The Celestial Avatar of Emperor Valerius was blinding.
He was a silhouette cut from the fabric of a star—pure, oscillating golden light. He didn't have features, only an outline of regal perfection. He wielded a sword that wasn't made of metal, but of a tear in the cosmos—a Silence Blade.
Opposite him, the Harmonic Prime looked like a brawler covered in mud and scars. Its armor of ice was cracked, its magma engine sputtered, and its water hydraulics hissed vapor into the void.
"You are heavy," Valerius's voice vibrated through the vacuum, bypassing ears and hitting the mind directly. "You are burdened by matter. I am light."
He moved.
He didn't accelerate; he simply existed in a new location. He appeared instantly behind the Prime.
SLASH.
The Silence Blade cut through the Prime's left shoulder.
There was no sound of metal tearing. The Frost-Breaker's ice armor simply vanished where the blade touched it. Deleted from reality.
"Left flank lost!" Skid screamed. "He's erasing us byte by byte!"
Julian swung the Prime around, delivering a massive backhand with the Magma Fist.
WHOOSH.
The fist passed right through Valerius's golden form. It was like punching a hologram.
"Matter cannot touch Concept," Valerius mocked.
He thrust his hand forward.
STASIS LANCE.
A beam of grey energy hit the Prime's chest. The Magma Reactor (Titan 03) froze. The lava turned to obsidian rock instantly. The engine died.
The Prime drifted, powerless.
"We lost power!" Isolde yelled, frantically flipping switches. "The reactor is stone! We're dead in the water!"
Valerius raised his blade for the execution.
"Return to dust."
The Rust in the Machine
Julian sat in the darkening cockpit. The alarms were blaring. The Titans were screaming in his head, terrified of the Silence.
Matter cannot touch Concept.
"Wrong," Julian whispered.
He looked at his own arm—the black nanite limb. It wasn't Aether. It wasn't natural. It was Rust. It was the byproduct of decay. It was the one thing the Emperor feared because it was the one thing he couldn't control.
"Zephyr," Julian said calmly. "Vent the atmosphere."
"What?"
"The Prime is full of air," Julian said. "Vent it. Turn us into a vacuum."
"Why?"
"Because sound needs a medium," Julian said. "But Resonance... true resonance... travels through the bones."
"Do it!"
Zephyr slammed the purge button.
HISS.
Gigatons of air vented from the Titan's internal systems. The Prime collapsed slightly, shrinking as the pressure dropped.
Valerius paused, watching the machine wither.
"Suicide?"
"No," Julian grabbed the controls. "Tuning."
He channeled his power. Not into the air, but into the Structure.
Titan 01 (Gold). Become the tuning fork.
The Prime's golden skeleton began to vibrate. Without air to dampen it, the vibration built up exponentially. The metal screamed silently in the void.
Julian looked at Valerius.
"You're right. I can't hit you with a fist."
The Prime moved. It didn't punch. It Grabbed.
The Prime's hand (now vibrating at a molecular level) reached for Valerius.
Valerius laughed. "Intangible."
He let the hand pass through him.
But as the Prime's hand passed through the Golden Light, Julian twisted the ring.
Frequency Match.
He matched the vibration of the Prime's metal to the frequency of Valerius's light.
SNAP.
The hand didn't pass through. It Caught.
It was like a saw blade catching on wood. The vibrating matter disrupted the energy field.
Valerius gasped as the Prime's fingers locked onto his arm.
"Impossible!"
"Gotcha," Julian gritted his teeth. "Physics is a bitch, isn't it?"
The Injection
"Hold him!" Julian roared.
The Prime wrapped its massive arms around the Celestial Avatar in a bear hug. The vibration was tearing the Prime apart—bolts were popping, armor was shattering—but it was also disrupting Valerius's form. The golden light flickered and sparked.
"Release me!" Valerius shrieked. He stabbed the Prime repeatedly with the Silence Blade.
The Prime's legs (Titan 02) dissolved. The chest armor (Titan 05) shattered.
But the Core (Titan 00) held.
"I can't hold him forever!" Julian yelled, his nose bleeding profusely. "He's burning through the chassis!"
"We need to inject the payload!" Skid shouted. "But the delivery system is offline!"
"I am the delivery system," Julian said.
He unbuckled his harness.
"Lyra, take the wheel. Keep hugging him."
"Where are you going?"
"Outside."
The Spacewalk
Julian ran to the airlock of the Prime's head. He didn't put on a helmet. He didn't have time.
He had the Abyssal Suit's emergency forcefield, good for maybe two minutes of vacuum.
He cycled the lock.
He floated out into space.
He was a speck on the shoulder of a giant. Below him, the massive arms of the Harmonic Prime were locked around the glowing sun-god Valerius.
Julian activated his mag-boots and ran down the Prime's arm.
The radiation from Valerius was intense. His skin felt like it was blistering. His vision blurred.
He reached the Prime's hand. He stood on the thumb, looking directly at the face of the Emperor.
Valerius saw him. The giant golden head turned.
"You," Valerius's voice was a supernova in Julian's mind. "You gnat."
Valerius tried to blast him with a beam of light.
Julian raised his nanite arm.
The arm wasn't just nanites anymore. It contained the Black Box data from the Herald. It contained the Entropy code from the Chronos. It contained the Rust of the Scrapyard.
It was a virus.
Julian leaped.
He jumped from the Prime's hand toward the Emperor's chest.
For a second, he floated in the silence.
Then, he slammed his black metal fist into the Emperor's golden heart.
CONTACT.
The Dirge
Julian didn't punch to break. He punched to Upload.
Transfer.
He poured everything into the Emperor. The chaotic jazz. The Dissonance. The Rust. The pain of the Undercity. The grief of the Titans.
He forced the Emperor to Feel.
"NO!" Valerius screamed.
The golden light turned corrupt. Black veins shot through the Celestial Avatar.
The perfection broke.
The Emperor remembered fear. He remembered doubt. He remembered mortality.
His form destabilized. He wasn't a concept anymore. He was just a man in a very big energy suit.
And the suit was failing.
CRITICAL FAILURE: HARMONY LOST.
The Celestial Avatar exploded.
Not a fiery explosion. A shattering.
The golden light broke into a billion shards of glass.
Julian was thrown backward by the shockwave. He tumbled into the deep dark, spinning away from the Titans.
His suit alarm shrieked. OXYGEN: 0%. SHIELD: FAILING.
He watched as the shards of the Emperor rained down toward the atmosphere, burning up like shooting stars.
"Beautiful," Julian thought as his vision went black.
He drifted.
Cold.
Silence.
The Catch
"Julian!"
A voice.
He felt something wrap around him. Not metal. Not light.
Wind.
Zephyr.
The Wind-Walker had launched himself from the Prime in a rescue pod. He maneuvered the pod with thrusters, catching Julian's limp body with a grapple arm.
He pulled Julian inside. Atmosphere hissed.
Julian gasped, choking on air.
"I got him!" Zephyr yelled into the comms. "The Conductor is alive!"
Through the viewport, Julian watched the aftermath.
The Harmonic Prime was separating. The six Titans, exhausted and damaged, drifted apart. They looked like sleeping children.
And below them, the Earth was safe. The Iron Star was gone. The Emperor was gone.
"Is it... over?" Julian rasped.
Skid's voice came over the radio. It was quiet.
"The signal is gone, Julian. The sky is clear."
Julian closed his eyes.
"Take us home."