~April 28th, 140 AH~

~Sector Capricorn, Vallemor Desert~

Kingfisher’s midnight-blue frame burst out of the carrier and took to the sky.

As he sped ahead of the course-correcting convoy, he was soon joined at his side by Ophis’s worker Eidolon. Then the two of them switched places with ‘Raven Bravo’, a model ES-V pilotted by a JF lieutenant who would now rejoin the convoy to make final preparations for the main battle.

With Zelen now at the spearpoint of the whole operation, the full picture of his war revealed itself. Below him stretched a vast flat desert, with its latticed scars and ashen pallor. Above was the ever-overcast sky, now precipitating a veritable storm in the form of the obsidian armada that loomed ahead. And to his side was Ophis, an indispensable ally and accomplice to the miracle that would headline his latest dream.

At the head of the convoy, Kingfisher dropped his velocity, matching it to that of the convoy at large. This was followed by a period of… waiting.

At this point, neither side of the war was in a particular hurry to meet the other. The Mothership and her armada advanced at a languid, self-assured pace. The humans moved with slightly more urgency, but only enough to maintain a sense of unified momentum. Nevertheless, direct confrontation was inevitable. Both sides were as prepared for it as they’d ever be.

For Zelen personally, he had every reason to wait, to delay the first exchange of fire for as long as possible. Because the moment the battle began in earnest, his war would become a race—a race between the [POSSIBILITIES] contained within a million realities and the Somatic and Psychic limitations of one warrior.

“Zelen?” Akash’s voice—noticeably and unusually nervous—broke through a private channel. “A point of clarification, if I may?”

“Go ahead, Akash.”

“I think… I think I understand the principles in theory, but to put it into practice… It’s just, I’ve only ever been good at one thing in life, and this is quite a ways removed from—”

“Go ahead, Akash.”

“Ahem, right. Just… walk me through it one more time? What do you need me to do exactly?”

“Your Einkunst. [ALLIANCE]’s secondary power turns you into a walking conduit to and from the Nexus, thereby allowing an [ALLY] in proximity to use you as a substitute Anamnium source.”

“That’s correct.”

“I need you to do more. Not to aid one [ALLY] but to broadcast your power to all 47 of us gathered here. Break through the limitations of your Seherschaft, so the rest of us may do the same with ours.”

“… Yes. But the way to do this… You want me to—”

“Call to the Nexus. From every version of yourself you could possibly dream of. Don’t worry, you won’t be doing this alone. All I need you to do is lie to yourself about what’s [POSSIBLE], as fervently and creatively as you can. As for turning that lie into truth, leave that part to me.”

“… Can it really be that simple? I just need to imagine a solution… and it’ll become reality?”

“It’s not simple at all. None of this would be possible if it weren’t for all the other times we failed, lost, and died. I know that now. Clearer than ever, and with more certainty than anyone else before me. After all the failures, losses, and deaths. After all the suffering. At some point, we’ve got to be due for a win… don’t you think?”

Akash answered this with a surprised chuckle, almost as if the two of them had shared an inside joke. And perhaps they had. Perhaps, somewhere amidst all the failures, defeats, and deaths, had been another reality where a warrior and a revolutionary had shared inane musings on the gambler’s fallacy.

But the waiting was over, and it was time for a pair of gamblers to roll the dice. Ahead, the Mothership’s stormfront broke, allowing one of the ‘wings’ of her armada to stream forward at speed, ready to sweep away the last and best humanity had to offer.

“I guess it’s time,” Zelen said. “Go ahead, Akash.”

Suddenly, the whole of Kingfisher’s cockpit fluxed with bright blue energy, as he became the first and most proximal recipient of an [ALLY]’s boon. Zelen rode this wave, clinging to its violence and instability as he allowed it to guide his own neverending search amidst a graveyard of the universe’s memories.

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For the first time that he could remember, Zelen’s consciousness mapped onto the same topographical representation of the Nexus that resided in Akash’s body. All of his senses fired at once, as he saw, heard, smelled, and felt the presence of 46 [ALLIES], 46 roiling bundles of Nexus-bound signals.

Despite feeling their presence, however, he couldn’t yet feel their connection. Blue energy fluxed and surged between Reiter and Gaertner at the convoy’s vanguard, but that same connection failed to extend to the others, as if interrupted by an invisible line.

Now it was time for a warrior to place his trust, entirely and unreservedly, in his most proximal [ALLY]. To gamble on the possibility that this revolutionary could dream just as recklessly—and remember just as courageously—as he.

And as Akash waded through a graveyard of his memories, Zelen followed, every step of the way.

Every failed promise to his family, every loss of a patient, every death at the end of a futile struggle. Akash Varana of the Year 140 Anno Hominis suffered anew every failure, loss, and death from a million realities, and Zelen Athelstan suffered with him, every step of the way, until…

For one fleeting moment, the scattered map of Akash’s [ALLIES] became one discrete diagram. The Nexus jumped across and between the signal bundles until they became 47 connected dots.

The gamble—the suffering—had paid off. Amidst a million failed realities, there was one where a revolutionary had managed to unite all of his [ALLIES] around a common impetus, no matter the physical distance or ideological difference that separated them. Zelen saw, heard, smelled, and felt this fleeting moment, and didn’t miss it. With a fresh explosion of his own Nexus-bound signals, he seized this moment and held it, thus rewriting possibility into permanence.

For what was eternity if not ephemera writ large: an ever-growing mosaic made up of fleeting moments?

The effect was instantaneous and simultaneous, felt by all within the convoy—and most acutely by the man that had suffered at the heart of it all.

“Zelen!” Akash half-shouted half-coughed into the radio. “What—?”

“Just hold on,” Zelen answered, struggling with his own Psychic disturbance. He pushed down his sorrow, better for hope to surge in its place. “Don’t worry. I’m here. I’m with you all the way.”

That was how Zelen’s war became a race. After all the waiting, time was no longer on his side. And now, he needed to trust again. Trust in all 46 of his allies to make good on this fast-closing window of opportunity.

And the newly reimagined [ALLIANCE] answered the call. With passion, determination, and bloodlust that had shed the last of its shackles.

Eidolons from all across the convoy took to the air, rapidly forming into bilateral ‘arms’ to meet the thrust of the Mothership’s wings. Then all members of Operation Victory tapped into their now near-infinite Reserves—and into power beyond their wildest dreams.

Panzers in their tank-form Eidolons generated combined shields that could rival the erstwhile dome over Akropolis. Jaegers in their cannon-form Eidolons rained sustained volleys of energy beams onto the approaching armada. And Reiters in their ES-Vs flew ahead of them all, fortified by more AU and infused with more ER than they knew what to do with, as they met the first wave of Vendettas that had broken from the Mothership’s stormfront.

Every Reiter, regardless of rank, experience, or kill count, became the paragon of humanity’s combined expertise in war. The Reiter sees into the domain of WAR, and calls forth memories of destruction and domination. These memories had never been purer, nor more emphatic, as a platoon of warriors destroyed and dominated their synthetic challengers. Some of them fell, as warriors must in every war, but they did so only after bringing down a hundred or more of their enemies.

By then, the erstwhile vanguard made up of Kingfisher and Ophis had transitioned into the rearguard, as they watched and continued to ‘fuel’ their [ALLIES]’ war. Zelen, for his part, watched and remembered everything. Every victory, small and large. Every missed opportunity and the deaths that followed. He watched, remembered, and forced himself to master his Psychic disturbance—to stretch his race for as long as possible—as 47 became 46, 45, 44, 43…

He wasn’t, of course, alone in his efforts. Both he and Akash, the flying engine of this whole operation, heard not only the echoes of distant realities, but also the rousing songs of those waiting at home. Isolation into connection. Lies into truth. Ephemera into eternity. And they relayed this music—the thudding and bracing rhythm of rebellion—onto the [ALLIANCE] that fought at the stormfront.

But the Mothership, or at least this iteration of her, wasn’t without a champion of her own—her own paragon of WAR in its purest and most emphatic form.

The storm broke again, this time to uncoil a crimson centipede, wild and surgent in his need to kill or be killed. By now, no one on the [ALLIANCE]’s side—not even Zelen—possessed the requisite intel to understand what Makiri Shiranui had become. For here was an apex predator that had been broken and mended, broken and mended, and broken and mended again and again across a million wars and myriad more hunts, kills, and deaths. And this purest, most emphatic, and most [INEVITABLE] killer across all realities now pointed his obsidian ‘blade’ into the heart of humanity’s last and bravest, to finish what he’d started at the Battle of Akropolis.

Zelen watched this, and not for the first time, fought down the urge to leave his position and join the fray. Perhaps nothing else in his war had felt more inevitable than this moment—this duel that had been written in stardust long before a graduating proto-Reiter had faced off against his most feared examiner. And yet, Zelen resisted the urge, knowing his Reserves were better conserved for another fight, a different mission. Here at the end of all things, Zelen forced himself to deny one last inevitability…

… and instead chose to place his whole-hearted trust in a new [POSSIBILITY].

“All units, this is Dancer! Clear out of Spindrift’s range and make way. This… this is a job for me.”

“Dancer, this is Tripod. Request denied. If you thought you could hog all the credit for taking down the killingest Reiter in history, you were sorely mistaken. I’m coming with you!”