"Of course."
The words left Maverick's mouth like an oath and an exhale.
Above them, the sky had vanished—replaced by a monolithic silhouette so vast, so jagged, so ruinously alien it seemed less like a ship and more like a planetary scar carved into the heavens. Black metal, curved like bone, stretched for miles across the clouds. Spires jutted from its underbelly, glowing faintly with veins of sickly orange light that pulsed like a heartbeat. Its gravity bled into the air, warping it, bending space until the sun itself looked crooked behind it.
The sirens began.
Not the ones from the temple.
The city's.
Evacuation klaxons howled like dying gods, the ground trembled as defense grids activated, and warning drones painted the sky in bursts of red as citizens flooded into subterranean shelters. Somewhere behind them, anti-air cannons groaned as they rotated toward the sky for the first time in a century.
The city of Kharon Prime, built on stone and silence, was now alive with fear.
And the Warmachines were already moving.
Maverick turned without a word and stormed down the temple's central corridor. His armor hissed, steam curling from the exposed fractures still healing from the battle on Vornex Prime. The glaives of Mitus still hung scorched across his back—one blackened from the deathblow to Armatus. Footfalls behind him confirmed the others were with him—no hesitation.
Riven was the first to speak. "So… are we gonna talk about the ship that's eating the sky?"
"Nope," Valkar grunted.
"Cool, cool. Just checking."
They passed the central rotunda of the temple. Several Primortals stepped forward, gesturing, their expressions unreadable behind crystalline masks. One began to speak—
"Maverick, we must—"
But Maverick didn't stop.
Neither did the others.
Not one of them even slowed.
The Primortals were ghosts behind them, their voices meaningless against the blare of sirens and the weight of what now loomed above. These Warmachines were no longer theirs to command.
As the temple doors slid open, light bathed the corridor—and then was swallowed by shadow.
They rushed outside.
Wind howled across the open landing platform, tugging at the long banners of the Warmachines. The skyline beyond was half-gone, obscured by the enormous vessel parked in orbit just above the city. The outer hull of the ship was lined with serrated plating—its structure looked more like a weapon than a spacecraft. And at the ship's belly, a massive circular port began to shift—like an eye dilating.
Maverick stopped at the edge.
His fists clenched.
"That's not a ship," he muttered.
Riven stepped up beside him. "That's a floating middle finger."
"It's a weapon," Valkar confirmed, scanning the lower hull. "The forward cavity's a drop maw. It's prepping to deploy something."
"Great," Riven said. "Can we get one day—just one—where we're not fighting omega-class threats?"
Valkar didn't look away from the sky.
"You know what they say," he muttered. "No rest for the wicked."
Maverick stepped forward until his shadow met the edge of the platform, the city sprawling in front of him, the sky dying in front.
He let out a slow breath.
"There's no rest for the ruthless."
The ground rumbled again.
From high above, dozens of smaller shapes began to detach from the vessel—needle-shaped craft, descending like fangs.
Behind the Warmachines, the temple lights began to flicker.
One of the Primortals called from the threshold. "You must return inside! We do not know who—"
"Don't care," Riven snapped over his shoulder.
"We don't need answers," Fitus added, stepping up last, his fists already crackling with energy. "Just a direction."
And Maverick, never taking his eyes off the sky, said:
"Enough of this."
He stepped forward.
The others followed.
Shoulder to shoulder.
War-bound.
Again.
_______
The sky opened its throat and screamed.
From the massive vessel above Kharon Prime, a series of seismic tremors pulsed through the atmosphere as if the heavens themselves were being hammered into new shape. The drop maw split wide — not with the clean geometry of human engineering, but like flesh being pried apart, torn at the seams.
And from that wound…
They fell.
Dozens.
Hundreds.
Not pods.
Not soldiers.
Something else.
Long, jagged constructs spiraled from orbit like lances hurled by giants. Each screamed with friction as it pierced the sky, their forms sleek and angular—like spears built from serrated bone and machine sinew. As they plummeted, portions of their exoshells flared with orange sigils—symbols not seen since before the Fall of Europa.
Symbols Maverick recognized.
Symbols from a war that had never ended.
The first one struck the central plaza.
A burst of kinetic force annihilated the fountain, shattered statues, and sent shockwaves through the surrounding buildings. Glass exploded outward. Civilians screamed from the bunkers below as seismic shields engaged, groaning under the pressure.
The spear cracked open mid-smoke.
From inside—
A figure unfolded.
Not walked.
Unfolded.
Its frame was eight feet tall and plated in jet-black armor with red veins glowing along its limbs. The faceplate was split down the center, revealing no mouth, no eyes—just a gaping absence that exuded heat. Its fingers clicked together as it stepped forward, each footfall forging shallow craters.
It snapped its head toward the temple gates.
And ran.
Straight for them.
"Contact!" Valkar shouted, already moving.
Maverick moved faster.
He met the figure halfway between the platform and the plaza.
The two collided.
Maverick's glaives spun, hissing through the air—only for the enemy's arm to intercept with impossible precision. Sparks erupted as their weapons clashed. Maverick twisted his body, dropped low, and slashed upward—catching the construct across the torso.
Metal hissed.
But no scream came.
Only retaliation.
The figure lashed out with a serrated backfist that scraped across Maverick's chestplate, sending him skidding back into a pillar. Dust exploded outward.
"Secondary hostiles dropping!" Riven called from above.
Dozens more spears screamed down in rapid succession—impacting across the city. Each unfurled into another of the constructs. A coordinated release.
They weren't wild.
They were marching.
Organized.
"This isn't a raid," Fitus growled, his gauntlets crackling. "It's an execution."
He leapt from the upper platform and landed atop one of the newcomers—his momentum driving the creature into the street. He brought both fists down in a seismic double-strike that cratered the ground. The machine-thing buckled and burst, limbs snapping backward, leaking glowing white fluid.
Another construct lunged at him.
He welcomed it with a roar and a magnetic punch that detonated its face.
Riven was already dancing.
He landed lightly beside two advancing hostiles and weaved between their strikes like wind through wires. His twin blades cut through exposed joints, lopping arms, heads, and torsos in perfect rhythm.
"Okay, these things can die," he called. "But they're quick. Fast-learning."
He ducked beneath a spinning strike and stabbed upward.
"They're learning too fast."
On the far side of the courtyard, Valkar drove his hammer through a cluster of three, scattering limbs like shrapnel. The aftershock cracked the walkway beneath him.
"These aren't drones," he yelled. "They're worse!"
Another one shrieked—modulated sound, not organic.
It leapt toward Valkar.
He caught it midair and ripped it in half.
"They think."
⸻
Maverick emerged from the rubble, coughing once—then charged again.
He slammed both glaives into the back of the construct he'd fought earlier, driving it into the wall. The creature twisted unnaturally, arms rotating out of joint, and slashed across his side. Blood sprayed from Maverick's flank.
But he didn't fall.
He pinned it.
One arm locked its shoulder, the other drove a blade straight into its center mass.
Sparks. Whirring. Then—
Stillness.
He ripped the glaive free.
Steam hissed from his armor.
Maverick concerningly asked over comms, "Where the hell are they coming from!?"
"Can't triangulate!" Riven answered. "Too many drop zones!" They're covering every major artery!"
"They're cutting the city off," Valkar said grimly. "They want to bury us here."
A new impact shook the earth.
Bigger.
Heavier.
Maverick turned toward the horizon—and froze.
The street at the far end of the district opened.
Not collapsed.
Opened.
The foundation of the city groaned as something rose from beneath it—a subterranean structure triggered by the fall.
A forge-beast.
It was massive—ten stories tall, quadrupedal, with plating like obsidian armor fused with bone and steel. Tubes of molten plasma ran through its limbs. Its head was a jagged crest of metal antlers that sparked with electricity. At its center, a glowing furnace throbbed with each step, like a second heart.
From its chest, hatches opened.
More of the constructs began to pour out.
"…That's new," Riven whispered.
Fitus growled in response, "I hate new."
Valkar gritted his teeth. "We need a plan."
Maverick planted his glaives into the stone.
"Same as always."
He looked toward the beast.
"We kill it."
⸻
They moved in sync.
Maverick and Riven flanked right.
Fitus and Valkar barreled left.
The forge-beast roared, its sound a modulation of thousands of screams compressed into one. It fired a pulse from its mouth that vaporized a statue mid-blast.
Riven was already climbing.
He sprinted up a broken support beam, launched into the air, and landed on its shoulder. His blade stabbed deep into the circuitry.
The creature bucked.
Riven held on.
"I need a distraction!"
Maverick answered with action.
He charged down the main boulevard, both glaives twirling, carving through the constructs that tried to intercept him. Sparks exploded with each impact. His movements were pure economy—no wasted motion, no hesitation. Just momentum and death.
He leapt—
And slammed both glaives into the forge-beast's front leg.
It screamed, staggered—
And Valkar's hammer came crashing into its flank.
The beast tipped, stumbled—
And Fitus launched himself through the air, gauntlets first.
"HEY, UGLY!"
He drove both fists into the furnace core.
The impact ruptured the plating.
Flames exploded outward.
Riven stabbed the neck joint and flipped backward off the creature as it began to thrash.
Maverick ripped his blades free and leaped backward, yelling:
"Clear out!"
The beast turned one final time—chest pulsing.
Its core detonated.
A sunburst of plasma fire consumed the plaza and surrounding area.
Buildings blew apart.
Debris rained from above.
The Warmachines were thrown backward—armor scorched, breath ragged.
But they rose.
All of them.
Bruised.
Bleeding.
Unbroken.
The forge-beast lay still.
Its furnace extinguished.
⸻
Silence reclaimed the streets.
The glow from the massive vessel above Kharon Prime dimmed slightly.
But only slightly.
Riven coughed smoke and looked up at the sky.
"Please tell me that's the worst thing we're gonna see today."
Valkar rolled his shoulder, armor still hissing.
"If it was, the universe's sense of mercy is long overdue."
Fitus cracked his neck. "Mercy died a long time ago."
Maverick said nothing.
Only stared at the ship above.
More drop lances were forming in its underbelly.
"They're just getting started."
The others gathered around him.
No one spoke for a long moment.
Then Valkar stepped forward, looked at Maverick and said one word:
"Reinforcements?"
Maverick didn't hesitate.
He nodded once.
"Call them."
⸻
Far above, a long-abandoned signal beacon hummed to life.
It pulsed once.
Twice.
Then fired.
Into deep space.
Into memory.
Into something ancient.
Something alien.
Something that had been waiting.
_______
The forge-beast was dead.
The plaza wasn't.
Smoke hung like a curtain above Kharon Prime's once-pristine central district. The skyline burned in half-silhouettes. Statues of warriors long-dead now laid decapitated beside smoldering buildings. The shields protecting the bunkers below flickered with visible strain, humming and coughing sparks.
The Warmachines stood in the middle of it all—four shapes of war against a city bleeding history.
Maverick's breathing was steady, but every exhale dragged heat from his lungs. One of his glaives buzzed erratically, short-circuited at the tip. His armor steamed from a dozen impact points, and blood had begun to pool in the seams beneath his chestplate.
"They're adapting too fast," Riven muttered, surveying the remains of one of the constructs. He knelt beside it and pried open the outer plating.
Inside, black cables coiled like veins. Half the circuitry was still glowing, twitching. A red eye blinked once, as if aware of its own dissection, then faded to black.
"They logged our attack patterns. Real-time learning. That's why the second wave was tighter—tighter formation, faster engagement, fewer wasted movements."
Fitus spat blood onto the ground, pacing. "You're saying they've got a brain?"
"I'm saying they've got an algorithm with a kill switch. And the only thing it's learning… is us."
Valkar walked up behind them, dragging a broken limb from the forge-beast with him. He slammed it onto the plaza floor with a heavy clang.
"No insignias. No faction markings. No trace of known tech."
He looked up at Maverick.
"This isn't war as we know it."
Maverick nodded once.
"It's something else."
⸻
They didn't have long to think.
A fresh impact struck somewhere east—this one closer, heavier.
A building's top floor blew out like a volcano, and black shapes started pouring through the smoke. Thinner, faster than the earlier constructs—these ones ran in packs, limbs stretching longer than before, blades fused directly into their forearms. They hit the ground and sprinted toward the temple gates.
Riven cursed. "New models. Fan-fucking-tastic."
"Converge and kill," Maverick barked.
They moved as one.
Fitus charged first—meeting the front line with a shockwave punch that cratered the street. The constructs flanked him instantly, leaping sideways, avoiding direct confrontation. One landed on his back.
He grabbed it by the throat and tore.
Another swiped his leg—he fell to one knee, drove his elbow into its chest, and used its broken body as a shield against the next wave.
Valkar cut in from the left. His hammer glowed, overloaded—then ignited with a railburst that sent three enemies flying in molten pieces.
"These ones don't even try to survive," he growled. "They're not calculating odds. They're throwing bodies."
"They're testing us again," Riven called, blades slicing through two at once. "Trying to learn how we deal with desperation."
One of the creatures hissed mid-strike, letting out a garbled burst of static.
Then—words.
<
Maverick heard it—and stopped mid-swing.
The construct lunged at him.
He pivoted, slammed it to the ground, and drove his glaive through its core.
But the words stuck.
Obsolete.
⸻
They pushed through the wave with brute force.
For every ten that dropped, another ten filled their place. The plaza bled with sparks and screams. Stone cracked, banners tore, and the temple's outer walls began to warp under the pressure.
Eventually, the Warmachines formed a hard line near the base of the old war statue. They regrouped, panting, bloodied, armor singed.
And the final enemy dropped.
Not killed.
Collapsed.
Something in its core sparked and burned out, like a fuse dying.
Maverick walked up, leaned over it, and pried open its chestplate.
Inside—no central processor. No command signal. Only a single module, embedded in the spinal casing, flickering with residual data.
He grabbed it.
"Let's see who sent you."
⸻
The data was corrupted.
But not completely.
Candren had once taught them how to force playback from dying data cores, even when half the signal was gone. Maverick hooked the drive to his armor's port and patched it through to his visor.
Static.
Then—
A voice.
Low. Guttural. Unforgiving.
<<…purge begins with those who inherited unearned glory…>>
The screen flickered.
A glimpse.
A silhouette seated upon a twisted throne of blackened steel and ancient bone.
Half-hidden in smoke.
But clear enough for Maverick to know.
He ripped the core out and crushed it in one hand.
The others looked at him.
Valkar stepped forward. "What did it say?"
Maverick didn't answer at first.
Then:
"Something's coming."
He stood slowly, looking back toward the sky. The massive vessel above them had begun to rotate. The underbelly now faced a different district.
Another wave.
Another purge.
"This is not conquest," he said. "It's… judgment."
Riven narrowed his eyes. "Judgment from who?"
Maverick's jaw clenched.
He looked up.
"…Project Oblivion."
⸻
They stood in silence.
Even the sirens had stopped.
Just wind and broken stone and the memory of something ancient.
Then—
Valkar's gauntlet lit up.
A signal.
A frequency he hadn't seen in centuries.
"They're here."
Above the clouds—four long, elegant vessels broke through orbit. Unlike the jagged monster still looming, these ships glided with purpose. Smooth, gleaming silver with glowing blue crests across their hulls.
No weapons fired.
No shields raised.
Only calm.
Only arrival.
Riven stepped beside Maverick.
"…Friends of yours?"
Valkar smiled grimly.
"They are now."
________
The wind had changed.
Not just the air—but the atmosphere itself. The city's smoke-scorched skyline, now riddled with fallen constructs and shattered monuments, had taken on a stillness. A brief pause between storms.
The Warmachines stood amid the broken plaza, surrounded by smoldering wreckage and metallic corpses. Steam rose gently from their armor—no longer from damage, but healing. Microfractures closed. Plates hissed back into place. Bloodflow was staunched. Maverick's wounds had already sealed, leaving only char-black streaks where his armor had been scratched and torn.
They were healing.
Finally.
But none of them relaxed.
Especially not Maverick.
He stood at the edge of a collapsed structure, eyes still locked on the sky.
The drop maws above the city had ceased—temporarily—but the main vessel remained, unmoved, uncaring. A world-splitter in orbit, watching without blinking. Waiting.
Fitus kicked aside one of the construct's heads and grunted. "They just stopped coming."
"They're repositioning," Valkar muttered. "Or recalculating."
"Good," Riven said, panting. "Means they're afraid."
"No," Maverick answered. "It means they're thinking."
That silenced everyone.
Then…
A sound. Or rather—the absence of it.
Everything stilled.
The smoke around the plaza swirled inward… not from wind.
From force.
And then—
They arrived.
⸻
At first, they were invisible—folded into the air like thoughts too delicate to name.
But then the smoke parted.
And eleven shapes emerged from the haze, gliding rather than walking, their presence more felt than seen at first. Tall. Slender. Bipedal.
Their armor was unfamiliar—smooth and seamless, a semi-translucent material that shimmered with shifting gradients of silver and violet. No helmets. Their heads were elongated and crowned with subtle lines of light that pulsed with each passing moment. Their skin was pale, smooth—almost metallic, like marble given life.
Their eyes glowed faintly, like nebulas trapped behind glass.
The Warmachines tensed.
The new arrivals didn't speak.
Not aloud.
Instead, a single voice entered their minds—clear, precise, not cold but ancient.
"We are Awoken."
The Warmachines looked between each other.
Riven blinked. "Did they just…?"
Another voice followed, overlapping the first.
"We have answered your call. The signal reached us. The signal left long ago."
Maverick stepped forward. "You got Valkar's message?"
A pause.
Then—another voice. This one deeper. Familiar to Valkar.
"We got his promise."
One of the figures stepped ahead of the others.
Slightly taller. Older, maybe—if such a term applied to their kind.
This one's eyes were brighter. Its presence heavier.
It tilted its head ever so slightly.
"Valkar."
The grizzled Warmachine moved forward, lowering his hammer slightly. "Ski-ock."
There was no handshake.
No gesture of welcome.
But there was understanding.
"You waited long to call."
"I didn't know I'd need to," Valkar said. "Until now."
Ski-ock turned to Maverick.
"You are the spearhead. The leader."
Maverick nodded once. "Maverick."
"We have read the field. Seen your minds. The enemy is coordinated. Intelligent. Artificial, but not mindless."
Another Awoken floated forward and extended a hand—its fingers spread wide. Faint lines of light trailed from its fingertips, dancing into the air before coalescing into a 3D map of the city and the vessel above.
"They seeded the sublayers beneath Kharon Prime weeks ago. The drop maws were just the signal. The real structure… is already inside the planet."
Fitus snarled. "Of course it is."
Ski-ock continued.
"We are not warriors in your way. We fight differently. We infiltrate. Observe. Strike where the mind breaks before the body."
One of the Awoken stepped beside a construct corpse and lifted a finger.
The machine twitched.
Without touching it, the Awoken disassembled its core—hovering pieces into the air, reading them like pages from a book.
"This enemy adapts fast. Faster than organic evolution. You are outnumbered, outpaced, and underinformed."
"Good thing we've got you then," Riven said.
Ski-ock's head tilted.
"Perhaps."
Another voice entered all of their minds—this one sharper, more analytical.
"We have mapped the interior of the vessel. Weak points. Access ports. Psychic signatures. We can guide you in. We cannot win for you."
Maverick turned to Valkar. "Do you trust them?"
Valkar nodded. "With my life."
Maverick looked to the others.
Then forward.
Then back to Ski-ock.
"Then we fight together."
Ski-ock's eyes dimmed slightly.
"We are already fighting."
⸻
The Awoken moved into formation without being told.
They glided, leapt, vanished from sight only to reappear beside structures or atop vantage points. Their minds seemed networked, each communicating telepathically at the speed of thought. One of them touched the ground and whispered—
"They are coming."
A low hum filled the air.
Dozens of constructs marched down the far road. Flanking them—two more forge-beasts. Heavily armored. Reinforced.
Riven swore under his breath. "Back-to-back days of apocalyptic horseshit. I'm getting tired of this."
"You're just getting started," Maverick said.
He raised his glaives.
The Awoken began to glow—light bleeding from their skin as their telekinetic fields flared to life.
Maverick looked at Ski-ock.
"Are you ready?"
Ski-ock responded with a mental pulse.
"We were always ready. we waited. Now… we act."
And the battle began again.