[???]
("I will end this... right here... and right now...") Fiona's decided. ("With all this accumulated mana surging through every vein in my body...")
Her entire form trembled from the pressure of mana around her. She could not afford to draw this out any longer. Not when the others were still fighting. Not when defeat would mean more than just personal failure.
She closed her eyes for the briefest of moments, letting herself sink into the silence between breaths. Memories began to rise—half-formed ghosts of a past she had tried so long to bury. The scent of melting steel. The sound of laughter, cut off too soon. The distant cry of a younger self. She clenched her teeth. No.
Not now.
She exhaled through her nose and with that single breath she buried the past again—deeper this time. Not erased, more so entombed. Her past had no place here. This battlefield—the now—was sacred ground. Only clarity, resolve, and forward motion had any right to remain.
A voice then fluttered into her head.
["Good to know you finally steeled yourself,"] Victoria mused. ["Even so, let's be crystal clear here—you're not off the hook just yet."]
There was a pause—a smile in her tone, that infuriating little smirk Fiona could imagine as if Victoria were standing right beside her.
["You will follow my instructions to the letter, red cherry."]
Fiona's brow twitched. Her lips curled ever so slightly—not into a smile, but into something between irritation and resignation.
("Red... cherry?")
Her eye twitched violently.
("That stupid nickname again?")
It hit her like a slap across the face—not because of the name itself, it reminded her of a version of herself she had tried to outgrow.
("It's been years since anyone's called me that. And yet somehow, it doesn't bring back any fond memories.")
She could almost hear Victoria's grin growing through the mental link.
("If you never utter that name again, ever, I might—")
Her voice paused.
("I might actually listen to you this time.")
There was something in her tone now—strained humor riding on top of something else. A bruised sense of something unknown, she didn't want to admit it, but that old name, as stupid and childish as it was, centered her in a strange way. Brought her back. Reminded her who she was before the hate consumed everything. Before this obsession with magitech burned away the rest of her identity.
["Good."] Victoria's voice softened slightly. Just slightly. Enough to slip beneath the irritation. ["Then let's win this, Red Che—... Fiona."] A pause. ["One step at a time. Now... get ready. The core is about to stabilize. We strike then. No sooner. No later."]
Fiona's stance shifted immediately—one foot angled behind the other, arms bent, open, prepared to vault forward. Her aura surged again, it coalesced, forming dense halos of mana around her fists and ankles.
The ground beneath her feet began to fracture from the pressure.
("Right. We strike... when it stabilizes. Not before. Not after.")
"Still clinging to that little spark of rebellion, are you?" Anuran's voice echoed through Alpha's vox emitters, thick with amusement. "Charming… but misguided."
The twin forearms of Alpha shuddered.
Panels hissed open, and from within, plasma-forged blades emerged. The heat alone scorched the ground.
Alpha lurched forward.
The engines along its back burst to life with a thunderous boom, propelling the behemoth forward. The plasma blades, white-hot, sliced through the air in intersecting arcs, aimed at Fiona's midsection and neck. The angle was obvious—intended to maim, not kill.
["Two swings, both diagonal. First right-to-left, then left-to-right. Duck under the first. Pivot back off your left heel for the second. Don't block. The heat will eat through your arm."]
Fiona didn't question.
Her body dropped beneath the first blade, the plasma grazing a single strand of her hair. Time slowed in that second.
Then she twisted.
One foot slid back, rotating her body just enough for the second blade to slice past her nose, missing by mere inches. The wind that followed it was like a whipcrack across her cheek, but she didn't flinch.
["Spin counterclockwise. Go low. Strike behind the left knee actuator. It'll drop the frame for a split second. That's your opening."]
Fiona obeyed, diving under a third swing—a brutal downward cleave that split the earth open where she once stood. Dirt and flame erupted around her as she corkscrewed through the smoke, her clawed gauntlet igniting with mana. She skidded forward, kicking off the ground.
Her claw connected.
A sickening crunch echoed as metal gave way to her strike. Sparks sprayed violently from Alpha's rear leg. The force caused it to stagger, just for a breath, just long enough for a glimpse of vulnerability.
Anuran snarled within the cockpit, but her voice remained calm.
"Vengeance gives strength, doesn't it? That raw, beautiful fire in your chest. It's intoxicating, I'm sure. But tell me—what happens when the fuel runs out?"
Fiona didn't answer.
"Your hatred is an ember in a cold wind," Anuran continued, unmoved by the damage. "So fragile. So laughably temporary. But machines? They endure. They are not blinded by rage. They do not hesitate. They do not regret."
She said that last word with a strange softness, as if savoring it.
Alpha's right blade came stabbing forward—no warning this time, no flourish. Just a precise thrust aimed for Fiona's sternum.
["Jump. Hook your leg over the forearm. Push off with your knee—ride the momentum to the left."]
Fiona leapt. Her foot landed atop the arm, her knee bent as she kicked off the length of it. She twisted mid-air, narrowly avoiding a sudden sideways slash from Alpha's other blade, and slammed into the side of the mech's shoulder with a devastating mana-infused elbow.
Metal bent.
But so did Fiona.
Mid-impact, Alpha twisted its torso, using the spin to whip its opposite blade around—and this time, it was faster. The blade didn't aim to maim this time, it aimed to end.
Fiona sensed it too late. The blade carved into her side, the plasma igniting blood and armor alike. Her breath caught as pain lanced through her abdomen. Her vision blurred as she was flung backward, her body tumbling midair, twisting, spinning—
And crashing.
The earth ruptured where she landed, dust and stone blasting skyward. A crater formed in the wake of her fall. For a moment, nothing but silence lingered—aside from the distant creak of Alpha's hydraulics.
Anuran exhaled, then smiled.
"See? Rage dulls the blade. It clouds the mind. You strike harder, yes... but not wiser. That is the problem with organic types. They burn fast and bright... and then they're gone. Forgotten."
She leaned forward in her seat, shadows crawling across her face.
"You fight as though your pain gives you meaning. As though bleeding makes you more real. But that's the fallacy, isn't it? Pain doesn't prove anything. It's just noise. It's just… inefficient."
Dust floated through the crater, from the center of the crater… came laughter. It was low at first. Raspy. A sound forced through gritted teeth and bloodied lips.
Fiona stood slowly. The dust parted around her, she staggered once—her leg barely holding—then spat a glob of blood to the side with a sneer. Her gaze shot toward Alpha, eyes still smoldering with blue—until suddenly, violently, they burned scarlet.
Her mana flared.
The runes etched across her skin ignited anew, but their color warped, shifting from cool blue to a deep red. Her breathing grew heavy—not labored. Her muscles tensed, swelled. Bone cracked beneath flesh. Her armor groaned as it began to expand, plates shifting with a chorus of mechanical grinding. Reinforcements layered atop each other.
And then her hair—
From black, to brown. Deep and earthen, it fell down her back in thick waves, the strands whipping in every direction as her aura reached new heights.
With a final pulse, her transformation surged.
From her skull burst twin horns—thick, ivory white and spiraled, they curved backward. Fiona raised her head, blood still trickling from her lips, and grinned.
"Pointless...?" she echoed, her eyes locked onto Alpha. "You're not wrong, Von Auerswald."
She took a single step forward.
"I know my vendetta is meaningless. I know it's stupid. Reckless. Selfish." Her words came sharp. "But I still can't—I won't—accept Magitech. It took too much. Not just from me..."
She tapped her fingers against her armored chest.
"...But from those who were better than me. Kinder than me. People who should still be here."
She tilted her head, and though her voice cracked, she did not stop.
"I'm not a hero. I'm not some righteous avenger. I'm just someone who still sees the blood when she closes her eyes... and no matter how much I try, I can't stop seeing it."
She raised her hand, fingers twitching with twitching arcs of red as her claw formed once more. A thick aura bled off her.
"So even if it's pointless. Even if I'm wrong. Even if I die here—"
She lowered her stance, body coiled like a beast ready to rip through anything.
"—I'm still going to tear that goddamn tin shell off your body and make you feel what we all felt!"
The air around her howled as her mana burst forward.
Anuran remained still in the cockpit. She watched. Not with surprise—but with a silence that was… unsettling. Her breath barely shifted. One hand rested atop the control sphere of Alpha, the other delicately placed beneath her chin.
"...You know," she murmured over the vox, her tone distant almost soft, "I do admire your honesty. You're not pretending to be anything other than what you are."
She sighed, but there was no disappointment in it.
"It's funny. I was once like you."
Fiona's eyes narrowed, but she didn't interrupt.
"I once thought emotion made us strong. That the fires of grief and anger could forge new paths. But in time... I learned better."
Her voice deepened—detached from the combat like she were speaking across time rather than space.
"Vengeance is not purpose. It is entropy in disguise. It starts with direction but always leads to oblivion. It devours, consumes, until nothing remains but the echo of what was lost. I've watched entire cities collapse beneath that illusion. Rot from the inside out chasing that lie."
The light inside Alpha's chest flared brighter—not from mana, but from within the core.
"Emotions makes you believe you're doing something—when in truth, it's just you bleeding for your ghosts. It's not bravery. It's not strength."
She leaned closer to the display, voice lowering to a whisper.
"...It's cowardice dressed in battle armor."
Those words struck deeper than any blade.
But Fiona didn't flinch.
"Then let's see which of us the cowardice devours first."
"…Yes, let's end this."
Victoria's voice crackled back to life.
["The core has stopped transporting. It's movements have ceased. Fiona it's in the right shoulder. Upper joint region. Just beneath the auxiliary armor plate. It seems Alpha is attempting to funnel its remaining power into offense rather than evasion."]
Fiona's glowing red eyes narrowed. ("The shoulder, huh?")
["By the way…"] Victoria added, and Fiona could hear the smirk laced in her tone despite the distortion of the telepathy, ["That form you've taken—smart choice. Pain-reliant growth… you've effectively become a hybrid now. It's impressive. Your strength, endurance, reflexes… all scaling based on the trauma you've endured. I always knew you were stubborn, but look at you. Now you're stubborn and smart. That's almost dangerous."]
Fiona clicked her tongue and scowled. Her lips curled into something between a grimace and an embarrassed smirk.
("Save it.") She growled, eyes locked ahead on Alpha. ("Keep talking like that and I might start thinking you like me.")
["Heavens no,"] Victoria shot back with mock horror. ["Just impressed that your thick skull might actually be housing more than just anger."]
("Right.") Fiona's claws flexed. ("Remind me to punch you in the face after this.")
["Please do. I'll send you the location. Now go. End this."]
And that was all Fiona needed.
There was no further hesitation. No more voices in her head. No more memories clouding her clarity. Just the sound of her heartbeat. Slower. Then faster. Then gone, replaced by the roar of her mana exploding outward.
The ground beneath her feet cratered inward, crushed by the pressure of the mana erupting from her core. Her red aura ignited, rising high into the sky, the air snapped—and then shattered—as Fiona launched forward.
BOOM!!!
The sound barrier cracked and detonated. A deep concussive shockwave rippled across the area, launching dust, shattered rock, and small debris into the air as boulders and rock formations far beyond the area to got sent flying.
Anuran's eyes widened—for the first time.
From within the cockpit of Alpha, time seemed to slow. Lights across the console flickered in warning, sensors failing to register Fiona's speed, mana readings spiking beyond previous thresholds.
"…Impossible. Velocity exceeding calibrated estimations. Visual lock lost."
The machine lurched forward in response, plasma blades reigniting with a scream of energy, and Alpha charged to meet the incoming attack.
But it was already too late.
Fiona tore through space.
She zig-zagged mid-air with such speed the afterimages were left in her wake. Each twist of her body became a collection of shockwaves and thunderous sonic booms. Alpha swung its blades, the twin plasma sabers cleaving in opposite X-shaped patterns to catch her from both sides.
But Victoria's voice returned:
["Drop low and arc left, pivot too. Seems she's trying to catch you off guard."]
Fiona ducked.
The plasma blades missed her by fractions of inches, searing across the tips of her horns and burning through stray locks of her hair as she spun beneath the massive machine. Her foot planted against Alpha's shin—crack—the reinforced joint shuddered from the impact.
Then she launched upward, claws out, tracing a red arc through the air.
She collided into the right shoulder like a battering ram, her claws ripping through outer armor, tearing away protective shielding in blinding sparks. Alpha twisted, tried to counter—its left arm swept in, plasma blade screaming toward her ribs.
Fiona let it slice.
Her body twisted, the plasma blade carved a deep gash along her flank—searing through her armor, burning flesh beneath. But she didn't stop. Her claws—now fully charged—plunged into the weakened shoulder plating.
And she ripped it apart.
Mana surged from her arms, detonating inside Alpha's joint like a furnace eruption. A shriek of tearing steel followed by a wail of burning circuitry. The core—once hidden deep beneath layers of failsafes—was now exposed. It pulsed frantically, as if sensing Death.
With a guttural roar, Fiona drove her claw straight into the core—and in a flash of white-red, obliterated it. The explosion wasn't loud, in fact it was quiet.
An inward sound—Alpha staggered. Its body spasmed. Limbs twitched erratically. Lights across its armor dimmed to nothing. It collapsed slowly, as if trying to fight its own demise. Its chest split open violently from the overload, smoke rising from the cavity in spiraling columns.
Fiona didn't land so much as crash. She hit the ground like a meteor—one knee embedding into the crater, her breath uneven, body trembling, half-covered in her own blood. Her hands twitched from mana burnout, claws retracting slowly.
And yet she stood.
Alpha remained motionless for a moment longer—then the central plate of its chest clicked.
It slid open.
From the smoke, Anuran emerged—dress billowing behind her, her face bloodied, but calm. A small burn marred her left cheek that quickly healed.
Their eyes met.
"…Well," Anuran said softly, brushing a strand of hair from her face, "That was unexpected."
"Seems… my rage beat you," Fiona spat through gritted teeth as the transformation began slowly.
The blackened plates of jagged armor that had once twisted over her frame began to recede. Cracks of fading mana bled out from the edges of her gauntlets and shoulder plates.
The horns curling from her skull shrank, until they simply dissolved into nothing. Her silhouette softened, shrinking down as the wild mane of brown hair slowly lightened until it settled back into her natural color: a soft, warm pink.
Her eyes faded last, dimmed to a gentle salmon-pink hue.
"Ironic," Anuran murmured, still sprawled across the cratered ground, limbs bent awkwardly within the battered remains of her mech's shattered cockpit, red warning lights flickering across her shattered HUD. Despite the wreckage of Alpha—its ruined chassis torn open, its right arm gone, its core sparking faintly—she wore a smile.
A crooked one.
"Seems so," Anuran continued. "Now what, little wolf? Shall you do it? Shall you finish what you started? Will you kill me now?"
Fiona didn't answer right away.
She turned her gaze to Anuran fully. There was no humor in her expression now—just an unreadable one.
"I won't waste what strength I have left," she said at last, her voice hollow. "Even though I want to. Gods above, I truly, truly want to."
Her fingers twitched as if second guessing.
"But there are more pressing threats still alive in this hellhole," she said. "And the others… they're still fighting. I have to be there. I have to be useful."
"Is that so?" Anuran tilted her head as best she could, her neck straining. Her smile did not falter. "How… very noble. Or is it honorable? No, useful. That's the word you chose. Practical, measured… selfless to the point of madness."
She let out a soft, almost motherly chuckle.
"You fascinate me. You burn so brightly… but your fire always moves in the wrong direction. You are governed by instinct, by ideals, by feelings that cripple your reason. So illogical, and yet… so very human. I look forward to crossing paths with you again one day."
She tilted her chin slightly upward. The faintest trace of reverence passed through her voice.
"May the next time be more… decisive. I forfeit from this festival."
Then, below her, a glyph flared to life—a perfect circle etched in white that ignited beneath her body. A glow expanded, engulfing her figure in radiant white light.
There was no flare, just a brief shimmer of light—and then, nothing.
Gone.
Fiona stood there, alone, staring at the place where her enemy had vanished. And only then did she realize… she had been holding her breath. She exhaled slowly. Shakily. As if releasing the weight of her decision from her chest. As if letting go of a Death she had chosen not to deliver.
A single step crunched behind her.
"Well done, Fiona," came a familiar voice.
Fiona turned her head ever so slightly, blinking away blood and dust, to see Victoria standing there, arms folded neatly beneath her chest. She stopped beside Fiona, gaze drifting toward the still-smoking crater left by Alpha's collapse.
"I didn't think you would succeed," Victoria said plainly. "How are you feeling?"
Fiona smirked faintly through her exhaustion. Her legs buckled slightly beneath her but she remained upright.
"Like I'll kneel over and die any second now," she muttered.
Victoria arched a brow. "Understandable," she said calmly. Then, after a brief pause, she tilted her head. "But I wasn't asking about your body."
Fiona blinked once.
"…I'm surprised you let her go."
That hit differently, Fiona's smirk faded. Her gaze drifted downward. Her hands opened and closed slowly at her sides.
"…Me too," she admitted after a long silence. "But I don't think I could stomach it. Killing. Not again. Not ever." Her voice cracked slightly on the last word, and she clenched her jaw to hold the rest in.
Victoria studied her for a moment, her expression unreadable. Then she gave the faintest nod.
"A surprisingly good quality," she said. "Though—"
"—illogical. Yeah. I know." Fiona interrupted with a weak grin. "You're so predictable."
Victoria let out a breath.
"Oh, hush."