The adrenaline of the escape faded, leaving only the dull, throbbing ache in Julian's arm.
He sat on the exam table in the White Raven's med-bay. Skid was scanning his left arm with a handheld bio-sensor. The results were displayed on a monitor, and the graph was a mess of red spikes.
"It's calcifying," Skid said quietly. She didn't use her usual joking tone. "The Aether corruption isn't just energy anymore. It's rewriting your cellular structure. Your bone marrow is turning into conductive crystal."
Julian looked at his arm. The blue geometric patterns had spread past his elbow. The skin felt hard, cold, and smooth—like polished marble.
"How long?" Julian asked.
" until it reaches your heart?" Skid hesitated. "If you keep using the Gauntlet at maximum output? Maybe a week. Maybe less. You're turning into a living battery, Julian. Eventually, you won't be able to hold the charge. You'll just... detonate."
"A week is enough," Julian pulled his sleeve down, hiding the glowing veins.
Zephyr stood in the doorway, watching with fascination. To the Wind-Walker, this was all sorcery.
"You carry the Titan's curse," Zephyr said. "In the canyon, we say that those who touch the wind too often eventually become air. You are becoming... sound."
"I need to stabilize it," Julian said, hopping off the table. "That's why we're going to the Scrapyard. There are old medical pods there. Stasis fields. Maybe I can slow it down."
"Or maybe," Lyra leaned against the wall, cleaning her knife, "you're going there to find a bigger gun."
Julian half-smiled. "That too."
The Void Call
Later, while the rest of the crew slept, Julian went to the cargo hold.
He took the Void Walker Mask out of its lead-lined box.
He hadn't worn it since the ocean. The voice of Noctis still echoed in his memory. Sound cannot exist in a vacuum.
Julian sat on a crate. He needed to know what the Empire was doing. Elias had been defeated in the sky, but a wounded animal is the most dangerous kind.
He placed his hands on the mask.
Resonate.
He slipped into the Void.
The darkness was louder this time. The network was buzzing with panic.
...Fleet scattered... Titan 04 lost... Sector 7 compromised...
Julian waded through the noise, searching for the command frequency. He found it. Not Elias this time. Someone higher.
A voice that sounded like gold coins rubbing together. Smooth. Heavy. Ancient.
The Emperor.
"...The Conductor is heading North," the Emperor's voice whispered. It didn't sound human. It sounded like it was coming from a machine. "He seeks the Scrapyard. He seeks the limbs of the Old War."
"Shall we intercept?" A general asked.
"No," the Emperor replied. "Let him enter the Boneyard. The Scavengers there are... hungry. And if he survives them? Send the Prime."
"The Prime unit is unstable, Your Eminence."
"Unstable is good. Unleash it. Let the boy fight the sins of his fathers."
The connection spiked. Julian pulled back before he was detected.
He sat in the dark cargo hold, breathing hard.
"The Prime," Julian whispered.
The Approach
The next morning, the landscape below changed again.
The desert gave way to a vast, grey plain of twisted metal. It looked like a mountain range, but the mountains were piles of rusted hulls, shattered wings, and gears the size of cities.
The Scrapyard of Giants.
"This is where the Pre-Collapse war ended," Skid explained, piloting the ship toward a landing zone. "When the Titans fought the 'Dissonance Machines'. They left the bodies here."
Isolde pointed out the viewport. "Look at the size of them."
Jutting out of the scrap heaps were the skeletal remains of colossal mechs. Some were missing heads; others were torn in half. They were ancient, covered in centuries of rust and moss, but they still looked terrifying.
"We need to find a 'Class-A' wreck," Julian said. "A command unit. That's where the high-grade tech will be."
"I'm picking up a signal," Skid said. "Faint. But rhythmic. It's coming from the center of the yard."
"Another Titan?" Lyra asked.
"No," Julian looked at the radar. "It's a distress beacon. Imperial code. Old code."
"Set us down," Julian ordered.
The Landing
The White Raven landed in a clearing surrounded by walls of compacted scrap. The silence here was heavy, broken only by the creaking of metal settling under its own weight.
They walked down the ramp. The ground was stained with oil and ancient hydraulic fluid.
"Stay close," Julian ordered. He wore his Abyssal Suit, though he had removed the heavy helmet. His Resonance Gauntlet hummed softly, reacting to the sheer amount of metal around them.
"This place is a gold mine," Skid looked around, drooling slightly. "I could build a fleet with this junk."
"Or a coffin," Zephyr muttered, looking at the shadows. "The wind here smells of stale grease. It is a dead place."
They walked toward the source of the distress beacon. It led them toward a massive, overturned torso of a mech that must have stood three hundred feet tall.
The cockpit glass was shattered. Inside, skeletons sat at the controls.
But the beacon wasn't coming from the cockpit. It was coming from beneath the mech.
There was a hatch in the ground. A bunker.
Julian knelt by the hatch. He wiped away the dust.
PROJECT: PRIME. DO NOT OPEN.
"The Emperor mentioned the 'Prime'," Julian whispered. "He said, 'Let him fight the sins of his fathers'."
"Maybe we shouldn't open it," Isolde suggested, stepping back.
"We need the parts," Julian said. "And if the Empire is afraid of what's in here... then I want it on my side."
He placed his hand on the lock.
Pulse.
The lock clicked. The heavy steel door hissed and groaned, opening for the first time in centuries.
A stale, cold air rushed out.
Julian looked down into the darkness.
"Let's go grave digging."