~April 26th, 140 AH~

~Sector Capricorn, the Vulkan Coast~

A hairless ageless creature flew across the blackening skies, even as her companions sought to shield her from the planet’s wrath.

A journey that had begun on the coasts of Terra Nebulo now culminated at the other side of the world, along the ashen shores that bordered the Peacebound Sea. Along the way, Silon had seen and felt much of the planet’s grief, and had mended what she could with her secret [TEARS].

Her [TEARS] had given rise to her humble team of companions—had been a constant source of warmth for a hairless ageless creature that once tried and failed to hug itself. And buoyed by a singular dream that spanned worlds and lifetimes, she’d hoped her [TEARS] to also be the manna that could nourish a barren earth and heal its ancient scars, just as she’d mended the broken warriors that now flew by her side.

But as Silon reached the western terminus of her long and tearful journey, and as she flew across skies that churned with memories and harbingers of death, she saw for the first time that her hopes had been just that: a dream that turned to ash in the face of overwhelming grief.

Obsidian ‘Eidolons’ flew in numbers, blackening black skies and laying waste to a wasteland. Their presence—and the red death that surged from their slender arms—added only more tragedies unto a battlefield that had hosted untold shares of them.

Already, Silon spied fresh remains strewn across the coast. A pair of model ES-Vs, ones whose appearance resonated with fragments within her own knowledge bank, lay motionless on either side of a craggy hill, with their central chassis sliced open with surgical intent and precision.

Not far from these were two more Eidolons, of a model that took longer for Silon to ‘recognize’. Rotund, tank-like, and with their shortened arms held up to the heavens—even in death—having expended the last of their Reserves and time on earth to shield their allies’ retreat.

Silon saw the fresh remains, and her grief somehow found new depths to fill. Her monocular optic then welled with hot [TEARS] that had run out of things to mend.

No… she mustn’t stop. Mustn’t give in. Not while her chimaeric limbs still moved of her own volition. Not while the Nexus still saw fit to supply her synthetic lacrimal glands with the hopes and dreams of a dying world.

Presently, another amalgam of metal and energy cut through her vision, galvanizing her attention with the sparks of a new colour. A burgundy ES-V, flying at speed and low to the ground, trying its utmost to blend into the terrain.

For one fraught moment, the burgundy Eidolon’s SPU swivelled skyward to meet that of Silon’s. But the Reiter just as quickly averted his gaze, evidently intent on adhering to his chosen flight path. Silon watched this flight for just long enough to note its bearing—northbound to Akropolis—then let him go undisturbed, intuiting that her attention—her hopes—were better placed elsewhere.

Instead, she redirected her gaze toward the western shores, more or less retracing the path from which the burgundy ES-V had emerged. And there, she saw and felt it. The most urgent among the harbingers of death that filled the skies. The immediate epicentre of the planet’s wrath.

An obsidian Leviathan dominated both sea and land with its vastness and omnipresence. The phrase that buzzed through Silon’s processor, lifted from a graveyard of shared memories, was immense and incomprehensible. And against this impossible backdrop, the Vulkan Coast played host to the latest of its untold tragedies.

One Eidolon of human design—a lone splash of midnight-blue amidst an obsidian field—raged against the ashstorm of death that had descended upon it. Its flight patterns were erratic, and its armament rotations even more so, as it met the coordinated efficiency of the enemies that had surrounded it.

A spinning volley of [GATLING] checked the advance of one Vendetta. A wild swing of [GLADIUS] amputated the arm of another. And a seaward shot of [HARPOON] skewered two circling Vendettas at once, before flinging them into the dark waters below.

Yet, even as the lone Reiter’s mercurial manoeuvres kept his enemies at bay, more and more Syntropy streamed into the fray. An endless supply of deaths. Immense and incomprehensible in number.

Silon flew and watched this futile battle unfold. Until a half-forgotten directive (no… duty? Instinct? Yearning?) drew her toward signals she shouldn’t have had access to. These signals radiated from the Reiter himself, in broken fits and scattered starts, but with enough of a ‘familiar’ shape for Silon to read the story they told.

Rapidly dwindling Energy Reserves. Erratic fluctuations in Nexus attunement. The jargon that rattled inside the hollow of Silon’s central chassis, recalled from a reservoir of her own memories, was Psychic disturbance.

A case of literary theft: this tale is not rightfully on Amazon; if you see it, report the violation.

She knew well the source of this disturbance. Because she’d once been the source of it herself. And because she knew it well, she also saw and felt the layers upon layers of grief that scarred a warrior’s vaults of Bone.

Not just any warrior. Her warrior. Her nameless warrior that spanned worlds and lifetimes. And nameless no longer. For Silon had remembered that her warrior had a name he wanted to be remembered by, just as a hairless ageless creature would never allow herself to go nameless again.

Ze—

Another amalgam of metal and energy cut through her vision, wresting her attention away from memory and back onto reality. A crimson centipede—her mended warrior—surged ahead of her at speed, thrusters propelling him toward the thick of battle. Silon held her imagined breath and watched his flight, with dread and hope chasing each other through her inner wirings.

Spindrift joined the fight, first with a round of LA [WINCHESTER]. The bullet that erupted from the centipede’s left arm roiled with black energy as it shot across the darkened sky and tore through obsidian parts.

The Vendettas broke formation, their singular directive momentarily bisected into an uncertain choice. Even the midnight-blue Eidolon stopped its flailing and hovered in place, as its Reiter struggled to adjust to a shift from reality to absurdity. This moment of hesitation exerted its unintended effect on the Vendettas, who turned as one to face the new arrival, deeming the crimson centipede as the most blatant anomaly that needed assimilating.

Even with the full force of a deadly ashstorm converging onto him, the centipede never broke stride. With the certitude of a mended warrior who was thoroughly and immaculately attuned to [THE INEVITABLE], Spindrift dove into the Vendettas’ midst, at the same time activating LS [AEGIS] to wrap himself in an indestructible shield of arcing black energy.

The Vendettas’ attacks fizzed harmlessly against [AEGIS], even as the shield partially melted away, producing a slit that aligned with Spindrift’s right-hand side. Through this opening, the mended warrior unfurled the strange new ‘armament’ that had lain coiled against the stump that had previously been his right arm.

[URUMI].

The mass uncoiled itself to reveal a gleaming obsidian blade: segmented, flexible, and prehensile. It first shot out at lightning speed before catching a stray Vendetta within its knotted grasp. Then this hapless Vendetta became the hammerhead of a mended and reimagined ‘Mjolnir’, as [URUMI] whipped about with unchecked brutality, knocking more Syntropy units out of the air.

As more broken hunks of obsidian metal dropped into the Peacebound Sea, so too did the sky’s darkness somewhat recede. In the distance, more Syntropy seeped out of the Mothership to replenish the ashstorm, but for the time being, Silon’s mended warrior had—through sheer violence—created a pocket of safety.

Silon released the imagined breath she’d been holding. Hope swelled in place of fear as she turned her attention back onto the second warrior. The one warrior for whom she’d journeyed across the whole expanse of a barren earth. She flew into the momentarily clearing patch of sky, better to join the lone Reiter in his midnight-blue Eidolon. To be by his side, just like she had in dreams and realities that spanned worlds and life—

A surge of blue energy. A spearpoint at the end of a wobbling chain.

RS [HARPOON] shot across a clearing sky, its aim erratic and uncertain, before it clipped against the side of Silon’s SPU.

A flash across her inner wirings, sterile and mechanical, yet intimately familiar—pain. Along with that flash of pain, one of the Hornet wings Silon had worn on her SPU—a souvenir from a grief-riddled journey—exploded into dust and ash.

Across from her, a midnight-blue phantom—for that was all it was—raised its left arm to give shape to the cyclic barrels of [GATLING]. Silon simply watched, dazed, until an amalgam of crimson metal and black energy cut into her vision to shield her from one broken warrior’s wrath.

No.

Clash of crimson against midnight. Black against blue. All the possibilities within the universe converging onto one [INEVITABLE] tragedy.

No, you mustn’t do this. Don’t you know—don’t you remember who I am?

Beyond the planet’s haze, across the fog of war, and buried beneath layers upon layers of grief, a broken warrior hurtled toward the one path the Nexus had pointed him to.

Please remember me. Please remember us and all that we used to be and more. Don’t give in. Please…

Remember me, Zelen!

Silon’s pleas were but the silent buzzing of her processor, the hollow echoes within her central chassis, and the flash of all-too-familiar pain across her inner wirings. Where once a Nexus-bound bridge had connected two lonely souls, all that remained now were the creaks of cold unfeeling metal. And even those were drowned out by keenings of fresh grief and splintering wrath.

Silon tore her optic away from her warriors and looked about her. She scanned desperately for another solution—something she could mend, something that could mend her. But try as she might, her vision filled only with the obsidian behemoth that dominated sea and land. Immense, incomprehensible…

… and broken.

Silon hesitated. Only for a moment. She saw the sky fill once more with harbingers of death and destruction. She felt the restless pounding of her imagined heart.

In the end, it was so simple. The answer had always been there, staring back at her in its vastness and omnipresence. The natural and only conclusion to an endless war.

A hairless ageless creature bent toward her core. She made herself smaller and more inconspicuous than ever. So her warriors wouldn’t notice her absence. So the Syntropy wouldn’t detect her anomaly.

Silon flew toward the Mothership, optic wide open—and gleaming with the last of her precious [TEARS].