon’s status, “…Cannon deteriorating. Barrel integrity at 6% and dropping.”

Rylen glowered, That was the last of it, then… The Aegis is done-for…

Wings were wrapped around like a double-layer cocoon, but as the after-effects of the shot subsided, they began to peel away. Ren’s came off first, like two massive flat hands, and she looked up, arms holding around Furion’s shoulders for dear life. He held around her core in turn, and rotated them around slightly to behold the result. Not seeing anything obvious, they dared to hope; they glanced at one another, and Ren lifted off from the seat she’d made of Furion’s leg, and let her wings carry her forward, “…Is it done? Did we win?”

“It took the hit directly… I watched it burn… There’s just no way it could’ve survived…” He turned his gaze up at his ship then, and saw the devastation the battle had wrought to it, “…I’ve never heard of a Fortress needing to pop-off three times in a row like that. That cannon’s supposed to be a one-and-done deal. They’re going to have to decommission it after this…”

Ren was listening, but she spotted the husk of Alexander’s armor, and her heart sank. Wings folded in slightly as she descended, then spread again just before she set her feet into the rock-laden slurry. The way that armor was just lying there in the muck, as though thrown off the Aegis like trash, was an insult to everything they stood for, and she carefully stepped closer. The body of the suicidal Myrmidon hadn’t gone unnoticed either, lying face-down nearby where the force of the cannon’s volley had knocked him off the rock he’d landed on.

Furion descended as well, but he kept to the dry riverbank, landing on a flat rock with one hand up against his bruised midsection, “…Even with the inertia modulators I probably still cracked some ribs…” He grumbled quietly to himself, and lifted his head as he opened a comm to Jense and Corbin, “Alright, go ahead, you two.”

Ravan landed on the other bank, silent as she watched Ren reach for the armor and pull it up. The rear side of it had been completely melted, fusing the joints into a solid block that memorialized the Knight’s final posture; slumped over, arms forward, and bent the wrong way at the elbows. The chest-cavity was a dark hole where the man once rested, and Ren finally gave in to the reality.

“…They’re all gone.”

“Corbin and Jense are still around…and Bianca, wherever she went…” Ravan noted, and let out a heavy sigh, “Can’t believe she just dipped like that…”

“Deserters will face the consequences.” Furion commented as he stepped off the rock to hover just above the mud, “There wouldn’t be anything of him left, Ren… He took the blast without cover…”

“I know…” She replied grimly, and with a deep inhale, she lowered down to sit on her knees, pulling the empty suit onto her lap, “We should bring everyone back that we can find… I’ll…take Alex up myself…”

Furion lowered his head, but nodded, “Ravan, with me. We’ll start to gather the others.”

“Yessir…”

Ren listened to the quiet hiss as the two Fafnir lifted out of the river-bed and made their way off to the hole in the cliff-wall.

Watching those three Knights starting to process the clean-up gave Rylen the message that it was – more or less – okay to come out of emergency-mode, and he lowered down to brace his hands against his knees, “…What a disaster…”

The entire bridge-crew let out a breath as well, and slumped in their seats. Far below them, the cannon was finally starting to cool down, but it was still a warm red hue. The tip had completely melted, and most of the surrounding hull had been warped and twisted as well; such was the limit of metal against projectile plasma.

“I need whichever First Wing SkyFortress is in the area to come here.” Rylen ordered, and pushed back up to his full height, “And call for the Fifth as well. If the evacuees weren’t hurt, they’ll be mentally traumatized. Best get ahead of it.”

“…Shall we cancel the ship-wide lockdown?”

Rylen was nearly about to affirm it, but shook his head, “No, not yet. And tell everyone coming that their ships are to go on lockdown as soon as they’re within range to see us. The Fulcrum and Dreadnought are already on their way.”

“Yessir.”

Ren reached up to click the releases on either side of her helmet, and set it skullcap-down into the mud. Those bright green eyes had dulled against the heavy weight of that oncoming grief, and she bent her head down towards the half-melted armor before her, “…I’m so sorry…” She said quietly, knowing her words wouldn’t be heard by any but herself, “For not being here, for…the transfer, for abandoning all of you for months on end, only to come too late here… Everyone on Wing Team One except Ravan and I is gone… That’s on me… I don’t know how I’ll ever make-up for that; how I’ll ever atone for this failure…”

A wet slap sounded from the side, and Ren lifted her head to see the impossible.

“…Sub…mit…”

Furion stepped down into the broken corridors and buffer-walls that protected the inner research labs from the exterior rock, and turned towards the woman who’d followed him, “Steel yourself against what you’re about to see. Donivan didn’t…go down quickly. It was gruesome and violent.”

“I can handle it, sir…”

He doubted it, given what he knew was in the next room, “I think I should probably go ahead and secure the scene anyway. Wait here a minute. I’ll bring Michelle to you.”

“…Y-yessir…”

Furion paused his advance, and turned around again. He pulled his helmet off and shook his matted hair free, and reached forward to set a hand to the Knight’s shoulder, “It’s going to be hard, Ravan. Just take it slow. We’re all going to feel the loss sooner or later. Just try to think of the mission for now, and see it through until we’re done. Lord Rylen ought to be calling in support by now.”

Ravan reached her hands up to pull her helmet off as well, revealing that the dark circles had already started to creep under her eyes. She turned her gaze down, “…I just…can’t believe they were all dying, all around me, and I…had no idea.”

“We were protecting you from that. We had the safety of all these other folks to worry about first.” Furion reassured, “All these people – all these survivors – they’re still with us because we did our jobs. It may not feel like it right now, because we did still lose so many, but…to those who lived, it’ll mean everything.”

“Yessir…”

There wasn’t much more than could be said, but Furion waited another moment before giving a subtle nod and turned to go into the next room. Within, he knew to expect three bodies, but it was still a difficult thing to see the state they were in. He took a moment to pause, take a breath, and replace his helmet, and just as he did, he heard the end of something Rylen had started to say. With a grunt, he cleared his throat, “Sorry, sir, please repeat that last.”

Unauthorized duplication: this tale has been taken without consent. Report sightings.

“Do not touch any of the bodies.” Rylen said again, making Furion’s brow furrow, “We can’t risk anyone else getting contaminated by whatever that thing brought with it.”

“…Sir? But they’re our people…”

“I know. For now, I need you and Dame Ravan to make sure it isn’t still lingering somewhere nearby. I already have the others forming a perimeter. You two should join them. We’ll figure something out. And don’t talk about the fallen…not yet.”

Furion took a step back, beholding the grizzly sight from that subtle distance, but nodded, “…Yessir.”

Surprised, Ravan saw the Captain come back empty-handed, but the words to ask why caught in her throat.

“Head up and out.” He explained, “Lord Rylen wants us to secure the area before we worry about recovery-efforts.”

“…Yessir…”

They stepped back out through the cliff, and while Ravan quickly lifted-off into the sky – securing her helmet as she went - Furion lingered a moment, looking back towards the river-bed. Thinking nothing of the fact that neither Ren nor Alexander’s armor were there anymore, he stepped out to join the aerial effort, Lord Rylen must’ve seen her bring the armor back and had second-thoughts about bringing the rest…

Ren’s discarded helmet had been pushed so deep in the mud that only the chin-cover was visible above it, and it looked like nothing less than any other rock from a distance. The woman herself, however, had been unceremoniously dragged back through the broken wall below the teetering terrace, held tight by the inky tendrils of a reforged foe. Without her helmet – and with the lockdown preventing her use of the World Cloud – she was cut off from all communications. Before her – with eyes bleeding that characteristic red-black miasma – stood the self-same Myrmidon who’d thrown himself off the landing earlier in the attack…and he looked rather annoyed.

“I didn’t come all this way to play games.” It said, its voice now blended with the new host’s. Though his uniform was covered in mud, those resin-like secretions were already starting to overtake them, “Call to Gabriel.”

“N-no.” Ren choked, suspended a few inches off the ground where her whole frame had been coiled by those constrictive tails of translucent fiber. She tried adamantly to get free, twisting hard and jerking with every bit of strength she had, but nothing would give.

“I could make things very difficult for you.” Scyrexian threatened, plates of armor and rudimentary horns already layering above the Myrmidon’s skin, black threads wriggling beneath the surface, “Your comrades don’t know where you are right now, and I know how easy it would be to make it so they never find out.” It reached its hands forward, and as it cupped its palms to Ren’s cheeks, its middle fingers probed back into her hair, and pressed obviously to the nanotech nubs at the back of her head.

Ren just grit her teeth, “And y-you…need me… You w-wouldn’t… Not if you really want h-him…”

“Perhaps you recall where I said that your cooperation wasn’t necessary.” It retorted, and squeezed a bit harder.

Ren could feel her windpipe crunching, and she gasped for breath, “Th-then...why…persist…in asking for it?”

Those eyes narrowed, “I don’t enjoy having my time wasted.”

The peripheries of her vision were starting to darken, and Ren could feel her arms starting to go lax where they were pinned at her side. Maybe Scyrexian could tell that she was giving up the ghost at that point, because that noose-like grip around her throat loosened a little, and Ren gasped for breath. She coughed and heaved, retching against the pressure, and realized…her hand – in that relaxed state – could move. Likewise, as soon as she tensed-up again with her rousing, she felt the tension push her limbs back against her sides. Once she’d swallowed a few pained breaths, and she lolled her head to the side, she glowered at the creature.

“Call to him, now.”

“I c-can’t…”

“You can.”

“I can’t…!” Ren breathed out a long and difficult sigh, and as she let her head roll forward instead, she could see through the translucent appendage wrapped around her. She could also see the only golden sphere that the entity seemed to possess – a noted departure from the numerous it had before. It was a risk. She couldn’t be sure those little spheres had anything to do with anything, but she was out of ideas, and Maeve was closing-in with every passing minute. Eyes turned, and she lifted her head again. Focused on the frailty of her left arm, she let it drift upward, as if floating in water…and encircled her fingers around the little globe, “…And even if I could…I won’t…give him to you… Not after what you did to Ianori…or the Magi…or this poor soul, who you’ve made suffer too much already…” She could see the orb trapped within her grasp like a bubble stuck at the top of a syringe…and she clamped down onto it as hard as she could, with all the strength her armor could give her.

Scyrexian shrieked – the same agonized scream that it had bellowed while being fired upon in the smoky crater – and all of those tendrils it had coiled around the trapped Fafnir seized and loosened at once, leaving Ren to collapse to her knees.

The banshee’s wail was loud enough to be heard by all four of the remaining Fafnir, and they were quick to try and find where it came from.

Ren coughed strongly as she dropped to her hands and knees, and refused to give up her vice-grip on the orb. Once she had some air back in her lungs though, she turned her sights to the writhing creature nearby; Scyrexian had managed to stay upright, but it was clearly suffering. Flecks of gold were starting to puff out of its eyes, like embers blown out of a campfire, filtering up alongside the black-red bubbling ichor that was already there. It sneered at the Fafnir with an intense kind of hatred, and lifted itself back up again. Ren watched as that half-transfigured Myrmidon came at her again with a murderous kind of intent…and everything just seemed to slow down.

She easily deflected the first blow; left arm came up to push the incoming strike to the outside, and in an immediate and fluid follow-up, her right came up and struck the entity directly in the chest. That whole body lifted up from the force of the contact, hit the broken ceiling above it, and came crashing down all over again, bringing half the floor above down with it. Ren brought her arms up to protect her head, and when the rain of debris stopped, she rose up to her feet – albeit with a bit of a struggle. Scyrexian continued to resist though, and with those miasma-made appendages, lifted itself out of the rubble and reached for Ren at the same time. Ren didn’t seem to react though – she just stood there as those tendrils went around her – and just as Scyrexian believed it would gain the upper-hand, Ren outright-crushed the orb she’d been holding onto.

There was no power left to shriek a third time. The host-body – suspended half-up in the air by those semi-translucent limbs – went limp, and the entire thing collapsed forward, slumping over the Fafnir in disbelief. More and more of that black-blood smoke gave-way to gold, as its eyes seemed to surrender to the Myrmidon it had subsumed. The writhing inky limbs – barely strong enough to hold themselves up anymore – lowered further and further, until they merely splayed-out behind the creature like a thick cape.

“So that was the trick to it…how we hurt you before…” Ren said quietly, practically comforting the body as it went limp against her, and she crouched down to a knee, “Those little gold bubbles… We must’ve hit one earlier.”

Scyrexian was just angry, though, and refused to respond one way or another about it. It summoned-up whatever final shreds of control it still had over its host and pulled back where its right arm had dangled over the Fafnir’s shoulder. It grabbed at the thin lip of armor where the chest-plate gave-way to the neck, and stared bitterly, “…The…hard way, then…” It whispered, and opened its eyes wide.

A few seconds later, Corbin landed inside the crack, and saw the characteristic glow of Ren’s wings. He looked back out through the opening, “I found her.” He told the others, and quickly hopped forward to get around to her front. He saw the woman staring intently at that lifeless body, as if lost in thought, and it took a hand on her shoulder before she realized anyone else had turned-up. Corbin cupped his palms around her face, turning her head one way then the other to check if she was injured, and was relieved that she was unmarred, “…You scared the shit out of us just now. Don’t do that again.”

“…Huh?”

“We heard the shriek, but you weren’t answering your comms.” He answered, “You shouldn’t take your hat off until you’re back aboard the ship. You know that.”

She shook her head to dislodge the cobwebs, and looked down at the dead man in her arms, “Sorry, I… I thought it was over. It had one last hurrah in it.” Ren explained, and let out a gruff exhale before she lifted back up to her feet, and hoisted the body up with her. She turned in place and started to leave, hovering upward through the broken wall with Corbin right behind her. She spotted Ravan first, unsticking her forgotten helmet from the mud, and then Jense and Furion coming in from above. She kneeled to set the body down on its back on the ground, and stood up again as the remaining three finally landed around her.

Furion just threw his own helmet off and flew straight into her, no pretenses about his relief, and hugged her tight, “What happened!? Why weren’t you answering!?” He asked frantically, “I thought that fucking thing was going to start picking us off one at a time again, starting with you!”

Ren turned her eyes up, and offered a gentle return of the hug, but then pulled back, feeling a bit dazed, “Sorry.” She answered, and pulled her hand back to pinch the bridge of her nose, “I guess it somehow managed to shelter itself inside Alex’s armor, then got into this Myrmidon before we came down.” She nudged her head at the corpse, “It was really weak though. Maybe it didn’t have enough time to get its shit together before it came at me, but I…I’m pretty sure I got it this time.”

“We can only hope…”