Ten meters to his left, Shade stood beside a collapsed antenna tower. One hand rested gently on the hilt of her plasma blade. Her body didn't shift, didn't fidget—just slow breathing cycles through the core fans. Discipline.
To the right, Drift twitched.
Again.
His upper servos jittered when the pressure built. He couldn't help it— older model. The rail rifle he carried vibrated in his grip, ready to fire, eager like a coiled reflex. Too eager.
[COMMS – LOCAL ENCRYPTED]]
FLINT: "Drift. Relax your wrist unit."
DRIFT: "Can't. Pressure's climbing. This zone is off. You feel that to , right?"
He did. He just hadn't said it aloud.
There was a density to the air. Not atmosphere, not weather—something else. It pressed down through the ruined skyline like gravity had been manually increased.
SHADE: "Contact. Far side. Something's moving."
She didn't raise her voice. Just said it like an observation. Measured. Calm.
FLINT: "Visual?"
SHADE: "Haze. About sixty meters. Four-legged profile. Mass reading says heavy. Real heavy."
Drift's optic flared slightly brighter.
DRIFT: "Crawler?"
SHADE: "Too clean."
DRIFT: "Quad mech, then?"
FLINT: "Federation or Reclaimer?"
SHADE: "…Neither."
And then, they saw it.
it stepped out from the haze like it had always belonged there. One foot—round, armored, too quiet—planted itself in the dust. Then another. Four in total. It didn't lumber. It glided With intent.
Its body was jet black, panel-locked tight. No exhaust flare. No emission leaks. Its limbs moved in synchronization that didn't look military. It looked... deliberate. Not just piloted. Not just programmed.
Controlled.
At its center: a single optic. Deep red. Unblinking.
[SENSOR PING – NO RESPONSE]
[ENEMY ID: UNKNOWN]
[SIGNAL REQUEST – FAILED]
[NO AFFILIATION DETECTED]
No flag. No frequency. No encryption.
Nothing.
Flint's mind raced, even though he didn't panic. He couldn't'. He wasn't built for panic. But some other process surged instead—faster cooling systems, finer servo micromovements. The machine version of breath quickening.
FLINT: "Unknown contact. Unmapped frame. Profile: titan-class. Threat level pending."
__
Drift shifted again. His rifle charged with A subtle thrum.
FLINT: "Do not fire. We don't know—"
The titan paused.
Its optic tilted. Not aimed—angled. Like it was listening.
Drift's servo clicked louder than usual. Flint turned sharply—
Too late. TOO LATE.
Something shifted in the air. Not a breeze—to still. It was pressure, sudden and sharp, like the battlefield had just inhaled.
An instinct—not code—shivered through Flint's core.
No response. No emblem. No fear.
Drift's capacitor flared.
The hum of the rail rifle spiked, like the weapon knew what Drift hadn't said: it was now or never. The tension snapped. logic lost the vote.
Flint opened his mouth to shout—
Too slow.
The titan's optic ignited.
Not blinked. Not flickered—burst.
The light came first. A blistering bloom of crimson that flooded parts of the field. Then came sound, layered in crushing waves.
And then came erasure.
There was no arc. No trail. No warning. Just a beam. A cut. A silent scream.
Drift didn't fall. He ceased.
One moment: there, crouched behind a fractured intake panel.
The next: gone.
No shrapnel. No frame.
Just particles, floating like ash.
Then came the shockwave.
It hit the hauler like a sledgehammer from orbit. Seven tons of rusted armor lifted clear off its ruined axle. Flint didn't dive. He was thrown.
Mid-air, his HUD lit up—wild, scrambled. Error codes crawled across his vision, overlapping like a final broadcast.
He slammed into the ground hard enough to crack it. His left arm sparked on impact.
[LEFT ARM: OFFLINE – SERVO CUTOUT]
[STABILIZATION: DEGRADED]
[DAMAGE REPORT: STREAMING]
He groaned through the surge—static garbling his audio. His balance unit screamed. His optics refocused.
But the sound… the sound stayed with him.
Not Drift's. Drift didn't make sound anymore.
The blast slammed into the hauler. Flint's cover lifted—a seven-ton chassis Flung like scrap foil. The impact hurled him across fractured concrete, limbs cartwheeling. Sparks scattered from his back like he was breaking apart mid-air.
He hit hard.
Something inside his shoulder tore. His left arm flickered. A warning blinked in the corner of his vision.
[LEFT ARM: OFFLINE – SERVO CUTOUT]
[STRUCTURAL INTEGRITY: 64%]
[STABILIZATION: INCONSISTENT]
System alerts screamed—but felt far away, drowned in static.
He moved. Slowly. Every motor fought him, each motion digging into fractured joints.
He didn't care.
He turned HIS head. Looked for Shade.
There.
She was already gone.
Her boosters ignited with a roar that felt more like vengeance than propulsion. A sharp blue flame cut through the grey battlefield as she surged forward—fast, violent, determined. Her plasma cutter unfolded mid-leap. The charge hissed like it wanted blood.
Flint couldn't stop her. Couldn't call her back..
He didn't want to.
For just a second—just a heartbeat made of metal—he thought she might land it.
She closed the gap faster than the titan seemed ready for. Her frame folded inward, tight and sharp, blade raised at a high angle. She aimed for the core. Not the leg . Not the turret. The heart.
And then the titan shifted.
It didn't brace. It adapted.
A side panel on its upper flank slid open without sound. Just movement. Just calculation.
A rail beam exited that compartment before Flint even registered the flash.
It punched through her mid-lunge. Center mass.
Not an explosion—just a clean, clinical line of heat and force. She flew past the titan's side by inertia alone, frame twitching, blade still sparking. Her boots scraped across the ground in a long, silent drag.
Thenstopped.
No movement. No flame.
Her signal went dark.
[UNIT SHADE – CONNECTION LOST]
[SIGNAL: FLATLINE]
Flint stared. He didn't say anything.
What could he say?
A second ago, they were three.
Now, he stood alone.
He didn't move. Not right away.
His blade hadn't even left its sheath.
His left arm was still dead.
And in front of him, the titan turned.
Slow. Intentional. No rush.
Its optic dimmed briefly, then flared again—brighter. Its core vents hissed open, steam bleeding from beneath its ribplate in quiet spirals. The battlefield went quiet again.
Like it had reset.
Like it was inviting him.
[CORE STABILITY – FLUCTUATING]
[FUEL REMAINING – 38%]
[NO ALLIES DETECTED]
Flint stood. He didn't check systems. Didn't need to. His HUD was cracked, but he could still see what mattered.
The titan's eye.
Focused. Watching.
Choosing him next.
He pulled his blade free.
[WEAPON SYSTEM: ACTIVE – ENERGY EDGE STABLE]
No fear. No signal . No warning.
Just a breath.
Simulated. Not needed.
But it it centered him.
Some fights aren't winnable. You go anyway .
Flint's blade hissed free from its housing.
His grip was uneven—half-synced—because his left actuator kept misfiring. A warning pinged at the edge of his HUD. He ignored it.
The titan watched him. No motion. No tactic. Just that red eye glowing brighter, like a sun waiting to ignite.
He didn't wait for it.
Flint moved.
Boosters flared behind him—not stable, but hard enough to close distance. The blade drew sparks from the concrete as he skimmed low, a broken spear of motion slicing through the wreckage-stained dusk.
He swung upward. The blade bit.
Steel screamed. Sparks exploded were his strike glanced off the titan's shoulder plating—just surface. Not deep enough. Not enough to matter.
The titan didn't recoil. It rotated.
A turret deployed from its side—sudden, smooth. Its firing sequence activated mid-turn.
Too fast.
[DANGER ZONE: 2.3 METERS]
[EVASION WINDOW: 0.4 SEC]
Flint twisted hard left. The cannon fired.
He didnt dodge completely.
The beam scraped past his right flank, slicing a burning line across his upper arm. Systems screeched. Damage reports crawled across his vision like blood pouring from a wound he couldn't feel.
[RIGHT ARM: 49% FUNCTIONAL]
[CORE: OVERHEATING — VENT RECOMMENDED]
He dropped low and rolled beneath the titan's chassis—everything in him aching, systems choking on heat.
And there it was.
A vulnerability—coils beneath the frame. Coolant tubing, not shielded.
Instinct. Or desperation.
Flint drove his blade straight up.
A crunch. A spark. The entire titan shuddered. Coolant burst outward in a fine vapor spray, turning the air briefly white. Its limbs stuttered. Balance faltered.
Then—l
A vent opened. Directly above him.
Too close.
Heat dumped out in a searing wall of pressure. His exposed chestplate blistered, cracked. He screamed—not in sound, but in error code.
[SENSORS: BLIND]
[CORE STABILITY: 31% — REDLINE]
[STRUCTURAL DAMAGE: CRITICAL]
He staggered out, barely functional, trailing smoke and coolant. Limbs locking. Vision fading on the left side.
The titan turned to face him again. Still standing. Still ready.
Its main cannon powered up—slow charge. Aiming dead center.
He was alone in the middle of a hollow battlefield. No cover. No tricks left. Systems collapsing one by one.
Even so—
He stood up.
No reason. No strategy. Just will.
[COMMS – PRIVATE RECORDING]
FLINT: "…Then burn with me."
He surged forward.
His boosters roared—overclocked beyond safe thresholds. Flame belched from cracked ports. The charge wasn't elegant. It was desperate. Wild.
The cannon fired .
Light surged around him, folding the world into A single moment of noise and radiation.
Flint didn't veer away.
He ran into it.