"What the hell..." I muttered, unable to process what I'd just witnessed from atop the riverbank.
Cetus had its gaping maw wide open, devouring everything in its path, on the verge of biting down on Andromeda's foot—when suddenly a colossal spike of spirit energy exploded from within the knight. In a blur faster than thought, Andromeda boomed off into the distance, vanishing in less than a blink.
The only trace of where he went came from the echoing chain of impacts—distant but thunderous—crashing through the city like a meteor storm.
The sheer shockwave from that single boost scorched the entirety of Cetus' front, blew Draco into the side of a building, shattered glass across a dozen blocks, and split the river clean in half.
Then, like a curtain drop, a Freiheit spacecraft descended from the sky, hovering just above the drained riverbed in front of the stunned Cetus. Bits of Cetus—its right arm, blackened chunks of plating—fell into the water, smoking. Its body dematerialized, disappearing in a flicker of failed code, and its pilot limped up onto the craft's ramp, staggering with a ringing head before the ship ascended.
"No!" I roared.
Draco and I lunged from the riverbank, launching after the fleeing craft—but it was already too fast, too high. His claws swiped nothing but air as the ship pulsed with energy and blinked away into orbit.
Splashing down, we stood in the shallows of the fractured river, watching as the other Freiheit warships followed suit—smoking, scarred, but still functional. One by one, they left the planet's atmosphere, retreating until only scattered remnants remained on the surface.
"All Freiheit forces are in full retreat!" a woman's voice crackled over the comms. "It's our victory! Nymphas has expelled the insurgent forces! Relief efforts can begin immediately, Marshal!"
"All units sweep the city for stragglers. Maintain alert until nightfall. And find Andromeda's position," Marshal Excav ordered, cutting off as abruptly as he came in.
Draco deactivated the Constellation Drive with a low hum, and I felt the drain on my spirit energy finally ease. His draconic body began collapsing inward, shrinking, shifting back into his more standard armoured knight form.
[That overprotective fool really removed the limiter,] Draco huffed with a rare, begrudging laugh. [Hah! I'm definitely going to double your training, Pilot.]
"Limiter?" I asked, still shaken. "Andromeda has one?"
[All Constellation Knights do. It stops us from accidentally draining our pilots to death.] Draco explained casually as we stomped through the cracked, battle-torn streets. [With the limiter active, it's like drawing from a quiet stream. But once removed? More like opening a dam. A full-force flood of spirit energy. It would kill most pilots in seconds. But if Andromeda did it, then he must've been absolutely sure the girl could survive.]
"You never mentioned this before."
[Because most pilots never get that far. You need more than just raw spirit energy—you need over a 90% neural sync rate to even attempt it. If the sync's too low, we can't distinguish brainwave signals from spirit energy.] Draco stepped over a smouldering drone carcass. [We'd drain your mind right out of your skull without realizing it. Instant brain death.]
That cold detail sank deep into my gut. It made the danger of this war—and the nature of our bonds—feel all the more lethal.
"I remember back when we first met... our sync rate was less than 20%."
[It's closer to 50% now,] Draco replied with a rare softness. [Still not enough. But if Firefly and Andromeda pulled it off... then somehow, they got there. Fast.]
I couldn't stop thinking about it. Spirit energy wasn't magic—it was science. Condensed bioelectricity, forcibly amplified through chemical surgery and cellular reprogramming during our brutal training. Every cell membrane in our body became a generator. But if Draco was right, then removing the limiter meant those same generators could be drained dry—including the brain itself.
It was a miracle Firefly wasn't dead.
Still... if she could do it, then I will too. I'll reach that stage. Even if it means finally working with this dragon bastard instead of fighting him every step of the way.
Don't think you'll stay ahead of me for long, Firefly.
Draco continued trudging through the ravaged city, passing patrols sweeping for survivors and enemy stragglers. The devastation was nearly beyond comprehension—collapsed buildings, scorched homes, bodies buried under ash and rubble. Civilian and soldier alike, some crushed beneath vehicles, others sprawled near ruined storefronts.
Piles of shattered Freiheit automatons littered the roads, tangled with their own wreckage. Drone husks. Ruined tanks. Burnt trees.
I'd seen horror over the last six months of service, but this...
This was worse. This was a city—once warm, alive, human—now cold with death.
Draco said nothing, but every time we passed a fallen child, steam hissed angrily from his vents.
Following the carnage, we finally found a trail—entry and exit wounds across skyscrapers. A tunnel of destruction through the skyline.
Draco traced it down into a zoo, the ground torn apart, fences ripped from their moorings. It looked like a wild god had crash-landed.
Then we saw the butterfly exhibit.
[Well,] Draco scoffed, crouching low to squeeze through a shattered wall, [Would you look at those two.]
In the centre of a crater, surrounded by fluttering wings and soft sunlight, lay Andromeda—powered down, scorched, but somehow still intact. His chest was open. Inside, Firefly lay fast asleep, butterflies perched atop her, undisturbed.
I smiled without meaning to. "They actually look peaceful."
[Fighting Cetus must've drained them to the marrow,] Draco agreed, scanning them. [Andromeda's nearly out of power. She's almost entirely depleted—just enough spirit energy left to keep her heart beating.]
He thudded down beside them, collapsing into a mound of dirt and scaring away a cluster of butterflies.
[Sending a request for a medical evac. She'll need help. That kind of drain could put her in a coma if she's not stabilized soon. May as well rest too. My joints feel like rusted gears after today.]
I exhaled and finally let myself relax, taking in the surreal calm of the shattered dome above. That's when I noticed the trash bin next to Andromeda—too clean, too placed.
Curious, I reached over and pried off the lid.
Inside were five nuclear warheads.
My blood went cold.
"Uh... Draco?"
[I see it,] he muttered as his sensors flared. Immediately, he slammed the lid shut. [Bomb disposal team—now. What in the Empress' name are those doing here?]
The familiar ceiling of the hospital room was not something I was thrilled to see again—especially not with a nagging nurse hovering beside me.
"You've got acute muscle failure across your entire body, internal bleeding, multiple bone fractures, and you've just woken up from a three-day coma! Lay down now—or you'll tear open your stitches!" she scolded, forcing me back against the bed as if I'd just tried to bolt.
She yanked the sheets back over me, then lightly patted my forehead like I was five years old. "There. I need to inform your guardian you're awake—so don't go running off."
Slamming the door behind her, she vanished. And there I was, left alone, trying to figure out what I'd done to deserve a five-minute lecture before I'd even had time to blink. My body felt like it had been through a meat grinder, but I didn't expect to wake up and get yelled at for surviving.
"Has it really been three days...?" I murmured.
Reaching up, I felt the thick bandage wrapped around my ears. There were cold metal stitches tugging at my skin in several places across my body. My right arm still worked, though—at least for now—so I carefully reached for the remote on the side table and switched on the TV, flipping straight to the news.
"—relief efforts across Trigrata City are underway, with the Empress herself spearheading rebuilding operations. Engineers from across the galaxy have been called in, and the Empire is simultaneously rooting out infiltrators from its ranks. Three hundred confirmed spies have already been identified—disguised using advanced camouflage tech capable of fooling security systems into registering automatons as real people—"
Good. At least something was being done. I set the remote down and sank deeper into the pillow, drifting toward sleep.
Then—
"This just in. We've received confirmation that Andromeda's pilot has finally awakened from her three-day coma."
My eyes shot open. How the hell do they know that?
"We'll have a media team dispatched soon for an interview. For now, the people of Trigrata—and the Empire at large—owe her a debt of gratitude for exposing Freiheit's attempted assassination of the Empress."
Images began flashing across the screen. Footage of Andromeda tearing through squads of automatons, shielding civilians, defending soldiers. Explosions bloomed across the battlefield as he detonated two Freiheit warships from within.
Then scenes of him and Draco charging through the swarm of auto-knights chasing Cetus and Ara, and finally—there it was—their fight in the river. Brutal. Chaotic. Catastrophic.
And last of all: the image of Andromeda, broken and still, butterflies crawling over his body. I was asleep inside his open chest, completely out cold, covered in them too.
I tried to shut the TV off but fumbled the remote—it slipped out of my hand and clattered to the floor.
"We pray Andromeda's pilot makes a full recovery," the anchor continued. "In gratitude for her actions, a monument will be erected in Trigrata City to honour both her and her knight."
Before I could even think about reaching for the remote—
"Oh no you don't."
"Ahh!" I gasped, flinching as someone gently pushed me back into bed.
It was Commander Peter.
"C-Commander? Weren't you supposed to be in the Greyrot Quadrant?"
"My job was done a while ago," he said with a tired smirk. "The Empress called me in the moment you were admitted. Don't ask me why, but out of everyone... I got assigned as your guardian instead of Tony or Monica. You little pain in the ass. I've been waiting for you to wake up for two days now."
"Sorry, Commander..."
He lifted a hand, and I half expected a flick to the forehead. It was the same face he made right before smacking Evan or Jason.
Instead, he held out a fork with a slice of apple.
"We seriously need to work on that ego of yours," Peter sighed. "Now eat. You might be an AKP, but even you can't go days without food."
I took the slice without protest. Chewed slowly.
"Eat slow. You'll choke if you rush it."
After swallowing the first bite, I asked, "What happened to Andy?"
"Your knight?" he echoed, offering another slice. "They moved Andromeda to the hangar beneath the palace. He's powered down for now. They managed to retrieve most of his parts from the river—but they're still searching for his missing arm. Apparently, it's buried in one of the seven buildings you smashed through during your escape from Cetus' vacuum."
The screen on the wall was still playing footage of that very damage. I winced, feeling a pang of guilt twist in my stomach.
Hopefully they don't blame me too hard for the property damage. It was either that or getting ground up by Cetus' face...
"What about Cetus?" I asked.
"Your burst fried him completely. The pilot dematerialized the Constellation Knight and retreated before Draco could catch up. They fled the planet in the chaos—barely made it, by the sound of things. Took a full battalion and Orion's support just to secure Ara and get her to safety."
That last part caught me off guard.
"Wait—Orion helped?"
Peter nodded. "Yeah. Surprised me too."
I'd been so sure Orion was a traitor. With Zero and the fake Minister Whalen turning, I'd half expected everyone in power to follow.
"What about Boötes and Eridanus' pilots?"
"They're safe. Sent back to their battalions once the city was secured. They're hunting Freyt. That leaves just you, Draco's pilot, and Danny still in Trigrata."
Before I could ask more, the hospital door slammed open.
Marshal Excav entered with his usual thunderous presence—and his usual scowl. "You should remember your honorifics when addressing a senior officer, Commander Frieden."
Peter barely looked at him. He just fed me another slice of apple, calm as ever.
Commander Frieden, I thought. So that's his last name. Weird. I've called him Commander Peter in my head for so long...
The Marshal stepped aside as a royal doctor entered the room.
"Pilot Firefly," the Marshal began stiffly, "your actions saved thousands. Thanks to you, only a small portion of the city suffered lasting damage during the two-hour invasion. However, due to the severity of your injuries and near-total spirit depletion, you are hereby suspended from active duty for two months—with full pay—to allow for complete recovery. The palace physician will accompany you back to your unit and—"
"Not needed, Marshal," Peter interrupted, exhaling as if he'd been waiting. "We've got our own doctors at the compound. No need for the royal doc to leave the palace grounds."
"I insist," Excav growled.
"I refuse your insistence," Peter replied flatly.
Still chewing, I watched the two men face off like rival beasts. A lion and a bear. Sparks flew. Neither one blinked.
It was kind of nice, in a strange way. They were both fighting over who got to worry about me.
Still... considering how often I've been landing in hospital rooms lately, maybe one day I won't be walking out of one at all.