~April 26th, 140 AH~

~Sector Capricorn, the Vulkan Coast~

The war hurtled to its natural conclusion, even as Zelen did his utmost to ‘correct’ its course.

The fighting took place beside a pre-Akropolitan observatory that faced out into the Peacebound Sea. Long abandoned by the Joint Forces, the site had nevertheless been commandeered by the Apfel Alliance and repurposed into a resupply station at the midpoint between Akropolis and the Caverns. It now served as the backdrop to the Uprising War’s most decisive battle, as the Joint Forces sought to consolidate a position from which to launch their first and final invasion on the Alliance’s home base.

Even from the outset, Zelen could discern that something about the JF’s tactics had changed. A shift toward ‘subtlety’, as alluded to by Akash Varana, had come to pass in the form of the Reiter Regiment’s new targeting priorities.

The main body of the JF strike team consisted of Major Maxwell Lee, callsign Blizzard, Captain Roddy Nascimento, callsign Patron, and General Ghata Vakta, callsign Tripod and the JF chief-of-staff himself—in other words, the absolute elite among the remaining active Reiters. The Akropolitan brass, unlike their counterpart across the battlefield, clearly had no qualms about putting all their eggs in one basket. And already, their outsized aggression had forced Zelen to reset the encounter twice, each time to save an Alliance support member from certain demise.

For the seasoned trio of Blizzard, Patron, and Tripod all but ignored Kingfisher from the outset, opting instead to focus down Panzer Graeme on the first encounter. And when Zelen rewrote a new reality where he himself flew ahead to ‘shield’ his Panzer companion, the JF Reiters then switched targets with practiced efficiency, rounding Zelen and Graeme both to turn their deadly blades onto Jaeger Feray.

By the time Zelen forced his world—allies, enemies, and all—into a third reality, his nerves jangled from the enormous strain from his manoeuvres, his skull burned with incoherent warnings from the Nexus, and his mind raced for solutions to an impossible problem.

With a sinking feeling, he came to terms with what was happening. After a month of fighting, the Joint Forces had discovered—or rather, been reminded of—Kingfisher’s most fatal weakness.

His reluctance—perhaps even inability—to move past his comrade’s mishaps and approach every fresh encounter with a clean conscience meant that each new ‘iteration’ of him became more scarred and more unstable than the last. By targeting every Alliance member but Kingfisher, Tripod and his team could therefore trap their most powerful enemy in an endless loop of Psychic degradation, until Kingfisher himself diminished into an easy target—or until Zelen resolved to ‘cut his losses’.

The ability to relive deadly battles anew. Such was Zelen Athelstan’s blessing and curse. And on this occasion, the roiling abyss within his chest would’ve spiralled into its natural form, were it not for the intervention from a fellow Einkunster.

“Zelen?” Akash Varana, ever attuned to his [ALLIES]’ pain, called to him with his trademark mild manners. “Is something the matter? I feel as though this isn’t… our first go at this, is it?”

“Akash, they… Graeme and Feray… There’re too many of us here, and I can’t… I need to—”

“Calm down, and remember our training. Don’t try to change what’s beyond your control. Focus on your role and your role only.”

“But I’m the only one that can… I’m responsible for them!”

“No, Zelen,” the Gaertner asserted, never raising his voice. “That’s never been what this was about. We all knew what we signed up for the moment we turned our backs on Akropolis. The only thing I ask of you is to be our leader on the battlefield. Lead the way, Zelen, and the rest of us will follow, come what may.”

Zelen blinked back his headache and gulped down his blackness. Somewhere, carried by the unseen currents of the Nexus, he heard the fading echoes of a ghostly voice. It spoke to him in a tender caring monotone as it mirrored the spirit of Akash’s plea.

Before Zelen could remember everything, he first needed to be present in the present.

Kingfisher flew ahead of the group, taking the initiative and trusting his allies to follow his lead. A midnight-blue Eidolon cut through the smoke-misted airspace, headed straight to its burgundy counterpart with LA [GATLING] raised and firing.

Tripod broke formation, deflecting Kingfisher’s opener with LS [SCUTUM] while raising his own right arm to counter. His JF companions on either side continued on their intended flight paths, past Kingfisher, no doubt to then converge upon a ‘softer’ target behind him.

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Zelen let them go, knowing he had a much more urgent task than to worry about his allies’ safety. He needed to trust. He needed to accept. For his most important role in the Uprising War was to match and surpass the Reiter Regiment’s destructive capabilities, and right now, his war condensed into the single target that stood before him.

Kingfisher vs Tripod. It was a matchup that neither party would’ve foreseen even as recently as a month ago, yet it now served as a stage-setter for the Battle of Vulkan Coast. Zelen leaned in with every intention of expending maximum firepower from the word go. He knew Tripod to be a skillful enough fighter to warrant his utmost respect—and he still had a view to fly to his stranded allies as soon as he was able.

And Tripod met Kingfisher’s aggression with… a slew of evasive manoeuvres. Lateral thrusters to stay a hair ahead of [GATLING] rounds. Timely backthrust to dodge a [GLADIUS] swing. An angled [SCUTUM] swipe to knock [CLUSTER LAUNCHER] off its course.

Even as the blackness within him agitated and grew, Zelen came to terms with what was happening. Tripod had no intention of duelling Kingfisher in earnest. The young general’s aim was to stall: buy enough time for Blizzard and Patron to take out the rest of the Alliance team and turn this engagement into a 3v1 in the Joint Forces’ favour. That shift to subtlety, as feared by Akash Varana, had well and truly taken root.

Trust. Accept. Zelen steeled his jangling nerves and recommitted to his immediate task. He’d be no use to anyone yoyo-ing from one distraction to another. The best way he could serve his allies—save them—was to focus on and disable Tripod as quickly as possible.

If his enemy meant to keep running from him, then he needed to back it into a corner. Kingfisher gave chase, with vision and purpose behind his every thrust and repositioning. [GATLING], [CLUSTER LAUNCHER], forward thrust into [GLADIUS] jab. The midnight-blue Eidolon cut through the smoke-misted airspace, all the while shepherding his burgundy counterpart toward the physical limits of their shared battlefield.

Past the crumbling ruins of a long-abandoned observatory. Past a cliffside and onto the sheer drop beyond. Kingfisher pushed with [GATLING], forced a reversal with [CLUSTER LAUNCHER], then readied the [GLADIUS] on his right arm, anticipating another backward dodge.

A feint. A touch of subtlety, wrought real-time from the crucible of battle. Even as Tripod backthrust onto the open water, Kingfisher deactivated his [GLADIUS] and spun in midair, before connecting with Tripod’s centre of mass with a savage downward kick.

The impact drove Tripod toward the water at speed. Zelen knew that Ghata would have to engage his forward thrusters now, not to evade more attacks but to save himself from a potentially lethal swim in the ocean.

And Kingfisher was ready to take full advantage. RS [HARPOON]. Ready to skewer and retrieve. A ghost from a faded dream flitted across his reality then, perhaps trying to remind him of the origins of his peculiar affinity with this particular hunting armament. He ignored it, along with the abyss that threatened to burst out of his chest, as he gave himself fully to his immediate task…

That was when his vision filled with an altogether different kind of blackness.

It appeared as a shadow in the waters below. Unremarkable at first, small enough to be confused for Tripod’s. Then suddenly massive, so vast as to dwarf an Eidolon and dominate a Reiter’s entire visual field.

The vastness then broke through the water’s surface. Instantaneous. Like the flickering frames of a badly damaged Old Earth film. One moment, Zelen chased Ghata’s falling Eidolon into the water. The next, both of their Eidolons were knocked into the cliff walls, as if by a mighty gust of wind, as something immense and incomprehensible displaced the endless expanse of the Peacebound Sea.

A monolithic colossus. A Leviathan. With torrents of sea water cascading off its smooth obsidian hull.

Seaborne mobile fortress RF-10, designation ‘the Mothership’.

Incomplete and often illegible scraps of Old Earth history had nonetheless spoken of the one and only time the Mothership had attacked from an ocean that was now known as the Peacebound. That one occasion had likely been the sole reason for an observatory being built on the Vulkan Coast, yet all subsequent iterations of the Syntropy’s greatest and most fearsome weapon had instead haunted the Intercontinental, until humanity learned to neglect the western edges of their known world.

Yet now, even as humanity warred among themselves, two of its most seasoned warriors were now reminded of the immensity and incomprehensibility of their true enemy. For after a month of the Uprising War, the Syntropy had fallen by the wayside, relegated to a secondary consideration—a mere obstacle to the more immediate task at hand.

But no more. The Mothership had returned. In full force, and while humanity was at their most divided and most vulnerable. And she now opened her maws of death to spit out the first heralds of the Syntropy’s last and most terrible war.

Sleek obsidian frame. Svelte muscular limbs that belonged on an Eidolon. One Vendetta unit. Then two, then three, then more and more. Squadrons of Vendettas seeped out of the unfathomable crevices of the Mothership’s hull, before floating toward the pair of genuine Eidolons that now scrambled to get out of her enormous shadow.

No. Toward one Eidolon. By some primitive yet arcane logic, the Syntropy had chosen their first target. And every unit of the Vendetta army now flew toward and converged upon the burgundy figure of Tripod, with their joints dispersing energy streams of red and death.

Zelen saw this. Came to terms with what was happening. More ghosts whispered—no, screamed—at him from the unseen distance, and from within the hollow of his own chest.

He blinked, gulped, and flew.