He awoke abruptly. The room was dark, save for the faint glow of the medical screens and the viewpanel. It was night outside. Something scraped at the edge of his hearing. He stared at the viewpanel. The stars shone brightly, yet the sky had a strange orange underglow.

Fire.

The lights flickered, and the viewpanel flashed with static. Airo sat upright in the healing pod. Something heavy lay on his legs. He peered in the darkness and realized it was Veralla. The dragonet had coiled upon herself, her pitch-black body looming at the other end of the pod like some floating void. Airo pulled his legs out from underneath her. She murmured sleepily, but didn't wake. He stood carefully. The weakness was gone; he was cured. He went to the corner, where the power armor hung on a frame, with his other gear placed in a small locker beside. He took his grid caster, donned the armor, clipped on his katana, and holstered the veronite blaster.

As soon as the armor's helmet enclosed his head, he whispered, "Cloud, status report!"

Something was very wrong, because the artificial cheer was absent from the SAI's voice. "Commander, the shrine-town is under another attack. Almost half the population is dead. I suggest you take yourself to safety immediately."

Airo rushed out of the room. He found he was inside a medical facility atop one of the cliffs. "How long ago?" he asked.

"Nine-point-three minutes since the first perimeter alarm. Eight-point-seven minutes since the first casualty," Yeoman Cloud reported. "Commander, most of Dragon Retreat's infrastructure is in critical condition. I advise immediate evacuation."

"Let me decide for myself," Airo growled. "Provide tacnet access!"

He ran outside the medical center. Immediately two lightwraiths emerged from the nearest cliff and charged him. He narrowly dodged one raking claw of the nearer apparition, and drew his katana. He made two quick cuts, destroying the lightwraiths, and paused to take stock of the situation.

Most of the lights around the shrine-town were uncharacteristically dark. Atop the mesa, the geodesic dome was burning in one giant inferno. The environmental shield was gone, and cold snow drifted inside the canyons. The air was devoid of screams or alarms, although rifle chatter and small explosions echoed sporadically in the distance. On the horizon, the energy pillar glimmered in the darkness, ever-present.

Airo ran down the cliffside toward the town's center. According to the tacnet, a large concentration of hostiles was in the area around the High Temple. Airo fri-skied downward, the katana raised high, and dove straight into a melee of lightwraiths. He swung madly left and right, disintegrating a dozen of the monsters. The lightwraiths howled and made to overwhelm him, but then stopped. Airo whirled around, seeking the source of this disturbance.

Then he saw something to the side, and froze in his tracks.

There, on a terrace in front of a lovely cliffside home, stood a single man. He wore a massive armor in crimson color, its chestplate emblazoned with a golden star. The man wore no helmet, yet he seemed unaffected by the fiercely cold air. His short, sun-blonde hair waved erratically in the sparse blizzard. He was looking down at a transhuman couple embraced in their death, and his deep green eyes were filled with remorse.

The man noticed Airo, and lifted his gaze. Suddenly, Airo's helmet retracted without warning. The cold bit savagely into him, yet he held steady, gripping the katana with both hands, and his armored gauntlets creaked. He and the man stood unmoving for what seemed an eternity, facing each other, while the horde of lightwraiths hovered around in wait.

"Airo," the man nodded.

"Ferrtau," he said. The blood-red anger that bubbled inside him rose to white-hot fury.

"So you have finally won your freedom," Ferrtau said, and gazed again at the fallen couple. His expression was distant and remote; his armor was battered and worn, as if he had crossed the galaxy with it. "I wondered if you were alive after all this time."

"Freedom means nothing for me, and you know it," Airo said in a low, ragged voice. "I have only one purpose in life now – to end you."

Ferrtau sighed quietly, and his green eyes met Airo's hateful stare once more. "The galaxy teeters on the brink of oblivion, and the first thing you do after gaining a second chance is to settle your grievances. Even after seven centuries, you still desire only vengeance. Have you ever thought to reconsider?"

"Reconsider!?" Airo shouted. "After what you have done! After what you have TAKEN AWAY FROM ME!" Red haze filled his vision. His self-control slipped. He roared and lunged at his archenemy.

There was a flash, and an unseen force hit him like a wall. Airo flew backward and fell hard on the stone ground, the katana clinking a stride away. Across, Ferrtau hadn't moved at all. The lightwraiths, too, had remained barely drifting.

"Airo, seven hundred and sixty-two years have passed," Ferrtau said softly. "There has been not a single day from them which I have not mourned Zenassa's death. Even when I was with Kalessia..." He stopped. "My life is full of sin. Yet I intend to earn redemption for my past deeds."

Airo rose to his feet. His anger had evaporated, replaced by cold and absolute hate. Hate for the man before him, and for the fact he could not harm him at all. Yet that cold hate also restored some of his clarity. "Is this your redemption, Ferrtau?" he said bitterly, gesturing around. "Twisting light into these perversions, and killing people with them?"

"No, this is my condemnation trice over," Ferrtau said in a strained voice. "What you see before you, Airo, are actions born out of necessity. In order to achieve my salvation, I have a sacred duty before the Universe. And the Revenant, they are merely the heralds of the New Age That Is To Come... and regretfully, there must be an Apocalypse before Heaven can come forth."

"First a blackguardly scholar, and now a delusional messiah," Airo said darkly. "I have seen enough. I care not for the rest of this planet, yet I am killing you for my own personal sake, Ferrtau. I vowed to it." He clenched his fists and stood ready, alone against his deadly archenemy and scores of fearsome monsters.

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"So be it," Ferrtau said, his expression turning neutral. The surrounding Revenant quivered in anticipation. "What you will achieve is only your death, Airo."

"One of us dies tonight, all right," Airo nodded. "And I intend–"

"Airo!"

Ferrtau turned, and froze in shock. Airo glanced sideways and saw Veralla. The dragonet was a few paces away from him, legs bent low and wings raised in trepidation.

"Airo, what is happening here?" she asked with a wavering voice.

"Veralla, stay behind me!" he shouted.

"You..." Ferrtau said with dream-like wonder. "You are her daughter... Veralla!" he called. She jerked her head at the sound of his voice as if struck, and took an instinctive step back.

"Stay away from her!" Airo growled, and moved between them.

Ferrtau's demeanor changed abruptly. "Airo, do not interfere," he said in a diamond-hard tone, yet his eyes were full of plea.

"Like void I will not!" Airo replied. "You and I have a score to settle."

"No scores," Ferrtau said. "No violence." He gazed again at the dragonet as if mesmerized. "This is the end... I will do anything. Just let me take Veralla away."

Something stirred in Airo. "No. Fucking. Way." Beside him, he could feel Veralla practically trembling with fear. He took a step back, and shielded her with his body.

"You do not understand," Ferrtau said, voice choked with emotion. "Airo, I will do anything. Please, let me take Veralla."

"You. Will. Not."

"What the void, Airo?" Ferrtau suddenly shouted. "You hate dragons! At least let me see her! Kill me afterwards if you want, but let me see her! LET ME SEE HER!"

Airo stood his ground. "No."

Ferrtau lost his composure. "Void it, you deusforsaken dragonslayer! I AM GOING TO END YOU!"

"Veralla, RUN!" Airo shouted, and closed his helmet. She bolted the same instant as Ferrtau and the Revenant started to move.

Suddenly, his senses were crushed under intense pressure. Time twisted, then stretched beyond an invisible event horizon. The world around him came to a halt. In one moment, he was rushed by an army of relentless apparitions and their mad overlord, in the next – the stars turned, and the mysterious, semi-controlled ability he had possessed as far as he could remember kicked into high gear. He saw the fear and recognition in Ferrtau's eyes as he, the Revenant, and the blizzard itself slowed down to an almost complete stasis.

Or rather as Airo became extraordinarily, inhumanly fast. He blinked away his surprise, and instantly assessed the situation. Ferrtau, scowled in concentration, started to increase his temporal speed too. Airo had no time to pick up his katana before his archenemy struck him down with sheer will alone. So he settled for the next best thing.

He drew the veronite blaster, and shot Ferrtau between the eyes.

Even with its velocity reduced by orders of magnitude, the gravitic light beam was impossible to dodge at this distance. The blaster spewed a cyan-purple bolt which sang through the air, and slammed full-force into the forehead of its dumbfounded target.

Airo wasted no time examining the results. He was already moving, firing salvos left and right, and tumbled forward to pick up his katana. The Revenant were slow to react to his supernatural alacrity, yet they were lightning fast in real time, and started to close in on him. Airo slid forward, slashing two nearby Revenant, and vaporized a third with the blaster. He rose to his feet, and blazed away at the apparitions until the blaster's charge ended. Then he ran.

He was surprised to see Veralla almost a hundred meters down the walkway. For some reason, her subjective time stream was also accelerated. He caught up to the dragonet, startling her.

"Oh! Where are we going?" Veralla asked in distress.

"As far away as possible," Airo said. Veralla had become faster on her feet since her hatching, though she still struggled to keep his pace. They reached the valley bottom and ran across the wide squares, going past many Revenant who tried to pursue them in vain. Airo felt like his whole body was being crushed by a giant invisible hand. His time-shifting ability had never lasted so long. Beside him, Veralla also seemed to struggle under the forces of relativity. "Keep running!" he shouted in encouragement. "Look for vehicles!" An idea struck him. "Cloud! Come in!"

For three long seconds, nothing happened. Then, "Commander! That was quite the burst transmission! How can I be of assistance?"

"Give me the location of the nearest vehicle! Preferably something fast!"

"Right away, Commander. There is a tuned-up ATV by a repair station less than fifty meters away from your position. Transferring exact coordinates now."

Airo turned around the indicated corner, and found the ATV parked in front of a large garage bay. He opened the driver's door, tossed Veralla inside unceremoniously, and then climbed in the cabin. Yeoman Cloud had already overridden the controls, and the vehicle's engine sprang to life. In that moment the timeshift receded, and Airo's senses returned to normal.

Airo throttled the accelerator, and the ATV hurtled away. He drove along the western road leading out of Dragon Retreat. Abruptly, two Revenant emerged on the road right in front of the vehicle. Airo turned sharply to the left to protect his lower body, pushing the ATV into a powerslide, and leaned heavily to the right, awkwardly pulling the katana out. He angled the blade horizontally just as the two Revenant phased into the cabin, and disintegrated them an inch away from Veralla's snout, who yelped in surprise.

Airo re-stabilized the ATV, and dashed full-throttle out into the frozen wasteland. He drove toward a glacier range ahead, snow and ice crunching under the wheels, the obliterated shrine-town and its burning geodesic dome swiftly receding in the distance behind. He controlled his breathing to get his pulse down, and glanced at Veralla. The dragonet was over-anxious, her twin crests risen to full height, her slit-pupiled eyes wide and round.

"Who was that man?" she asked in a hushed tone.

"His name is Ferrtau. Tungust Ferrtau," Airo said curtly.

"Why was he attacking and killing people?" she asked. "And why did the monsters follow him?"

"I have no idea," he said. "And honestly I do not care. My only desire is to kill him."

Veralla sat silent for a minute. "Why did he want to take me?" she asked in a small voice.

"I do not know," Airo said. "Probably because he is – was – a companion to your mother."

Veralla suddenly perked up. "My mother? You know my mother?"

"I..." Airo hesitated. "I will not talk about this."

"But I want to know about my mother!" The dragonet reared in her seat. "Please, tell me!"

"I said, I will not talk about this!" Airo snarled.

Veralla let out a small whimper, and curled around herself. Then she sprang back. "We forgot about Kiana and Zuckeroff! We must return for them!"

"No," Airo said. He checked the ATV's speed. If the landscape ahead didn't warp away or pull off some other paraworld trick, they would reach the glacier range after twelve minutes.

"But they helped us during the reality storm! And they have been nice to me! And they have listened to your orders! We must return and help them! And we should try to save as many of the other people as we can, too!"

"Listen," he said in a hard tone, "that town is now swarming with Revenant, or whatever those aberrations are called. Everyone is probably dead already. Dragon Retreat is no more. Forget it."

"But I–"

"I said, forget it!" Airo shouted. Veralla subsided miserably. "This is the harsh reality of life," he muttered to himself. He glanced at the rear-view display. No one was in pursuit. He thought he sensed something.

Instantly, the driver's door was ripped out of its housing. Airo whirled, and found himself against Ferrtau, who hung onto the ATV's frame. "Enough," his archenemy snapped, and punched him in the face. The blow ripped Airo out of his seat, and sent him crashing across the cabin and through the passenger's door. He flew outside and landed on the icy ground at a hundred miles per hour. The power armor protected his body during the fall, and prevented Ferrtau's fist from pulverizing his head, albeit barely. Airo swiftly lost consciousness, tumbling amidst the frozen landscape, the last thing he heard being Veralla's terrified cry.