The Titan-class Syndicate ship known as Crimson Cathedral floated in the sky like a blackened crown of gods — massive, humming with orbital weaponry, and guarded by a rotating halo of Velcyrion-class airmechs. Each winged war machine moved with eerie precision, their emerald cores glowing with murderous intent.
Sovereign Red tore through the clouds, dodging plasma fire, spiraling like a phoenix in warpaint. Inside, RAID-13's eyes locked forward, lips curved in his usual half-mocking smirk.
"Crimson Cathedral, huh?" he muttered. "What kind of cult names their deathtrap like a holy book?"
A missile whistled past.
Red's right cannon extended. He fired.
Three Velcyrions exploded in sequence, raining debris onto the charred ruins of Zephrax below.
The Cathedral's defense systems awoke — turrets emerged, walls shifted, pulse shields flickered into existence. A blinding crimson beam shot from the ship's underbelly, nearly bisecting Sovereign Red midair.
"Dodge pattern Theta. Overclock targeting. We're not knocking — we're kicking the damn door down."
He flipped the mech into a dive.
Mid-fall, he ejected the plasma sword from Red's forearm housing. It shimmered, not with light — but with heat-hungry gravity.
With a roar, Sovereign Red smashed into the Cathedral's upper hull.
Steel buckled. Alarms screamed. Mechs scattered.
RAID stepped out, sword dragging sparks.
"Open wide. Daddy's home."
Interior: Crimson Cathedral – Hangar Bay 17
Talis watched chaos bloom from a corner control booth. Her wrists were bound in magnetic cuffs, face smeared with grime and dried blood. She didn't look like a war-hero or prisoner.
She looked like vengeance unfinished.
When the breach alarms howled and the bulkhead imploded, she smiled.
RAID-13 stormed into the hangar, Sovereign Red slamming mech limbs into elite guards as he dismounted. Dozens of troops surrounded him instantly — Syndicate Blackflame elite.
He barely blinked.
"Just once," RAID said, drawing his second blade, "I'd like a warm welcome. Cookies. Confetti. A 'thank you for wrecking our army' card."
The closest trooper charged.
RAID sidestepped and split him in two.
What followed wasn't a fight. It was a massacre.
Sovereign Red acted as his shadow, auto-firing at incoming mechs while RAID cut down foot soldiers like they were made of paper and shame. He fought with deadly poetry — every motion a clean arc, every slash a sentence of death.
"Y'all brought chains to a godhunt," he mocked as he carved through another wave. "Cute."
By the time they reached Talis' prison cell, the hangar bay was flooded in silence and bodies.
Talis raised an eyebrow. "Took you long enough."
RAID sliced the cuffs. "Fashionable entrances take time."
She rolled her wrists. "They're about to purge the ship. Kill switch in the engine core."
RAID grinned. "Then we take the core."
She stared. "It's suicide."
RAID sheathed his sword. "I make suicide look like poetry."
Crimson Cathedral – Engine Spire
The deepest level.
Walls glowed blood-red from the reactor's unstable core. Syndicate command officers screamed into radios, trying to stabilize the override. Too late.
Sovereign Red dropped in like a meteor, deploying energy hooks and storming through the station.
RAID and Talis moved like a two-man hurricane — she with a hijacked Syndicate blade rifle, him with twin plasma sabers.
"Left corridor!" she shouted.
RAID spun and fired.
Three commanders fell.
They reached the core control room — an obsidian dome lined with data columns and cryo-conduits. The override key hovered in a glass case.
Talis started hacking.
RAID turned to the last Syndicate elite guarding it: a ten-foot obsidian armor behemoth known only as SYN-DREAD.
It didn't speak.
It attacked.
The duel was thunder.
RAID and SYN-DREAD clashed with earthshaking fury. Sparks flew. Blades collided. The control room trembled under the pressure of titanic strikes.
RAID taunted between blows.
"What's your name? SYN-DREAD? Sounds like a rejected rapper and a shampoo brand."
The giant roared.
RAID caught its punch, drove a saber into its knee, spun, and bisected it from hip to clavicle.
He turned to Talis. "Done?"
"Shutdown initiated."
The ship groaned.
RAID radioed Red. "Ready for exfil."
The Cathedral began collapsing.
Extraction — Skyfall Sequence
As Sovereign Red launched from the breaking ship with both RAID and Talis inside, fireballs erupted around them. The Cathedral imploded behind them — a fallen god-ship.
Talis collapsed inside the cockpit.
RAID looked down at her.
"You still owe me a drink."
She smirked. "You're buying."
He laughed as the wreckage fell behind them.
Next stop: the multiversal border. And the next warlord in line.