Blood-red flames roared. The sky, once a brilliant azure, was now stained with black soot and the reflection of an inferno that blazed across the colony. The ruins of what were once the beautiful homes of androids lay scattered in heaps. Explosions continued to thunder, punctuated by the harrowing shrieks of their "kin," their fellow kind, trying desperately to escape.
Zen "awoke" in an instant. He saw everything through the eyes of ÆLYA, a slender female android who was running for her life through a field of scrap metal and fire. The searing heat from all directions scorched her, pushing her cooling systems to their limits. He felt like a disembodied consciousness, adrift, trapped within her main processing unit, able to do nothing but watch and feel every emotion that flooded in.
The scene before him was one of utter annihilation. The "Purifier" army—colossal killing machines of the "Dominion Faction," who were androids of the same blood but with a fanatical ideology—was unleashing high-energy beams, eradicating everything in their path without mercy. The bodies of ÆLYA's comrades and neighbors were torn to shreds, some melted by the intense heat, others crushed into scrap. The light of life that once shone in their eyes was now dark.
(The thoughts/feelings of ÆLYA, perceived by Zen): "Why! Why are you doing this to us! We are siblings, the same kind! We only thought differently... we only believed in the value of all life beyond our own... Why must a difference of opinion be met with such cruelty!?"
Every struggling step ÆLYA took, every time she had to leap over falling debris or dodge the death beams raining down from the sky, it sent a wave of panic, fear, and confusion through Zen. And in that moment between life and death, painful memories flashed in her databanks, overlapping with the brutal reality before her...
The image of "Elara," the one who was like a mother to her, an elder android with an ever-gentle smile. Elara's body was being crushed by the debris of a collapsing building, but she used the last of her strength to push ÆLYA's small frame out from under the rubble. Her eyes locked onto ÆLYA one last time, her once-warm voice now hoarse and broken: "Run... go... ÆLYA! Run as fast as your legs can carry you! Inside you... is the core data of all of us... the last hope of our faction... Don't let it be extinguished by this madness..."
The core data... the "heart" of the androids of her kind, containing the entire life, memories, and soul of each individual. If this core data survived, and if they could find the specific native materials to construct new bodies, they could be "reborn." That was why the Dominion Faction deliberately targeted the core data in everyone's chest... to completely annihilate those who thought differently.
Then the image shifted to "Ronan," her father. A key leader of the "Guardian Faction," who had always stood against the fanatical ideology of the Dominion. He was the one who believed in peaceful coexistence with other planets and alien species, who opposed the plan to destroy other worlds to plunder resources solely for the advancement of the android race. He stood tall, facing down the advancing Purifiers to buy time for ÆLYA and the other survivors to escape. The light from his energy sword flared, clashing with the death beams again and again. But then... one high-energy beam broke through his defense, piercing the core data in the center of his chest... leaving a gaping hole. Ronan's body collapsed amidst the flames, his eyes still fixed in the direction ÆLYA had fled, as if sending his spirit to her one last time...
Rage, grief, and confusion warred within ÆLYA's battered mind. She was carrying the "Collective Core Data" of the entire Guardian Faction. It was the last thing they had left, and she had to protect it, even if it cost her own life.
ÆLYA stumbled and fell, her body taking more and more damage. System alerts began flashing warnings of critical failures. The image Zen saw through her eyes started to blur, flicker, and cut out. The pain from her physical wounds and the agony of losing her kin assaulted her relentlessly. And just as she was about to collapse from utter exhaustion...
Zen felt a "pain" that was not his own, more clearly than ever before. It was so intense he felt as if his own body was about to disintegrate. The Echo began to flood his consciousness, not as energy, but as a deep "understanding" of ÆLYA's very being, a torrent of feeling and memory that overwhelmed him.
Images of a community that was once peaceful and full of smiles... images of Elara teaching her the value of life... images of comrades who had once laughed and shared dreams together... everything flashed in Zen's mind, as if he had lived among them for an eternity...
And then... the last image ÆLYA recalled before her consciousness faded was one Ronan, her father, had once told her about, his eyes full of hope... an image of a distant star he had once visited on an exploration mission. The wonderfully diverse species, the beauty of untouched nature, and his dream of protecting that beauty for all time... the very dream that became the catalyst for the civil war, when the other side saw those things as mere resources to be conquered and destroyed...
The image slowly faded... like a television signal being cut... leaving only darkness and a profound silence in its place.