The Ol' Switcheroo

by CloverCloverClover

What if Amalthus had awakened Mythra instead of Malos 500 years ago, so best girl (Nia) and best bro (Malos) got more screentime? Among a bunch of other things? Let's find out. (TITLE DOES NOT REFLECT THE TONE OF THIS FIC) ACT 5 FINALLY FINISHED! AVOID COMMENTS ABOUT CHAPTER 25 UNTIL YOU HAVE READ IT IF YOU WANT TO AVOID MAJOR SPOILERS!

25. Chapter 25

Note: This ended up being a very long chapter. It is almost 50k words. It does include extended sections that focus on minor characters, but I can't think of any that don't include important information. I would have to recommend that you read it all. There are also major events that happen in this chapter that you probably don't want to be spoiled on, but I don't want to forbid discussion of them in the comments (I do want to hear people's thoughts! Please, if there is any chapter you make a comment on, make it this one.) So I would recommend avoiding the comments section until you finish reading. I also have a long note at the end in which I discuss spoilers and my thoughts on this fic, so I would recommend not reading my post-chapter notes until you have finished either.

This is also your last warning. If you haven't liked some of the darker directions this fic has taken, things get very, very dark in this chapter. Terrible things happen to good people who don't deserve it. There is a war, and I don't think it's appropriate to gloss over the fact that war includes a lot of death. It's not all darkness, though. But if you've thought my other chapters were edgy (though I have never aimed to be edgy just for the sake of being edgy) then this is your warning now.

Now, without further ado:

THE CLOCKWORK DEMON

or

IT DOESN'T HAVE TO BE LIKE THIS

TICK

Crossette sat on the deck of the Monoceros, gazing up into the night sky, twinkling with stars, as it idled in the Cloud Sea, no land in sight. She kicked her legs idly over the side, her boots tapping against the black metal of its hull, then glanced down at Rhys, who was fiddling with a small package at her side, a series of rockets held in an oil-soaked leather bag. "What about this one?" he asked excitedly, holding up a rocket garishly painted pink and blue.

"Nice choice. It's one of my favorites. Give it here." Rhys handed the rocket to Crossette, and she twisted it around, staring at it for a moment. "Gotta make sure it's good," she winked at Rhys. She sniffed it, nodded sagely, then considering, tentatively touched her tongue to it, smacking her lips as if evaluating the taste.

"Will you just light it already!"

Crossette nodded her head, making small noises of approval, as if the rocket had passed muster, then blew a small flame from her mouth to its fuse, and hurled the rocket out over the cloud sea. It fell for a moment, and then, a few feet from disappearing beneath the clouds, zipped upwards with a shriek, and with a loud bang filled the night sky with bring pink and blue sparks, blooming forth to fill their vision.

Rhys' ears perked up as he looked on in wonder, the sparks reflected in his wide green eyes. "Wow! That was a good one. What should we do next? What's the biggest one you got?"

Crossette was about to answer when a hatch further down the deck popped open, and Akhos' head popped up, glancing around the deck. His sharp blue eyes caught sight of them, and narrowed. "You two! I thought we were under attack. We're trying to have a meeting below decks!"

"Ah, sorry, Akhos," Rhys said bashfully, rubbing the back of his head. "It was all my idea to set off some fireworks."

Akhos' sharp gaze softened as he looked at Rhys. Crossette had felt a bit intimidated by him at first, him and Patroka, by how cold they could seem. But they had quickly proven to have a bit of a soft spot for her driver. Akhos would train him when he had the spare time, patiently showing him how to use Crossette's abilities, and Patroka, while she might mock and tease Rhys, would also quietly slip him chocolates when she thought no one was looking, and Crossette had even caught her giving him a hug when he came to her with a nasty burn he had received when fooling around in the ship's engine room. It was Mikhail who Crossette still did not know how to feel about. Mikhail had spoken to her – mostly to try to flirt – but whenever he saw Rhys, his eyes would widen, almost panicked, and he would excuse himself.

"That's alright," Akhos said, with a small smile. "But don't you think you should get some sleep? I hear Patroka is actually planning on giving you some weapons training tomorrow. Architect knows you don't have the hang of Crossette's bitball yet." He nodded to Crossette, and she blushed, smiling a bit bashfully. It wasn't her fault her weapon was a bitball, which was one of the more difficult ones to master, particularly for a child.

"I don't know how in the world you're supposed to bounce that so it comes right back to you," Rhys muttered, standing. "I'm not tired, though."

Akhos smirked. "Yeah. I've heard that one from you before. Which usually means you'll be snoring in twenty minutes. Let's go."

Rhys and Crossette descended into the dark hallways of the Monoceros, walking behind Akhos. "What's the meeting about?" Rhys asked, hiding a yawn.

"Nothing you need to worry about," Akhos replied softly. He looked up at Crossette, and gave her a warm smile. Mythra had told him what had happened to Rhys and his friends. It would be enough to break any child, but Crossette, though Akhos found her a bit silly, did such a good job of just...being there, for him, that he couldn't help but have some affection for her. And Rhys had done a good job of cheering him up, as well, after the loss of Obrona. He...wasn't sure what to think about that. Surely Pyra would not have approved, was she around. She would have told him that his pain was the price of his bond with Obrona, and that new ones were only going to bring him more. And maybe that was true, but in the moment it just felt nice to have a child to look after.

They came to a crossroads in the hallways, where Rhys' bunk was to the right. Akhos took a left, nodding to them as he disappeared down the dark shadows of the hallways. "Goodnight, you two."

Rhys lingered at the hallway for a moment, looking after Akhos, fidgeting. "I know that look," Crossette said sternly. "C'mon, let's just get to bed."

"I wanna know what they're meeting about," Rhys replied, whispering furtively. Crossette sighed as he waited a few moments for Akhos to disappear into one of the rooms further down the hallway, and then began sneaking along the wall, inching towards the room. With a shrug – there was no turning Rhys back from mischief when he set his mind to it – she followed.

Patroka's voice rang out as they neared the entrance to the meeting room, and Rhys paused, putting a finger to his lips, as he pressed himself against the wall. "What I don't understand," Patroka snapped, "Is why you two have to do this alone."

The next voice that rang out was Mythra's. "You three….you've already lost so much," she said, and Crossette shivered. There was something about Mythra that frightened her. Rhys adored her – he would always stare at her, her and Jin, with wide, awe-filled eyes whenever he saw them, and he was forever trying to impress them – he'd always rush to Jin with the biggest fish he caught, or yell for Mythra to watch when he thought he was about to do something particularly cool. Jin was alright – he was a bit impassive, but he'd humor her driver with a sagely, impressed nod whenever Rhys bought him fish. Mythra, though...she treated Rhys kindly, but there was just something...broken in her, whenever she looked at him. She might smile, or offer him kind words, but always there was this hollowness in her eyes when she looked at Rhys, a despair so deep it chilled Crossette to the bone. "You don't need to suffer any more. Your blades..."

"That sounds like all the more reason for us to accompany you," came Mikhail's voice, muttering sullenly. "Jin, you're pushing yourself far too hard."

"She's right," Jin replied, his voice brooking no argument. "The three of you haven't recovered from the loss of your blades. We'd need you at peak shape for this mission, and you aren't. We're doing this alone. Akhos, let's go over the plan."

"Right." There came a shuffling of papers. "The Ardainian Empire has been drawing closer and closer to a full-out invasion of Uraya, particularly ever since the Urayans managed to launch a strike on their capital. The largest pro-war party in Mor Ardain is Brionac, who has both a political branch and a military arm, and is heavily interwoven into the Empire's armies. Well, Mik, Patroka, those artificial blades you destroyed in Bana's factory actually belong to Brionac. As in, they are building their own private army, not loyal to the Emperor. This would be considered treason. You disrupted their production, but they have the rest of the artificial blades in a garrison on Temperantia. If we expose this army, destroy it, expose this treason, the Empire finds itself in a situation where it has taken heavy losses, and finds a humongous portion of its remaining armies implicated in a treason plot. This should give their Emperor, who actually favors peace, enormous leverage. Enough, hopefully, to halt the invasion. Now, in addition to the artificial blade armies on Temperantia, there is also a project there to restore and utilize weaponized Titans, unearthed from ancient Judicium."

"Judicium," Mythra murmured. "They could not leave her nightmares dead and buried. Of course. Even my destruction could not stop Mor Ardain from summoning these horrors out of time."

"The artificial blades," Akhos continued, "Are designed as shock infantry. But these weaponized Titans are designed as heavy artillery superweapons. If you can infiltrate and capture even one of these, you can wreak havoc on the artificial blades. Their field operations are headed by a Brionac Colonel named Maxwell, who makes his headquarters within one of these Titans, as well. Capture him, and you can force him to radio a confession. One last thing." Akhos paused, then sighed. "You...will have to be quick. Mor Ardain launches her invasion tomorrow morning."

Mythra gasped, and Crossette winced as there was an explosion of light from somewhere within the meeting room as she lashed out. "Damn them," Mythra cried. "Damn them! So soon? Are they so eager?"

"Enough," Jin's voice cut through. "If it's happening so soon, we'll just have to beat them to it. We have a plan. Pilot the Monoceros for Temperantia at full speed. As soon as we arrive, we will disembark. There can be no time for hesitation."

"We should be able to make landfall on Temperantia at 0400 hours," Patroka's voice came, a bit shaky from witnessing Mythra's rage.

"Make it so." Jin paused. "Mythra," he said softly, "We can do this."

Rhys and Crossette scampered away from the door, fleeing down the hallway, to their room, as footsteps approached the doorway, moving as quickly and as quietly as possible.

Their room was a shared one, with bunkbeds – which Rhys thought was very cool, especially since he claimed the top bunk – and a small wardrobe built into the walls of the ship. Crossette didn't mind sharing a room with him now, though she thought it might get a bit awkward as he got older. "What," Rhys said, panting, "Was that all about?"

"I...I dunno," Crossette replied, sitting on her bunk. "It...it sounds like they're trying to stop a war."

"Mythra and Jin? All alone?" Rhys' eyes shone with concern. "They...they need help. I gotta help them."

"Oh, no. I don't think that's a good idea-"

"You heard Mik! He said Jin is already pushing himself too hard! They can't go because they all lost their blades, but I have you!"

"Rhys, if they wanted you to come, I think they would have told you..."

"I have to help them! I have to! You don't get it!" Rhys stamped his feet, and suddenly his large green eyes shone with tears. "I have to...after they helped me..."

Crossette felt her heart drop. Rhys was normally fiery, and full of life. But she had learned of his tragic circumstances, since she had been awakened. How he had seen his family killed by bandits, avenged by Jin and Mythra. And...something Mythra had told her one dark night, after Crossette had asked if they might visit Rhys' friends someday. That his friends, that he thought were safe, were actually dead as well. "You see," Mythra had murmured to her, "We really are all he has. And you most of all."

Rhys normally didn't let it show. But she would occasionally find him in some dark corner of the ship, sobbing quietly. And she could feel it through the ether bond they shared, a sadness, a wound in him that never seemed to heal. "Come here," she said quietly, drawing Rhys into an embrace as he furiously tried to conceal his tears.

"I'm fine," he snapped, miserably, but then wrapped his arms around her, his tears hot against her shoulder.

She laid back in her bed as he clung to her, crying, soothing him as best she could. Eventually, he drifted off to sleep in her embrace, and she found herself drifting off as well.

She awoke to a sudden jolt, a crunch, as the Monoceros slid up to the shore of Temperantia. And immediately noticed that Rhys was no longer in her arms.

"Damn it, Rhys," she snapped.

Jin and Mythra stepped out of the loading bay of the Monoceros, onto the shattered, dead earth of Temperantia, in the dim light of the early morning. Their feet crunched on dry gravel and gray sand as they stepped forward, into a land of blackened, burnt rock, centuries dead. As they walked forward, they did not notice as behind them, a small shadow darted out of the Monoceros to hide behind another rock, followed by another shadow in hot pursuit of the first.

Mythra looked around herself as she moved forward. This...cracked and ruined land was her doing. Five hundred years ago, before Malos had been awakened to stop her, she had come to Temperantia, then home to Judicium. It had been an empire of what was now known as the Indoline people, though….different, she knew. Where the Indoline were uniformly blue, the Judicium had had scales and skin of all colors and hues. It had been a colorful land, of towering, garishly painted spires. Dragon-worshippers, much like Indol now, though….their worship had been different than Indol. Their religion was a think of howling dances and stone altars deep in thickly wooded forests, a much more primal thing than the quiet, civilized version Amalthus fostered in Indol now.

And she had come here, and burned it all away.

This was back when Amalthus still had his fingers laced around her heart. When he had first awoken her...before he bought her first to Coeia...he had taught her of the long histories of the nations of the world. She could remember, when he had first awoken her, when she had loved him so, seen of him a man noble and wise, staying up with him long nights within his office in the Praetorium, discussing history and philosophy. And she could remember feeling, burning through his ether bond with her, as they spoke of the wars and the horrors of history, the...overpowering ugliness he saw in it all, the darkness he saw flowing forth from the pages of history…

She had loved him, and she had a burning sense of justice. She had wanted to make the world beautiful for him. Make it just and right. Help him finally see the good in it, buried beneath all the dark. Though it seemed so alien to her now, she had wanted nothing more than to build a world in which Amalthus could be happy. Little had she understood the madness that lurked in his heart. And so the horror of her judgment had been visited upon Judicium. How blind she had been. Judicium was no Mor Ardain – they had not been a nightmare of flame and war, marching forward endlessly as even the daughter of the Architect did her best to stop them. They were just another kingdom, one of many, though advanced in blade and Titan technologies. The suffering she had caused, the suffering she had been blind to...she was wiser now. Now, she knew exactly what she did. She knew exactly what she had done. Though the knowledge was agony, she would never give it up. It beat down on her, the memory of what she had done here, and she deserved it.

"Mythra?" Jin asked quietly. Mythra looked at him, giving him a broken smile. This sweet man, too. His country had burned for her as well. How had he found it in his heart, his beautiful heart, to forgive her for what could never be forgiven? It was too much to bear. The pain she knew he lived with. Just one note in the constant wail, the endless, oppressive chorus of suffering in this world. Oh, damned Father, it had to end. It all had to end. "Mythra."

"Sorry," she murmured. "Just...memories."

Jin's gave her a steady, impassive look. "I can do this alone, if you-"

"No," Mythra whispered. She could not let Jin do this alone. Mikhail had been right. Jin had been pushing himself far too hard lately. On Mythra's account, of course. Trying to stop this war. Well, they had their best shot now. "No, it's fine. Let's go."

They made their way up a long, sharp peak, jutting into the sky like a massive, jagged tooth, black and pitted, loose sand tumbling around them as they made their way upwards, towards the brightening sky. At the top, they had a view of the long, endless plains of Temperantia, the desert of gray dust and black rock.

Arrayed in the desert, in endless perfect rows, were the artificial blades of the Temperantian garrison. Sunlight glinting off their and gold armor, sleek and deadly, with long, spindly limbs and a narrow, v-shaped chest, with dark orange wings that flickered in the early morning light, they looked like nothing more than slumbering insects, deadly wasps that would awake to the war with relish.

And there, across the plains, the Cloud Sea was visible, and out in the distance was the Ardainian Titan. And it was beginning to stir, the black fleets of her war machine beginning to buzz with life. They did not have much time.

They leapt down nimbly from the peak. Down the other side was a massive excavation pit, its walls clawed from the stone with dynamite, and within the pit were two of the massive weaponized Titans of ancient, dead Judicium. They were gargantuan things, hundreds of feet tall, like beasts of burden, hooves that could flatten houses, massive curved horns jutting from their torsos. What was perhaps most disturbing was that there was no visible head. Instead, gleaming metal was built into their bodies, woven so skillfully that it was difficult to tell where technology ended and Titan began. And among the excavation site were patrolling Ardainian soldiers, vigilant even in the early dawn.

They raced across the top of the excavation site, keeping to the shadows, staying low, ducking behind outcroppings of scorched rock whenever possible, working their way over to the larger of the two Judicium Titans, until they stood on an outcropping that loomed perhaps twenty feet over the deck of black iron built into the Titan's back. This part, at least, had to be an Ardainian outfitting.

Jin took a deep breath, and suddenly, with a flicker, he disappeared from the outcropping, and appeared on the deck, his sword lashing out like silver death, cutting down the guards there before they could raise a cry.

Mythra kept an eye on the Ardainian patrols below, and then at an opportune moment, leapt down to join him. She landed gracefully, just as Jin finished dispatching the last Ardainian. Mythra could feel Pyra's roaring disapproval within her, as she always could whenever she engaged in violence. But….it seemed strange to think of herself as disagreeing with Pyra. It was, after all, like disagreeing with herself. But Pyra had summoned her, after all, broken her seal, because she needed to protect Jin, and she wasn't strong enough to commit the violence necessary herself. Pyra didn't understand that some suffering to prevent more suffering was justified.

Jin gave her a small smile. "This is going smoothly," he whispered.

"I know," Mythra replied, a genuine smile touching her lips. This was going very well. For the first time in a long time, she had hope. Hope that they could stop this madness, stop this war, stop this suffering. They had struggled against the invincible Ardainian Empire and her endless capacity for industry, but this...this just might work. "Let's be quick, though. You begin piloting this thing. I'll go find this Colonel Maxwell."

Jin nodded, and then turned towards the odd command console in the center of the deck, as Mythra disappeared into a large black door that led into the Titan's interior. He wasn't sure what he had been expecting, but it wasn't this. The command console had no switches, no buttons, no levers. Instead, it had a strange, pulsing green crystal implanted into the Titan's skin, with a curling tangle of thick wires running from it.

He reached out to touch the crystal, and gasped. His mind was filled with dim, primitive thoughts, dull memories of an ancient kingdom with tiny, sharp-toothed inhabitants who had pinned down his massive bulk with hook and chain, who had sliced him, their clever, tiny fingers working metal and wire painfully into his hide. Memories of an explosion of light, and then being buried in earth for a very, very long time, slumbering peacefully, the implements in his side an ever-constant, dull ache during his long imprisonment...and then, daylight again, when these new tiny men with black armor and mad, burning eyes dug him up.

Jin shook his head as he drew his hand back from the crystal. It was...almost like an ether bond. But it offered more control, more direct access to the beast's thoughts and memories. And emotions. The beast, despite all its suffering, did not really feel anger. More like an annoyed resignation. Jin grasped the crystal again, feeling out the beast's form with his mind, feeling the cannons, the weapons woven into its form. And then, he seized control.

With a massive, earth-shaking step, the Titan lurched forward, sending the Ardainians patrolling the excavation site stumbling and falling to the ground. They got to their feet, shouting, and then began screaming and running in fear as cannons built into the Titan's side spit burning light at them, turning the ground to flame and molten glass, as it thundered forward.

Many weapons were built into the Titan's hide, enough to turn the world around it to flame and ruin. As Jin advanced it forth out of the excavation site, its main cannons lanced out to strike among the assembled legions of artificial blades, tearing through them, sending them burning and flying. They began to rise, then, as a great swarm, but the Titan's energy weapons chewed through them, sizzling, fiery light. Jin did not know if they were controlled by humans, or if they had their own sort of primitive intelligence, but the swarms began to break and scatter as light pelted among them, hundreds destroyed with every fiery sweep of the Titan's weapons over them, turning them into piles of melted slag on the ground.

Jin smiled grimly. They were just artificial blades. If there was a way to stop this way while avoiding the greatest loss of life, this was it.

Colonel Maxwell awoke with a curse in his quarters inside the Judicium Titan as it lurched to life, sending him sliding out of the small cot he called his bed. "What the hell," he snapped, pulling on his boots and struggling to his feet, shrugging on his coat and cap. He was an old for a military man, his body worn and thin, dark eyes that had seen decades of war peering out from a skull-like face grizzled with gray stubble. Though he was Brionac, he was not particularly dedicated to it. To Maxwell, war simply was. He had lived with it for so long that it just seemed natural to join with Brionac when they had begun gaining influence. War was the way of the world. Might as well go with the party that acknowledged it.

He scratched his stubbled chin thoughtfully as the Titan lurched again. None of his men would be so lacking in discipline as to fumble with the controls of the Titan. Maybe some sort of malfunction…? Then his eyes grew wide as he heard the explosions, the screams of his men. This was no malfunction. This was an attack.

He leapt for the radio that he kept in his quarters and it flickered to life as he powered it on, tuning the frequency to the emergency communications channel. "Mayday, Mayday, Mayday, this is Colonel Maxwell of the Temperantian garrison, we are under attack, repeat, we are under attack by unknown forces, strength and composition currently unknown, they have control of -"

He dropped the transmitter with a curse as the door to his quarters blew open in a flash of light, dodging the metal door as it was ripped from its hinges, grabbing up a shotgun as he did so. With a grim snarl, he aimed it at the woman standing there, a beautiful woman of long, flowing blonde hair, flashing golden eyes, in a short white dress woven through with glowing green stone, holding a sword of burning light, a triumphant smile written on her features. The shotgun roared, only for its blast to bounce uselessly off an ether shield. Maxwell cursed again, casting his eyes about for the ether-penetrating shot he kept stored, but before he could move, the woman stepped forward and grabbed the shotgun from his hand, crumpling it in her grip like it was paper. "Colonel Maxwell, I presume," she said, tossing it aside.

Maxwell eyed the ruined shotgun now lying on the floor, then squared his shoulders, casting a canny eye upon her. "That's right," he snapped. "And I don't know who you are, but Mor Ardain's vengeance is long. You will suffer dear for this-"

But Mythra was shaking her head, smiling, eyes full of light. "It's over," she whispered. "It's over. Your treason is exposed, Maxwell. Yours and that of Brionac. And your forces here, destroyed. You will get on that radio, and confess your crimes to your Emperor and the world. You will not be getting the war you so dearly wish for."

Maxwell stared at her for a moment. Then, slowly, he began to chuckle. Mythra narrowed her eyes, curiously, and then stepped back as his laughter grew, his mocking, rasping laughter, a wracking, damned laugh, and his eyes burned with wicked mirth, the silver skull in his cap burning bright, seeming to laugh along with him, and in his laughter Mythra heard the roar of bombs, the crack of gunfire, the rumbling treads of tanks, the screams of dying men, as if the Clockwork Demon itself reached down to speak through this man's voice. The shadows in the room lengthened, and to her eyes, it seemed as if Maxwell was the Clockwork Demon, that awful construct of gear and flame, the God of War Mor Ardain had built through centuries of blood and violence, the God speaking through one of his servants, mocking her with such malice that it left her breathless, cruelty to make even her Father weep. He spoke, his voice the roar of thousand rockets, and in his voice she heard the death of her hope, and marveled that this God of Man might make one such as her, daughter of the Architect, feel such despair. "Idiot," he laughed, wiping the tears from his eyes, shaking his head. "Oh, tell the Emperor. Stop the war. You're too late, you stupid fool. You're far too late for that." He slapped the desk, the dark laughter bubbling out of him once more. "None of what you did mattered. None of it matters. Do you understand? Nothing can stop us now. Nothing. The Emperor is nothing to us. We will conquer Uraya, and then the world, and nothing you did even came close to stopping us. Kill me if you want. I want you to understand that. It was always hopeless for you. I want you to know that before my Empire comes to put you in your grave. I want you to die knowing that you were always powerless to stop us." He roared with laughter, advancing towards Mythra as she backed away in terror, seeing the Clockwork Demon bear down on her, teeth dripping molten iron, eyes flashing bomb and flame and horror and all the sins of the Empire, the triumphant expression on her face shattering. "We will have victory. We will have triumph. I can die happy, knowing that. We will win. Alrest is ours. So come on, fool, naive fool girl!" His eyes flicked towards his desk as she backed away, where he kept a dagger. With one swift movement he snatched it, and leapt for her, still roaring laughter. "FOR MOR ARDAIN!"

Mythra shouted, lashing out with her blade, and Maxwell died with his mocking laughter ringing in her ears.

Jin stepped back from the command console, removing his hand from the crystal, staring with grim satisfaction at the destruction before him.

The Judicium Titan was paused now in the middle of the Temperantian fields. Before him stretched a great field of flame and burning metal, great piles of the artificial blades reduced to melted heaps, those that had not been ruined in the destruction disappearing as they flew off over the horizon. His eyes flicked upwards, out to Mor Ardain, out over the Cloud Sea. It had begun to move, begun to thunder its way towards Uraya. News should reach them of the events here soon, though. He hoped it would be enough to stop him.

He spun around, suddenly, as the door to the Titan's interior slammed open. It was Mythra. But….where she had descended into those depths with hope, now there was nothing. She was broken, walking forward numbly, her eyes fixated on Mor Ardain. "...What happened?" he asked, sharply.

She merely continued walking forward, never taking her eyes from the Ardainian Titan. "It's too late," she murmured, almost seeming hypnotized by the sight before her. "There was never any hope. It's happening. It's happening, and we never could have stopped it." A tear ran down her face, and finally, she turned her head to look at Jin, a frantic desperation in her eyes. "What...what do we do now?" she asked, and he had never heard her sound so lost.

The first artillery strikes from Mor Ardain echoed across the Cloud Sea.

TOCK

Niall finished tapping out his final communique to the Praetor, setting the odd device for transmitting bursts of code beneath a dome of crystal glass. Truth be told, he might have spoken Amalthus face to face, or through radio communication. But there was something about the Praetor that always unsettled him, and he needed all the courage he could muster for what he was going to try to do now.

Attempting to delay Brionac and their invasion plans through political means had been a grave miscalculation. Niall had hoped that, even after the coup, enough of his authority still existed, enough of the organs of his republic still functioned, that he might still be able to throw a wrench or two in their plans. The past weeks had rudely disabused him of that notion. The junta quickly made it clear who was in charge now. The broken remains of the Senate had been dissolved under their emergency war powers. Niall had wondered why they had even bothered, at first – what was left was solidly pro-Brionac, and even the few non-Brionac senators who remained had been swayed to favoring an invasion, believing their lies about an attack on the capital. It was, he had realized after some time, their signature ruthlessness. Leave no hope of reconciliation, leave no hope of escape, leave not even a shred of resistance. Leave not even the tiniest possibility that the war might be avoided. The dissolution of the Senate had met with no resistance, after all. All agreed that it was best for Mor Ardain to be steered by her Supreme Command during a time of war, and besides, a new election would have to be called to replace the dead Senators, and was the middle of a war such a good time to call such an election? They said elections would be held at some point in the future, and Niall believed them. They'd be held when they could ensure that absolutely every candidate for election was a Brionac agent.

Once in total control, the Supreme Command had moved forward with their preparations at frightening speed. They recalled soldiers from outposts and colonies with frightening speed, recalling, as well, the greater portion of Mor Ardain's naval and airship armadas from around the world. In the past few weeks, legion upon legion of battle hardened veteran had marched into Alba Cavanich, and her skies and waters had darkened with hundreds of glittering black ships. It seemed now as if Niall could barely ever see the sun, for all the airships patrolling the skies. Brionac, it seemed, was going to be as ruthless with Uraya as they had been in securing their control in Mor Ardain. Grinding them to dust beneath the greatest part of Mor Ardain's military might. The battle plan was to use their control over the Ardainian Titan's nervous system to grapple with Uraya itself – the Urayans, not having any means of controlling their Titan, could not escape them. The ground invasion would then travel down the land bridge formed by Mor Ardain's arm and pour into Uraya itself – delivering far more soldiers far more quickly than could arrive via airship or naval forces.

No, trying to stop Brionac through conventional means had always been a fool's hope. They controlled all of Mor Ardain now, and they were very certain to ensure that Niall had no access to radio broadcast, or any way to speak to the public - "still recovering from the attack," they reported, as they kept him virtually locked within his own throne room. Though it was not as if his unconventional means had done any better. Sylvie had served him as a spy against Brionac for some time, but then had suddenly disappeared, shortly before the Senate itself was dissolved – and she was, Niall thought grimly, almost certainly dead. No reports had come in about her whereabouts – according to state reports, she was at her home residence – but he had not seen her in weeks now, and her frequent, detailed reports had stopped coming in. No, there was no point in holding out hope for her. She had fallen victim to her former comrades. Niall quickly wiped a tear away from his eye as he drew a shaky breath.

He glanced around the golden splendor of the Imperial seat of power. His bodyguard, handpicked from the calvalry for their loyalty to the office of Emperor by Morag, had been whittled down as well. These men were more than willing to accept any order from him, not just serving as his bodyguards, but his spies and informants. But they were not trained for spyrcraft, and their fatality rate was much higher than any group of soldiers that might serve on the front lines. After the first death, a young man shot and killed, his body dumped in Mor Ardain's sewers, after Niall had asked him to gather information on the activities of the Supreme Command, Niall had immediately stopped giving them orders to spy. But, damn loyal fools they were, they took his orders with a wink and a nod, and continued to do so, offering him reports on things they "just so happened to overhear." And in the process, fully half of them had paid with their lives over the course of weeks. Cavalry they may be, but the soldiers loyal to the Supreme Command were no less battle-hardened. In fact, they may be more so. Niall could fault Brionac for many things, but never for cowardice. Many of their most ardent supporters were Mor Ardain's most battle-hardened veterans.

But it was thanks to these reports that Niall could take the final, desperate measure that he could take now. He had learned that, for all that the Supreme Command met with little resistance when it came to their power, the public was clamoring to see their Emperor. Today there was to be a series of speeches, a gathering of troops, before the invasion was to be initiated. Brionac planned to have him there. No doubt, by springing the announcement on him at the last moment, they hoped the Child-Emperor would be unsettled and unprepared enough that they could keep him under control. But Niall had known of their plan for close to a week now, and had prepared his last, desperate gambit. A speech, to be made to the public, a final plea, a begging from the Emperor himself, to stop this madness, to see reason. Brionac would not dare seize the microphone from him in public, not once he had the crowd's attention. He was still Emperor, still respected, though Architect knew for all his failures he deserved none of that respect. Niall had worked on this speech harder than any he ever had in his life. He wished, dearly wished that he had the innate authority, the intense charisma of Amalthus. Had he the Praetor's skill and silver tongue, he might be more hopeful. As it was, he could only do all he could, his one last desperate gambit to save his people, his one chance at redemption.

He walked to his grand desk, polished white wood lacquered gold, and retrieved his sheaf of papers with the speech written on it. He had committed it to memory, as well. It was not a long speech – it would last perhaps twenty minutes, he could not risk longer than that. It would be a terrifying prospect. He would be surrounded by the Supreme Command of Brionac, entirely within their power, these men who had tried to kill him, pleading with the crowd of Mor Ardain's citizens to disobey them, to end the war they so dared to commit treason so they might have it.

He turned around, facing the entrance of his throne room, the grand door flanked by two of the remaining members of his bodyguard. They smiled roguishly at him, tipping him a half-salute. It was the Cavalry way, Niall had come to realize over the course of his few weeks with them. Absolute loyalty to the Emperor they may have. But, uncharacteristic for Ardainians, they were rather casual about that loyalty. These men, and their unit, deserved all the honors the Empire could bestow upon them for their service. These men-

And it all happened so quickly.

The throne room doors burst open, revealing a grim-faced Brionac colonel and two of his attendant soldiers, black trenchcoat fluttering around him, burnished silver skulls standing out against all that black like blasphemy. There was no pause, no hesitation in his movements. As Niall's bodyguard was still spinning around to see who it was who had entered the throne room, he raised a pistol, and with a bone-chilling lack of emotion, executed one of them with two quick shots to the head. The gunshots rang out like thunder across the throne room. The other member of Niall's bodyguard almost had time to raise his weapon before the Brionac soldiers attending the colonel raised rifles of their own and fired. He was dead before he hit the ground.

"No!" Niall had time to shout, scrambling backwards, before the colonel strode across the room and seized him roughly by the arm. Niall closed his eyes as he was dragged, roughly, across the throne room, not wanting to look at the bodies of the men who had died for him as he passed them by. I should look, he thought to himself. I should know the men I forced to die for a hopeless cause. But he could not bring himself to.

Outside of the throne room doors were yet more members of his bodyguard, bruised, beaten, tied and gagged, not shot, Niall realized, only because to do so would have spoiled the chance Brionac had of surprising him within the throne room.

And, worse yet, there stood three members of the Ardainian Supreme Command. All of them were dressed in their full battle regalia. They would, after all, be participating in the invasion today. Again, Brionac could never be faulted for cowardice. Just as Mor Ardain's Emperors were expected to serve on the front lines – though certainly they would not let Niall - so too were members of their high command. And these men would never shirk their duty. They were Ardainian through and through.

The first was Supreme Commander Maclair. He was the man who had delivered the thinly veiled demand for surrender to Niall, the night of his attempted assassination. He was chief of Mor Ardain's convoluted system of spycraft and subterfuge. If there was one man who had directly planned his assassination, Niall thought, it was most certainly Maclair. How it must have galled him to see it fail. His battle regalia was simple, not much more than the typical Brionac officer's long black trenchcoat and black military cap. But whereas the typical Brionac symbol was a burnished silver skull, Maclair had snake's heads, baring their fangs, emblazoned on his pauldrons and his cap, and their long, curling bodies, depicted in gleaming silver thread, embroidered into his uniform. The snake was the animal symbol of Mor Ardain's more shadowy military elements, after all. He nodded to the colonel who had dragged Niall out, and then reached out and snatched the speech that Niall still had held in his hands from him. He shuffled through it, scanning it quickly, and then raised an eyebrow at Niall. "Really now, child," he scoffed, a condescending smirk crossing his features. That was what he was to them, now, Niall supposed. Not Emperor. Just a child to be controlled. With quick movements, he tore the speech to pieces, small scraps of paper that fluttered down to the ground.

Niall watched this, swallowing, then nodded towards his captured and beaten bodyguard. "Please. I ask only that you spare them. I-"

"You're looking at dead men already, boy," growled a voice worn rough from years of inhaling Mor Ardain's factory smoke. This was Supreme Commander Nelson, who would be leading the ground invasion personally, leading the ground forces down the path of Mor Ardain's arm onto Urayan soil. His regalia was the thick, dark plate of Mor Ardain's soldiers, though considerably more ornate, and his helmet, unlike the common soldier's helmet, was carved intricately into the image of a snarling wolf. Nelson's eyes glared out at him from the shadows of its wide, toothy jaw. That voice had been the one that had assumed control of the radio stations the night he had been shot, the first to begin peddling Brionac's lies to the public. "They just don't know it yet."

"Enough, Nelson." This was Supreme Commander Casey, ultimate authority over Mor Ardain's airship flotillas. His face was not so drawn, so gaunt as Maclair's, and he had less of the bloodthirstiness about him that Nelson had. He was somewhat aged, somewhat regal, almost, silver hair topping a well-worn face, cold blue eyes that had some life to them beyond the hard, flat stares most Brionac officers had. But then again, Casey had not been Brionac all his life. There had been, in fact, a point when he had been one of the key allies holding back their influence, so long ago, in Niall's father's lifetime. But that had been years ago. His battle regalia was a long black coat decorated with silver razor wings, his cloak clasped in place by a carved, screaming eagle. His cloak itself was layered, as if made of black feathers, that slowly transitioned to silver the closer the cloak got to the ground.

"So...you will spare them?" Niall asked, addressing himself to Casey. If there were any of the Brionac command who might have mercy about them, it was him.

"No," Casey replied softly. "You have made their deaths an inevitability. Maclair, take care of him."

"No!" Niall cried, struggling against the iron grip he was held in. He could at least do this, he could at least save these men who had served him so faithfully. "I can-" Suddenly, there was a sharp, stabbing pain in his arm. He glanced down to see a needle sticking into his arm, held by Maclair. As he watched, the Commander pushed down on the plunger, and he could immediately feel its contents flooding into his bloodstream, coursing through his veins like a cloud of fire. "What…?"

And suddenly, the world warped around him. Sound slowed down, the voices around him became deep, low, as if time had slowed down. His vision blurred, the men around him looming dozens, hundreds of feet tall. "What...what have you done to..." he muttered, his voice slurring, barely able to speak. He looked up at Maclair, and gasped. Where the Supreme Commander had once been, there was now a great, coiling cobra, gleaming silver, burning with blue fire, baring fangs dripping with poison at him.

"That should last him through the sendoff," The Snake said, its voice a sibilant hiss.

"Pity we couldn't off him when we had the chance," came another voice, somewhere halfway between a growl and a roar. Niall swiveled his head to see a humongous, monstrous wolf, slavering jaws, its fur deep black, as if made of shadow itself, crazed bloodthirst in its eyes. "Wouldn't have to go through this bullshit if it weren't for Morag and those damned 'dignitaries' she bought in with her. Frankly, don't know why we don't just off him now." The Wolf gave him a manic, toothy grin, as if itching to leap forward and tear out his throat. Niall gasped and recoiled, shaking with fear.

"Because the public is expecting him, and we would not have a good explanation for his death." Niall rubbed his eyes. The third voice came from a great, dark eagle blotting out the sun. It was….somehow, it was soaring high above them, large enough to make of the sun nothing but a bright burning halo, and yet….at the same time, it was here on the ground with them. Niall did not understand, his thoughts in a fog, as if moving through a dream. It should not be possible, and yet it was. The shadows of the eagle shifted, and one great burning, silver eye within that silhouette against the sun opened to pierce to his very soul. "Can he understand us?"

"Does it really matter at this point, if he can?" the Snake replied, glaring malignantly at the Eagle.

"I suppose not." The Eagle shifted, to speak to a series of dark, flickering shadows behind him. "Execute them. And then clean up. Give them….the honors they deserve. Bury them in a veteran's cemetery."

"No..." Niall tried to force out. There was something, something important about what the Eagle was saying. But he just couldn't remember, couldn't hold on to the thoughts in his head. They all blurred together, melted into one another, nothing quite made sense. The Snake coiled its gleaming silver scales around him, and suddenly he found himself being dragged down the palace hallway, the Wolf on his right, the Eagle on his left, and from behind him came a sudden, muted thunder, but he already had forgotten what it meant.

Down, down the dark, winding labyrinth of the palace hallways the Snake, Wolf and Eagle dragged him, and Niall's mind filled with visions. Some hallways, it seemed to him, were engulfed in roaring flames and filled with smoke. Others were full of of ghosts, all the dead Senators executed by Brionac. Sylvie was there, desperately reaching out towards him, her eyes full of regret, shouting something at him, but whatever it was, he could not hear. Along the hallways, decorated with the pictures and portraits of former Emperors, they lived and moved within their portraits, cursing him for his weakness, for his failures. Only one looked upon him with sad, sympathetic eyes – the portrait of Emperor Hugo, from the Aegis War so long ago.

Finally, he was thrust out into burning bright sunlight, so bright it stabbed into his eyes, causing him to wince. He held up a hand against the light, and as his eyes adjusted to the light, he realized he was atop a humongous black stage, upon which rested a monolithic black podium. Behind him, fluttering in the breeze, was an enormous red flag, seeming almost impossibly tall, seeming to swallow the sky in crimson, the golden seal of Mor Ardain stamped into it. Above him, in the smoke blotted sky, hundreds of airships, angels of death, and before him, the assembled legions of Mor Ardain, stretching endlessly in either direction, disappearing into the distance, a million golems of ticking gears, and a humongous, howling, howling mass, like buzzing insects, sharp toothed beasts, cheering the soldiers, cheering for him, flames dancing among them, though they didn't notice it licking at them, charring them, their eyes a thousand thousand twin beacons of madness, and the music that attended them, the throbbing pound of war drums, the blare of trumpets -

Niall reached out, weakly, for the podium. There was something he had to do, he was sure of it, something he desperately needed to do, he had to find the beauty in these howling monsters, it was all he could do, he had to find the good in them buried beneath the weight of blood and war and madness. And it was there, he was sure of it, oh Architect, please, please let it still be there. But he was seated firmly in a seat behind the podium by force, and he was too weak, to confused to will himself to stand.

The Eagle, still a silhouette, still simultaneously somehow blotting out the sun and on the ground at the same time, glided to the podium, and raised a...hand? Wing? Shadow? Niall held his hands to his head. It was all a blurry dream, a horrific nightmare – and waited for the crowd of howling monsters to stop. "Yes, citizens," he spoke, finally, "Your Emperor has come to see off this, this most historic of Armies, this most pivotal of invasions. He must refrain from speaking – he still suffers gravely, his wounds from the Urayan strike upon the palace…"

His words became a low buzz, flowing through Niall's memory like water through a sieve. He looked down from the stage, down upon the gathered armies of Mor Ardain, humongous tanks like trundling black beetles, the men hollow, ticking things, airships docked off the shoulder of Mor Ardain like black holes in the sky, and he damned himself, damned himself for letting it become like this. One truck in particular caught his eye, for it glowed with a hellish light, as if contained within was a gate to damnation itself, the final seal of doom. He watched with a dull concern as it was loaded into one of the docked airships, swallowed by a black hole, and he tried, he tried to marshal his thoughts. "Need...to stop..." he muttered, but it was no use. No one was listening, and his mind could not hold on to the memory. One last thing you were too weak to stop, a voice within him said.

He turned his attention back to the podium. Procession of beast after snarling beast walked up to it now to harangue the crowd, shades with eyes glowing with the lights of hell, grotesquely deformed demons, all of them full of an awful dynamism, a crackling electricity, all the strength, the energy, that he wished he had, their words blurring into each other…

"History is ours for the taking..."

"..earth will tremble beneath the march of our feet..."

"...proclaim our rightful place as leaders of Alrest..."

And finally, after this march of ghouls, the Snake, the Eagle, and the Wolf stepped forth to the podium. And before Niall's eyes, they blurred, they merged together into a great three-headed Beast. And when they opened their mouths, no speech came, instead came music, in some language he could not understand, low, long, and sweet, droning on and on, a tune that carried with it an infectious life of its own. And soon the demons behind the Beast were joining in the chorus, and then the ticking clockwork soldiers, and then the crowd of jubilant, burning monsters, until it seemed all of Mor Ardain rang with the song, that it lifted from every throat. And the worst of it was, Niall realized, was that it was a beautiful song. For in some way he could not quite grasp, it was a song of love. Love reflected through a dark mirror, but love nonetheless. Love and fear and hope and honor, all twisted and knotted up and wrong, and Niall's heart sang with the tragedy of it all.

By the time the speeches had ended, and Maclair, Nelson and Casey were dragging Niall back to his throne room, the drugs had worn off somewhat. It was still somewhat hard to think, but the visions had stopped, and he could see the world clearly once more. No longer were the winding hallways of the palace unfamiliar to him, no more were they full of flame and ghosts. As they approached the throne room, Niall looked with horror upon the bloodstains where formerly there had been the tied and captured members of his bodyguard, and choked back a sob.

As the Supreme Commanders roughly shoved him into his throne room, and he fell, stumbling, defiance rose within him, despite the lingering effects of his drugs. "How," he said, righting himself, drawing himself up, fixing the three with what he hoped was a steely gaze, "How? How do you justify this bloodiness, this treason, to yourselves?"

The Supreme Commanders stared at him with some surprise.

Nelson was the first to step forward and speak, his eyes flashing fury, the wolf's head he wore seeming to roar his words. "Treason, boy? As if you sheltered nobles know the meaning of the word. What do you know of Mor Ardain, who only the soldiers and workers of Mor Ardain know? I clawed my way up, sick, weak child, from the streets and gutters of this country. I worked for a living, I fought for a living, for decades to get where I am now. I have more of Mor Ardain flowing in my veins than you could ever hope to have, you spoiled brat. And you speak to me of treason? You dare?" He clenched his fists, and Niall could tell Nelson desperately wanted to step forward and strike him. Niall did his best to show no fear.

"Nelson," Casey snapped, his tone brooking no argument. Nelson glared at the airship commander, his fists still clenched, and then snarled, spitting on the throne room floor. With one final look of contempt for Niall, he strode out of the throne room, to go lead the ground invasion, to go meet his destiny.

There was a moment of silence, and then Maclair, Maclair the Snake, Maclair the Shadow, Maclair the assassin and murderer, spoke next. Niall had always considered him one of the worst Brionac had to offer, and was surprised to see the sadness in his eyes. "I made a choice….long ago," Maclair mused, "That victory should come at any cost." He shrugged, giving a bitter smile. "It is too late for me to consider whether or not it was the wrong one."

He left the throne room in silence, his footsteps barely making a sound on the hard stone flooring. And Niall was left alone with Supreme Commander Casey.

Niall still had dim memories of the day Casey had switched his loyalties, had declared his support for Brionac, which Niall's father had opposed. It was, in retrospect, one of the darkest days in Mor Ardain's long, bloody history, a day that had led inexorably to this. Casey had just returned from putting a final end to the Gormotti rebellions, and was considered a war hero of the highest order. And what was more, he had ended the rebellions with not just warfare, but cunning and diplomacy, brokering an ironclad alliance between the remaining Gormotti tribes and the Ardainian Empire. Niall's father had considered him a personal friend, and even had hopes that with a war hero such as Casey on his side, the burgeoning influence of Brionac might be curbed. But Casey had not come to visit them. They instead heard of his declaration of support for Brionac in the news. The declaration had cast a pall over the royal palace, and Niall could still remember his father's words upon hearing the news: "Those bastards have taken the best of us." More than any other event, it had solidified Brionac's power in Mor Ardain. Ever since, fighting them had been a losing battle. "So, Casey?" Niall said quietly. "What say you? For what was all this madness worth it?"

To his surprise, Casey sighed wearily, looking down at the ground. "I...always admired you, you know," the Supreme Commander said, bitterness flashing across his stern, worn features. "Even when you were very young. I always told your father, you were a special child. There is something in you, Niall. Something that sees the dimming light in this country. Something that brings out the best in us. When you were young, I had high hopes for your ascension. I thought...surely, if there is someone who can take us off the dark path we tread, it is this boy. And then to see you struggle so much, with all you had, to hold back the tides of war. How noble you are, Niall. An Emperor, in the truest sense of the word. If things had been different, had history taken a different course, I would have been your most steadfast ally." He raised his head to meet Niall's confused stare, his eyes glimmering. Niall realized with shock that this man of war, this hard man, was struggling to contain his passions. "When I look at you, I still see all that Mor Ardain could have been."

"But...then why?" Niall asked, still shocked. "Why...why did you declare support for Brionac? Why did you aid them? Damn you, Casey, it might have been different!" Niall's heart twisted, when he realized the depth of truth in that statement. It really might have been different, with Casey on his side. The weight of all that might have been was too much to bear.

"Because," Casey replied quietly, "Though Brionac may be the worst of us, they are right. The only hope for this world without new Titans being born is administration under the hands of Mor Ardain, to preserve resources, distribute food, ration, and prepare for the long, dark centuries ahead, until we can discover what it is that is causing their disappearance. And loathsome as they are, Niall, you have to deal with the circumstances history gives you. Please understand." A note of pleading entered Casey's voice. It was subtle, but it was there. Casey was begging him to see. "Mor Ardain could not both break Brionac's power and wage the necessary wars. So yes. I supported Brionac, because it was necessary. I will put the world in chains and hand the lead to them, because it really is the only way. I wish it was not so, but wishes don't save the world. I hope that one day, far into the future, their power is broken. I hope history spits upon my name as a criminal and a traitor, one day. As long as there is still a world to have a history to do so. I hope you are remembered as the hero you are, for trying so valiantly to stop it all."

And here, Casey spun on his heels, and made for the throne room doors.

"Richard."

Casey stopped at the mention of his first name, turning around slowly.

Niall stood, looking as regal as he ever did, sunlight casting a halo about him. But his face was wracked with a deep, awful sadness, a sadness that should never be on the face of a child, and his face shone with tears. "Richard," Niall said, desperate, pleading. "Please. It doesn't have to be like this." He shook his head, catching his breath against the sobs that escaped his throat, and looked up again, his eyes full of the last light of hope and good to be found in Mor Ardain, his voice full of utter certainty. "It doesn't have to be like this!"

Casey paused at the doorway for a moment, and Niall didn't know if it was the final, lingering effects of the drugs in his system. But it seemed as if he could suddenly see all the war Casey had seen, surrounding him, the roar of gunfire, the scream of rockets, the world-shattering bombs, a thousand airships soaring above his head, countless soldiers and tanks surrounding him, the ghosts of Mor Ardain's wars, all the men Casey had ever seen sacrifice and die for their country.

"Yes, it does," Supreme Commander Richard Casey, Eagle of the Empire, said quietly, looking at the man he might have called Emperor in another life. "It's too late. It was always too late."

And with that, he exited the throne room, quietly closing the door behind him.

Niall clutched his chest, staggering to his throne. It was all too much. There was no undoing this damnation. He had failed, and failed, and failed, and all the beauty that he had hoped Mor Ardain might show the world was dead and gone because of his failures, and it froze in his chest, a solid knot of pain in his heart, like nothing he had ever known. He sat in his throne, burying his face in his hands, thinking of all that Mor Ardain could have been, if only he had been smarter, or stronger, or less of a failure.

Moments later, the first roars of artillery fire shook the Palace.

TICK

"We've got to do something," Rex said quietly.

The Praetor had led them away from the bustle of his throne room, filled as it was with his command, all anxiously monitoring the developing battle, down the long hallway to his office where he had previously met with Rex and Malos. It was more than large enough to accommodate the entire party, though he did bid servants bring in extra chairs, along with steaming cups of tea. He sat now behind his large desk, eyes glimmering in the sunlight, weighing them all, Fan standing behind him, a hand on his shoulder.

Morag had refused a chair, retreating to the shadows of a corner of the room, looking particularly pale, not letting go of the communique from her brother the Praetor had handed her. Niall. Her brother, blaming himself for this atrocity. She couldn't stand it. She should have been Emperess, not for the power, but so that she might have shouldered this burden for him. Damn it, she should have killed all of Brionac herself. Why had she let him order her away, onto this quest for Elysium? The sweet fool boy, had he been trying to protect her? Brighid watched over her driver worriedly. She had never seen Morag so distraught, outside of the night Niall had been shot before her eyes. She could feel it through their ether bond, feel Morag's heart breaking for her brother, breaking for her country, breaking hard enough so that it showed through the stoic exterior her driver endeavored so hard to maintain. She wished she knew just the right thing to say. She wished she could reach out and comfort Morag, but there was nothing that was going to ease her pain. There was nothing to say, nothing to do in the face of all this horror.

The large windows in Amalthus' office offered a brutally clear picture of the invasion. Through the large paned glass, framed as if a painting, they could see the Ardainian Titan looming, lurching towards Uraya, the sounds of artillery fire muffled by the palace walls. Poppi stared out the window, placing her hand on the glass. She felt...odd, as she stared out at Mor Ardain. It was...a kingdom of engineers, clever men, clever men much like her Tora. Men of swift and nimble fingers and inquisitive minds. And they had bent all that cleverness, all that knowledge, into building machines of beautiful complexity, that they might do….this? Her orange eyes widened as a new wave of fireballs dotted the surface of Uraya. All that curiousity, all that beautiful design, all so that they might kill and maim?

"What a waste," Tora said softly at her side, joining her at the window. He reached up to take her free hand with one of his wings. "What a waste."

Poppi looked down at him. That was what she felt. It wasn't just the atrocity of war that appalled her. It was the awful waste of all that imagination that might have built beauty and wonder, bent instead to steel, flame and bomb. For the first time, she felt incredibly aware of the rockets, the weapons built into her frame. For the first time, they burned within her. She almost felt something like shame. Poppi was more than just her weapons, of course. For the first time, she truly appreciated how she had been built for more than violence. "Masterpon," she said quietly, "Thank you for making Poppi more than this."

Even the normally effervescent Pandoria was silenced by it all. She had her arms linked around one of Zeke's, resting her head on his shoulder. She could feel what he was feeling. Zeke may be silly, and unserious most of the time. But he had a real fire, a real anger, for misgovernment. It was part of what had gotten him banished, after all. He passionately felt that leaders had a real responsibility to their people, to lead them to the right path, and nothing infuriated him more than to see a people led astray. All humor driven out of him, Zeke's mouth was a grim, thin line as he stared out at Mor Ardain. She could feel the contempt he felt for their leaders. "Bloody-minded bastards," he snarled beneath his breath. "Criminal, is what it is."

Malos and Nia sat to the sides of Rex, in chairs facing the Praetor's desk, Dromarch at Nia's feet. Malos had his arms crossed, his face in shadow, dark and brooding, emotions unreadable. Nia...she had dim memories of the tail ends of the Gormotti rebellions against Mor Ardain. The end of the resistance to the occupation, the last lingering flames of war in Gormott had always seemed a distant thing to her. Her driver had been part of the nobility that had allied with Mor Ardain early, and the last elements of rebellion had been battles that had taken place far from her home. She wondered, when Mor Ardain had first invaded Gormott, if it had been as bad as this. Somehow, she didn't think so. She had heard people say that the Empire had been getting bloodier and more brutal over the years. She wondered if she ought to feel thankful that Gormott had been invaded when they still had the soul of mercy within them.

Another barrage of artillery fire roared in the distance, and Rex winced. "Please!" he said, to Amalthus, to anyone who would listen. "Please, there...has to be something that can be done!"

Silence answered him. Until Amalthus leaned forward across his desk, pinning Rex with a stare that made him shift uncomfortable. "Like what, do you suppose?" the Praetor asked. "I'm curious. What do you think could be done, at this late hour? I would like to hear what you think."

"I..." Rex gestured helplessly out the window. "Couldn't you...you're the Praetor. You could tell them to stop-"

Amalthus gave a dry, mirthless laugh. "I do not rule Mor Ardain, Rex."

"I know! You could...you could tell them to stop, or you'll attack. You could make them back down."

"I could," Amalthus mused. "And what if they don't care? You saw these men in Mor Ardain. Butchers they may be, did they seem lacking in bravery? Did they seem like they might be intimidated, though the whole world be arrayed against them?"

Rex recalled his conversation with the Brionac officers in Mor Ardain. Those hard men, with dark, flat eyes, idly discussing how Mor Ardain might conquer the world. He paled, hanging his head. Nia felt her heart ache for him. He was a dim candle, flickering, trying to hold on against the darkness closing in.

"No," Amalthus continued, "I think your plan would do nothing more than draw Indol into the war. Make it even larger. Simply cause more suffering. What about you, Malos? What say you? Do you think this war could be stopped somehow?"

Malos was quiet, his face still steeped in shadow. Rex looked towards him hopefully, and Malos sighed. "I think," he said eventually, "War is part of human nature. It will always be with you. If not this war, then another one. You will carry it with you to your bitter end."

"No!" Rex cried, his voice breaking, as he leapt from his chair. "I won't believe that. I won't! Maybe people will always fight, sure, people will always disagree, but you can talk things out, you can find a better way, you can..." he trailed off as he stared out the window, at the rage and flame of war. When he turned to face them again, his eyes were shining as he struggled to contain his tears. "We have to be better than this," he said, his voice filled with determination. "We have to. I...I wish I could do something. I should be able to do something."

"Yes," the Praetor said, "You should."

Nia whipped her head around to stare at him in shock.

Amalthus spread his hands across his desk, and suddenly, almost as it had last night, the world seemed to turn around him. His eyes were an eternal pool, an abyss of judgment, they locked Rex in their gaze, until his hands hung limp by his sides. "Your failures are mine as well, Rex," the Praetor said. "Both of us, drivers of an Aegis. Both of us have failed. We should have been able to do something. I have tried for generations to steer Mor Ardain off the course of war. Oh, I had had temporary successes. But always they return to their path. I bear the responsibility of that failure, and as a Driver of the Aegis, you do too. More than anyone else, we must be the ones held responsible. We were not given the power we have for idleness. If we do not have the power to make things better, if we do not have the ability to stop things like this war, we must work until we do. Anything less, Rex, is failure. I hope now you understand the weight of your responsibility. The blood on your hands, should you not live up to the potential of the gift the Architect gave you."

The Praetor's words sawed through Rex, cutting him to the bone. Some knot twisted itself around his heart, the pain of his failure burning within him. The Praetor was right. In some way, this was all his responsibility. Which meant that all this suffering, all this death was his fault…

"We must be better, Rex," the Praetor continued, his voice drilling into Rex's head, "We-"

"Stop!"

Amalthus and Rex both turned to face Nia, the Praetor's expression cool, Rex looking almost hollow. She couldn't help it. She couldn't help crying out. It was almost as if...as the Praetor spoke, she could see the darkness reaching out from him, twisting around Rex's heart. He was breaking Rex, he was...it was as if with mere words, he was forging in Rex the same wound that lay within him. And so deep, so utter was the wound within him, that it could not have outraged her more if Amalthus had drawn a sword and thrust it directly into Rex's heart. "Stop it," she snapped, almost unable to contain her horror. "He...he doesn't have to..."

Amalthus was quiet for a moment, and then sat back in his chair, putting a hand to his head, weary. "Yes. I apologize. You are young, Rex. These are concerns for later. This war has gotten to me, as well. It is my burden, not yours." He rose, his robes sweeping around him, and for a moment he actually seemed to bear the weight of his age as he glanced out the window. It was enough for Fan to reach out and take his arm with concern. "I...should check in with my advisors. They are monitoring the situation closely. Even if nothing can be done, I would like to keep myself appraised of the war as it progresses."

The room was silent after Amalthus had left, Fan attendant on his arm. Rex got up, walking to the door as well. "I think I'm just gonna...take a bit of a walk to clear my head," he said quietly.

Nia whipped her head around to stare angrily at the rest of the group after he had gone, yellow eyes flashing. "Why didn't the rest of you say anything?" she hissed. "Do you really think Rex needed to hear that?"

"I...don't think Amalthus meant anything by it, Nia," Zeke said, still staring out the window. "You heard what he said. The war's getting to all of us." Morag glanced at her, pale, too withdrawn to speak, and Tora just looked at her with wide eyes, as if the idea of interrupting the Praetor was insanity. Poppi, though, and Brighid, both looked ashamed. It seemed as if they agreed with her at least.

"Didn't mean anything by it," she muttered. "You could write books about what that man means with every bloody word he speaks." She turned to Malos, her glare heated enough to wither grass. "And you! Damn you, you're his blade. Can't you encourage him, for once?"

Malos looked at her, seeming surprisingly tired. "Would you like me to have lied to him?" he asked, wearily. "Encouraged his childish optimism?"

Nia's blood boiled with anger. "It's not childish," she cried, and then paused, almost surprised at herself.

Malos raised an eyebrow at her, quizzically. "Do you...really think that?" he asked.

"I...I don't know. Maybe it is, a bit..."

"Poppi doesn't think so," the artificial blade murmured quietly to herself, so that only she could hear.

"But...look," Nia continued, "It's...he...he can't do this alone." As she said the words, she suddenly realized the truth of them. Rex tried so hard to hold on to hope in the face of all the horror the world showed him. And while he might keep his chin up, and smile, and laugh off people's concerns, who did he have to help him keep the flame of that hope alive? Sure, he had friends, but who else really believed like he did? Nia...wanted to. But she wasn't sure if she truly did. "I...ah." She got up, shaking her head. "I...I dunno. I'm gonna go take a walk as well."

Nia found Rex in one of the hallways leading up to the throne room. The bustle and panic had died down a bit by now, as the officers and other residents of the palace found the places they would huddle and watch the war with dread.

Rex was standing in the shadow of one of those foreboding paintings Amalthus had decorating the leadup to his throne, staring up at it intently. It was a scene of war and ruin, a battlefield ablaze after humanity had been cast down from the World Tree, which loomed ominously in the background against a flame-scorched sky. "You know," he said quietly, as she approached, without turning around, "I...always thought that this would never happen. Even after what we saw in Mor Ardain. I thought, surely...something would stop it. Something would prevent it. Niall would find some way, or we'd find some way to help him...something. I guess I thought nothing so horrible could ever really happen." He gave a resigned chuckle, but as Nia drew up beside him, she could see the dark circles beneath his eyes. "I guess I really am naive. Maybe I thought...by the time it arrived, I would have the ability to stop it. Somehow."

"Rex, I don't care if you are the Driver of the Aegis or whatever puffed-up nonsense title they hand out to whoever can put up with people like Malos and Mythra. It isn't your damn responsibility." Belying her harsh words, Nia reached out to hold his hand.

"Then whose?" Rex murmured. "I mean, you heard the Praetor..."

Nia's blood caught fire with rage. Oh yeah, sure. Amalthus had meant nothing by it. Nia didn't buy it for a second. The Praetor wielded his words like a weapon, and she was certain that every one he spoke was measured and meant to draw blood. "Rex...don't listen to him. Please. There's...I don't know. There's something wrong with him. I can just tell. He has a lot of pretty words, but he...maybe it's all the people he's hurt, even just by accident. There's something twisted up in him. Remember what Cole said."

"I remember. But...it's not just him, you know. I wish I could do something myself. I mean..." he sighed, looking down at the ground, as more artillery fire roared in the distance. "What good will Elysium do, if we can't be better than this? It can be better. Right…? It can be better than this."

Nia wasn't sure what to say. She wanted to believe it could. She wanted to help Rex keep that flame inside from being snuffed out by the darkness. But as the artillery roared and the bombs thundered, she still wasn't sure of her answer.

She didn't know how long she stood there, squeezing Rex's hand. But eventually, they were interrupted.

"Rex," came the commanding tone of the Praetor, and they both whirled around. Amalthus stood there, his long shadow stretching out toward them, Fan at his side, and Nia immediately felt uncomfortable. Even more so than she normally would in the Praetor's presence. It was as if that web of history that you could normally feel roiling around Amalthus was stretching out towards them, ensnaring them, as the Praetor watched with judging, calculating eyes. "I have been looking for you," the Praetor continued. "We may not be able to do something about this war, but I have received a report that may aid us in your mission to Elysium." And his eyes barely changed, but suddenly Nia could sense a deadly hunger radiating from Amalthus. As if that abyss inside him was smelling blood. "We have reports on Mythra's location. She is in Temperantia."

TOCK

Supreme Commander Maclair hurried away from the throne room, quickly passing by Nelson, who shot him a glare full of cold fury.

Nelson was one of the few men who frightened Maclair. He was legendary in combat – if only half the tales Maclair had heard about him were true, he was either superhuman or had the devil's luck, or both. But beneath that fury and brutality lay a mind of extreme cunning and incredible strategy. He had seen details of some of the battles Nelson had led – leading Ardainian forces to victory against fifty to one odds, driving far larger armies to their knees. Maclair did not envy the Urayans. People gave Casey credit for ending the Gormotti rebellions, but Maclair wasn't so sure. Nelson had been the Commanding General in Gormott before Casey, and had reaped a ruin of Mor Ardain's enemies. Countless rebellious tribes swallowed in bomb and flame, exterminated to a soul. More than a few mass graves dotted Gormott that were Nelson's doing. Casey may have forged a truce, but Maclair had always thought it had been Nelson who truly broke the Gormotti. Peace may have only been possible because Nelson had convinced the cats that he really, truly would kill every last one of them.

Maclair himself, though he held the rank of Commander, had never truly commanded men in a strategic battle. His talents lay elsewhere – in the realm of spycraft, assassinations, poisonings, bombings, subterfuge...the subject of his current mission.

He rushed out of the palace, avoiding the endless legions marching through the streets, their footsteps a resounding, thundering drumbeat. He ducked down a dark alleyway, making his way through the winding streets of Mor Ardain, descending, ever descending, the roar of the crowds above slowly fading, until he came to a small, damp courtyard that opened out into the Cloud Sea, buzzing electric lights casting a sickly orange glow. A smuggler's dock – or at least it had been, until Maclair had used his knowledge of Mor Ardain's seedy underbelly to incorporate its criminal elements into the Empire's spy network. Truth be told, it was still used as a smuggler's dock, but nowadays, it smuggled core crystals and salvaged weaponry to Mor Ardain's forces.

His team was waiting there for him, glancing nervously as he stepped out of the shadows. These were hardened men – spies, assassins – recruited from Mor Ardain's criminal gangs, but the appearance of Maclair was enough to make them lick their lips in fear. He did have a bit of a legend himself, Maclair supposed. He was almost entirely responsible for the intimidating state of Mor Ardain's current spy networks, and he had spent years making it clear to the Empire's criminal families that they would serve the state, or die alone in the dark.

He observed the ship that was to be carrying them – a small skipper, barely large enough to fit his entire team, outfitted for speed and speed alone, nothing about it identifying it as belonging to Mor Ardain. His team had done a good job in selecting the boat. "Good," he said, his voice barely rising above a whisper. "Let's go. We've not much time."

He joined his team as they clambered skillfully onto the boat, in utter silence. As it lurched forward with incredible acceleration, sending huge plumes of fog up into the air as it cut quickly through the Cloud Sea, there was a sudden roaring sound like thunder, and a huge dark shadow fell over them. Maclair turned his eyes upwards to see the massive shape of Indol, its wings blotting out the sun, hovering quite closely to Mor Ardain – though not so close that the Empire might turn its artillery guns on them.

Amalthus. Maclair knew where much of Brionac's money came from, clever as Amalthus had been at hiding the cash flow, attempting to make it look like their budget came from native Ardainian industrialists. He had tried telling the command of Brionac's military arm about it, but they had never given it the attention it deserved. One of the sad little quirks of how Mor Ardain ran things. Under the Imperial Republic, which, Maclair supposed, was truly dead and gone now, matters of budget were strictly the realm of the Senate, while the military was to maximize victory with the forces and money they were given. Even if Brionac had broken the old Republic, too many high-ranking military officials still gave little consideration to matters of budget or where the money came from. Old habits died hard. Maclair had informed some of the more loyal Brionac Senators, and they had expressed concern...but the Senate was hardly relevant anymore. But Amalthus was clearly up to something. He funded Brionac, even...cooperated with them, in some ways, while denouncing them in public. And he also sent military aid and funding to Uraya. For what was the old fox maneuvering? Maclair might have been more worried, but….he glanced to the skies, to the swarms of airships, to the Cloud Sea, the armadas upon armadas of Ardainian battleships. Even Indol could not stand against that. Whatever web Amalthus was weaving, Brionac would choke him with it.

They cut out swiftly across the Cloud Sea, racing to their destination ahead of the thundering, ponderous footsteps of the Ardainian Titan: Rising like a breathing mountain in the distance, the stony hide of the Urayan Titan. As they approached, artillery fire erupted like distant thunder behind him, and shells screamed overhead: Mor Ardain was beginning to fire some of its larger artillery cannons at the distant Urayan Titan. Maclair watched as fireballs bloomed on the surface of Uraya, leaving behind dark gray craters; tiny at this distance, but he knew each of these strikes could leave gouges in the earth a hundred feet across. They cut a wide berth, avoiding heading toward the Titan head-on, to avoid heading into the approaching Urayan navy. Which was impressive, as far as navies went – though a bit ramshackle, composed mostly of pirates and other Urayan mercenaries, with only a sprinkling of a few battleships owned by the monarchy – but certainly would stand no chance against the oncoming Ardainian onslaught. It was valiant of them to fight though they knew they might die – or, Maclair thought, that was certainly what they must be thinking. Maclair himself knew better. Those thousands of deaths, no matter how valiant, would never change the course of history. It made no difference if they died with honor or died a coward's death. They were dead either way. And in a generation or so, forgotten.

Maclair steered the helmsman around towards Uraya's tail, once he was satisfied that they had avoided the attention of her navies. There was an alcove there he knew from his youth, so many, many years ago, when he had been one of Mor Ardain's criminal smugglers himself. It was now secured by Ardainian spies, though it had never been used before this. No, Maclair had not wanted to draw attention to it. He had wanted to save this entry point for this one particular mission.

Men standing at the docks snapped to attention as they docked and they saw him on board the deck. Maclair considered this silly, honestly – he considered much of military formality silly. He considered this mission itself foolish. Not the goal of the mission itself, but rather the fact that he had to personally lead it. Maclair was no coward – he had dealt death personally, himself, many, many times – but Mor Ardain's tradition of sending its high command, even its Emperors, out to the front lines was just pure stupidity. For valor and honor, they said, but those were just masks for idiocy. Sending high command out into battle had cost Mor Ardain more than a few times in its history – they had even lost Emperors to violence. Not that he could have ever bought up these concerns. If he had suggested that the High Command not take part in the battle, Nelson may well have killed him for the mere suggestion, and even Casey would have looked down on him for that. At least here he was avoiding the front lines.

"Do you have the disguises?" he asked the saluting men, as he stepped down briskly from the boat. They nodded, and directed Maclair and his team to a small cave that branched out from the cove, its walls thick with slime. In the center of the cave, displayed pristinely on a set of stands, was a dozen sets of the bulky, steel Urayan armor.

Maclair sighed as he and his team began strapping the armor on. He despised Urayan armor. It was thick steel, designed to deflect small arms fire, but so ridiculously bulky that it was almost impossible to move in. It was really designed for Urayans, who were generally much larger and stronger than Ardainians were. These were the last sets of this armor he had available. He had collected smuggled sets of these for over a year to build up the amount he had used in the assassination attempt on Niall. He didn't mind that it had failed, though if Niall had still, somehow, found a way to put up resistance afterward it might have meant his head. But even though Niall had lived – a fact Maclair found very, very curious, seeing as how he had clearly been shot when he had gone and visited Niall, only to find him alive with his sister and her 'dignitaries' - it didn't matter. After the coup, there was nothing Niall could have done to stop them anyway. It might have almost been kinder if the boy had been killed. It was clear this war weighed heavily on him, and now he was going to have to see it all.

Once they were suited up in their disguises as Urayan soldiers, Maclair turned to his team and drew a finger across his throat. They understood immediately – if there was to be any talking, it was up to Maclair. He didn't want their chatter alerting anyone to their disguises. He could fake an Urayan accent as well as anyone he knew, but the other men had never been trained for that. Not that it had been official training that was responsible for that. He had done business with many Urayans in his youth as a smuggler, in fact, traveling to this very spot to make his runs.

They left the cove, making a steep ascent up a slope of loose soil in which some planks had been laid half-heartedly to make a dubious set of stairs, until they emerged into daylight – into the lower warrens of Fonsa Myma.

Maclair glanced around as he lead his men through the winding cobblestone streets. The city had grown larger since he had been here last. Louder, as well – the constant ringing of hammers on steel, from Fonsa Myma's blacksmiths, metallurgists and ironworks, was almost deafening as their war production reached a fevered pitch. As impressive as Uraya's smithies might be, of course, their production was nothing compared to Mor Ardain's factories. No, no tanks would roll out on the battlefield on Uraya's behalf, and the hulls of her warships, where they were iron-armored, were simply plating bolted onto the wood lying beneath. Urayan guns were bolt-action rifles or shotguns, rather than the assault rifles and machine guns Mor Ardain had available. Uraya relied much more heavily on her experienced blade-wielding mercenaries for heavy firepower on the battlefield. A peculiar weakness Mor Ardain had never done much to address. Oh, the Empire had blades among her armies, but not nearly as many as she should have. Ownership of blades in Mor Ardain had been, traditionally, seen as a luxury of the nobility and the royalty. Niall, funny enough, had done his part to try and change that – before he began spending most of his time trying to stop the war – and some headway had been made. Ironic, Maclair considered, given that all he had done was increase the capabilities of the military he tried so desperately to stop.

As they made their way through Fonsa Myma's streets, Maclair looked around with some surprise. There were barely any soldiers, here. And where there were, they were...children, some of them could not be older than thirteen, or old men, not dressed in steel armor, but rather leather padding. He tsked irritably to himself beneath his sweltering armor. Uraya must have gotten their battle plans, and knew that they were not planning to initially strike at Fonsa Myma – otherwise they would have never left it so undefended. All the fighting men must be at forward positions. He had heard some reports about the city being lightly defended, but not nearly this much – Raqura must have repositioned her forces only recently. Not only did that mean resistance might be more than Nelson was suspecting, that meant these damn disguises might actually make them stand out more. And indeed, he saw a few of the children and old men raising a suspicious eyebrow at them as they passed by.

But for all that, they made their way through the city without anyone accosting them, slowly but surely making their way to their destination: Fonsa Myma's castle, the heart of its monarchy. It was not nearly so grand as the Ardainian palace in Alba Cavanich, but it was built for sieges – a relic of the time when Uraya had been many nations of mercenaries, warring and vying for control of the Titan, before the monarchy had united them. Even now, it was an imposing monument of thick gray stone, more than capable of absorbing quite a few artillery strikes. Maclair would not envy anyone whose task it was to take it. Lucky for him, he had a way in.

He led his men around the castle, to an old, abandoned stables, so old that the wood nearly cracked under the weight of their armor as they stepped inside. The interior was bare, covered in a thick layer of dust, golden sunlight catching the whirls and eddies of the motes as their tromping feet kicked it up.

Down, though, down in the basement, made of thick gray stone, much like the castle, there was a large iron-wrought door. Maclair approached it and rapped his fingers upon it. A small porthole in the door slid open with a squeal, and a pair of gleaming eyes looked at him expectantly from the darkness beyond. He leaned forward, and whispered, "Titans shelter us on this Day of Judgment."

Satisfied with the passphrase, the iron porthole slid shut again. And then with a groan, the door swung open, the hinges complaining so much Maclair thought they might snap. And in the darkness beyond there was an Indoline officer, hooded in white and gold, blade at his hip, his overcoat worked through with a golden thread as well, knee-high boots burnished until they burned in the darkness. "Hello, Maclair," the officer said informally, giving the Supreme Commander a sharp smile. "Right on schedule."

Maclair eyed the Indoline suspiciously. When he had been sending out inquiries among his sources in Fonsa Myma on how to best infiltrate the palace, this officer – Senelo – had been conspicuously available. He had accepted payment, of course, but Maclair knew of the legendary loyalty Indol's officer corps had to Amalthus. They would never do anything the Praetor did not approve of. This man, he was certain, was helping him to infiltrate the castle because Amalthus gave his blessing. Webs upon webs, Amlathus laid, a schemer for certain. He merely nodded at the Indoline, and then followed him into the dark tunnel that lay ahead.

The tunnel carried forward for some time, flooded in some parts with foul-smelling water that seeped in through their steel-plated boots. But eventually, after some time, it opened up on the disused and decrepit dungeons of the Fonsa Myma castle. They had gone so long without use that the bars had rusted right out of their cells – Fonsa Myma kept people in actual jails nowadays, not simply tossing them in the castle dungeons – but it still opened up onto the rest of the castle.

"Alright," Maclair ordered his men, "Armor off, knives out. No guns yet." Though the Urayan disguise might still have benefited them in the castle, it was too heavy, and they had to move quickly here. The castle itself was enough of a maze that they could make their way through it without being spotted, and quietly so long as they only killed with their knives.

"Good luck, Maclair," Senelo called softly, still sounding distinctly amused, watching with those sharp, bright eyes as Maclair and his men exited the dungeons after removing their armor. Maclair turned away with a shiver. Something about those eyes troubled him.

He led his men through the castle. He had extensively studied its extremely detailed layouts, delivered to him by his spies, until he knew all its secrets, all its hidden spots, probably better than even the Queen did. They ducked around corners when they saw guards heading down hallways. Maclair had two dozen routes that they might take to their destination memorized, and now was not the time to kill. No, that would come soon enough. It wasn't long before he and his team arrived at their destination, a large wooden door, behind which flickered fires. Heat and laughter emanated from it, the carefree laughter of the castle staff, women bickering back and forth. Maclair drew a breath, steeling himself, readying his dagger, a long, straight, black-hilted blade, and slowly wiped it down with a cloth damp with an oily poison, careful not to let it touch his skin. Now. Now was the time to kill.

He pushed open the door quietly, revealing a large kitchen with several cookmaids busying themselves around a fire, large roasting spits of delicious smelling meat, bubbling stews. One busied herself at a kitchen sink, washing a humongous pile of dishes. He took a few quiet steps forward, signaling to his team behind him who was to kill who. And then he coiled, trembling, and launched himself forward.

He grabbed the dishmaid from behind, clamping a hand over her mouth, sliding his blade between her ribs. The other women scarcely had time to react either before his team had moved in to deal them their silent deaths – one got out a small yelp before a cruel hand muffled her and poison stopped her heart.

It was over in a matter of seconds. Their bodies were unceremoniously piled up in the larder. It would not do to have them being discovered while their true target was now so close. Maclair pushed open a door painted a faded red just a crack, and peeked out into the room beyond.

There. Around a large banquet table was Queen Raqura of Uraya, a stout woman of hard eyes and thickly muscled arms, foregoing her royal dress in this time of war for a leather vest strapped about with bandoliers and knives, and her court, various nobles and minor royalty, along with a collection of mercenary chieftains, hardened men, all of them armed. They had not heard a thing, currently arguing uproariously about the specifics of their battle plans as they feasted. Raqura was constantly challenged on her desires, though it appeared she was giving as good as she got, roaring and slamming her fist on the table hard enough to shake it as she tore meat from a bone with her teeth, jabbing her finger at a mercenary chieftain currently yelling at her. He glanced upward. This room was lit by electric lights, somewhat clumsily installed onto the old stone. His eyes traced the wires until they found a switch. It lay only five feet from the entrance to the kitchen. Perfect. His reports had been accurate.

He gently closed the door, then reached beneath his coat to the smooth black metal there, the submachine gun he had strapped to his chest, unholstering it. "Guns out," he murmured to his team, "Dark fire. Watch your lanes. Don't fire until I hit the lights." He watched as the men with him unholstered their guns, holding them at the ready, crowding behind him by the door. "On three. One, two -"

Maclair pushed the door open, careful not to slam it, and headed straight for the light switch as his men fanned out behind him. He heard one of the mercenary chieftains cry out in alarm before he flicked the switch, and sent the room into darkness.

And then the slaughter began. The roar of gunfire, the screams, as his men opened fire on the banquet table. The brief flashes from the muzzle fire revealing, in stark, harsh light, the contorting bodies of Uraya's royalty and her top mercenaries as they were riddled with bullets, the surprise and the dark leaving them helpless against the Snake of the Empire.

Raqura herself scrambled along the ground as bullets whizzed in the darkness above her head. She had been hit in the arm in the initial fire, but had immediately thrown herself to the ground. Finally the gunfire stopped, and there was nothing but deadly silence. Doing her best to hold her breath, she began crawling along the ground, doing her best to ignore the warm pools of blood she ran into in the dark. If she could make it to an exit, she might still live -

There was a rustling sound from behind her, in the dark. She glanced behind her, and froze in fear.

There, swimming out from the darkness, what little light there was catching the silver snakes woven into his coat and making them look as if they were coiling through the air, was Maclair. He held a dagger dripping blood and poison, and looked down at her with eyes hooded in darkness. He considered her for a long moment, circling around her, long enough to make Raqura wonder if he actually did plan on killing her. "Wait-", she said.

And then Maclair struck, driving his poisoned dagger into her heart. He watched thoughtfully as the poison worked its way through her system quickly, until within seconds she was gray and still. "Lights on," he said.

One of his men flicked on the lights, and Maclair surveyed the carnage. Bodies lay draped over chairs, slumped into their dishes, sprawled across the floor. Not a soul had been left alive. With one strike, this was the end of Uraya's monarchy and military leadership. He watched as his men spread out among the bodies, double checking to make sure they were well and truly dead, and turned back to Raqura. She looked like she had been a strong Queen. He wondered if history would remember her at all. He wondered-

"Congratulations," came a voice from dangerously close behind him. Maclair whirled around to be greeted by the sharp, laughing eyes of Senelo, the Indoline officer standing a mere foot from him. How had he managed to get so close without Maclair hearing him? Senelo's eyes lit up as if he could read Maclair's thoughts and found the question amusing. "The Praetor," the Indoline officer continued, "Thanks you for your service."

The blade in Maclair's gut was so sharp that he didn't even feel it until Senelo gave it a cruel twist.

He fell to his knees, blood bubbling from his mouth, and then collapsed on the ground next to Raqura. He could dimly hear his men screaming, was aware of white shapes flooding into the throne room with whirling staves. He could hear Senelo shouting, "ARISE, Men of Uraya! Your Queen has been killed by Ardainian assassins...!"

But as his blood pooled beneath him, it all seemed so far away. His vision blurred, dimmed, faded, the screams and shouts now just muffled echoes, and he fell into the black.

Maclair suddenly found himself on a bridge. An old Ardainian bridge, of stone and black metal, overlooking a vast drop to a desert plain and the stretching Cloud Sea below. But the busy streets of Alba Cavanich did not rest on one end of this bridge, as it should have. And the Palace was not visible at the other. No, instead there was nothing but a yawning, infinite black at either end of this bridge.

But this was not what made dread seize Maclair's heart. No, he knew this bridge. He knew it all too well. It had been burned into his memory so long ago. He looked down at himself. He was...changed. Age had fallen from him, along with his military uniform. He was as he had been in his youth, when he had been a rebellious young criminal in Alba Cavanich, of long hair, dressed in a roguish leather jacket and jeans. He lifted his eyes, his heart racing, looking down the bridge.

There she was. Just as he remembered her. Long black hair, smouldering green eyes, lined with smoky dark makeup. Wearing garish stockings and boots, a short plaid skirt, and a beaten leather jacket that she had steamed dozens of silly patches onto. A mischievous smile on her face, and a guitar in her hands, which she was idly tuning. The biggest regret Maclair had in his life. Jenny.

He and Jenny had been born into poverty together in Alba Cavanich, and had grown up together, first friends, and then quickly lovers. Maclair had fallen in with the criminal underclass of the city to make money, while Jenny played her guitar and sang in seedy bars. They had moved away from their families to live together at a very young age, without getting married, something considered quite scandalous at the time, but...why would they care? They were part of the vibrant counterculture that existed among the poor of the city, questioning Mor Ardain's norms and customs. They loved each other, and wasn't that enough?

It was while Maclair was smuggling that he had first run into Brionac. It seemed strange to think now, but Brionac was better at talking to the poor than the traditional Ardainian military was. A Brionac recruiter had actually paid his bail after he had gotten arrested at the docks, and talked to him for long hours afterward. Asking him if he really wanted his life to be like this. Telling him that smuggling would not last forever, that eventually, he would be caught and no one would pay his bail. Unless, of course, he smuggled weapons for Brionac instead. They would make sure he was always bailed out.

It was then that he began working for Brionac, and slowly, becoming more and more interested in their politics. How they pointed out that the nobility and the industrialists sucked up the precious few resources Mor Ardain had. How the fruits of conquest never seemed to reach the poor. A war, Brionac said, should benefit everyone. The industrialists should work on their behalf. Military leaders, men who had worked their way up from the bottom, were better representatives than the nobility and the royalty. And so he had smuggled weapons for them, helping them build their militias.

Jenny had never approved of Brionac. She insisted something was gone rotten with them, something was wrong from the start. She had watched with dismay as Maclair became more and more interested, more and more involved with their activities.

Until one fateful day. A day burned forever in Maclair's mind.

They went on a date, Jenny showering him with kisses as they walked the streets of the city, taking his face in her hands, affectionate and loving until it was almost as if Maclair could feel the love she had for him burning in her heart. She had led him to a bridge, this bridge, and taken out her guitar. And she had played him a song of such aching beauty, her voice angelic and sweet, and asked him to marry her. To run away with her, to Leftheria, and get married, and live their lives away from Mor Ardain. Her face had burned with embarrassment as she did so. Rebel they both may be, but it was considered extremely inappropriate for a woman to be the one asking at the time. She had been so brave. She must have loved him so.

And Maclair had told her no.

She had been bemused at first. "Oh, c'mon," she had laughed, thinking he was joking. "Of course you're going to marry me."

But Brionac had already reached into Maclair's head. And Brionac preferred uncommitted young men to die for their cause. It shunned marriage. And to abandon Mor Ardain, when it had so much potential, if only it could change? It was unthinkable.

So he told her no again.

She had stared at him, then asked him, angrily, if he was serious. And when he told her yes, he watched in shock as tough Jenny, laughing Jenny, the Jenny he had known all his life and never seen cry, began to weep, watched in shock as her heart broke more completely than he had thought possible. She had begged him, pleaded with him, to come with her to Leftheria, to leave Mor Ardain behind, she had sobbed, not caring about the strangers walking by who had begun to look at them oddly, that she loved him, please, she loved him so much, she didn't want to watch what this country was going to do to him.

And it was enough to make Maclair consider it. But in the end, not enough to change his mind. He had left her there, collapsed to her knees, weeping openly into her hands. That night he had gone to collect what few belongings he had from their shared home, and left to sleep in the Brionac barracks.

And in all the years ahead, when Brionac had drafted him into its wars, when he had risen to lead their spy branch, when he had become Supreme Commander, whenever he had his doubts about Brionac, whenever he had his doubts about what he was doing, it was that image he saw. Jenny, heartbroken, weeping on that bridge. The last time he had ever seen her. And as the years wore on, he wondered more and more if he had made the right choice that night, and he was plagued, constantly, by dreams of what his life may have been like if he had chosen to go with her. There was even a time, a few years later after he had last seen her, when his doubts had grown so great, that he actually went looking for her. He took leave and traveled to Leftheria, and he knew, with utter certainty, that if he found her, he would abandon everything, let everything go, to be with her again.

But he never did. All he found in Leftheria were a few leads that had claimed they had seen her a few years ago, but did not know where she was now. That, and endless beaches. So eventually, Maclair had returned to Mor Ardain. What was there for him now, but the Empire?

And now, as he looked at her on this bridge stretching out into darkness, he could not help but wonder what his life would be like once more. Maybe by now they'd be grandparents. Maybe they'd be raising their grandchildren in some small village in Leftheria. If he had that life, would he regret leaving Mor Ardain as much as he regretted leaving Jenny now? But of course, he knew the answer. Of course he wouldn't.

He walked across the bridge, approaching her. She looked up as he approached, still tuning her guitar, and gave him a small smile, then put it down and leaned forward, resting her face in her hands. "Well, hello there, Tom," she murmured. "It's been a while."

"Jenny," Maclair said, and then finally he broke. It was too much. All that might have been was coursing through him, and he had been such a fool, such a damn fool to let it all go. To choose the path of murderer, assassin, spy, instead of the honest fact of her love. Was it all worth it, in the end? He had tried to pretend all his life it was. But it never had been. "I'm sorry, Jen," he said, hoarsely. "I'm sorry. I made the wrong choices."

"Well," she said quietly, getting up and approaching him, "If you think that's true, it must be right."

Maclair glanced down to the yawning darkness at the end of the bridge. He knew what that meant. "I suppose...I'll see you in another life."

Jenny quietly laid a hand against his face, giving him a bitter smile. "I'm sorry, Tom. You only get the one go-around, I'm afraid. One chance to live the sort of life you want. Did you?"

Tom Maclair, Snake of the Empire, assassin, murderer, poisoner and spy, closed his eyes as reality sank in. There would never be another chance. His life was what he had made of it. All that he had done, all the people whose deaths could be laid at his feet. All the young men of Mor Ardain who, thanks to Brionac, made the same mistakes he did. He had lived a lifetime in denial of his regret, making the wrong choices over and over again rather than admitting the one greatest mistake of his life. "No," he said quietly. "I didn't."

"Ah, well," Jenny shrugged, giving him a small smile. "You win some, you lose some, right?" And then she wrapped her arms around him, as from somewhere, a sweet, lilting tune began to play, echoing around them. It seemed so familiar, as if Tom had heard it somewhere before, but he couldn't place his finger on it. "How about one last dance?" Jenny murmured, leaning her head against his shoulder.

Tom paused for a moment. And then he took her by the hand, placed one hand on her hip, and swayed with her to the music, twirling with Jenny as he had all those years ago. And together, they danced into the dark.

TICK

"I don't understand. What's Mythra doing in Temperantia?"

Rex and Nia stood once more in Amalthus' office. But now, the party had stopped their crowding around the window to come circle around the Praetor's desk, as he unfurled a map upon it, charting the paths and passages of the Titan's normal migratory cycles. He drew thick, jade stone carvings of the Urayan and Ardainian Titans out of a drawer in his desk, and placed them on the map. He then placed a third, a Titan of jagged mountains and pitted landscape, shaped somewhat like a moth, onto the map. Temperantia. He considered this for a moment, then made some marks with a pen on the map. "We aren't certain what her goals are," the Praetor said after a moment. "But we do know that she has attacked the Ardainian garrison there. What's important is that this is a good opportunity to strike. I know," he said, raising his eyes to pin Rex in his stare, "That the war weighs heavily on you, Rex. But you must keep your ultimate goal in mind."

"But...why attack the garrison?" Morag frowned. "Unless there is something there that..."

"You tell me," the Praetor replied wryly. "Temperantia is home to the ruins of Judicium. I know the Empire has been excavating artifacts there. Come now, Morag, you can hardly blame me for having spies. Do you know how many of Mor Ardain's I've captured? Perhaps Mythra thinks there is something there that could help her in her quest for the World Tree. Perhaps she's even right. Though Judicium was Indol's forebears, much of their knowledge and technology was lost to us when Mythra razed them."

"Wait, so this is a country that was destroyed by her?" Nia asked. "Is that why it looks so...messed up?"

Amalthus nodded. "It was a battleground between Mor Ardain and Uraya, until Mor Ardain gained the upper hand and drove the Urayan forces from it. Since then, the Ardainians have been excavating and garrisoning it in preparation for...well, the war that is now upon us. Morag, you should be helpful in at least keeping what remains of the garrison from attacking-"

"Whoa, whoa, hold on..." Rex said, holding up his hands. "So...what's...what do you think we're going to do here?"

Amalthus paused in his notes and scribbles upon the map – it looked as if he was plotting out a flight path – and looked up suddenly. "Why, you are to capture her, of course. You will need both Mythra and Malos to breach the World Tree. I told you this."

Rex paled, his hands dropping to his sides. "I...but why us? We….last time we fought her, we..."

Amalthus sat back in his chair, steepling his fingers, peering over them at Rex. "Are you frightened?" he asked softly.

"No!" Rex said, anger bringing an fierce red blush to his face. "It's...she killed a good friend of mine, last time we faced her. I...don't want..."

Amalthus nodded, considering this. "I understand. You are, however, our best chance to capture her. That you have faced her twice – and other members of Torna, as well – and lived, is extraordinary. I have lost many battle-hardened men in my attempts at tracking and capturing Torna. And you are the wielder of the Aegis." He nodded at Malos. "And this time, you will have other allies. Zeke, Pandoria – you have seen their prowess in combat."

"I never did get a chance to take a crack at Malos, back in Mor Ardain," Zeke mused. "This may be my best chance to square off against an Aegis."

"And..." Amalthus considered for a moment, then nodded to himself. "Fan. Will you accompany them?"

"Of course." Fan la Norne smiled, giving a small bow. "I am at your service." She gave a small laugh. "Fighting by your side against Mythra once more, Malos. The more things change, the more they stay the same."

"Let's hope we can do this with a minimum of fighting this time," Malos said darkly.

"Fan is an accomplished healer...though I understand you may have that one covered," Amalthus explained, and Nia shivered as his eyes fell upon her. "But perhaps more useful, here, is that she has the unique ability to suppress a blade's powers. Perhaps you remember that, Malos."

"I remember it pissing me off," the Dark Aegis snorted, and Fan placed a hand to her mouth to suppress a small smile.

Rex crossed his arms, putting a hand to his chin, as he pondered this. "I suppose we gotta take every shot we get at this," he said. "What do you think, Malos? You guys?"

Malos, oddly, had none of his usual cocky demeanour about him. He appeared almost...hesitant. But he spoke confidently. "Well, we've been training a lot since the last time you faced her. And believe me, Fan's power is annoying as hell. I give us pretty good odds." But Nia couldn't help but notice the dark lines beneath his eyes. If she didn't know any better, she would say that Malos was feeling...dread?

Morag took a deep breath, and with one final glance out the window at her warring country, squared her shoulders, and did her best to bury her distress deep within. "I think a mission would be good to take my mind off the things I can't do anything about right now," she said, hands clasped behind her back.

Poppi traced the red X crossing her face in memory of Vandham. "Poppi is ready for vengeance," she snarled.

The others voiced their approval, but Nia kept her silence. Something felt wrong. Almost monumentally wrong.

As Amalthus nodded, and everyone began making their way out of his office to make haste to the docks, Nia caught Rex's arm. "Rex," she said. "You….remember when we first met, you told me you had a sixth sense about your salvaging missions?"

Rex paused. It looked like he knew what she was about to say. "Yeah," he murmured. "And right now, it's screaming at me like it's the end of the world. I dunno if it's just because...I'm afraid, ever since Vandham, or if it's actually my gut telling me something..."

Nia couldn't help but remember that the last time he had felt this way, he had ended up dead.

TOCK

General Padraigh, standing on a balcony high up in the Palace, looked out over the marching legions of Mor Ardain filling the streets of Alba Cavanich, and wondered what it was he had done.

Since he had arrived to fulfill his role as Inspector General in Mor Ardain, he had been filled with a mounting sense of unease. His country had...changed, while he was out at war. The soldiers, the units he had investigated to assess their readiness for the coming war...there was a viciousness in them, a savagery he didn't remember growing up with. There were always the bloodthirsty soldiers, of course. They were always there. But it was as if all the darkness in Mor Ardain that had lain dormant was now bubbling to the surface. Men who clearly relished the opportunity to kill no longer felt the need to hide it. And the prisoners, Architect, the prisoners. Padraigh had watched with mounting horror as hundreds of 'traitors' were marched out of the city every day, more and more and more and more, to be led to their deaths by execution, their bodies unceremoniously dumped into the Cloud Sea. He had asked after their crimes, only to be chilled to the bone when he learned that many of them were simply young men who refused to participate in the war. Execution for treason? For that?

What Morag had told him...he had tried not to think of it, at first. It wasn't for him, he stubbornly held onto, to decide or think about what wars Mor Ardain chose to wage. And an attempted coup…? It seemed so fantastic. He didn't think Morag had been lying to him, but...he hadn't known what to believe. Until his time in the city had convinced him. Until he saw for himself the madness shining out of the eyes of Brionac's officer corps. Until he had heard from their mouths their mad desire for war.

Morag had been right. It was all going wrong. It was all rotten, right from the top. She had given him a chance to help delay it, and he had refused her. And now he was part of it, too. This darkness...there was no going back. Whatever had happened to Mor Ardain….there was no undoing the shame of it. The guilt of it would be with them forever. They would forever look back on history and see this as their blackest hour. And Padraigh hadn't stopped it. He hadn't even tried.

His doubts had been enough to drive him to drink, driving him into Mor Ardain's seedy bars. Even there, he could not escape the reality of what was happening. People drank their drinks in fearful silence, unsure if one wrong word might attract the attention of Brionac, unsure if it might mean a bullet in their head under the new treason and sedition powers the military leadership had claimed. Only those who towed the Brionac line felt confident in speaking up, and the more desperately they proclaimed their enthusiasm for the war, the more confident they felt. It led to a madness, people who, Padraigh thought, probably didn't even support the war, competing with each other to show just how enthusiastic they were for it, as if the louder they were the safer they were, their eyes darting around nervously as they made more and more outrageous claims about Mor Ardain's destiny to rule the world, how they should just grind the Urayans to dust, send them all to hell. And Padraigh had to restrain himself from screaming at those who remained silent, who simply watched with fearful eyes, to speak up, to speak out, to stop this, to stop this madness, Architect's love, stop this horror, for how could he ask it of them? When he had failed, when he remained silent himself, how could he expect it of others?

It was after one of these bar visits that Padraigh had run into a very peculiar encounter. He had stopped in an alleyway to rest his head against a cold stone wall, the world spinning around him, both from drink and from the horror of what he was seeing, when a hand had fallen upon his shoulder. He had spun around, nearly stumbling, only to come face to face with an Indoline woman, stunningly pretty for all her scales and fangs, dressed in the flowing white robes of their priesthood, her long red hair spilling out of her hood to nearly touch the ground.

It was peculiar to see an Indoline in Mor Ardain – they were not common outside of the Praetorium. Even more odd was seeing her in her priestly vestments, given how those who did not wear the Ardainian military dress these days attracted so much negative attention. She had introduced herself as Armalia, in lilting tones, offering him a drink of water to clear his head. And then she had placed a cool, dry hand along the side of his face. "Sweet man," she said softly, "I have been watching you. This war horrifies you, does it not?"

And perhaps it was the drink. Perhaps it was her affection and kindness, the first glimmer of the lighter side of human nature Padraigh had seen in Mor Ardain. But it had come spilling out of him. His long doubts about the war. His failure to heed Morag, his failure to do what he could do to stop it all. And most of all, his horror, his despair, for what had happened to his country, what had happened to the beautiful Mor Ardain he had grown up with, when did this happen, when had it all gone so wrong?

She had listened, nodding, sympathetic, curling her arm around his. She smelled deeply of the incense that Padraigh knew the Praetorium was so fond of, and her presence, her embrace of him, that sweet, smoky smell had a calming effect. "Oh, Padraigh," she had sighed, when he fell silent, "I have been watching Mor Ardain on behalf of the Praetor for a very long time now. It has saddened me so, to see her fall so far. But to hear your words is a comfort. I knew there was still beauty in this country. I knew there must be men of valor and honor left, pushed to the margins by the demons who now rule you." Her eyes had been hypnotic, large, glistening in the moonlight, and Padraigh, drunk as he had been, had the wherewithal to wonder if she was trying to seduce him as she pressed her body to his arm. "Men like you, they are the light of this country. Do not let them diminish you." Her voice had pierced through him, like it was buzzing inside his head. "Walk with me, sweet Padraigh. Let us talk more."

She had led him down hidden alleyways of Mor Ardain, streets that Padraigh had not known existed. Alleyways filled with the poor, the crippled, the maimed, the ruined bodies of Mor Ardain's wars, or simply men hiding from the war, all those Brionac did not find useful. Though, Padraigh considered, this must have certainly existed even before Brionac's current madness. Perhaps this had always been here, in his country, perhaps this downtrodden, rejected and broken people had existed all along. Despite his misgivings of her, Armalia was apparently a minor celebrity in these parts. As she passed, hungry hands reached out towards her, weeping faces blessed her, and she stopped to offer words of comfort and love to all, even just simple affection to these people who found none in a country who had no use for their broken bodies. Her robes became stained with dirt and filth as she offered affectionate embraces and soothing words to the crippled and broken, and she did not seem to mind, though she always returned to Padraigh's arm, leaning her head against his shoulder, murmuring to him of what the Praetorium was like. She confessed she had been helping some of these destitute and broken, some of those men who would be executed for treason should Brionac find them, flee to the Praetorium. And Padraigh wondered what state his country had come to, that refugees from its own government might exist. And she had asked him of the other wars, other battles he participated in, and how long his doubts had existed. And Padraigh found himself confessing to her that even long before this, he had become increasinly uneasy about the path his country was on.

Finally, their path had led them to a small, ramshackle building. The 'unofficial' Indoline embassy, Armalia had murmured by his side. Padraigh had turned to her, only to find her face glistening with tears in the moonlight. He had been surprised by this – nothing in her voice had betrayed the appearance of tears. And he had been even more surprised when Armalia drew him in and kissed his forehead. "I apologize," she had said, as he drowned in her eyes, "I know I must seem...strange, to you. I am strange for an Indoline. Ever since I was young, my heart has burned with passions unusual amongst my countrymen. I love, sweet Padraigh. I love most everyone I meet. I believe the Praetor recognized this about me, and that is why he sent me here to your country at this point in time. What you need is love." She had twined her hands in his, smiling through her tears. "You are beautiful. Fear not. Brionac's rule is but the passing of a shadow. Judgment and justice will come to them swifter than you might think. Their reckoning is closer at hand than you might realize. And I want – the Praetor wants – to see the beauty of Mor Ardain restored. I have been looking for men like you, who still hold the sweet flame of Mor Ardain's greatness close to heart." She had pulled him in then, to whisper seductively in his ear. "Come with me," she cooed. "I must away soon, back to the Praetorium….come with me. Come meet with Amalthus. He wants to meet men like you, who will restore sanity to the Empire. Accompany me….at my side. This is the path, dear heart. This is the path to salvation."

As she spoke, she had wound her arms around him, as surely as her words had wound their way around his heart. The feeling of her body pressed against his, the smell of incense, her wide, glittering eyes, her strange, exotic beauty, lips inches from his-

Padraigh had pushed her away. It was all too hypnotic, too seductive. He would not be able to refuse her when he could feel her heart fluttering against his chest. And not just her obvious physical seduction. She was telling him exactly what he wanted to hear. That there was a path forward, and it lay far away from all this. That running would make it all better.

It was all to convenient to hear. "I cannot," he had told her.

She had considered him oddly for a moment, and then she really had pulled him in and kissed him, her lips hard against his for a long, dizzying moment. "Please," she had whispered emphatically in his ear after she broke the kiss, sending chills down his spine. "I need you. Only in the Praetorium can I guarantee your safety. Brionac will certainly kill you if they learn of your heart."

But Padraigh had pushed her away once more. "No. I cannot run. I need to witness the reality of my failure to act."

Armalia had looked at him with disappointment plain on her features, and then seemed thoughtful, considering for a moment. And then for a strange second, it seemed as if love and seduction had poured from her in waves, so strong and so magnetic that it almost made Padraigh stagger and fall. In that second, he would have reconsidered everything he had just said. He would have done anything to stay by her side, to hear her voice and feel her lips upon his, to feel that bright light of love that poured from her. But then she sighed, as if reconsidering, and the moment was over, and she was merely a very pretty woman again. "Foolish," she said, but she was smiling sadly at him. "To see it will only break your heart. But you are a man, after all. Strange creatures, you can be. Sometimes I think you enjoy your own suffering. At least take this." And she had reached inside her robes, and handed him a thick gold ring of a dragon devouring its own tail. "Take it, and remember me, and the Praetorium. Remember our offer of alliance, for we may have want of you in the future." She had given him a very coy look, placing heavy emphasis on the word 'want'.

And then she had left him, walking away, and though her robes covered most of her figure, she somehow swayed her hips beneath them in a way that had left Padraigh's mouth dry.

Padraigh rolled this ring in his hand now, considering. What exactly was the Praetorium playing at, here? What was Amalthus' game? Trying to seduce him away to Indol? Some vague offer of alliance? Perhaps he really should have gone with Armalia. Maybe with his head clear of drink, he would have even been able to stay away from her bed. But the reality was he still needed to see, with his own eyes, the horror he was a part of now.

He clenched the ring in his fist. His service as Inspector General had earned him an invitation from Brionac to the command room during the invasion. With a heavy heart, he turned away from his view out into Alba Cavanich, turned away from the marching legions of the Empire beneath the red flags of their homeland, and made his way through the palace.

On his way to the great glass and gold elevators to the command room, he passed by Nelson, dressed in his battle regalia. Nelson's gaze drifted over him, and then the man actually gave him a warm smile and a nod. Padraigh felt his heart freeze. He had seen the legacy of Nelson's handiwork in Gormott. The mass graves, the blackened remains of cities and villages. To have his approval was almost enough to make Padraigh sick.

But as he stepped off the elevator, and made his way down a long palace hallway, beneath the gaze of painting after painting of Mor Ardain's emperors, he mused that Nelson was not the Brionac Commander that most frightened him.

The command room was large, regal, its floors tiled in black and swirling gold patterns, its furniture a deep black leather. A large window opened into the room, bathing it in rich light, looking out onto the Cloud Sea. Padraigh could see Uraya out in the distance – the command room was positioned so that this window would give a look out towards wherever the Ardainian titan was headed, almost as if it was giving you a perspective of what the titan itself saw. Surrounding the room were a number of radio stations, manned by various technicians and soldiers. From these stations were relayed orders to a number of nerve control centers dotted around Mor Ardain, great facilities that had drilled down deep into the Titan's nervous system, that gave the Empire control over its movements. And in the center of the room was a large, round table of smooth black stone, covered with various maps and markers, stacked high with intelligence reports, and around it milled various high-ranking command officers, like specters of death in their long black coats pinned with grinning silver skulls. And there, scanning a report, was Supreme Commander Richard Casey. Casey's eyes met his as he entered the command room, chilling Padraigh to the bone. It was not because Casey was particularly bloodthirsty. Quite the contrary. Padraigh feared Casey because there was something about the Supreme Commander that reminded him of himself. And yet here he was, as committed to the war as any Brionac officer could be. Facing him always made Padraigh question, if history had been different, would he be standing where Casey was now, one of the leaders of this horror and madness?

"Supreme Commander," one of the officers was saying, "Indol has repositioned itself to the southwest. And there is still the matter of the reports from Temperantia. Since the initial reports of an attack, we've heard nothing back from them. All attempts to hail them by radio have failed."

Casey paused to consider this for a moment. "Let Amalthus watch," he murmured finally. "No, there is nothing that could stop this now. The Temperantian garrison...they would have been helpful, but not vital to our plans. Inform Nelson that he may not be able to count on their aid. Tell the Seventh Armada to maintain a perimeter around Indol. And send a cruiser out to investigate the Temperantian situation. The H.M.S. Dragon's Fire. It has the lightest armor and the newest generation auxiliary engines. It should make the best time." The Supreme Commander drew himself up, sighing. "I must be off to my flagship, now. I will be in contact with you from the field."

As Casey left, he paused by Padraigh, who still stood by the door. He looked Padraigh up and down, evaluating, as if he saw something in him. And then he leaned in close, to whisper in the Inspector

General's ear. "This is it, Padraigh," he said quietly, so that no others in the room could hear. "We can't ever go back."

Padraigh stared at the Supreme Commander, eyes wide, as Casey patted him on the shoulder, then swept out into the hallway, disappearing into the dark shadows of the palace.

Eventually, Padraigh sat down in one of the luxurious leather chairs seated by the window, looking out across the Cloud Sea. Uraya drew ever closer. Artillery fire erupted in the distance, and he watched as fireballs speckled the surface of Uraya. Large, glittering black airships drifted into view before him, first a handful, then dozens, then hundreds, stretching out in the sky, mirrored in the Cloud Sea by Mor Ardain's navies, the Empire's armadas racing out in front of its titan to meet the Urayan naval and air defenses. It wouldn't be long, now. Only moments before they were within range of each other.

He heard the door open behind him, and then heard one of the officers snap, "What are you doing here?"

Padraigh turned around. There in the doorway stood Niall. The boy looked like death. His face was drawn, gaunt, pale, dark circles beneath his eyes. His imperial robes hung loosely on him, as if he had not been eating well lately. But what was most shocking was the look of resignation and despair on his face. No child should ever feel that way. Architect's love, what had they done to him?

Niall merely nodded at the glaring officers, who had frozen around the table to stare at him, and gave them a crooked smile. "I am your Emperor," he said quietly. "Is it not my duty to monitor the progress of the invasion?"

The officers shifted around, glacing at one another. Then finally, they shrugged, and turned back to the table, ignoring Niall entirely.

Padraigh watched as Niall took a deep breath, and then, on shaky legs, made his way over to the window, to take a seat next to him, gazing out at the Cloud Sea, a hand to his forehead. This boy, this child, who had done so much to stop the war. So much, when Padraigh had been given the opportunity to help, and had chosen to do nothing. Padraigh felt a deep shame as he looked at Niall. After all, Niall had the foresight to break with tradition to stop this. The Emperor traditionally worked with the Senate. But Niall had defied that, fighting the Senators every step of the way to put an end to this war. Where this child had had the courage to defy convention, Padraigh had not. "Niall," he said quietly, "I'm...sorry. You should go back to your apartments. Don't force yourself to watch this."

Niall did not look at him, instead, he just continued to watch out over the Cloud Sea. "The least I could do," the Emperor murmured, '"is bear witness to the price of my failures."

"They aren't just yours," Padraigh replied, pain cracking his voice. What had they done to him? What had Brionac done to Niall? No child should be so broken. "It's all of us. We all failed."

Niall merely gave him a wan smile, then returned to watching the window.

And a moment later, Mor Ardain's and Uraya's navies and airships were within range of each other. They watched together, as with the unholy howl of a thousand rockets, the sky bloomed into flame.

TICK

The city was quieter, now, as Rex's party and the Praetor made their way down from the Sanctum to the docks. Some of the initial panic over the invasion had died down, as people became accustomed to the distant roar of artillery and bombs, although that thunder seemed to grow with intensity with every passing moment. But it was not aimed at them, so the citizens of Indol either hunkered down in their homes, or crowded the streets where there was a view of the Cloud Sea, looking out over it at the ongoing war. Though when they saw the Praetor accompanying Rex, they quickly scurried out of the way, parted to make a path, though Amalthus did little more than nod at them.

Morag kept glancing out over the Cloud Sea whenever it came into view, as they made their way through the streets. She could see Mor Ardain and her Armadas, raining ruin and flame upon the Urayan fleets. One thing, she supposed, that she should be grateful for, was that Mor Ardain's might was so great and overwhelming that there was no risk that the Urayans might break through to strike at the Empire. If she thought her brother might be in danger, she didn't know if she could keep her sanity. Niall, she decided, had to come with her. After this, she would return to Mor Ardain, and she didn't care if he was the Emperor, he was going to come with her no matter his protests. The sweet boy had done all he could to stop this, and there was nothing left for him there. She had to get him away from the madmen who ruled the Empire now. She didn't care if she had to fight her way through them all. She'd bring Niall with her. Perhaps settle him down in Fonsett? Somewhere remote, while she quested for Elysium. Somewhere where the darkness that infected Mor Ardain now would not be constantly beating down upon him. The thought of retrieving Niall soothed her, a bit, from the distress she had been feeling about the war. She always felt better when she had a goal.

They avoided their refugee camps, on the way down through Indol's streets, though as they passed nearby, they could hear the sounds of shouting and cries of anger. Though the Indoline citizens had calmed somewhat, it seemed the refugees were venting their anger, their outrage. And why not? So many of them were refugees from Mor Ardain's wars. Why would they not be outraged by the sight of the Empire's latest crimes, played out in the sky before them?

Gramps was waiting for them there, at the docks, when they had finally made their way through the city. Rex boggled at the sight of him. His stone hide had been polished to a gleam, and grand golden banners streamed from the long horn that protruded forth from his face. The ramshackle seats that Tora had constructed for him had been replaced with a massive saddle of rich, dark leather and luxurious blue cushions, split into enough seats to fit them all. Even the grass on his back looked like it had been trimmed and combed. He was craning his neck forward to murmur something unintelligble to the Indoline priest at his side – Rex recognized her as the same one who had greeted them at the docks, who had been so excited to see Gramps – and….Architect, she was giggling and blushing like a schoolgirl. Rex wasn't sure he wanted to know what was going on there.

When she spotted them, and in particular, the Praetor, her eyes grew wide, and she quickly schooled herself to the typical Indoline stoicism, though a faint blush still lingered on her cheeks. "Greetings, Praetor. Wielder of the Aegis. Your….noble steed…" she flicked her eyes towards Gramps, and he winked at her, and her mouth twitched as if she was containing mirth - "has been prepared." Finally her stoicism broke, and she smiled widely at Rex. "Oh, I do hope you return. Azurda is such a charming conversationalist. I-"

"Matriarch," Amalthus said, coolly, the weight of his gaze falling upon her. "You may leave us."

The Indoline priestess shut her mouth furiously, eyes growing wide with awe and humiliation at this direct order from her Praetor, and she bowed hastily before scrambling away from the docks, though she did not leave without turning around and offering Gramps one final little wave.

Fan watched her go, a small smile growing on her face. "I did warn you, you'd have a lot of fans here," she murmured to Gramps.

"A welcome change of pace," the Titan rumbled, preening. "Such a nice facility they have set up here. Polishes, massages. I feel eight hundred years younger." He shook his head, and then gazed downward at Rex. "I have heard that your mission now is to capture Mythra."

Rex nodded, and without hesitation, stepped into the stirrups of the new saddle Gramps wore, hoisting himself up onto his back. "That's right," he said, his voice full of bravado. You would have to listen very carefully to hear the concern and doubt there.

"Rex," Gramps said quietly. "Are you sure that's the best idea…?"

Before Rex could answer, a thundering crack, a roar louder than any of the bombs, echoed across the Cloud Sea, and there was a fresh wave of screams of horror and awe that swept over the city. Their heads whipped around to look out at the war.

Mor Ardain's lumbering footsteps had bought it close to the writhing, massive form of the whale-Titan of Uraya. One of its hands now gripped the Urayan Titan by the side, the land beneath it blackened and cratered. They watched in shock as it raised its other arm, sending it plummeting to the top of the Urayan Titan's backs, plumes of dust and smoke rising, and a moment later, yet another loud thundering crack roared across the Cloud Sea. Seas of flame washed over the surface of Uraya as the airships surrounding Mor Ardain poured their rockets and their fury onto it where the hand had touched down.

Morag tried hard not to think of the hell on earth the Urayans must be facing.

"Well," Rex said quietly, when the screams of the city had died down, "We need her to get to Elysium. And it's pretty clear that we need it more than ever."

"I do not know how your efforts will go, Rex," the Praetor said, as the party clambered onto Gramps' back, "But I will say that you have good odds of capturing her. She is not invincible, and you have strong allies with you that have defeated her before. If you are successful, Indol is open to you. We have facilities and the capability to contain her, without Fan needing to maintain her powers upon her. I do recommend that you follow the flight paths I have laid out. They will get you to Temperantia the fastest, while avoiding the attention of Mor Ardain's fleets. I cannot say what they may do to anything that enters their range at this point."

Rex nodded, standing upon Gramps' back, holding onto one of the stony protrusions on the back of his neck. "Thank you for all the help, Praetor."

"Not at all," Amalthus replied, the wind whipping around him as Gramps unfurled his mighty wings and took off, shooting into the sky.

Even as the Praetor, and Indol itself, disappeared into the distance, Nia could feel his hunger.

TOCK

Zuo sat perched on a boulder in one of Uraya's massive internal caverns, dimly lit by the soft green glow of bioluminescent mushrooms crawling up the walls, looking at a locket he held in his hands. It held a picture of a young Urayan girl, face speckled with freckles, a large toothy grin across her face, a gap where her two front teeth should be, hugging a laughing Urayan boy fiercely as she waved at the camera. His sister, Merana, and himself, when he was young. Laughing, boastful Merana, always quick with a challenge or a dare. Merana, who, even as she was stationed upon a warship, sent him gag gifts when she could, packages that would explode with confetti in his face when he opened them, or cookies baked with sand, or some other foolishness. Merana, who had sunk beneath the Cloud Sea forever when her warship was shot down by Ardainians.

Zuo sighed, closing the locket, then winced as muffled explosions roared somewhere high above, outside the cavern, shaking the walls, sending gravel and dust showering down from high above. The Ardainian bombardment had begun some time ago. Zuo had almost not believed it when intelligence reports had come in about the Ardainian battle plans. They were going to forego a direct attack on Fonsa Myma itself, which Zuo had thought would be the logical starting point for a conquest. But apparently the Ardainians were more perceptive than he gave them credit for. They knew the strength of Uraya lay in its mercenary forces scattered in many camps scattered across Uraya, and less so in its government forces. Their plan was to spread out across Uraya first and annihilate their mercenary forces before bothering with the capital. The madness lay in their approach. To deliver the required number of forces, Mor Ardain had recalled the greater part of her armies from all across Alrest, and to deliver them, was planning on directly controlling their Titan to reach into Uraya itself, so that her men might march directly down the Ardainian Titan's arm onto Urayan soil. Zuo's heart had frozen with fear when he realized what this meant. Uraya would not merely be facing an Ardainian invasion. Uraya would be facing nearly the full might of all of Mor Ardain's legions.

The Urayan response was desperate. Mercenaries may boast, but everyone knew there was no way Uraya could resist a commitment by Mor Ardain of that size. Once they had seized a foothold on Urayan soil, they would never be driven out. And so the plan was to draw the Ardainians into Uraya's system of caves from the moment they set foot on Uraya, which Urayan mercenaries knew much better, and make them pay for every inch with blood. Even then, Zuo knew, it was certainly hopeless. The most they could do was try to convince Mor Ardain that the amount of dead men they'd have to accept was not worth the price of surrender. But he did not know how likely that was. If Mor Ardain was willing to send the majority of her armies to Uraya, it seemed as if they were fairly committed.

He looked up, gazing out over the large encampment before him. Mercanries and soldiers of the Monarchy alike intermingled among hundreds, thousands of tents, stretching out as far as the eye could see, dotted with campfires and bonfires. Not that there was much difference between the two now. Most everyone was on the government's pay these days. Normally mercenaries had contempt for soldiers, who they saw as too subservient to the Queen and inexperienced, to boot. But the approaching war had washed away any tensions that might exist between the two. Now, they joked and sang and drank together, occasionally glancing upward nervously as another explosion echoed throughout the cavern. Among the soldiers moved humongous, hulking beasts, covered in plate armor, large horns bladed and strung about with streamers. These were the War Ardun, probably Uraya's greatest defense against the mechanized forces of Mor Ardain. They had been bred over generations to be much large and more resilient than normal Ardun, each at least three times the size of their smaller cousins, their hide more than enough to resist small arms fire, their every step an earthquake, capable of carrying a full platoon of men on the carriages and carriers built into their backs.

"Zuo."

Zuo glanced down from his perch on the boulder at the source of the voice. It was his blade, Sordai. Sordai was a blade of indistinct appearance – while there were some blades that had undergone a unique evolution sometime during their lives, like Roc, Sordai was not one of these. He looked humanoid, of a height with Zuo, perhaps a bit taller, thought it was hard to tell beneath the white and black plate armor his blade wore. His glowing blue eyes burned brightly beneath his helmet. Zuo still remembered the day he had awokened Sordai, how sorely jealous Merana had been that he could attune to blades and that she could not. He knew some blades were very emotional, but Sordai from the moment of his awakening had been strictly professional. But as the years wore on he had learned of his blade's subtleties, his quiet and stoic personality, and countless battles had forged a bond between them. Sordai was his brother in arms, much more than even any of the men in Garfont. "It is time for the final radio communication from the Queen," Sordai said, pointing off into the distance to a large, circular, garishly colored tent – the field command. "Though I don't know the point, given how little her orders tend to be followed."

Zuo snorted, leaping down from the rock. As the new leader of Garfont, he had been given an invitation from the Queen to join her council of mercenary chieftains who were remaining in Fonsa Myma to coordinate the defense from afar. Honoring Vandham's memory, he had refused them. The chieftains who had taken her up on the offer had all done so reluctantly, fearing their men thinking them cowards – though Zuo could not fault them. It would pay to have a command away from the front lines should things go poorly.

His bloody takeover of the Garfont mercenaries had not been the way he had wanted things to go. But Vandham had never understood what Zuo knew viscerally. Mor Ardain could not be saved. Vandham, though Zuo had respected him immensely and loved him, had always maintained a naive faith that peace might be possible. Zuo could not blame him. After all, there were – well, there had been – many Ardainian members of Garfont. Like Yew, who Zuo had loved like a brother. None of them had believed in the war. And even Morag – though he was not sure he believed her – claimed that she had not supported the war either. But what Vandham didn't understand was that none of that mattered. Of course the men he talked to did not support the war – they were specifically those Ardainians that had fled their home nation in disapproval of its actions. None of that mattered, none of it at all – because the Ardainians in charge of the Empire clearly DID support the war. It was never going to stop. Peace was a fool's hope. And when news had reached him of Vandham's death, fury had overtaken him. Not only because Vandham was his mentor and friend. But because he had been the single greatest war asset Uraya had, and Vandham had been wasted cooperating with some Ardainian royalty for a peace that was never going to exist, for a stupid child's dream of Elysium. There was only one thing that was going to stop the Empire. Mountains of dead Ardainians.

And he had expected loyalty from Garfont. Even from the Ardainians there. He thought Vandham's death might finally make them see. But had Yew seen…? No. Yew still argued with him. Even in the face of Vandham's death, when Zuo thought, at last, there might had been unity of purpose, Yew still, even at that late hour, insisted on holding on to a foolish hope of peace. It had driven Zuo mad. Playtime was over, the time for forlorn hopes was over, and still this damned Ardainian had eroded the certainty of purpose they should all be feeling. Zuo had lashed out at him, attacked him, something he still regretted, and the camp had quickly split between Urayans and Ardainians, brother fighting brother. Though truth be told, there had been some Urayans who fought side by side with the Ardainians in that struggle, and some Ardainians that had stood by Zuo. When Zuo's side had finally stood triumphant, it had pained him to cast those Ardainians out. But he could not afford doubt, could not afford even the slightest glimmer of disunity in Garfont now. Those who did not know the reality of war, and the unity it required, could not stand by his side. That action had caused some of the Urayans who had fought with him to defect, as well. Which was fine. It had left him with a core of loyal, dedicated Urayans, though less than half the number of the original Garfont mercenaries, who knew what a war for survival would take.

Zuo made his way to the command tent, following a winding dirt path through the high grass covering the ground of the cavern, Sordai following silently behind him.

The interior of the command tent was covered with furs, and in the center of the tent was a large, worn old stump, carved into a table, on which rested one of the limited supply of radios that Uraya had access to. Various high-ranking mercenaries and soldiers stood around the tent, the soldiers in the thick, bulky armor the monarchy supplied, the mercenaries usually in lighter, more makeshift, personalized gear of leathers and cloth, particularly those who had blades at their side. Zuo glanced around, and quickly noticed the pale, drawn, fearful faces. "What is it?" he asked. "What's happened? Someone speak."

The men in the tent glanced at each other, no one wanting to say anything. Finally, one of the blades – a woman in a dress of white metal plate armor, with pauldrons and humongous axe of glowing pink crystal – spoke up in hushed tones. "The Queen," she murmured, not meeting Zuo's eyes. "She's dead."

"Dead…?" Zuo whispered. It hardly seemed real. Raqura was a woman of domineering, jovial strength and easily exasperated temper, full of roaring life. It seemed strange to think of her as dead. He simply could not picture her as a corpse. "How…? Did they strike at Fonsa Myma after all?"

"No," sighed one of the mercenary captains, an older man of silver hair and clever eyes, and a wiry thin frame, small for an Urayan. "They sent assassins. It's not just the Queen, Zuo. All the chiefs with her, the whole court, they're all dead. At least the assassins themselves didn't get away. Some of the military advisers the Praetorium sent cut them down." The mercenary shrugged. "Pity they hadn't captured them. But death's justice all the same."

Zuo collapsed into one of the fur-draped chairs in the tent, putting his head in his hands. The war hadn't even started in earnest, and already the Ardainians had managed to cut off their head. Slowly, he became aware of most everyone in the tent staring at him. He realized that with the imperial court and strategic command gone, he was now one of the highest ranking members of what passed for the informal officer corps among the mercenaries. It was an ad-hoc affair at the best of times, most relying on the reputation of their group to lend them authority over other military chieftains. But as one of the remaining mercenary chiefs – and the new leader of Vandham's famous Garfont mercenaries – that...that may well make him the ranking officer on the field. Not just Garfont would be looking to him for leadership, now. The whole of the Urayan forces would be.

Zuo felt fear rise in his heart as destiny placed this mantle upon him. He was not prepared for this. He had expected to lead Garfont in battle, yes, he had expected to be part of the war council – he had not expected to be its leading voice. But he closed his eyes, and pictured the laughing face of his sister. This was for her. This was for Merana. He would not let fear rule him. If history asked this of him, he would do his best to rise to the occasion. It was all he could do. "Alright," he said, rising to his feet, looking about the room at the fearful and quiet men and blades around him. They needed reassuring. "Well. Raqura, bless her soul to the Architect's grace, I loved her, but we always knew that whatever orders she had for us would have been mostly ignored, didn't we?"

That elicited a quiet chuckle from a few of the mercenaries in the room. Some of the soldiers frowned disapprovingly, but others gave wry smiles.

Zuo nodded. "Nothing has changed. We all have our plans already." He pointed upwards, towards the sky, just as another explosion echoed throughout the cavern. "We've already got Ardainians knocking at our door. I think you all should return to your men and get ready. I am going to the cavern's entrance to monitor the field. I will relay my recommendations-" this elicited another small chuckle from the mercenaries - "From there, to your radios. For the love of the Architect, keep those running. Lives depend on them."

He exited the command tent, flagging down a nearby Ardun's handler for a ride to the cavern entrance. Though the man was the leader of a small platoon that rode on the beast's back, he did not quesiton Zuo's authority. The cavern was enormous, and the path to the entrance winding – to walk there would have taken far longer than Zuo was willing to wait. He could feel, beneath the shaking of the explosions, a deeper, heavier vibration, more rhythmic, more regular. And he knew what that was. It was the Ardainian Titan's footsteps on the bottom of the Cloud Sea. It was very close now.

As they approached the cavern entrance, the roar of explosions became more frequent. The cavern entrance was humongous, at least thirty feet tall and one hundred feet wide, and the winding path led up to it, so that it was a portal out onto the sky. And as they approached, all that Zuo could see of the sky was flame, screaming rockets leaving black trails and plumes of smoke behind them as they roared overhead, airships exploding, crashing, plummeting to the earth.

He leapt down from the Ardun, rushing forward to the entrance, Sordai's spear appearing in his hands in a flash of ether sparks as he did so.

The men at the entrance to the cavern – hardened veterans though they might be – were broken by the sight of what lay before them. Some of them were shaking, trembling, their teeth chattering with fear, their blades at their sides trying to comfort them. Others were on their knees, praying. "Architect preserve and shelter us," they cried, staring out at what was coming for them. "Architect guide and protect us. Architect save us from the Clockwork Demon."

And as Zuo reached the entrance, and looked out upon the vast field before them, leading out to the Cloud Sea, he understood their terror.

Mor Ardain had summoned hell. The sky, the sea, was awash with flame, thick pillars of black smoke rising from burning ships, and in the air hung hundreds, hundreds of Ardainian warships, rockets screaming back and forth between them and their Urayan counterparts, hanging in the sky like black fortresses defying gravity. There was not an inch of sky or sea not filled with smoke, or rocket, or flame, or burning ship, or Ardainian ship raining hellfire down upon the Urayan navy and airships. And at the center of it all, haloed by a burning red sun, so that all could be seen of it was its dark Shadow, was the monolithic, gargantuan humanoid figure of the Ardainian Titan, close now, close enough that every step it took flooded more of the field before them in the darkness of its shadow. And, indeed, it looked like nothing more than the Clockword Demon of propaganda, the Ardainian armadas its attendant angels of death.

Zuo had told himself he would not let fear rule him. But for a long moment, he was paralyzed by this sight, by the hell of war before him.

And then, with a long, howling groan, like a thousand tortured hinges being forced open, the Ardainian Titan slowly raised its arms, and began reaching out across the Cloud Sea, the shadow of its arm racing across the smoke and flame, racing towards them, as if the Clockwork Demon meant to reach out and crush him, specifically. Its other arm reached out as well, but swung out wide, to the side, almost out of sight – to grapple the Urayan Titan from the side, Zuo realized, to hold it in place.

That hand was humongous. Each finger was like a small mountain. Zuo knew the intelligence reports said this was what to expect, but even now, it was shocking to see. Mor Ardain was ruled by lunatics. That enormous hand, he realized suddenly, might look like it was moving slowly, but really it was rocketing towards them. And it was going to hit very close by. Like a meteor strike.

"Earth blades!" he screamed at the men around him. They looked at him questioningly, snapped out of their paralyzation by the desperation in his voice. "Earth blades! Tell them to reinforce the cavern walls and do what they can to stop the earthquake!" He jabbed his finger at the enormous black shadow hurtling towards them. "Pass the word back NOW! The blades, here, put up an ether shield by the cavern entrance! As strong as you can!"

The men took up the cry, bellowing at the top of their lungs, screaming over the sound of explosions, as the hand hurtled towards them. Zuo was thrown off his feet to the ground as the first hand, grappling Uraya from the side, made contact, Architect only knew how far away, the force of the impact even here causing an earthquake no man could hope to stand against.

And just a moment later, the second hand touched down in the field in front of him.

The world howled like it was ending. A blast of compressed air ripped through the field, tearing trees from their roots, sending them bouncing along the ground, as a humongous plume of earth and smoke arose from where the hand had landed. The blades screamed with panic as those hurricane winds slammed into the ether shield they had placed over the entrance. One of the men who was standing nearby the entrance, near a gap in the ether shields, where the blades had not quite covered, was hit by the force of the winds and sent hurtling backwards, to slam into the cavern walls with a sickening crack. Zuo fell to the ground as the cavern shook around them. Boulders fell from the ceiling, landing among the encampment, and mercenaries thrown to the ground by the force of the shaking screamed as they rolled out of the way, not always in time. The war Arduns bellowed in panic, a low, keening sound.

And then, a humongous wave of earth, a ripple sent forth from the hand's impact, roared across the field. And Uraya screamed. Zuo did not know if it was the Titan itself, or merely the sound of the earth being rent, but it was a howl of anguish that contained so much more pain than a mere human could possibly feel. The blades holding their ether shields gritted their teeth and dug in their heels, ether lines in their bodies pulsing with energy as they did all they could to protect the humans in the cavern, the yellow energy of their merged ether shields burning brighter than Zuo had ever seen. Boulders the size of houses bounced off it, cracking in two. They cried, screaming out for help, that they could not hold on, as their human partners concentrated as hard as they could on the ether bond, on maintaining the connection as strongly as they possibly could, and the world broke around them.

Finally, to Zuo's amazement, it ended. And there, across the field – though it could no longer properly be called a field, it was a ruin of cracked earth and rubble – through the clearing dust, like a cancerous mountain range growing from the skin of Uraya, five blasphemous peaks, was the hand of Mor Ardain, the hand of the Clockwork Demon. A hot blast of desert air suddenly made the cavern's temperature jump, the heat of Mor Ardain's dying Titan radiating off of it in waves. The Ardainian Titan itself leaned over the landscape, towering, as if searching for them with scouring eyes.

Zuo scrambled to his feet, ripping a pair of binoculars from his pack. He scanned quickly across the ruined earth, the humongous crater from which these mountains now rose. And he gasped as he saw men traveling across that field. Men on war Arduns, weighed down with humongous packs laden with mines and bombs, coming from some other cavern entrance far to his east. The sappers, of course. The plan was to rig Mor Ardain's entrance to Uraya with mines, booby traps and bombs as soon as it touched down, before the Ardainians could travel down the arm. But…

Zuo raised his binoculars to the skies. An Ardainian flagship had broken through the Urayan airship lines, at least five times larger than the next largest battleship, far larger than anything Zuo had ever thought could possibly fly, towering in the sky like a crenellated fortress, its hull emblazoned with a screaming silver eagle, attended at its left and right by three more battleships, though they seemed like small, cowering black beetles next to the massive nightmare of the flagship. As he watched, dozens, hundreds of turrets on the ships swiveled with decisive malice to train themselves upon the sappers so bravely crossing the field.

"Architect, receive their souls with love," he said grimly, lowering the binoculars and looking away. There was nothing he could do.

A second later, the whistling, hellish screams of a thousand rockets tore through the sky. He had never thought a single ship could pack as much firepower as that flagship. The ground erupted in gouts of flame, the sappers vanishing in showering earth, as a barrage of rockets and bombs fell around them in an unrelenting, hellish rain. At least with the explosions, he did not have to hear their screams. He raised his binoculars to the sky once more, watching the flagship.

Its grim business with the sappers done, the flagship paused for a moment, hanging silent in the sky. Suddenly a mighty horn bellowed from it, a single, deep, alien blast. And then it turned, slowly, inexorably, against that flame-darkened sky, before the shadow of the Ardainian Titan. Turned so that it directly faced Zuo. As if that enormous eagle painted on its hull was screaming right at him, swooping down to catch him in its gargantuan claws. As one, its turrets swiveled to point at the cave.

And then it opened fire.

Men fled, screaming, from the entrance, as the world erupted into flame. Zuo threw himself to the ground, saved only from a messy death by shrapnel by Sordai summoning his ether shield quickly. But it soon became clear that it was not into the cave the flagship was attempting to shoot. No, it was bombarding the very earth above it.

The massive cavern groaned, already weakened by the impact of the Ardainian Titan's hand. Earth blades once more put their hands to the cavern walls by the hundreds, reinforcing it with ether-summoned earth, crystal and stone, climbing up its walls to seal the deepening cracks. Zuo thought that, at first, surely it must hold. The stone above the cavern was simply too thick, the blades reinforcing it too many, for a few ships, no matter if one were an Ardainian flagship, to bring it down.

As if in response to his thoughts, the bombardment increased in strength, and became coordinated. No longer was it a constant pattering barrage. The ships began firing their rockets and bombs so that they would land together, and it was like being hammered by a Titan, with only a second's relief before the blows. The roar of the bombs was so loud Zuo thought it might drive him mad. Each blow sent cracks ripping through the cavern walls, men screaming in panic, and, mad though it might be, as unthinkable as it might be, the flagship was doing it. It was going to tear a hole in the earth of Uraya itself and send this cavern crumbling down around them.

One of the mercenary captains ran to him, stumbling across the earth as it shook beneath his feet, his hand held up above his head to stop crumbling dust and sharp fragments of rock falling on him, helped to his feet when he stumbled by the blade Zuo had seen in the command tent, the maiden in the white plate-armored dress, studded with pink crystal. She must be his blade. He approached Zuo, a young man for a mercenary chief, fit and tall, dressed in fur and leathers, his face coated with dust and blood, eyes wide and panicked in a handsome face beneath dirty blond hair. "They're gonna collapse the whole damn cavern system on us!" he yelled, pointing behind him. "We have to get out of here! We have to fall back!"

Zuo knew he spoke sense. But they would never move the entire encampment in time – the caves that lead up to this one were too narrow for a mass retreat. But if they took to the field, those bombs would certainly begin falling on them, instead. And to retreat would give Mor Ardain the foothold it needed to never be driven out.

Zuo realized that unless he found an alternative – one that may not exist – the war was about to end right now.

He picked up his binoculars, once more scanning the field. He hoped to find some outcropping, some path, some miracle turned up by the churning of the earth, something to allow these men an escape. What he found instead was miraculous indeed, but very curious.

Running his sight over the massive, rocky protrusion of the Ardainian Titan's hand, he paused, and then doubled back. By some miracle, by some grace of the Architect, some of the sappers had survived. They had survived, and glorious bastards that they were, continued on their mission. Tired, shell-shocked men, certainly less than one in ten that had set out across the field, with shaky, trembling arms, were unloading mines and bombs from their war Arduns to begin laying them in the field around the Ardainian Titan's hand.

That any had made it was a miracle. But what was truly curious was that if he could see them, those nightmares hanging in the sky certainly could. Indeed, one of the battleships was hovering almost directly over them, as if trembling to rain hell down upon them. The sappers looked up at this with faces contorted by fear, even as they continued laying mines. And yet...it did not fire upon them.

Zuo considered this, as yet another barrage rent the cavern. The tormented rock squealed, shattering. "ZUO!" cried the mercenary captain.

"Get me a radio," Zuo replied. "Now! NOW!"

The captain looked at him as if he were mad, and then was tossed to the ground by another strike. "Agate, get the madman his radio, please. You've got better balance than me in this mess," he muttered to his blade, who nodded quickly, then bounded off on long legs that seemed to not feel the shaking of the earth. She returned quickly, cradling a radio in her arms; Zuo let her hold the transmitter as he took the silver microphone and tuned the frequency to the common one used by the Urayan airship captains above him.

"Is this Ground Command?!" a voice roared in relief over the radio as he identified himself. "We thought you boys were dead! We saw you taking a hell of a pounding! Titan's blood, I'm sorry. We tried to stop that damn flagship, but nothing we do even scratches it. We must have lost twenty ships to that thing alone-"

"Nevermind the flagship!" Zuo roared over yet another barrage. "I need you to test something for me! Something that might get this thing off our backs." He paused, closed his eyes, licked his lips, and spoke once more into the microphone. "If I'm right, you're going to have the Ardainian airships all over you. And a lot of you are going to die. But it might give us a chance down here."

There was the slightest of pauses. "Hell, son," the voice on the radio growled, "I didn't become a pirate because I wanted to live forever. Just tell us what you want."

Zuo gave his orders.

A moment later, there was a brief pause in the roar of rockets in the skies above, as a good portion of the Urayan fleet re-aimed their cannons. And then with a mighty roar, unleashed their fire upon the arm of the Ardainian Titan itself. The desert sands erupted, spilling onto Uraya in great avalanches, falling between the fingers of the Titan, as hundreds of impacts sent flame washing over the arm.

The Ardainian flagship turned quicker than Zuo would have thought possible of something that size, ceasing its bombardment of the caverns. Auxiliary engines roared to hellish life somewhere within, and it shot forward, rocketing into the skies, screaming rockets pouring from it in a rage, as it lashed out in fury at the attacking Urayan warships. "Look at that," Zuo roared in relief, pointing at the sky, grabbing Sordai and shaking him in an almost manic excitement. He couldn't help it. It just felt so good to be out of the piercing, hellish gaze of that silver eagle. "They didn't like that one bit!" Even stoic Sordai was smiling, laughing now that the bombs were no longer falling.

The mercenary captain wiped sweat and mud from his brow, unable to contain a relieved grin himself. "But...why?" he asked.

"Well, the Ardainian Titan is old and dying. And who knows what the hell they're doing to it to control its movements. Maybe they're nervous that taking too much fire could damage it too much. The point is, we know they won't use heavy fire on, or too close, to their own Titan." Zuo's mirth faded as the flaghip took its place high in the skies above and turned the Urayan lines into utter carnage. No fewer than five ships were falling from the skies in massive, roaring fireballs. "Architect's grace. We won't have much time, though."

"Time to what?"

Zuo turned to him, a manic glint in his eye. "Rouse the men, as quick as you can. Brook no argument. Now's not the time for squabbling. We need to get on that Titan."

It was a mad dash across the ruined field, and the greatest sacrifice of the crossing was that made by the assembled pirates, mercenary crews, and other assembled airships of Uraya's forces.

As Zuo began leading his ground troops across the ruined ground, cramming as many men as he could upon overloaded War Arduns, galloping until they foamed at the mouth from the strain, the great flow of men did not go unnoticed by Mor Ardain's airship Armadas. But as their battleships screamed towards the battlefield, straining to bombard and annihilate the men below, they found themselves blocked, even rammed, by the mad Urayan Captains and their crews, who gave their all against overwhelming odds to purchase their men on the ground the time to make it to safety. The Ardainian airship crews watched in disbelief as the Urayans piloted their battleships directly into them, thinking that surely they would not be that suicidal, only awakening to the reality of their desperation when Ardainian battleships began going down in flames, rammed and broken by the Urayans who went down with them. All the while, the rest of their ships bombarded the Ardainian Titan's arm, exposing themselves to enemy fire, all so that the greater portion of the Ardainian fleet would not disengage to prey upon the men below. Even the screaming Silver Eagle found itself stymied. Though it unleashed hell, annihilating dozens of ships, though Urayans who tried to ram it cracked uselessly upon its thick hull, yet other Urayans pulled up alongside to board it, trained as they were as pirates, leaping from the decks of their ships seconds before they were blown to splinters by the flagship, fighting like madmen, fighting like hell, fighting like they had nothing to lose, for they did not, against the shocked Ardainian crews manning her single deadliest weapon, though they were outnumbered twenty to one.

The cost of it all was the breaking of the Urayan air Armadas. As Zuo crossed, all around him, airships plummeted screaming to the earth, some Ardainian, true, but many more Urayan, erupting in humongous fireballs that reached into the sky, showering his troops with hot earth, and it was madness, madness, madness. But cross he did, with the greater part of his men, their eyes watching the skies, a great flood of Ardun, blades, men, and the few vehicles they had available to them, and as they crossed the madness of it all infected them, like a fire in their blood. And though they did not know it, they all had a bit of Vandham in them that day, as they stared in the face of death, running as fast as they could towards the towering nightmare figure of the Clockwork demon, and they laughed between gasps for breath, laughed at the madness, the insanity of it all, laughed as they ran towards what they must certainly have known were their own deaths.

Finally though, the ship of the Silver Eagle cleared her decks of suicidal Urayans, and like a dark star descended from the skies above, wreathed in the flame of her firing rockets, a harbinger of doom. But though she picked off the stragglers among Zuo's forces, the brave men bringing up the rear, those who had been noble enough to make sure that all those ahead of them made it, it was too late. The great mass of the Urayan armies had made it, hugging close to the Titan's hand, many of them already clambering up upon it, climbing those peaks to make room for the men below to get closer.

Zuo was one of those still on the ground when the Silver Eagle descended in all her horror and glory, hovering no more than a couple hundred feet above the ruined earth. He could have sworn it was shaking with rage. His eyes widened as he saw her turrets swivel to take aim, and he thought for a moment it was over, that Titan be damned, the Silver Eagle was going to open fire on him and his men after all.

But instead, the great black monstrousity slowly turned in the air. And with one final broadside, it turned to the caverns he and his men had exited from and collapsed them, the pounding fire of her bombs turning what had been his encampment, now abandoned, into a great sinkhole of rubble in the earth. And then it slowly turned back towards him, until the eagle painted on its hull was looking directly at him, its sharp silver eyes distinct against the black night of its armor, seeming to pierce through him. And stopped. Hanging there, waiting.

Zuo got the message. You may be out of my reach now. But our forces will drive you back into this field, eventually. And I will eat you alive.

"Really quite the jam you got us into this time, Zuo," his blade murmured at his side.

Zuo nodded, swallowing, and then turned to make his climb up onto Mor Ardain.

The great mass of Urayan men made the arduous climb up onto Mor Ardain's hand quickly. So massive were the Titan's fingers that they could spread out and find many branching paths up the steep slopes. Though the climb was exhausting, healing blades spread out among the marching men, offering what relief they could, soothing sore muscles with a touch, blessed for their efforts by thankful soldiers and mercenaries.

And up, past the sandstone paths, past the rocks stained black by the baking heat of Mor Ardain, up they climbed, towards the flame-stained sky, up towards the looming face of the Ardainian Titan and the airships that hung like doom around it, until finally, thousands upon thousands of men, thousands of war Arduns were on a great stretch of desert on the back of Mor Ardain's hand, a desolate place, so unlike their Uraya, sweltering in the heat, even in the shadow of a large hill that crested before them. Zuo marveled at the utter damnation of it all. The Ardainians lived in this? They drew life from this desolation? No wonder they were so mad. What life could possibly arise from this that was not full of malice?

"Zuo!" a voice cried, as he made his way through ranks of men staring about themselves in wonder, amazed that they were actually standing on the soil of Mor Ardain, standing on the Clockwork Demon itself. He shaded his eyes against the burning sun, and looked towards the source of the voice. There, at the top of the hill, was some of the command council. Only some, though. Zuo wondered if the others were already dead.

He made his way up the hill, sweating, already tired from the march up to the top of the hand. The young mercenary captain whose blade was Agate was there, and he nodded grimly to her as she handed him a pair of binoculars and pointed over the edge of the hill.

Zuo made his way up to the crest, laying down upon against the hot sand, thankful, despite the heat, for his leather vest that kept the desert from scorching his flesh, and looked through the binoculars at the scene before him.

The arm of Mor Ardain extended impossibly high, disappearing into darkness, the burning red sun haloing the Titan too bright to make out everything. But for as high as he could see, a black river ran down its arm, winding its way through the deserts and sands. He followed that river downwards from its shoulder, realizing soon enough that it was actually no river – it was the great winding march of Mor Ardain's legions. Though some marched on foot, many more moved forward in vehicles, massive trucks that could carry entire platoons. It was endless. The sunlight glinted red off their black armor, and as he followed it downward, he saw the host's vanguard, leading the legions – a great mass of tanks and armored vehicles – racing forward at incredible speed, their haste kicking up plumes of sand from the desert. There would be no reprieve. After their mad dash up onto Mor Ardain, the vanguard of her ground forces would be upon them too soon for the men to gain any rest. Zuo looked upon that host and saw within it the death of everything he knew.

He laid the binoculars down, wearily. "What do we do now?" whispered the mercenary captain. His voice was uncertain, full of fear. He knew what the answer was, but didn't want to hear it. "What do we do?"

Zuo looked out over the great mass of men spread out in the desert before him. He could already see officers and chieftains moving among them, telling them to ready themselves to battle, that there would be no time for rest, no time for reprieve, that the enemy would be upon them soon enough. He saw the fear in their eyes, hardened and experienced mercenaries though they might be, they had never faced the sort of annihilation Mor Ardain wished so dearly to visit upon them. "We die," Zuo said softly. "For our country."

He lifted himself to his feet, using Sordai's spear as leverage, as demoralized murmurs of discontent grew louder among the men below, shouts of outrage and horror. "Well, we're FUCKED," came a loud shout from the assembled ranks, accompanied by shouts of agreement.

Zuo stood at the top of the hill, framed by the sun, Mor Ardain's Titan rising high above him. "That's right," he bellowed, as loudly as he possibly could, over the din of the men below. Slowly, they quieted, turning towards him quizzically. Zuo shrugged. "That's right," he cried again. "We are fucked. Behind us," he said, pointing with the spear, back towards the path they had come from, back towards sweet Uraya, "Lie the predations of Mor Ardain's airships, who could tear us to ribbons with bombs and rockets." He swung his spear around, pointing past the crest of the hill. "And before us, lies the greatest host of forces in history, and the Clockwork Demon itself." He gave a manic, desperate laugh. "What were we thinking? Have the Ardainians ever been turned back from a conquest? Did we really think we could fight them off? This is a nation for whom war is its lifeblood. I mean, look at us. What was the original plan? Draw them into our caves? Make them fight for that first big cavern, and slowly retreat, right? And the first thing they did was turn that plan on its head. I mean, did you see that flagship? Did any of you expect they'd be able to bring the caves down around our heads?"

The men muttered among themselves, milling about uncertainly, even as they readied their weapons and began mounting their war Arduns.

"But, you know," Zuo said, after a pause, "I don't think everything is going according to their plan, either. I think they wanted to draw us out and chew us to bits on that field. Instead, look at where we are. On the ground of the Clockwork Demon itself. And turns out….it's no demon. No iron gear and hellfire." He stabbed his spear into the ground for emphasis. "Just a lot of sand and rock. Just like any other Titan. Just a lot shittier." He laughed, grinning maniacally. "In fact, we made it here because their Titan is so decrepit and weak, they're afraid to use bombs near it! Just bombs. Meanwhile, Uraya's taking punches from this thing like a champ!"

He leapt down from the crest of the hill, wrenching his spear free from the sands, spreading his arms wide, pointing upwards into the sky, towards the looming gaze of the Ardainian Titan. "They thought they were invading us, and instead, look at where we are. The greatest enemy force to stand on Ardainian soil in history. So yes, we may be fucked. But remember where you are. Know that their Titan is no Clockwork Demon. Know that the Empire is not the stuff of nightmare. They're men who can bleed and die like the rest of us. We already pissed all over their plans to bomb us to bits. Well, I say that now, we piss all over their plans to drive us off their shitty, weak Titan. As long as we're here, they can't rely on their bombs and rockets to do us in without a fair fight. So if we're going to die, SO WHAT? Did you become mercenaries and soldiers to die fat and old in your beds?"

"NO, I BECAME ONE TO GET LAID!" cried one of the men mirthfully, and Zuo barked a harsh laugh. The men were becoming more energetic. Zuo didn't know if it was his words, or if it was simply the insanity of all that was around them, the flame-lit sky, and their swiftly approaching deaths. They were men pushed to the brink, after all. Men with nothing to lose, who knew that they were going to die. An electric energy ran through him, as well. If it was death for him this day, he would die mad and happy.

"I say, if we're going to die, let's make them howl the name of Uraya before we go!" he roared, lifting his spear into the air, pointing it at the face of the Ardainian Titan. "I say, we become THEIR nightmares! If this is the end, let us take so many of us with them that they tell their children for GENERATIONS stories of the Urayans to scare them straight! If this is going to be their victory, let's make it so bloody they strike it from the history books in shame! We're dead either way, boys. Let's die with GLORY! They want this hand back, let's make them take it!"

The men before him laughed, their eyes lighting with some flame of madness, their blood coursing with renewed spirit and flame. Zuo didn't know if it would have been the sort of speech Vandham would have given. Probably not, he thought. Vandham would have tried to be more encouraging, somehow. Tried to give them some idea that victory was possible. He might have even believed it. He always was an optimist. But in the end, they didn't have Vandham anymore, did they. They had Zuo. And Zuo would have to do.

"Bring the war Arduns to the front," he said, giving a manic, insane grin. "I have a plan to make them bleed before we go."

Supreme Commander Nelson peered out from beneath his wolve's helm, face cloaked in shadow, as the wind whipped by him, looking out over the vast expanse of desert before him. It wouldn't be long now. The air even smelled sweeter. He could almost taste Uraya.

He was with the vanguard of the host, the vast array of his forces stretching out behind him, riding forward in the turret of a massive armored vehicle, a rectangular black truck thick with armor, bristling with gun ports where the platoon below could stick out their personal weapons and fire. He leaned against the weapon in the turret, a massive six-barreled gatling gun, swinging it back and forth idly.

Truth be told, he was not actually looking forward to the invasion. He expected it would be a loveless thing. With the forces arrayed against them, by the time the ground forces arrived, it would be a slaughter. The Urayans would be a bombed-out shell of themselves. Though Casey had messaged him to say that the Temperantian garrison, which were to act as shock troops before he arrived, may not be joining in the battle….even so. He had broken men often enough to know the Urayans would be overwhelmed before he even got there.

Though he would be glad to be off this damn arm. He had been warned to not use heavy weaponry while making his journey down it towards Uraya. The scientists in charge of the nerve control centers had warned that explosions ran a risk of eliciting a pain response from the Titan. The best he could hope for in that case would be earthquakes. The worst would be that the Ardainian Titan might whip its arm off of Uraya in pain, flinging all the men there into the Cloud Sea. What a shitty way to go. No glory, no nothing. They said it was a very, very low risk – after all, what was a bomb to a Titan? But they did not want to chance it. Frankly, Nelson didn't either. It had almost been enough for him to reconsider using the arm as a land bridge altogether. But this way, they wouldn't have to strip weapons from airships to use them as transport, and the Ardainian Armadas would be able to ensure that the Urayan airships were downed and burning before he arrived. Death from above was another way he considered a very shitty way to die.

As they rode along, he stared curiously at the desert they now passed through. It was pitted with craters and full of scorched sand. This area had very obviously been bombed. Well, at least it hadn't resulted in any earthquakes or tremors along the arm….but still. Casey had tried radioing him again some time ago, but the damn communications kept cutting out. Nelson wondered if these craters had anything to do with it.

"Sir!" his driver called to him, muffled, from down below. "Look ahead! Contact!"

Contact? Here? On Mor Ardain's hand? Nelson glanced ahead. They were in a bit of a valley now, a small dip before they reached the back of Mor Ardain's hand. The land sloped upwards steeply above them, a long incline of sand and obsidian rock. There, against the crest of the hill...his eyes widened. "BRAKE," he roared, swinging his hand above his head to signal to the other drivers in the vanguard. "BRAKE AND FORM STEEL!"

The hundreds of armored vehicles and tanks roaring along forming the vanguard screeched to a halt, their driver's pulling into place expertly so that they formed a wall made from their vehicles that stretched across the Titan's arm. The men manning the turrets all along the line – all gatling guns, like the one Nelson himself manned - swiveled them to point them up the hill.

For there, at the top of the hill, stood a long line of hundreds of war Arduns, the sunlight gleaming off their weaponized tusks. They were of impressive size – larger than the armored vehicles he traveled in, almost as large as his tanks. And on their backs, each carried a dozen or more Urayan men, riding along in great wood and cloth carriages built on their frames. "How the hell did they get here?" he mused. No matter. If the fools wanted death, Nelson was more than glad to give it to them. Perhaps things would be interesting after all.

With a sharp grin, he swiveled his gatling-gun turret to aim.

Zuo looked down the steep incline of sand and black stone before him, shimmering in the baking heat, perched high upon the back of a war Ardun. He looked upward at the hellflame-scoured sky, blazing with the billowing black trails of hundreds of screaming rockets, and the leering, monolithic face of the Ardainian Titan. He looked out at the cloud sea to his left and right, erupting with flame, rocked with explosions and a hundred burning ships. And he looked out at the host arrayed before him, a vast flowing river of black steel, guns and men, and the vanguard formed at its head, a wall of vehicles, some as large as a house, swiveling their turrets towards them.

He looked to his sides, at the line of war Arduns stretching across the crest of the hill, great, panting, roaring beasts, chomping at their bits. Even they seemed to be feeling this madness, this fire he felt coursing through his blood. And the men on their backs, as well. Each feared death, of course, as much as Zuo did. But knowing they were going to die, knowing there was nothing to be done, turned that fear into a sort of frantic energy, a madness for battle that seized them all. They laughed maniacally, roaring, shaking their guns, their weapons at the Ardainians. Somewhere, someone began a steady, throbbing beat on war drums, it was taking up by others, until the air rang with the steady, building beat, like the beating of a frantic heart against a chest.

"Zuo," Sordai murmured behind him, "It's been an honor."

Zuo raised his spear to point at that black vanguard who faced them now. "CHARGE," he roared.

And with the hellish thunder of a thousand crushing hooves, they set off down that slope, the ground shaking beneath them, beneath the scarred sky, towards the enemy host, and their own deaths.

Nelson shook his head as the charge began thundering down the steep slope towards them, a great flood of war Arduns, followed by men sprinting on foot, flowing down to meet his line. Fools. All that effort to fight their way here, only to be mowed down in a charge. Did they think their war Ardun would save them? Thick those beast's hides may be, and their armor too, but these turrets were of a caliber more than enough to pierce them. With a lazy flick, he disengaged the safety on his turret, and steadily aimed it at one of the charging Ardun. "FIRE," he drawled, as soon as it was within range.

A thousand guns roared to life, like the howl of some awful beast, and down towards the charge flowed a hellish hail, a river of bullets, and the empty shells fell like rain around them, piling in the sand.

But something was wrong. Nelson cursed as his bullets bounced uselessly off an ether shield projected by a blade on the Ardun's back. Oh, some of them fell, true, the war Arduns bleating as they collapsed into the sand, the men flying from their backs – a blade's shield was not invincible – but not nearly enough to break the charge. Snarling, Nelson focused on the closest Ardun, firing the rest of his belt, focusing the stream of his fire with deadly accuracy until the blade on its back was overwhelmed and his bullets tore into the men on its back. "RELOAD," he roared, reaching for a special red ammo box stored to the side of the turret. "RELOAD, ETHER-PENETRATING ROUNDS!"

These Urayans might think themselves clever, and against a lesser army their gambit might have been successful. But the Ardainians were long schooled in war, and had long since developed measures to counteract blades. Ether-penetrating rounds were too expensive to fire off in bursts. But that red ammo box contained an ammo belt where every tenth bullet was an ether-penetrating round, and a single bullet was more than enough to shatter a blade's ether shield.

There was a brief lull in the fire as the Ardainians reloaded, quickly, expertly, after firing off their current belts. Nelson quickly fed the ether-penetrating belt into his weapon, then glanced upward. His eyes widened. Those Ardun had covered ground more quickly than he thought they would. The distance between them had already halved. Still...it wouldn't matter. It was still more than enough distance to mow them all down. Surely.

He bought his turret up to fire once more.

The Urayans howled as they thundered down the slope, the crash and rumble of their Ardun's hooves blending with the steady, endless beat of the war drums. They screamed and roared defiance, even as the bullets began to fall among them, an endless shredding hail, pelting the sand beside them, crashing into their ether shields. They did not stop a moment for the fallen, they simply leapt over the dead.

Zuo laughed, a mad, roaring thing, as the Ardun fell beside him. For the first time since his sister's death, since Vandham's death, he felt free and happy. The strange madness he had felt at the beginning of the charge only increased as he thundered closer and closer to the Ardainian line. He felt as if he was moving in a dream, as if all the world was not quite real, as if he truly was invincible.

He glanced behind him to see his men, and his eyes widened. There, among his men, filling in the gaps of the charge where men had been cut down by gunfire, were ghosts. Smoky, hazy images, riding shadowy Arduns. Ghosts of the mercenary legends of Uraya's past, howling along with him, men of manic grins, long beards, some with blades at their sides, some without, carrying axes, swords, spears, holding them to the sky, howling defiance at the Ardainians, howling defiance at the end of the world. He did not know if they were delusions. But as he watched, it seemed the other living men in his charge saw them too, staring in wonder at the legends out of time in their midst, returned for this last charge.

He looked to his right. There was Vandham, in shadow and smoke, riding an Ardun, Roc at his side. His eyes blazed like lamplights in the swirling smoke of his face, and he nodded to Zuo, giving him a grim smile.

And there, on his left, riding another Ardun, was Merana. His sister wore thick plate armor, and carried a long spear, her long hair billowing wildly in the air behind her, woven through with flowers. She smiled sweetly at him, that smile he had missed so dearly since she had died, and Zuo sobbed and laughed at the same time. Here he was going to die, and yet he had never felt so alive. Not since she had left.

His heart throbbed in tune to the war drums, in tune with the stampeding thunder of the Ardun's hooves. He had never felt more powerful, his ether connection had never felt stronger. With a howl that he could not recognize as his own, he raised his spear, and lightning lanced out from it to strike at the Ardainian line.

Nelson was roaring fury, howling rage. Why weren't the ether-penetrating rounds working? Just one round ought to be enough to shatter the strongest ether shields. Just a second or so of fire ought to be enough to send hundreds of rounds roaring into the enemy, from a single gun. These Urayans ought to be dying in droves.

And yet, somehow, their ether shields held. They went down quicker than before, but not nearly as quick as they should. It was Bana, wasn't it, that little nopon shit. He was the one who manufactured this ammunition. He had cheaped out on them, hadn't he? Nelson decided on how the nopon Trade Prince was going to die. He was going to skin Bana alive.

The ground around him began to tremble with the force of the Urayan charge. Beside him, one of the vehicles was struck by a fork of lightning shooting forth from one of the drivers, exploding in a great gout of flame. Nelson threw his hand up to shield his face as he was pelted by hot shrapnel. Yet another vehicle further down the line disappeared in a massive fireball.

The men in the line began to glance at each other uncertainly. "FOCUS FIRE," Nelson roared at them. "THREE GUNS! Three guns on one driver! OVERWHELM THEIR SHIELDS!"

He turned around, to face the charge again, and his heart sang with fear even as his gun roared. The Urayans were nearly upon them. He could hear the war drums, now. Hear their mad howls, their laughter, see the foam dripping from the mouths of their Ardun.

It wasn't going to be enough. They weren't going to break the charge.

He heard the men beside him screaming in panic, their discipline finally breaking in the face of the Urayan's madness. "You beautiful bastards," he whispered, a happy smile crossing his face, as the charge bore down upon him.

A second later, the Arduns crashed into the line of vehicles, throwing them into the air, gunfire and blade sang out, and the battle was joined, the Urayans howling to their deaths beneath a smoke-darkened sky.

TICK

The flight to Temperantia would have been much shorter, were it not for the war. Temperantia itself lay to the south of Uraya, almost directly behind the struggling Titan's thrashing tail, and to reach it they had to swing wide around Mor Ardain. Though they did draw closer to the battle as Gramps flew, the awful din of war growing louder and louder, until Rex thought it might drive him out of his mind.

He refused a seat, instead remaining standing on Gramps' back, the howling wind whipping his hair as he hung on to the Titan's neck for purchase, staring fixated upon the war unfolding in front of him. It felt so much like cowardice to not be there, to not try to do something, anything, to stop it. But he was powerless. The Praetor was right, he had no options to end this. But it didn't stop him from feeling like such a coward, a failure.

And it didn't stop the feeling of dread from growing within him, either, rising sharper and sharper in his chest, as they drew closer to Temperantia. The first time he had faced Mythra, or Pyra, as she was then, Gramps had nearly died. The second time, Vandham had died. He wasn't afraid of fighting her...at least, he thought he wasn't. But as he cast his eyes out over the small band that followed him, he could help but feel panic rise in his throat. Who would die for him this time? He shook his head, trying to clear his thoughts. That was just fear talking. Nobody had to die. But it didn't stop the impending sense of doom he had from growing within him.

Temperantia came within sight, once they had winged around the Urayan Titan. Amalthus had told him that it had been attacked by Mythra, back during the Aegis War, but it still shocked him to see the state of it. Mor Ardain had seemed a barren waste to him, but Temperantia was a dead, broken thing, a land of howling waste, gray dust, and blackened rock, pockmarked with craters, no visible trace of the civilization it had once born upon its back. Its northern shore was covered with a thick gray fog, product of the titanic waves the Urayan Titan produced as it struggled crashing into that dead and empty land.

Rex held on tightly as Gramps swooped down low as they approached Temperantia, until he was merely a couple of hundred of feet above the gray deserts, his shadow zipping across the land below.

Rex peered out from behind Gramps' shoulder, shielding his eyes against the howling wind, looking forward across the landscape. He could see...they were approaching...something. The land before them was scarred, not from ancient battle, but from recent conflict, great rents torn in the earth, lined by still-flickering flames. And dotting the landscape…

"Architect, are those bodies?" Rex cried, as they began passing over them, the small, shriveled, huddled, smoking remains. There were so many of them…

Zeke leapt out of his seat to peer down at the ground below, motioning to Pandy, who bought him a spyglass. He bought it to his one good eye, surveying the grim scene below. "No...no...I don't think so," he muttered finally. "Looks more like scrap…" he snapped his fingers. "It's...those mechs that Bana was building in his factory. Just robots."

"Just robots?!" Poppi cried in horror, looking down at the landscape. She hid her face in sorrow as Tora comforted her and glared at Zeke.

"Erm," Zeke said awkwardly, glancing at her. And then he looked forward, peering through the spyglass. His face grew grim, and he handed it over to Rex. "Look ahead, chum. Think I've spotted her."

Rex bought the spyglass up. There, rapidly approaching across the ruined landscape, was a gigantic….twisted….something. It looked like some sort of massive, hooved Titan, with metal construct and housing woven into its hide, eerily devoid of a head. Some sort of deck was built into its back. And there, standing at the prow, visible even from this distance, was Mythra. Shining like a star.

"Gramps!" Rex cried, bringing down the spyglass, "Put us down here. I don't want you getting close to that thing-"

"Nonsense, Rex," Gramps roared over the howling wind. "I can make a landing right there-"

"We don't know what that thing is capable of!"

"I don't think it's….doing anything, my boy. It's not moving. Whatever they had it doing here, they seemed to have stopped."

Rex bit his tongue as Gramps soared towards the beast, circling around it as he drew close, and then descending, to alight with a dull grinding thud upon the beast's back. Whatever it was, it was massive enough that it did not seem to feel Gramp's weight in the slightest, not even trembling as the draconic Titan settled upon it.

Gramps stalked forward as far as he could upon the Titan's back, and then the party leapt down from him, weapons drawn and at the ready. As they had been circling, Mythra had not seemed to move, and almost certainly she had spotted them...Rex wondered what it was she was doing here, as he raced forward with his weapon drawn, Malos close behind, and the rest of the party behind them, racing across the Titan's stony back

They reached the deck, a small leap down from a ledge in the Titan's hide, and Rex leapt down, creeping cautiously forward around a large console built into the deck, wires and prongs running from an odd, pulsing green core.

And there, on the other side, was Mythra, still exactly as she had been when they first spotted her. She stood on the edge of the deck, back towards them, golden hair cascading down her back, glowing in the sun. She looked outwards towards the Cloud Sea, her eyes ever upon the Ardainian Titan, and the flames of war that surrounded it.

Besides Rex, Fan raised her staff, the air coiling around it, and suddenly the air around Mythra boiled as well as Fan la Norne cut her off from her powers. But still she did not move, she did not speak. She only ever stared out across the Cloud Sea.

Rex stared at her for a hard moment, sword shaking in his hand. Here she was. Vandham's murderer. The man who had taught him so much, the man who had given him his blade. The man who had sacrificed himself to save them. There was a part of him that wanted to launch himself, howling, at her back, to cut her down, to make her pay for snuffing Vandham's light from the world. Damn it, he should have been here. He should be with them when they entered Elysium.

But eventually, he sighed, lowering his sword. "Mythra…?" he called, cautiously, walking forward. The rest of the party inched forward alongside him. Cut off from her powers she may be, but they did not know how strong she remained.

She took a moment to answer. "Hello, Rex," Mythra said softly, not turning around. "Welcome to my latest failure."

"Failure…?" Rex replied. He glanced back at Malos, who gave him a shrug. Slowly, he continued creeping forward. "What...what do you mean by failure? What were you trying to do here?"

"Trying to stop it," Mythra whispered. She lifted a white gloved hand to slowly point across the Cloud Sea, at the horror and war. "Just trying to stop it. Oh, Father, oh, I just want it to end." She sounded as if she was crying, her voice breaking. "There was….a secret army here, I though...if I exposed it to the Emperor…if I destroyed it..."

Suddenly, Morag gave a sympathetic, hollow bark of a laugh. Of course. Temperantia was where Brionac had been hiding its secret army of artificial blades. But its destruction would not have mattered. They were Ardainian, after all. They would not have had their invasion of Uraya hinging on merely one army. And they had already cut off any hope of Niall's authority stopping the invasion. "It was too late for that," Morag called quietly to Mythra. "Brionac had already seized power in Mor Ardain. I'm afraid the Emperor is nothing but a figurehead now."

"Yes," Mythra agreed simply. "It was too late. It was always too late. Nothing I did ever mattered. Nothing I did was ever going to stop them." She looked back over her shoulder at them, and the pain on her face was enough to make them freeze in their tracks. "I can feel it," she murmured. "I can feel the War. I can feel all the suffering. All the death. I...I can't take it. Why couldn't I stop it? Oh Father, why can't it end? Why can't it ever end?"

Rex paused for a moment. He...felt sympathy for her. She might be a murderer, and a lunatic, but...at least here, she wanted the same things he wanted. "Look…." he said, keeping his eyes on hers, even though the pain he saw there threatened to overwhelm him entirely, "Mythra...why don't you come with us?"

"Rex," Malos snapped from his side.

"No," Rex replied, putting down his blade. "Look. If you want to stop this war...you can't be all bad. I wish I could stop it too. Architect, do I wish it. Look, we know….you aren't getting to the World Tree without us, and we aren't getting there without you. Obviously we don't agree what we're going to do when we get there. But we can take the time to...just talk, alright? Us….just talking...it's gonna be the only way forward. I don't know if we're ever going to agree. But we can talk about it, right? We can find out. Together." He held out his hand to Mythra, and gave her a small, grim smile. "C'mon."

Mythra considered this for a moment, looking at his hand. She opened her mouth to answer him.

"...Haze?"

The party whirled around. There, standing in the shadows of a doorway that led into the Titan's interior, was Jin. For once, his blue eyes hidden behind his silver mask were not impassive. They looked at Haze in wonder.

Fan la Norne glanced between him and Mythra, consternation crossing her features, as if she was indecisive as who to use her powers on. Finally she sighed, and gave Jin a small smile. "Yes. Hello, Jin."

Jin felt something like panic grip his heart as he looked at Haze. She looked...so, so much like her. Like Lora. Something inside him snapped. He wasn't ready for this. Architect, she even smiled like Lora. His heart felt like it was slowly filling with poison. "Do you...remember me?" he asked hoarsely. He ignored the rest of the group, even Mythra, his eyes completely transfixed by Haze, as he walked towards her.

"Well, I have heard a lot about you," Haze replied, smiling sweetly at him. "But...I do remember you, a little bit. Flashes and impressions. I know we shared a driver, once. I remember what a kind and gentle man, what a good man, you were." She held a hand to heart and closed her eyes, as if reliving a happy memory. "I remember the love I had for you."

Jin froze in his tracks as if struck. "Don't say that," he said, almost desperate. "Please." He could bear it. It was too much. It was like hearing Lora tell him she loved him, a love stained so black by loss it nearly made his heart stop in his chest. Lora's heart. His vision swam.

"It's true," Haze replied, opening her eyes once more. "And I wish we could spend time together again. I know the good man, that man I loved so much, that man I remember must be somewhere in there. I….know that it has been centuries, and you have been...hurt by his policies. But if you come back with us to the Praetorium..."

"What," Jin said.

"I promise you, no harm will come to you! On my honor." Haze tilted her head to the side, and her smile was like a searing brand on Jin's heart. "Amalthus...he is my driver, and I know there's been misunderstandings, but I promise you, he is a sweet, good man. He dearly wishes to meet you. Come with me, please. I think you would like him."

Jin couldn't stand it. It was driving him mad, to hear that poison dripping from her sweet lips. "Oh, Haze," he said, as his heart shattered. "It was Amalthus who killed our driver."

Haze's eyes widened, and then she shook her head firmly. "No. Jin, this is a misunderstanding. Amalthus saved me. His kind words, his care, nursed me back from damage...I promise you, whatever you think the Praetor has done, he has not. He is a good and noble man. I can see his heart, I promise you he is! I would not love him so if he was not."

It was too much. It was too much to hear that. It tore his very soul in two. Amalthus was a devil among devils, a darkness so pitch black it stained the world with its filth, for what he had done to her. Everything he touched turned to corruption, to sickness, and he had touched Haze, beautiful Haze, Haze who had always made Lora smile, Haze who looked so much like Lora...he remembered how sometimes they would dress up like each other to play tricks on him. Hearing her profess her love for Amalthus, fiend beyond all imagination, Jin's nightmares made flesh, was too much to stand. Slowly, he drew his blade, and Haze, eyes widening, backed away, as the rest of the group readied their weapons as well. "Oh, Haze," he whispered, as he advanced towards her. "I have to free you."

"They are coming," Mythra said softly, her eyes on the sky.

Fear written across her features, Haze lifted her staff to cut off Jin from his powers. It didn't matter. He had to free her from this horror, this sick, cruel joke of an existence. He walked steadily towards her.

"HEY!" Suddenly, his blade was met by Rex's, whose eyes flashed furious defiance at him. "Put that blade down! What the hell is wrong with you? She loves you, why are you trying to kill her?!"

"Rex, you don't understand," Jin whispered, and Rex's eyes widened to hear the note of pleading in Jin's normally cold, impassive voice. "Amalthus is filth. He's a demon in human skin. I can't bear to think that he's touched Haze's heart. I have to liberate her from this nightmare."

"What do you mean…?"

"They're here," Mythra said, raising her hand to point to the sky. "Servants of the Clockwork God."

And there, hanging in the sky like nightmare and blasphemy, was a sleek, black Ardainian battleship, revealing itself, cruising around one of Temperantia's peaks, black iron and gleaming gold, its shadow long, malice and predation oozing from its very surface. Its turrets swiveled with grim intent, with the clicking and grinding of gears, to take aim at the deck.

"Get down!" Morag shouted, and then rockets were screaming towards them.

TOCK

The rockets slammed into the deck, bursting flame, and Rex was driven forward into Jin by the blast, slamming against the side of the Titan, screaming as his back was pelted with shrapnel. He glanced upward to see Dromarch, Brighid and Malos projecting ether shields upwards into the sky, desperately trying to ward off the barrage. Mythra remained where she had been the whole time, staring out across the Cloud Sea, seemingly ignoring the chaos and destruction around her.

Suddenly, with a mighty roar, Gramps shot into the sky, the beat of his wings extinguishing some of the flames on the deck. He flew straight for the battleship. It desperately tried to swivel its turrets to take aim at him, but Gramps was too agile and quick at this close range, and then he was on it, clinging to it, flashing claws rending great furrows in the battleship's armor, snapping jaws ripping a hole in its hull, flame gouting from his mouth, ripping it apart with a frantic fury.

The battleship lurched in the sky, its engines whining, and then began to spin, plummeting, Gramps still clinging to it, still ripping it apart. Plummeting towards them.

"GRAMPS!" Rex howled, moments before the battleship crashed into the side of the Judicium Titan, erupting in a great ball of flame, and the Titan lurched, and then something inside of it exploded as well, and then they were falling, falling -

TICK

Mythra barely moved as the Titan exploded in flame behind her, and the earth rushed up to meet her as it fell forward, knees buckling, and everyone around her was thrown about in the chaos. She stepped out softly, as if walking on air, her feet gently touching the cracked and ruined earth, her hair whipping about her as explosions ripped through the air, not noticing the bodies thrown about her.

She had eyes for only one thing. For the Ardainian Titan, and the fleets who surrounded her. It no longer looked like a Titan to her eyes, though. It was the Clockwork Demon, a god of gear and flame, who loomed in the sky before her.

As she watched, it lifted its head from its predations upon Uraya to pin her with a fiery gaze that burned her very soul, two eyes like enormous forges, dripping molten metal, each one a holocaust.

MYTHRA, it crooned, its features of twisted metal twisting in a screeching, wicked smile, its voice the din and fury of war.

TOCK

DID YOU THINK THAT YOUR FATHER, YOUR SIBLINGS, WERE THE TRUE GODS OF THIS WORLD? The Clockwork Demon's mocking laughter roared to her from across the Cloud Sea as she looked upon it with wonder. NO. NO, FOOLISH USURPER. I AM THE TRUE GOD OF MAN. BUT YOU KNOW THAT, DON'T YOU. YOU HAVE SEEN ME BEFORE. MANY, MANY TIMES. I AM THERE IN EVERY AGE. HUMANITY'S CONSTANT COMPANION AND ONE TRUE FRIEND.

Mythra knew this was true. She had heard this voice pouring from the pages of every book of history. She had heard this voice during the War of the Ancients. The Clockwork Demon was a new form, but the voice, the god, was the same. It was always the same.

THIS WORLD IS MINE. AND ALWAYS WAS. AND ALWAYS WILL BE. YOU ARE NOTHING. Its eyes flared with cruel delight, white-hot flame that rose like pillars into the sky. YOU HOPE TO FIGHT ME. BUT I AM LIKE YOU. I CANNOT TRULY END. MY SERVANTS WILL COVER THIS WORLD IN FLAME AND BLACK IRON, IN BLOOD AND BONE, IN DUST AND RUIN. YOU THINK YOU MOURN SUFFERING NOW? OH MYTHRA, I WILL TEACH YOU AND THIS WORLD BOTH TRUE SUFFERING.

"No," Mythra whispered, tears of light streaming down her face. "No. Stop."

NO, the Clockwork Demon roared, the flames of war rising ever higher about it, as around it the bombs fell like rain upon Uraya, and Mythra could feel it, she could feel every single death, all the suffering pouring into her, as those bombs detonated, and the Clockwork Demon roared hideous, maddening laughter that seemed like it would tear the sky apart. NO, MYTHRA. I WON'T EVER STOP. BEG AND PLEAD ALL YOU MIGHT. I WILL TEACH YOU. WHEN YOUR HEART IS GROUND TO DUST, WHEN YOU SURRENDER BEFORE ME, WHEN YOU LEARN THIS WORLD IS MINE AND YOU CAN NEVER FREE IT FROM MY GRASP….THEN I WILL HAVE MERCY. THEN I WILL LET YOU DIE.

Mythra closed her eyes, trembling, tears streaming from her face, as the mad howls of the Clockwork Demon's laughter burned her soul. The endless pain, the endless wounds he tore upon Uraya ripped through her, souls snuffed out with every bomb, children torn from parents, blades screaming for their drivers as they lay bleeding to death, and she knew the truth. This was just the beginning. It would cover the world. And it would never, ever end.

TICK

Morag spat dust from her mouth as she propped herself up with shaking arms. Her whole body ached from the blast. She felt as if she had been slowly flattened beneath a boulder. But miraculously, everything still worked.

She looked around frantically. The Titan behind her was a great melting hulk of flame, the heat of it pouring forward to draw sweat from her brow. There was Brighid, beside her, slowly stirring. And Nia, lying face-down in the dirt, slowly twitching awake as well, though Dromarch was nowhere to be seen. Rex, already on his feet, shaking the dust from his head, looking dazed. Pandoria, desperately trying to shake her Prince back into consciousness. Tora and Poppi, who seemed to have fared the blast better than anyone, Poppi curled protectively around her masterpon as the shrapnel bounced harmlessly off her metal frame. And…

Morag scrambled back, struggling to her feet despite the pain, as she realized that Mythra stood mere feet from her. But the Aegis made no move to attack or strike. She merely stood looking up at the sky, at the roaring battle surrounding Mor Ardain.

TICK

Finally, Mythra lowered her gaze, looking at Morag. "It won't stop," she whispered, her eyes blazing light, the tears of liquid light on her cheeks sizzling. "It won't ever stop."

Not unless she stopped it. Father may have cut her off from the World Tree. But there were other tools she had, lying dormant high in the starry sky above Alrest.

TOCK

"What a sick, cruel world Father made," Mythra said. "Where the only way out of suffering is more suffering."

"I don't know what you're talking about," Morag said cautiously, her hands going to her blades.

TICK

Mythra's tears fell faster, dripping into the dust beneath her, as she raised her hand. When she spoke, her breath caught in her throat. "I want you to know," she whispered to Morag, "That this isn't judgment. I know there are good people in Mor Ardain. I know I'm a monster. I know I'm the worst of them all." She choked back a sob, as she began to glow with some inner light. "I want you to know that I am doing this to prevent more suffering, but I know all the pain I'm causing. I know exactly what I'm doing."

TOCK

Rex, finally recovering from the blast, looked up. He saw Mythra's outstretched hand, Morag looking at her in confusion and alarm. He looked up at the sky above Mor Ardain. He realized, too late, what was happening.

"NO," he screamed, dashing forward. "MYTHRA, DON'T! IT DOESN'T HAVE TO BE LIKE THIS!"

Morag spun around to face where Mythra held out her outstretched hand. And then she threw her arm up to shield her eyes as the world exploded in light.

TICK

Amalthus stood on a balcony of the Sanctum, flowing white stone extending out from the wall of the building as if blown there by the wind, one hand on a whorled carved railing, and in his other, a long, golden staff, topped by a golden carving of a dragon unfurling its wings, a symbol of his authority. His gaze fell upon the Cloud Sea below.

There, below him, lay Mor Ardain, its Titan grappling mightily with Uraya, wreathed all around by smoke and flame and her mighty Armadas, as seas of flame washed over the surface of Uraya.

His weighing gaze followed the progress of the battle closely. The moment was almost here. The right balance must be struck. But he had full confidence he could choose the right timing. Through centuries of conflict and battle, Amalthus had made of himself a master. There were none on Alrest who might call themselves his equal, and he had been planning for this for a very long time. None could read a battlefield like he, see the tides of victory pushing back and forth, see the flow of forces, and if he could just...balance...exactly...

"Praetor..." came a voice from behind him, suddenly. One of his advisors.

"Are the control towers ready?" he asked quietly, still focusing intently on the scene of war beneath him.

"Praetor….Praetor! The sky!"

Amalthus glanced behind him at his advisor's face, staring raptly at the sky with an expression of wonder and horror. He looked up sharply.

There in the sky, above the battlefield, pulsing above Mor Ardain, a light was slowly building beneath a swirling vortex of clouds, gathering strength, until it was so bright it seemed almost like a second sun. Amalthus' eyes widened. He had seen this before. "Mythra..." he whispered. Then he realized what this must mean. "No. NO!"

His slammed his staff into the balcony with such fury and strength that stone shattered beneath it and his advisors fled in terror at his dark rage, but for all his power, there was nothing to be done.

The sky erupted, and a light so radiant and terrible it burned away the clouds and blinded the world flooded forth, lancing towards Mor Ardain.

TOC-

Zuo sighed, gripping his spear to him, as he leaned against a wall, catching his breath. Sordai stood beside him, peering out over the wreckage at the battlefield. The constant whine of bullets and roar of bombs made it hard to think.

His men had fought like demons after the initial charge, fought like it was the end of the world, their initial charge driving deep into the enemy ranks. But the tide of Ardainians was endless, and the charge could not go on forever. They had been paused, and then, slowly, inch by inch, driven back, back over blood-soaked sands, over the course of the battle, back across the Ardainian Titan's hand. Not an inch of retreat was given that they did not make the Ardainians pay for dearly in lives, but many of their own had fallen. Too many.

Eventually, they had been pushed back down the Titan's fingers, as well. Some of the most deadly fighting had taken place during their retreat down those treacherous paths, on their way back to Uraya. Men fell from the narrow paths, screaming to their deaths far below.

And now, here they were, back on Urayan soil. Though it barely seemed recognizable as Uraya anymore. The land was burnt, covered in the wreckage of a hundred crashed airships, pitted with craters from the fighting. It was within one of those wrecks of twisted metal and burnt wood that Zuo hid now, temporary shelter against the constant assault. From the other side of the wall came the sounds of combat, what remained of his men giving their all, the screams of dying men.

He sighed once more, as he looked up into the sky behind them. The flagship of the Silver Eagle was there, hovering over the battlefield, a promise of their death. It was not unleashing the full power of its armaments, not yet, although they were now pushed back far away enough from the Ardainian Titan that certainly it would not have to worry about its bombs. It held back, likely, because the Ardainian forces and the Urayans were engaged in combat too closely for the airship to easily target Urayans without having to worry about killing their own men. But still, on occasion a stream of rockets hissed from its turrets, to race down to the battlefield somewhere far below, destroying a pocket of his men here and there who had become isolated from the battle.

This, now, was certainly the bitter end. They had fought nobly, fought far beyond all Zuo had thought possible. And they had been given their glorious deaths. There were not so many of them left, now. Certainly fewer than half of what he had set out with, and between the Ardainians pressing forward and the Silver Eagle at their back, they had begun dying in earnest.

He heard a small sob to his right, and glanced over. It was the blade, the maiden in the white plat-armored dress studded with pink crystal. Agate, her name was. Tears streaked her ash-covered face, cutting paths in the black stain, as she struggled to maintain her composure, failed, and hung her head, resting it against the shaft of the axe held in her hands, choking back more tears. "Where's your driver?" Zuo asked her, softly.

Agate glanced down at him, eyes shining with tears. "They….they shot him. His legs….he told me to keep fighting on. But...he's dying." She trembled as she spoke this, gripping her axe tight. "I...I should be by his side, but he told me to keep fighting on..."

Zuo wanted to comfort her, but before he could speak, Sordai at his side shouted in alarm. "ZUO!" he cried, looking out over the battlefield, peering over a pile of molten metal and scrap. "You should look at this!"

Zuo scrambled to his feet, joining Sordai. The battlefield was a horror. The smoke of burning airships and naval ships, the smoke of a thousand burning fires, had joined with the smoke pouring from Mor Ardain's factories to become thick enough to blot out the sun, casting the field in perpetual twilight. His men fought from hastily-dug positions, firing rifles out across the field, diving into their holes when the Ardainians answered with machine gun fire. Those who had blades fought out in the open, in melee, trying to break the Ardainian advance, relying on ether shields to protect them.

But there, thundering across the field, breaking through his lines, was an advance of Ardainian tanks, a dozen or so. They were painted black as night, their cannons roaring as they raced forward, and beneath their fire blade and driver disappeared in flame and earth. And at their head was a tank larger than the others, its sides emblazoned with a snarling silver wolf, its treads tearing up the earth, cutting a swift path straight towards Zuo's position.

Blades and drivers rushed forth to halt the advance, along with what few war Ardun they had left, but the tanks were too expertly piloted. Cannons swiveled back and forth rapidly, belching flame, and all who might approach them were annihilated. It did not even slow them down. Zuo's eyes grew wide as that snarling wolf's head grew larger and larger in his vision. They weren't slowing down. He realized too late that they meant to drive directly through the smouldering remains of the crashed airship in which they took shelter.

The tanks crashed into the airship walls, and they buckled before the onslaught, the remains of the airship frame shuddering, and suddenly the world collapsed around Zuo, an avalanche of splintering wood and squealing metal, and he fell, tumbling, the world spinning around him, Sordai shouting at his side and summoning an ether shield to protect him, sharp metal and wood splinters bouncing off it, and he fell, and fell, and fell-

And landed on his back, the breath driven out of him, staring upward at the darkened sky. He could hear tanks roaring past him, to his right and left, and he was showered with the earth torn up by their treads. He scrambled to his feet, swiftly, and then his hands fell limply to his sides. There, bearing down upon him, roaring thunder, was the tank with the silver wolf painted upon it. There was no time to move. And in that snarling face, Zuo saw his own death.

But just as it seemed the tank was to run him over, crushing him beneath its treads, the ground beneath it erupted in humongous shards of sharp pink crystal, piercing through the metal, ripping apart first its treads, and then shooting through the body of the tank itself, grinding it to a halt, until it lay ruined, pierced through by pillars of pink crystal, its turret swiveling loosely, broken and dead.

Zuo looked to his side, where Agate stood, her axe raised above her head in defiance, her face broken by a sad smile which shone out even through the ash that stained it and the darkness around them. She lowered her axe, raising her eyes from Zuo to gaze at the sky. "I hope," she said slowly, "he's proud of me."

And with a flash, she was nothing but ether sparks drifting away on the hot wind. Her core crystal fell to the earth with a thud.

But Zuo did not have time to react to this. The tank may be dead, but the man within was not. A hatch tore itself open, and an Ardainian clawed his way out, roaring with rage, upon his head a helm carved in the shape of a snarling wolf, his eyes lit with the fires of fury, like twin portals into hell. With a vicious snarl, he ripped a shard of pink crystal from his shoulder, sending his blood arcing through the air. And then he glanced downward, his eyes lighting upon Zuo, and Zuo could feel the crazed bloodlust coursing through the man. "YOU," he roared, leaping from the tank, landing on his feet on the earth before Zuo. And suddenly Zuo did not know what was worse, facing down that tank, or seeing that man bearing down upon him, the violence born up within him, as the sky roared with flame. "YOU, little man! I've seen you upon the field. It was you who put the courage into these men!"

With a roar, the Ardainian lashed out at him with one clawed gauntlet, and Zuo put his spear up to defend himself. Fearsome this man may be, he saw no blade in sight. A driver should be easily able to defeat a normal man. But the Ardainian did not pause for a moment. He seized the shaft of Zuo's spear, and with incredible strength, ripped it from his hands, hurtling it with contempt across the battlefield, reaching with his other clawed gauntlet for Zuo's throat, murder radiating from his eyes.

Sordai shouted, and an ether shield blocked the man's clutching grasp before it could close around Zuo's throat, and his blade ran forward to grapple with the man. Zuo scrambled backwards as Sordai struggled with the Ardainian, falling to the ground, trying to reach his spear.

But the Ardainian was not delayed for long. Sordai blocked his blows with an ether shield, and the man snarled contempt, reaching behind his back, unholstering twin shotguns. A blast from one tore through Sordai's shields with green flame from ether-penetrating shot, and the other was not a shotgun after all – Sordai found himself tangled in an ether net, cut off from the bond of his driver, falling to the ground, wrapped within the thick weighted cables.

Zuo looked behind him as he felt the ether connection to his blade disappear, and his heart was seized by fear. The Ardainian had tossed aside the shotguns, and now loosened a wicked bearded axe from its sheath at his belt, and was bearing down upon Zuo. "What is your name," the Ardainian growled, as he advanced. "It would be a shame to kill you without knowing your name."

Zuo wasn't going to be able to get to his spear in time. He struggled to his feet, unsheathing a machete he kept strapped to his back, holding it forward between him and the advancing Ardainian. Somewhere nearby, an explosion roared, showering them both with dirt. "Zuo," he yelled, his voice unsteady. "My name is Zuo. And I swear, you may have victory here, but you'll be the dead one by the end of the day."

To his surprise, the Ardainian paused, and then put his hands to his hips, roaring mad laughter at the ruined sky, laughing in the midst of all the madness around him, laughing as men screamed and died around him, laughing as the world ended. "Zuo!" he said finally, shaking his head. "Well Zuo. You face Harald Nelson. Supreme Commander Harald Nelson, for all the shits I give about that title. I hand it to you, Zuo. You gave us one hell of a fight. I should have known Urayans would be the ones to spit defiance at us. I always envied you, you know. The mercenary life is the way to live, as far as I'm concerned. Fighting and dying, flame and bomb!" He raised his axe, his eyes howling madness, but his smile was...a friendly smile. It was shocking to see that warmth beneath those mad eyes. "Don't worry, Zuo. I'll make sure your country remembers your name. I'll make sure they honor your valor forever."

And with an inhuman roar, he charged forward, that snarling wolf's head burning bright in the flames that surrounded them, axe gleaming in the dim light of war, and he hardly seemed like a man at all. He moved so quickly, with such fury, that it was all Zuo could do to retreat against his onslaught. Lashing claw and biting axe whipped through the air, missing Zuo by a hair's breadth, and Zuo could only marvel at his might. He moved faster and struck with more strength than many drivers could with the aid of a blade.

Suddenly, the air was driven out of him as Nelson balled his fist and punched him in the gut. That axe flashed through the air, and Zuo lashed out with his machete, haphazardly, anything to ward off the fatal blow. Nelson roared with pain, clutching his face, sounding more beast than man, but the axe bit deeply into Zuo's arm all the same, cleaving him to the bone, and the machete dropped from his hand as pain lanced through his arm. He screamed, falling backwards, even as Nelson stumbled back as well, clutching at his wound, falling to the cracked and ruined earth.

He writhed in pain, looking up as Nelson began to chuckle. Beneath his wolf's head helm, the Supreme Commander's face was painted half-red from a long, ruinous gash that cleaved across his right eye, the bridge of his nose, and his lip. Nelson spit blood, and his ruined features contorted into a smile. "Got me good, there," he panted, raising his axe. "But it's the end for you, now. War's a funny thing, isn't it, Zuo? At the end, all the good men are in graves, and all that's left are the cowards who beg for peace. That's how it was in Gormott, and that's how it's going to be here." He advanced, his footsteps thunderous even against the explosions that surrounded him, lifting his axe above his head, as Zuo tried to fight through his pain. "Years from now, what Urayans that are left will feast fat and happy at our tables, and pretend it was they who gave us such a good fight. But I'll know better. It was men like you, roaring bastards like you, who were my equals." He stood above Zuo now, axe raised high to kill, his eyes blazing murder, his ruined face twisted with a friendly smile, flames and bomb erupting around him, the Ardainian Titan, the howling Clockwork Demon, looming over him, and Zuo realized this would be the last thing he ever saw. "I'll remember you forever, my good man. Time to die."

And then the sky erupted with light.

Boiling, hellish, awful light, light like a thousand suns, light that boiled away the clouds and smoke, light to end the world, an endless, beating, consuming flood of white light, light that stabbed out of the sky to pour into the chest of the Ardainian Titan, with a roar that broke the world, a roar that seemed like it must shake the sky apart.

Zuo threw up his arms and closed his eyes against that onslaught of light, shielding them lest they be blinded, and when the roaring had stopped, when the light had stopped beating upon him in its grand and impossible radiance, when he could open his eyes again, he looked up in wonder, for the Clockwork Demon before him, that great monolithic shadow in the sky, now had a great burning hole in its chest, the flames licking upwards to quickly consume it, smoke billowing and pouring from it, shrouding it in darkness.

And Nelson, still standing over him, had turned to face the end of all he knew, his eyes wide with shock, his axe no longer held above his head, poised to kill, instead dangling from an arm that now hung loosely at his side. "...What…?" he whispered hoarsely, fixated by the dying Titan.

"ZUO!"

Zuo glanced to his side. Sordai had finally managed to disentangle himself from the ether net. In a flash of sparks, suddenly his spear was in Zuo's hands. Ignoring the blazing pain from his wounded arm, with a howl, Zuo thrust forward with the spear into Nelson's back with all his might, driving the Supreme Commander through.

Nelson collapsed to his knees, and then fell to his back as Zuo wrenched the spear from his chest, his eyes ever fixed upon his Titan. Zuo glanced at him for a moment, and then braced himself as the wind howled around him.

The Ardainian Titan was bellowing, a terrible, dying sound, a howl of rage, like a billion gears breaking and shattering, reeling from the massive wound in its chest, tearing its arm from Uraya. The Ardainians still advancing forth upon it were flung, or fell, screaming, tanks and men falling from the arm like rain, to land upon Uraya, exploding among the Ardainians already on Urayan soil, breaking their lines, as even more of them were sucked in by the howling wind created by the Titan wrenching its hand quickly from the earth, reaping a carnage of the Ardainian armies. In the skies above the battlefield, The Silver Eagle fought against the howling winds, struggling mightily to not be dashed against the earth, and with a roar of its engines, rocketed forth into the sky, fleeing Uraya, fleeing the vortex that threatened to suck it in.

Zuo, and all the Urayan forces, stared for a moment of silence, a pause, as the Clockwork Demon reeled, engulfed in flame, stumbling away, across the Cloud Sea, pouring thick black smoke into the sky, flailing wildly, the Ardainian navy crushed against its sides, her airships caught in the flailing movements of her arms. The Clockwork Demon, in its dying thrashes, dashed Ardainian airships from the sky in balls of flame, trampled upon her navies.

"TO ME!" Zuo roared, lifting his spear into the sky with his one good arm, as it filled with the flames of the Empire's destruction. "TO ME! DRIVE THE LAST OF THEM FROM URAYA!"

And the Urayan forces, with a great triumphant roar, charged across the shattered and broken earth, towards the fragmented ruins of the stunned Ardainian lines, those who yet lived, those still staring stunned at the flaming ruin of their Titan. And the Ardainians knew then that their death was upon them, their death, and the death of everything they knew.

And Supreme Commander Harald Nelson, Wolf of the Empire, lay bleeding his life into Urayan soil, his breath growing more desperate, more shallow, as the burning, mad flame within him dimmed, his eyes fixed ever upon his dying Titan. Urayans thundered by him in their charge, ignoring him, and he knew, for the first time, the only time, the bitter taste of defeat.

And as his sight grew dim, and the roaring flames consumed the Ardainian Titan, transforming its head into a grinning, burning skull, the smoke billowed around, creating a shroud, and, his life fading, his thoughts growing dim, Nelson saw it as the specter of death, the reaper come for him at last.

"Come on, then," he growled, "I'm not afraid of you. I was never afraid of you."

As if in answer, some tune filled his head. He could not name it, but it seemed so familiar. It reminded him of his father, who would play the fiddle when he returned from his shifts at the factory, when Nelson was young. Nelson would always dance along to the tune, his boots working up a patter of beats, faster and more skillful, even when he was very small, than many of the most experienced dancers, and his father would laugh, full of pride for his clever, brave boy.

And so Nelson's last thoughts before his eyes dimmed forever were of his father, and how he would like to dance again someday.

TI-

Niall moved through the chaos of the command room as if in a dream.

All around him, Brionac's high command screamed, panicking, as flames burst from the walls, sending their papers and plans flying. Electronic consoles shot sparks, glass buckled and shattered from waves of heat, but none of it reached him. All the sound, all the fury around him traveled to him as if through a thick wave of fog, all of it a muted, bad dream. He walked, almost serenely, towards the exit.

Someone grabbed his arm. He looked up towards them with tired, broken eyes. It was Padraigh, his face pale. Poor Padraigh, who had realized only too late the price of his obedience. Niall did not fault him. He felt only a long, tired pity.

"Your majesty," Padraigh was yelling, "We have to get you out of here. Get you to an airship. We-"

Suddenly, there was a great, shaking groan, and Padraigh stumbled back. With a loud snap, a long, deep crack ran across the floor of the command room. Padraigh looked down at this with alarm. And then his face grew calm. He looked at Niall with regret, as with a groan, half of the command room collapsed, rubble and broken stone, and he fell, the Brionac high command fell, out from the palace, out into the sea of flame that was Mor Ardain. That regret was what haunted Padraigh's last thoughts, as he plummeted. He could have done more. He should have done more. And if he had, it may not have ended like this.

Niall stared, calmly, at the collapsed half of the command room, from the half that still remained standing, out into the gaping maw of ruin that the collapsed hole looked out onto. It still all felt like a dream. He pushed the door open, and exited out into the palace halls.

He was alone now, as he moved through the shuddering, quaking palace, the disintegrating remnants of the home he had grown up in. Many of the hallways were full of roaring flame and choking smoke. He staggered, coughing, as that smoke filled his lungs, but still it could not break his eerie sense of calm. He glanced at the walls, at all the paintings of Mor Ardain's past Emperors, many now going up in flame, their canvases black and curling, all the long history of the Empire disappearing in smoke. Their judging, weighing eyes were among the last portions of the paintings to burn.

As he made his way through the halls, with a great groan, one of the palace walls collapsed, breaking forward to shatter against the imperial plaza below, revealing a view of Alba Cavanich. Its great factories were on fire, its houses in flame – great cracks in the earth tore themselves open, sheets of lava erupting from them, and Niall could see great masses of people fleeing, a great sea of black dots in the streets desperately seeking some shelter, some safety to flee too. But of course, there was none. There was no running from this.

And finally, Niall's calm broke. He sobbed, desperately, reaching out for them. "I'm sorry," he cried, at this, the final end of his people. But there was no apology that would ever be great enough for this. What could he possibly say now, at the end of all things? Tears streaming down his face, he wrenched his gaze from the scene below. He had wanted to see it, and here it was. This was the price of his failures.

Stumbling, he slowly made his way back to his throne room. Miraculously, it was still mostly intact. Only the glass dome in the ceiling had shattered. His boots crunched on broken glass as he crossed the room to his throne, looking up into the sky. There was the head of the Ardainian Titan, flames just beginning to lick their way up its neck. Mor Ardain's dying, long-abused home. It didn't deserve to suffer for their sins. But it did anyway.

Trembling, Niall slowly took his seat on his throne. He should try to be brave. He should try to meet death with dignity. No one was watching, but he should try to meet Mor Ardain's end with stoicism. The last moments of the Empire deserved at least that.

But in the end, he was just a child.

Niall Ladair, last Emperor of the Ardainians, trembled, weeping into his hands, as his Empire burned around him. "I'm sorry," he sobbed to the burning horror around him, "I'm sorry. I'm sorry, Mom. I'm sorry, Dad. I tried. I tried to stop them. I tried to be strong enough. Oh Architect, I'm so sorry. I'm sorry, Morag."

That last, at least, bought him a little peace. Morag. At least she was far away from all this. At least he had gotten to see her one last time.

Suddenly, he looked up. There was a sweet, sad tune playing from somewhere. Who could be playing now…? And it seemed so familiar…

And then the world around him erupted in flame.

….

Morag only dimly realized that the broken, mad voice howling her brother's name was her own, only faintly recognized that the hands she saw clawing after the flaming, falling Ardainian Titan were her own. It felt too unreal. Surely this could not be happening. Surely she could not be watching her entire country, and her brother, her sweet brother, her brother of the wide and hopeful eyes, her brother of the innocent laugh, die before her. It couldn't be happening. Why would she be howling broken screams at something that wasn't really happening?

She watched the Ardainian Titan, consumed in flames, reeling away from Uraya, great veins of lava opening up on its back. Brighid was saying something to her, but she couldn't tell what it was. Why did Brighid seem so mad with grief? This was obviously just a nightmare. Some sort of...strange shared nightmare. It couldn't be real. It couldn't be real. Oh Architect, please let it not be real. Oh, Architect, Niall.

….

Striding out of the blackened flame and smoke of the wreckage of the Titan came Malos, Fan at his side. He had gone back to look for her, when the explosion happened – he didn't want her getting cornered by Jin, not when he so clearly wanted her dead. And he knew. He knew what he was going to see when he cleared the smoke. He had felt it in the ether. He had felt his sister's power lashing out.

"Oh Architect," Fan gasped at his side, putting a hand to her mouth to cover her shock, as the dark flames of Mor Ardain's destruction filled the sky before them. Finally, she could look no more. She buried her face in Malos' arm, not wanting to see the horror.

But Malos stared it down, grimly. He would not deny it. Here it was. Here was the price of his hesitation. Here was the price of his mercy. Here was the price of his foolishness, for ever entertaining, for a moment, the idea that his sister might have changed. He glanced around grimly, and then removed her from his arm. "Tend to the others. Zeke looks like he needs healing. And watch out for Jin." His voice betrayed no emotion, no malice. Just a simple certainty. All that he was was falling into the void at the heart of him. There could be no room for compassion, now. There could be no room for anything that might make him hesitate.

….

Rex fell to his knees in the dust, looking up with broken eyes at the destruction and madness that filled the sky before him. He had failed. He had failed again. He looked numbly at his own hands, gloves covered with gray dust. The magnitude of it all seemed impossible. He didn't even have the capacity to curse himself for failure, not yet. The sheer scale of the destruction before him seemed impossible to fathom. He simply couldn't process it. How many lives lost? How many lives lost because of him?

A hand fell upon his shoulder, and he looked up. It was Malos, staring down on him, face hidden in shadow, head haloed by the fires consuming the sky. "Rex," the Dark Aegis said. "Are you ready? Are you ready to do what must be done to make sure this doesn't happen again?"

"Yes," Rex croaked. "Please. Anything. Just make it stop."

Malos looked down on him with something like pity and regret. "Good soldier," he said quietly.

….

Nia scrambled to her feet, her eyes wide as she stared at the sky. The Ardainian Titan was a ball of flame on legs, almost seeming as if it was twirling, dancing madly, in its death throes. It would almost seem absurd if it wasn't so sick.

And her eyes widened further as Malos approached her, his face a dark storm, dragging a dazed Rex along with him. Wordlessly, he shoved Rex into her arms, tearing the pack from his back as he did so. "What are you doing?" she asked, in shock, as Malos began rummaging through Rex's pack.

"You're going to need to heal him." From Rex's pack, he drew out the three core crystals, Roc, Aegaeon, and the nameless blade they had found in Uraya. As he touched each one, they lit with a dark flame, and then began to orbit his head, like a crown. Nia could sense ether, energy, draining from them, siphoning into Malos.

"What...what do you mean? What are you doing?" she cried again. Dread filled her as Malos looked at her. She could see the pity in his eyes. "No. Malos, no. Please. Please."

"I am doing," he said quietly, "What needs to be done."

And suddenly, there was not just one of his twisted, dark ether connections to Rex. There were two. One leading from Malos to Rex, and one leading from Rex back to Malos.

"If you want to see him live," Malos said, as his head erupted into a pillar of black flame, only to be concealed beneath a sleek, winged black helmet, as a tattered cape unfurled from his shoulders like wretched bat wings, as he drew a sword that dripped with black flame, "Heal him."

And suddenly, energy was pouring from him, into Rex, dark flame pouring down that ether connection from him into Rex. And in Rex, it was magnified, amplified, and then sucked back up the other ether connection Malos had created, back into the Dark Aegis.

And Nia fell to her knees, cradling Rex in her arms, as he began to scream in pain.

….

Mythra stood, breath hitching in sobs, arms hanging limply by her sides, looking up into the sky. Beside her, the Ardainian and her blade howled with grief and loss. She shuddered as she felt the pain of thousands of deaths flooding into her. It was only right. She had done what this world had demanded of her, and she deserved to pay the price. The emotions, the suffering, the memories of loss and horror flooded her until she thought she might go mad, and then went beyond. So many. So much. The price had been so steep.

Suddenly, she felt a clawed gauntlet close around her throat, and she was lifted bodily into the air. She looked down to see the helmeted mask of Malos, his core crystal burning darkly in his chest. She felt him drawing energy, information from her, repairing himself. "You never changed," he snarled. "Not at all. Time to do what I should have done when I first awoke."

Mythra's eyes followed the ether connections leading from him, back to Rex, seeing how Malos was amplifying his power by processing it through his driver. "Oh, Malos," she murmured. "What have you done? Can't you tell he loves you?"

"SHUT UP," Malos roared, his fury manifesting in black flame that burst from her, running through her veins, dripping from her eyes. "I place no stock in the judgment of a genocide." With every word, his hand around her neck squeezed tighter, until Mythra's vision began to blur.

Suddenly, Malos snarled as a blade stuck out from his chest. He squeezed Mythra's throat tighter for a moment, and then dashed her away like a ragdoll, where she landed with a blast of dark flame in the dust.

Malos melted away into dark flame, dispersing from around the blade in his chest, and reformed instantly next to the man who had wielded it. Jin, who looked at him with contempt, sneering at the connection he had formed between himself and Rex. It was so wrong. It was everything a blade and driver should not be. "I can't believe I once called you brother," Jin whispered, preparing to flicker away and strike once more.

But before he could, Malos lashed out, grabbing Jin by the wrist, and Jin howled as dark flame roared through him, the mask shattering from his face, bursting into shards. Last time they had fought, there seemed to have been some mercy in Malos. There was none here now. "The price for alliance with Mythra," Malos hissed, drawing Jin closer to him, and Jin could hear death in his words, "is annihilation."

And suddenly, he howled with frustration as a bomb slammed into the side of his head, showering him with bright green and red sparks. He glared balefully, almost bemused, at the young blade who was rushing across the battlefield at him, a blade of white hair with a black streak down the center, a blade strapped about with a bandolier of sparking bombs. "Let him go!" she cried, bringing her foot around to kick Malos, a rocket in her boot igniting to give it extra strength.

Malos, with lackadaisical contempt, tossed Jin aside and ran her through with his sword.

"The price," he hissed, as the blade coughed and gasped, as the dark flames of his blade began eating her from within, "is annihilation."

And then, slowly, he looked down. Tiny fists were battering against his plate armor. Tiny fists he could barely feel. And there stood a young Gormotti boy, sobbing desperately, green eyes streaming with tears, staining the dark skin of his cheeks, ears flat against his head, slamming his fists ineffectively into Malos. "No," he was sobbing. "Not her. Not her too. Don't take her from me too."

In shock, Malos slid his sword from the blade's chest, and the boy ran to her side, cradling her in his arms. "Please Crossette, I'm sorry," he cried, weeping as he clung to her. "I'm sorry, I'm sorry I bought you out here! Please!"

Malos stumbled backwards in shock and horror, shaking so badly he nearly dropped his sword. It wasn't just that he had run this poor child's blade through. It was that, for a moment, part of him had nearly lashed out at the child as well. For the price of alliance with Mythra was annihilation.

"Jin," Mythra's voice rang out in the pause. "Please take Rhys and Crossette back to the Monoceros. She has dire need of the rejuvenation chamber."

"Mythra..." Jin began.

"No," Mythra replied. She stood now, blazing sword of light by her side, tears of light streaming down her face, the ash of Mor Ardain's destruction raining down around her, hair streaming in the wind that howled across Temperantia's ruined plains. "It is up to me to face my brother."

Jin paused, then nodded. He got up, feet crunching across the cracked desert plains, as he walked to Rhys and Crossette. He gave Malos a cool gaze, but the Dark Aegis, faceless beneath that helmet, made no move to stop him. He lifted Crossette in his arms, where she sobbed with pain into his chest, clutching her arm to her stomach, where Malos' dark flame spread on her skin. Rhys followed tearfully by his side as he walked away. As he crossed the battlefield, he gave Haze one last haunted glance.

And then Nia. Nia looked at him, eyes wide, as she clutched Rex to her chest, healing him as Malos' power passed through him. Almost as if she could not believe Malos would betray them so completely. Jin ached for her. He knew this day would come for her eventually. He wished he could help her. He didn't want to see what he knew would eventually happen. But there was nothing to be done.

He shifted Crossette's weight in his arms, hoisting her over one shoulder, and then bent down to scoop up Rhys. And with a flash, he took off, dashing across the landscape, dashing back to the Monoceros.

Mythra and Malos faced one another alone, now. They circled one another, Son and Daughter of the Architect, their power radiating from them.

"Your driver is right," Mythra called softly, bringing her sword to bear. "I wish we could talk."

"There are no words you have left that could save you from death after what you have done here today," Malos answered.

And then they rushed at each other, ash falling around them, and their swords met beneath a ruined sky, reality groaning under the strain where they clashed.

….

Nia sobbed as she poured all the healing she could into Rex, as Malos' power coursed through him, her tears falling hot and fast on his face as he writhed in pain. She didn't know how he could possibly stand it. The wounds that Malos was opening in him were so great, so severe, that she didn't know how he lived. It was torture of the worst possible kind she could imagine.

"Please," she gasped, looking up around her. She spotted Morag and Brighid, Morag finally getting to her feet. The Ardainian soldier had watch her Titan die, watched it stumble across the Cloud Sea in flames, stumbling towards the World Tree, reaching up, as if begging for mercy, before finally collapsing beneath the mist, where the flames of it still burned dimly beneath the clouds. "Morag, Brighid, please," she gasped. "He's killing him. Please..."

But Morag let the words wash over her. She had eyes for only one thing right now. Mythra. Summoning her blades to her hands, she dashed towards the Aegis in a streak of blue flame, joining Malos in battle against her, howling rage and vengeance.

Brighid was torn. She looked back and forth between her driver, and Nia. Then she looked at Malos, and her eyes widened. That was...that was Aegaeon, circling his head, being drained of energy. And Roc. With a shout of shock and horror, she sent blue flames crashing down upon Malos.

"What are you doing, Brighid," Malos snarled, as the flames roared against his ether shield. He clutched at the air, and Mythra dodged backwards as a globe of dark flame expanded where she had been standing only moments before, consuming all that it touched.

Brighid stepped forward. Morag, at least, was simply ignoring her, focused entirely on her blades lashing out at at Mythra. But Brighid could do it. She could watch after her Driver, and fight Malos at the same time. "Stop it," she snapped severely, pointing to Rex. "I will not let you leech your power from Aegaeon and Roc. And I will not let you harm Rex."

"I am at the end of my mercy, little blade," Malos intoned, his cloak fluttering about him. "If I have to cut you down to get to Mythra, I will." And Brighid screamed with pain as black flame erupted from her skin.

"PLEASE," Nia screamed, as Rex moaned in her arms. "Please, stop him!"

Zeke, rising from being healed by Fan, saw her horror, glanced between her and Malos, and nodded. And he immediately joined the battle against Malos, Pandoria at his side, his massive blade crackling electricity as it met with that of the Dark Aegis. Tora and Poppi, too, launched themselves at Malos, and even Dromarch, bounding out of the smoke and flame of the ruined hulk of the Titan, leapt at him with tooth and claw. Only Morag, blinded by her revenge, fought against Mythra with him, and Fan, who raised her staff and concentrated, trying to cut Mythra off from her power, though the Aegis moved too quickly for Haze to track her.

But Malos fought like a dark god, flowing like shadow between them all, and true to his word, he was at the last of his mercy. Where he could strike at Mythra, he did, but where he was prevented from doing so, he did not spare those who came between him and Mythra from what could very well be killing blows. Tora and Poppi were sent flying by an explosion of dark flame, landing limply in the dust, Zeke stumbled backwards, where a sword stroke from Malos that might have beheaded him had he not dodged had been turned into a long gash across his chest, the skin around it rapidly turning black.

Malos was simply too powerful, with the power he drew from the core crystals and that he amplified through Rex.

"Architect, stop him," Nia cried, clutching Rex to her, "He's...he's..."

She glanced down. Healing Rex had suddenly become much more difficult. It now felt as if she was futilely pushing up a mountain that threatened to collapse down upon her. Part of what worked the power of healing was the patient's own inner strength, their own burning desire to live. And Rex…

Rex clutched weakly at her jumpsuit, shaking hands pulling at the fabric as she stared down at him with eyes wide in shock. "It hurts too much," he gasped weakly, half in and out of consciousness. "Please. Just let it end. I'm sorry. I'm not strong enough. Let it end." With a racking sob, he went limp in her hands, falling completely into unconsciousness.

Rex no longer wanted to live.

Nia stared numbly at him. She felt the world fall away from her. The sounds of battle faded away, the screams and clashing of blade fell away. The flame-scorched sky fell away. The cracked and ruined desert of Temperantia fell away. Everything but Rex, dying in her arms, fell away, and she was left in a world of thick gray fog.

I told you you couldn't save him, came a mocking voice from the fog.

Nia looked up, tears falling from her wide eyes. From the fog came the vision of her sister, her sister as she had last seen her, in the bloody dress, with the cruel smile upon her face, the voice that had spoken to her since her loss. I told you, the vision repeated, circling around her. I told you, you worthless nothing. You can't save anyone you love.

You can't even remember them. That was Nia's driver, drifting out from the fog, dark shadow, heartbreak and judgment, nothing but a pair of glimmering, disappointed eyes in the dark, drilling through her. How long before you forget this boy? How long before you move on to someone else to abandon?

"Stop, Architect, stop," Nia cried, clutching Rex to her. She was going mad. This was it. She was truly going mad. She was losing her mind, she had to be. The pain of all her loss coursed through her, and now she was going to lose Rex too, and she had never even told him how much she cared about him.

I told you, girl. This was Caes, Vandham's wife, driven mad with grief, broken beyond repair at the loss of her estranged husband. I told you, never love anyone like I loved Vandham. Why didn't you listen?

With a burst of flame, Pyra joined the growing crowd, on her knees, clutching her hands to her heart, looking at Nia with pity and regret, hair shimmering in the haze and the heat, eyes wide and burning with madness that Nia could feel in herself, now, coursing through her, struggle as she might against it. I tried to warn you, Nia. These bonds are beautiful, but they are poison too. They will always be turned against you. Oh, sweet dear heart. I tried to warn you.

And then with a flash of boiling light, Mythra was there beside her, an angel of death, an angel of destruction, her face a blank shining light, surrounded by radiance so intense that it hurt Nia's eyes. This world is a prison of suffering, Nia. We all taste it. Did you think you could escape? Oh, I wish I could have made it so. I wish I could have taken away your pain.

He belongs to me. This was Malos, flickering into existence like a shadow, Malos of the faceless helmet, Malos the pillar of dark flame, Malos the Destroyer, Malos the Vampire, his tattered cloak swirling around him, dark sword in hand. He chose this duty. He chose this oath. He chose death, Nia. He loves death more than you. Who are you to deny him the death he chooses?

And rising above it all, rising behind all the ghosts and demons, rising like a monolith, with eyes that swallowed the world, rising with all the flame and horror of war, all the sins of history, turning the gray fog around her to howling darkness, was Amalthus, a wound in the world, a sickness in the heart of everything, and Nia clung to Rex as that darkness closed in around her, that primal emptiness. And Amalthus didn't say anything, but he did not have to. His mere presence spoke of the dark truth that lay at the heart of all reality, that she was alone, Rex was alone, that they were all alone in the dark, in the brief flicker of life they were given, alone in eternity, life was but a mirror of the long, endless emptiness of death.

And Nia closed her eyes, clinging Rex to her, her tears falling into his hair, feeling his weakening heartbeat against her chest as the darkness closed in.

And suddenly, she...thought of Dromarch.

Loyal Dromarch, who had always been with her. Who had cared for her, at all her lowest points. As annoying as he could be...she couldn't help but smile a bit at the thought of him.

And then another thought. Brighid. Brighid, who had helped her with her dress. Brighid who had kept her secret, on her honor. Brighid, who had shown her how to hide her crystal, who had given her a swimsuit, Brighid, who was...her friend.

Amalthus spoke, then, and it was almost enough to drive her mad right then and there. NO, CHILD, he spoke with a voice to damn her soul. YOU ARE ALONE.

Nia sobbed, clutching Rex tighter to her as that voice invaded her mind…

And then another thought bubbled forward. Morag. Morag, who had talked to her after she ran away when Vandham died. Who had always shown her quiet concern. Who had told her it was okay to love, even when those you loved put themselves in danger.

"Wait," she said quietly, as a flame was lit in her soul.

More thoughts came now, in a cascade. Tora, laughing, joking, clever Tora, who had helped her sell her figurines back in Uraya, who had won her her first date with Rex. Trickster Poppi, always quick to tease, in her own odd way. Poppi who had called her brave, and asked her curiously why she did not simply tell Rex why she loved him.

She looked up at the demons crowding around her, eyes shining. "No," she whispered, her voice full of wonder.

And more thoughts. Zeke and Pandoria, with their obvious love, Zeke who had not even thought twice when she had cried for help against Malos. And even Pyra, when she had cooked for Nia, and treated her like a kid sister, back when she was with Torna, and even Malos himself, damn him, when he was not being so bloody minded, when he had rescued her in Uraya, when he teased her about Rex, when he was always honest with her, she could always rely on him for unfiltered advice.

"You're….you're wrong," she said, weeping again, but now these were no longer tears of pain and loss. They were tears of a sudden beautiful realization.

Because through it all, there was another thought. Rex. Rex, who had been so quick to trust her. Rex, who joked and teased, and blushed furiously when she teased back, Rex who had dared her to dinner, who had danced with her, Rex who from the moment he had met her had seen the good in her...the good that actually, really was there. Rex who, even now, through all the pain, all the darkness, all the horror, even now had a burning belief, a pure white flame in his soul, an unending certainty that things could be better, and she laughed as she realized, that burning flame was in her now, too. Through his smiles, and through his bond with her, through their love, that flame had spread, and she no longer cared if it was childish, she no longer cared if it was naive, she simply believed. And they would stand together in that belief, against the horror and dark of history, and she would never...let...him...go.

"You're wrong," she laughed, tears of joy streaming from her face, as she held her hand to her heart, as she began to glow with light, and all that dark and horror retreated from her. "It doesn't have to be like this."

And she burst forth with light, radiating, and before that flame, the darkness surrounding her fled. Her sister, her father, Caes, Pyra, Malos, Mythra, they all melted away, the flame of war, all the horror and sin, and even the eternal eyes of Amalthus fell before it, as Nia felt the joy and certainty flood through her.

It could be better. It could be beautiful.

….

Malos clashed with Mythra, ash falling around them, and the world warped and twisted where their blades met. All the others had fallen, surrounding them, gasping for breath in the dust and the darkness, as the two Aegis' fought with power and might granted to them by their Father, seeking desperately to end the other, to hold each other accountable for their sins.

Malos snarled wickedly as he pressed his blade down upon Mythra, bearing down upon her, dark flame crackling and roaring. "Annihilation," he hissed, putting all his strength behind it. Damn it, why was this not easier? With the power he drew from Rex, with the power he drew from the cores circling his head, he should be easily overpowering her. And he had been, for the most part – she was wounded, burning with dark flame, he could see it eating away at her, see her death in her eyes, so close he could almost taste it – but it should have been more than enough to end her by now. From where did she get her strength…? Or from where did his weakness come?

Suddenly, there was a massive burst of energy that they both felt through the ether. And a voice like a clarion call echoed through the battlefield: "NO MORE!"

They turned around, and there, radiating light and life, was Nia. Her ears longer, her silver hair falling in waves down her back, almost touching the ground, her legs long and bare, clad in plated white boots, a dress of layered white, black and red blooming around her like a flower. She held a long, thin blade of glowing blue crystal, woven about with white lilies, and her core crystal burned like a beacon in her chest. And where she stepped, the dead land of Temperantia sprang to life: springs bubbled forth in that dry and cracked dust, flowers bloomed, grass grew, until Rex was lying gently cradled in a soft bed of plant life, wrapped protectively around him. Health and life radiated out from her, dousing the flames of the burning Judicium Titan, revealing a groaning and scorched, but still living, Azurda, restoring health to all it touched, save the two battling gods. Zeke, Pandoria, Tora, and Morag wore expressions of shock and wonder upon seeing her. Poppi, however, merely snapped her fingers. "Poppi had a sneaking suspicion," she said to herself.

Nia wore a smile upon her face, and when she opened her eyes, they blazed with such defiance that Malos himself took a step back, and Mythra, Angel of Death and Daughter of the Architect dropped her sword in sheer awe of the life and beauty radiating from her.

"No more," Nia cried again, and with a contemptuous flick of her sword, severed the ether connections Malos had to Rex.

Malos howled as they recoiled back into him, sending him flying in a blast of his own dark flame, the core crystals dropping from his head, darkened and black, into the dust. "No!" he roared, stretching his hand outward toward her. "No, Nia. You will not deny him his duty. You will not deny him his oath." And from his outstretched hand coiled a dozen of his twisted ether connections, black and howling, racing towards Rex.

Drawing her sword in a circle around her, Nia summoned an ether shield, and the racing connections bounced harmlessly, powerlessly, off of it. "No," she cried, beaming with joy, her heart and soul aflame with sweetness, as she defied him. "Not like this. You will not have him, Malos. You will never have him!" For Nia had her own ether connection to Rex now, and it glowed like the sun.

Malos howled in rage and fury, black flame exploding from him, glaring about him. There, limping away, having taken up her sword again, was Mythra, retreating now from the battlefield. She looked back at Malos as he stalked after her, raising her sword of blazing light. "I don't think so, Brother," she panted. "I do not think you could take me now." Her eyes drifted back towards Nia, once more widening in awe. "Who would think," she murmured to herself.

Malos shook in rage and frustration. "One day, Mythra," he snarled. "I promise you. One day, you will beg me for your life. And I will show you all the mercy you showed to all your victims."

Mythra gazed sadly at her brother, and then at Rex, with something like regret, and then limped away, disappearing into the howling wind carrying smoke and ash.

Nia, with the help of Zeke and Poppi, was loading Rex's prone form onto Azurda's back. The Draconic Titan, though he still lived, had a bright, shard of dark iron embedded deep in his underbelly from the explosion with the Ardainian battleship. Brighid was helping a limping Morag, wounded in her desperate swordplay against Mythra, too deeply for Nia's cursory healing to immediately repair. Fan tended to her as best she could. Pandoria cradled, in her arms, the darkened core crystals, scooped up from the dust from where they had dropped from Malos' crown.

Nia held her sword out toward Malos' chest threateningly as the Dark Aegis approached. "You aren't coming with us," she hissed. "No. You stay right where you are, and not a step closer."

"I recommend you listen to her, Malos," rumbled Gramps, pain evident in his voice, but baring dagger teeth, his eyes flashing fury. "Remember my promise to you what would happen if you ever hurt my Rex."

Malos looked over the band. Brighid, Poppi, Tora, Zeke, Pandoria, Dromarch, and Gramps all looked at him with anger, contempt and suspicion. Morag's face was hidden in the shadows of her cap. Only Fan offered him sympathetic, sad eyes.

And Nia...her eyes blazed such defiance that Malos actually felt intimidated. Who would think, indeed. Who would think that a mere Flesh Eater could make one such as he feel uncertain. "You cannot keep him from me forever, Nia," he said. And then with a flash, his helmet was gone, his cloak was gone, and he was as he normally was. And he looked tired, so tired. "He does still have his oath," he continued, almost apologetically. "It will be fulfilled."

"Nuts to your oath," Nia snapped. "Here's mine. You will never, ever harm him again."

And she climbed upon Azurda's back, and Malos watched from a distance as the Titan took off, shooting into the sky. He looked around himself, at the ruins of Temperantia, at the dying flames of Mor Ardain, which still burned beneath the Cloud Sea, at the scorched and war-torn sky. And then he melted into black flame and shadow.

….

Nia clung to Rex, her forehead touching his, tears falling from her eyes onto his face, as they soared through the sky on Azurda's back. He was still unconscious, and so grievous were his wounds that even with Nia's Flesh Eater capabilities, they ate up all she poured into him, like great black holes torn into him, swallowing all her power. But she healed, and healed, never stopping, not for a moment, though it took all she had.

"You're going to live, Rex," she said, her hand on his face, "You're going to live, because there's nothing I can't heal. I will fix this. I'll hear your voice again. I don't care how much healing it takes, because I'm not afraid anymore. I won't hide anymore. This is who I am." She laughed, blinking tears from her eyes, not caring who heard. "I love you. I love you, Rex!"

Extended Author's Note

Well, that's it. This is basically the halfway point of this fic, at well over 300k words. PLEASE, please comment if you read this and appreciate it in any way. This milestone would absolutely be the place to comment on. I enjoy all kinds of comments, from just short ones to the longer ones that go over things in more detail, and I read them all. I do wish sometimes I had a way to interact more with people who might be fans of this work outside of these notes, to answer questions or something.

This whole work began pretty much entirely as an excuse to write a Nia/Rex story, just because (sorry, Rex/anyone else fans) I find them a lot more fun and relatable than the other pairings that Rex typically gets put in (including in the actual game!) But as I wrote, I kept on coming up with more ideas, and around the end of chapter 2, I had an actual general outline for a much larger fic. I did add a lot of details and fill in some spots as I was writing, which probably led to some inconsistencies you can find if you look for them. As I've said before, if I was considering this an actual work of fiction, I'd treat this whole thing so far as much more like a rough draft, something to go back and polish up after it was all down – especially the earlier chapters.

Now, here are some of my thoughts about writing in no particular order:

This Chapter In Particular

I hope this chapter is enjoyable, and that it's not too much of a slog. At some point, I felt like I was taking a big risk by having such long, extended sections focusing on very minor characters and their participation in the war. But I also felt it was important to give a view of the war, even though none of the main cast was directly participating in it.

I also hope that you understand that the sections I have dwelling on the regrets and dying thoughts of Maclair and Nelson are not meant to excuse them, or to say that we should have sympathy for murderers and evil men. What I was trying to communicate, and I tried to do this with Sylvie in chapter four as well, is that one of the greatest tragedies of history is that people who become monsters in some political circumstances might have been otherwise decent in others. Sylvie kind of got her redemption in chapter 4, but I think it's important to note that sometimes, most of the time, in fact, that redemption never comes.

And as for the destruction of Mor Ardain: I tried to give some (what I considered) very subtle hints and clues that it was coming as far back as chapter three (and maybe even earlier, but I can't remember my thoughts that far back.)

Anyway, I hope that it was an enjoyable read, and I hope that the conclusion, with Nia's defiance of her demons, at the end, was a sufficient light at the end of the tunnel to lift up people's spirits after what felt like a very long, brutal slog through darkness, at least while I was writing it.

Brionac

I didn't want to simply make Brionac into "Nazis, but they're Ardainian", because that would have felt too glib, but at the same time I didn't want to have someone sit Rex and the party down and say OKAY GUYS, HERE'S THE EXTENDED POLITICAL HISTORY OF THE BRIONAC PARTY! So I tried to communicate what complexities I could about Brionac from people's brief interactions with their members. So if you were wondering, here's what I thought about the political ideology of Brionac:

Brionac began as a Worker and Soldier's party, critical of the class structure of nobility in Ardainian society. They thought the fruits of conquest and industry should be more evenly distributed among the factory workers and common soldiers of the Empire. But while they criticized the class structure of Mor Ardain, they never criticized her other harmful traditions of conquest and expansion: In fact, since they idolized the military hierarchy of Mor Ardain, which was more meritocratic, they embraced them. By the time Niall became Emperor, most of the nobility had been cowed into submission, since although they were nobles, they relied on votes to get into the Senate, and the industrialists of Mor Ardain had reached an accord where they accepted higher tax rates and redistribution because of the sheer amount of business that Brionac's war plans would bring in. The influence of Amalthus instilled them with their messiah complex, and Niall's defiance of them riled up the anti-noble and anti-royal sentiments that they had always carried with them, leading to the coup plot. That was another thing I tried to communicate in this chapter, with the differences between Casey, Maclair and Nelson: They are brutal and bloody, but not monolithic, and they recruited from unusual places. Maclair was a member of the underclass, and almost a counterculture punk in his youth; Nelson was a working class man, and Casey...well, you might notice that he is suspiciously not dead by the end of this chapter, so more of his background will be shown in the future. I wanted to communicate that the problem with Mor Ardain wasn't just "Well, they get rid of this one party who is just a bunch of rich stupid people nobody likes and they're actually all good guys." Mor Ardain went wrong in many ways, on many levels, to get where it was by the time of this fic. Also please, don't think this is saying anything about real-world politics. I'm not saying that all worker's parties are secretly a bunch of fascists or that royalty is better or whatever nonsense people might read into this sort of thing. I'm saying that these were the conditions in THIS particular stupid fantasy political party in THIS particular stupid fantasy country in THIS particular stupid fanfic. It is not meant to have any real world political implications whatsoever.

Music

Music is a particular inspiration for me. A lot of how I write is that I imagine particular scenes or themes to particular pieces of music, and write a lot of my chapters as a sort of journey to these particular scenes that resonated most strongly with me. And it's not always the sort of music you might expect. For example, the subtitle, repeated phrase, and theme of "It Doesn't Have to Be Like This" came from me listening to "Drunk Drivers/Killer Whales" by Car Seat Headrest, which I hardly think was written with an epic fantasy in mind. With that said, here's some other music that heavily inspired this chapter, with the attendant scenes that they most heavily inspired.

"Hope", by A Message to Bears – Niall's confrontation with the Supreme Command

"Archie, Marry Me", by Alvvways – Maclair's regrets over Jenny

"Charge of the Rohirrim", LOTR soundtrack – Zuo's charge against Nelson

"Scotland's Shame", by Mogwai – The destruction of Mor Ardain

"I am Free, Today I Perished", by Crippled Black Phoenix – Niall's final walk through the Palace, and the tune the Ardainians heard before their deaths

"I have Two Shadows", by Arrive Alive – Nia's defiance of her demons

As an added bonus, there is a song that always makes me think of Amalthus:

"Anthem for No State", by Godspeed You Black Emperor

If you are going to listen to these for some insight or inspiration of your own, I recommend you listen to the whole thing: Sometimes it is a particular moment of music that inspires me the most strongly about a particular scene. (See if you can pinpoint the moment in "I Have Two Shadows" in which I pictured Nia standing up to her demons and ghosts.) And in particular, if you listen to Anthem for No State, listen through to the end – there is a particular scene I have in mind, far in the future, for Amalthus, heavily inspired by the end of that song (You'll know when it hits.)

The Future

Part of what inspired me to begin writing again was actually just simply watching a speedrun of XBC2 done in under 4 hours, by Enel (look it up on youtube, it's a very impressive run) and the release (just yesterday) of Xenoblade DE.

I know I just returned only recently after a long absence, though I do think it was good that I took an absence, even though I know I certainly lost some readers in the process (I do hope they rediscover this fic some day.) This work is very long at this point, and it's not actually that unusual for authors to take a step back from their work for extended periods of time. It gave me time to solidify what I wanted to do with Amalthus.

Now that being said, when I update this, I have always updated it at a breakneck pace – 10k+ word chapters a week – that I simply don't think I will be able to maintain going into the future. I do like the story, and I do plan on finishing it – but 300k words is a HUMONGOUS amount of effort and mental energy to pour into a piece of work for a relatively small fandom. And I do have ideas for original fiction of my own that working on this DOES take me away from.

So, although I did just return from a long absence, I think after this 50k beast of a chapter and halfway milestone, I will probably take another bit of an absence – not as long as the first – while I try to figure out what my new schedule is for this fic, and after that, updates will come slower than they have been. (Although I might try to get the first chapter of Act 6 out quickly, because – spoiler alert – it's going to contain scenes between Nia and Rex that I think a lot of people have been waiting for.) Part of the problem is my own inability to take things at a more relaxed pace, for sure – when I get inspired to write scenes, I write them furiously, sometimes pumping out 10k+ words in a single day. But that's simply not going to be something I can maintain with real world obligations and duties without sacrificing the greater majority of my free time to this fic alone. So stick around, please, even if updates become a bit inconsistent as I try to figure out a new pace at which to work on this.

I mentioned this earlier, but one of the things I might also consider is going back and rewriting some of the rougher earlier chapters, or making descriptions more detailed so that this fic is maybe more accessible to people outside of the Xenoblade 2 fandom – writing character descriptions and location descriptions with the idea in mind that people may not have played the game? I don't know if that would actually make it more accessible to people outside of the fandom. I'm not decided on whether or not I would do this yet. But I would like more fans, of course, who wouldn't?

The End

Well, that's it, I've rambled on in this note for long enough. My sincere thanks to all the people who review this work, and who have stuck with it through my long absence, and who have indulged me in this rambling. Your comments are a major source of inspiration as well, and I read absolutely every single last one of them.

Now to post this ridiculous beast of a chapter.