To call it a wave would have been to diminish what it truly was. It wasn't a shockwave, not even a ripple of sound, just a movement of absolute nothingness that expanded slowly outward from the warmachine, as it struck pavement with a sickening crack that reverberated through Kasmina's bones and the cockpit around her, vibrating the alloy of her hull like a bell rung far too loud.
The targeting reticle jittered once, barely perceptible, the smallest twitch, then once more, sliding half a degree left across her HUD, away from the figure in front of her, slow and insidious, as if nudged gently by an unseen hand. Kasmina flicked screen off and back on, assuming it was just a recalibration of visual module, or perhaps system was still coping with the high-voltage strike as she barely discharged the impulse barely a minute or two ago, when the insulation plating along her spinal mount had fractured beneath an electrical barrage. Her stabilizers hadn't fully normalized since—she was still running hot, with minor alarms blinking in the periphery of her awareness, like background noise too quiet to command full attention but too persistent to ignore.
Kasmina adjusted without thinking, fingers brushing the control yokes with practiced ease, smoothing the Vector's motion into something elegant. But the machine recoiled—not violently, not rebelliously, but with the hesitation of a creature losing faith in its senses. The HUD flickered. Just a pulse. A breath between frames. Glyphs blinked, then reappeared with new alignment, as though they'd momentarily forgotten where they were supposed to be.
Outside, night had fallen like a curtain soaked in static. The skyline shivered with false shapes—old drones misread as threats, heat signatures lagging behind their bodies by half a second. Her targeting system stuttered, then steadied, then showed her two figures instead of one, rhytmically changing between classifications, unable to stop on one.
"Fafnir Beta-Null, confirm data link," Kasmina said, keeping her voice steady. She was far away from being calm, but her training dictated her to stay vigilant.
No response came.
"Fafnir Beta-Null, do you copy? Juno, confirm uplink integrity."
A half-second pause stretched out like thread pulled too tight. Then a breath—sharp, clipped—and Juno's voice broke through, fast and ragged.
"What the hell is happening? Fafnir Alpha-Null, respond!"
"Juno?" Kasmina tried again, instinctively. "Can you hear me?"
Kasmina's eyes flicked to her system feed. Diagnostics scrolled incomprehensibly—half the readouts had defaulted into ancient test modes, while others flashed memory-error codes she hadn't seen since initial flight certification. Internal temperature readings climbed without explanation, even as power draw continued to drop. Her stabilization matrix stubbornly reported a ninety-degree yaw correction, despite the fact that she wasn't moving at all—and when she did move, it didn't correct.
"Fafnir Aleph-Null," Juno continued, her voice cracking slightly, panic rising now—and Kasmina realized with cold clarity that they couldn't hear each other, despite the open link. "My HUD's dead. Auto-aim's ghosting. I've lost left-side limb response entirely..."
Kasmina's fingers moved automatically over the primary control frame, each input met with the proper haptic response. The actuators in her arms flexed, her legs shifted with weight. The chassis held. Nothing buckled, nothing failed.
Core mechanical linkages remained untouched, hardwired muscle memory overriding the chaos in her HUD.
And yet everything felt wrong.
Juno's vector turned toward enemy at the same time as she did. Her pose was stiff, weapon angled slightly by reflex as the enemy rose to its feet at the crater's edge.
Even in glitching videofeed it was enormous - at least head taller that her Vector. Imposing, armored, built completely different than Empire's designes.
There was no beacon, no registry in empire, no insignia or allegience marking. It didn't look like any custom vectors Rebels repurposed before, and sure as hell it didn't look like any Krosa-made vector model. It stood like a question with no syntax, and the systems refused even to outline it, constantly jittering and drawing impossible shapes. Just raw image—unfiltered, unsorted—like being handed a battlefield in total silence and told to guess which shadows would kill her.
She didn't answer Juno. She couldn't. Her attention was locked on the status monitor, watching it lie to her in perfect typography—every field blinking green, reporting "Nominal," as if it were reading from a checklist rather than reality.
Juno moved first, without waiting for command. Her vector jolted into motion with a shudder of heat across the fractured pavement—full stride before Kasmina could speak, before she could even track the angle. To Kasmina, it felt like an instinct, pure and primal, clawing forward where logic had begun to break down. The mech tilted low into its run, shoulders pitched forward, weapon raised, barrel trailing faint bloom as thermal coils cycled up too fast to stabilize. Her HUD was gone, targeting dead—but she moved like she didn't need it anymore, like whatever she saw wasn't on any display but carved behind her eyes.
She fired mid-sprint, a full burst, spent casing banging loudly on cracked pavement, as tracer rounds tracked her aim to the place system claimed to be empty air, refusing to light any tags or markers.
The recoil kicked Juno's rifle back into her shoulder plate. Juno could swear - there was no crosswind, it was not a deflection, barrel didn't fire, and sure as hell there was no god to pull off a miracle. It looked and felt as if bullet suddenly had mind of it's own, and it decided to bend away from it's mark seconds before an impact.
She adjusted, slightly left. Fired again.
This time she watched the round swerve right—not wildly, not in a spiral, but just enough to miss, enough to cheat her certainty, enough to kill logic where it stood.
She exhaled, but her breath fogged late, lagging behind her lungs like the world was struggling to keep up.
Another shot.
This one curved upward.
The thing didn't stop as bullets around suddenly stopped obeying laws of physics. It didn't flinch or brace, just simply moved forward, step after step, impossibly deflecting the full brunt of Juno's fire without even pretending to notice. Her vector closed the distance in a lunging sprint, shoulder pivoting for a strike, rifle now gripped like a club—but it didn't matter. The enemy warmachine didn't counter. It didn't need to. It just turned, minimal and efficient, reached out with one massive, plated arm, and caught her mid-air.
It didn't feel fast. But inevitable to the point Juno could not do anything about it. Just a beat, half a second, where everything held still. Juno's vector hung suspended in its grip like a doll someone forgot to finish building, clawing away at rubber-like armoring covering it.
Then Chernobog threw her.
Not with anger. Not with force.
Just with indifference.
The motion lacked the violence she'd expected—no shockwave, no scream of ruptured hydraulics. Just a shift. A realignment. Her mech peeled away from Chernobog's grip as if gravity had changed its mind about her location.
She was airborne before her mind caught up. Not launched, not hurled, simply removed from the way like a pesky bug. Her mech hit something like a scaffold or a corner of the building, the left shoulder took the blow, crumpling inward with a metallic wail. The Vector rebounded, careening sideways through an arc that tore through air like water. Sparks exploded across the cabin wall, tracing thin lines of fire around her vision. Something burst near her leg.
She felt bile rising in her throat as the world rotated in front of her visor. The restraints held. Just barely.
The Vector tumbled across the plaza, bounced off a collapsed tram rail, then slammed through a food kiosk, wood and steel bursting around her like confetti. Her right gauntlet caught a bench, tore it in half, then jammed backward into the elbow socket, locking the arm mid-spin.
A warning flashed.
ROTATION EXCEEDS PILOT TOLERANCE
ERROR: SPINE STABILIZER NOT FOUND
ERROR ERROR ERRRRRR-
Juno's limbs were weightless for half a second, then slammed into their stops. Her head snapped forward. Red light flooded the cabin. The mech spun again, bounced off a hollow scaffold, then dropped—hard—into the bed of the truck like a creature cast out of the sky.
Outside, something collapsed under the force of the landing. Inside, she bit down on her own breath to keep from blacking out.
Juno hung inside, sideways in the harness. The HUD had gone grayscale after the impat, and a single warning blinked softly in the corner:
PLEASE STAY BY
It didn't even try to sound urgent.
Juno expected unknown enemy to be on it's way to finish the job, her hand already grabbing ejection lever, but she stopped: there was no movement outside. She hurriedly touched her ear, expecting to see blood - which would explain why she heard nothing - but her fingers were clean.
Something suddenly snapped insider of her. Her fingers refused to bend fought with a tight lock of safety harness for a good minute, before she managed to unlatch it and finally spring up, towards the hatch. She staggered sideways as gravity reasserted itself, one knee catching the floor plating with a hollow clang. Her palm slapped the inner wall, but she forced herselt to stand upright - as much as it was possible within tight confines of pilot pod - and grab the emergency release lever.
With a loud clang pyrocharge tossed off the hatch, which landed about a dozen meters away as he finally crawled her way out, to see enemy walker with her own eyes for the first time.
Chernobog did not attack to finish the job. It's head module has already been turned towards Kasmina's walker.
No urgency, no flourish, its gait heavy and exact, like the fight wasn't beginning—but had already ended, and the rest of them just hadn't caught up yet. Kasmina whispered under her breath as she watched events unfold, cursing whoever programmed her onboard computer. All she could do is watch the shape moving towards her through haze of smoke and settling ash, its footsteps echoing too cleanly down a street, but too broken to carry sound properly.
Somewhere behind the crater's edge, movement flickered between two collapsed freight pylons, small, fast and low to the ground. A survivor, perhaps.
Kasmina's hands hovered over the controls. Instinct screamed back at her, as the new predator suddenly reshaped the battlefield, but there was nothing instide of the machine which could help her now. There was only one way to respond, something they were never taught, simply because such situation was impossible.
She slammed on controls, sending her Vector forward. Her hands were shaking with adrenaline overload, she didn't feel this way since Union Square - and now it felt all too familiar.
The biotic overload hit her like needles, jabbed directly into the nerves behind her eyes. She gasped, but the breath stuck halfway, caught between reflex and panic. Every part of her body screamed at once—teeth, knees, eyelids—all the quiet places where sensation usually whispered now jolted into raw exposure.
The cockpit flickered. Monitors blinked. One screen showed a core temperature spike that vanished before she could read it.
Cain exhaled slowly through clenched teeth, eyes narrowing as he watched enemy Vector approaching - not charging, more like... Walking. With a lot of determination. It was no longer just hot air it was venting - it was raw biotic energy surging away, as the vector frame was trying to contain firestorm burning inside.
Screens flickered, as extreme temperature warnings started to crawl across the monitors.
"Enemy biotic surge detected." MERIT said flatly. "Countermeasures advised."
"Which coutermeasures? Last time I met this bitch I had to sacrifice a mech just to escape."
"You can always run away."
"That's hardly on the table right now!"
The first bolt of flame struck the plaza like a wire pulled tight and released—straight and too clean to be guessed. It sheared through five meters of stone and signage, split a transport barrier in half, and kept going. Cain saw the frame of a stairwell catch the trailing edge, instantly disentegrating.
He moved too late.
Chernobog tilted on thrusters, scraping low. The edge of the bolt caught just beneath the left flank, hot enough to fry one of the auxiliary pressure ports before the armor could vent properly. Red glyphs crawled across the HUD in tight clusters. He didn't read them.
He was watching her.
Kasmina advanced, and the world adjusted to make space for her. Each footstep left behind a sharp black divot, not charred—reduced. The air shimmered around her like water sliding off pressure glass. The flame was no longer decoration, it licked at her shoulders now, burning close to the surface. Something in the air pushed back — like an invisible viscosity thickening around her arms.
She stepped once more, turned hard, and cast a second pulse. Juno slumped behind the wreckage, still breathing, too stunned to move — but watching.
This one dipped low, skipping off the ground like a heat-seeker. Cain dropped Chernobog again, bled off lift, curved just enough to avoid the path. The bolt hit nothing. It dissolved against a stairwell and caught a length of railing instead. The iron curled, glowin and sagged, like a wick on snuffed out candle.
That was when it started to slip.
She spun tighter now—three short strikes, mid-range bursts. Her body moved with flawless timing, but the flame lagged half a beat behind her wrist.
The first arc curved late.
The second twisted as it launched, like it caught wind that wasn't there.
The third—
The third split.
Not in the air. In her hand.
Cain saw it as it formed. The fire flickered in a perfect coil and then folded in on itself, licking against her own hip armor and shattered apart in a lazy scatter of heat.
She didn't flinch.
She took a breath, braced again, realigned. A full cast—right arm this time, forward lean. The flame stuttered again. This time, Cain saw her jerk her elbow upward, trying to correct something. Trying to find the shape again.
"I detect deterioration in her biotic control." MERIT noted. "Anomalous lag between neural cast and emission curve."
"What?"
"She is losing control."
Cain frowned. It was too soon for fatigue.
Another cast.
This time she used both hands. A spiral. Cain had seen her do it before, back on Union Square—twin coils of flame shaping into a sharp helix, converging mid-air into a single focused strike.
They misaligned.
One curved left. The other caught early turbulence—flame detaching from her manipulator before the motion finished. They crashed into each other not halfway to target. The result was smoke, a stuttering pulse of ash spiraling to the ground like spent flare dust.
Cain didn't move. Not yet.
He watched her fall without a word.
The silence felt appropriate. The Nightfall didn't allow eulogies.
She cast again. Left hand only this time. Quicker. He saw the twitch again—barely there. But the flame jumped before she did. The firebolt launched upward and spun too wide.
And she blinked.
Her walker paused. Not long. Just enough to show she didn't understand what had just happened.
"Cognitive loop signature detected. Repetition index above threshold."
She moved again. Not urgently. Not furiously. Just... again.
Left hand. Elbow rotation. Short draw in, step forward, shoulder torque. Exactly same as before.
It should have worked.
It didn't.
The flame flared too early this time—barely shaped, no form—just light bleeding into motion. It spun wide again. But worse, this time the fire dragged her arm with it—wrenched the shoulder actuator into a half-pivot, like something had fired the cast before she finished the thought.
Cain's eyes narrowed.
Not fatigue, he was sure of it. But the fire—
The fire was moving without her.
She reset.
Tried the same cast again. Same frame rhythm. Same path.
Same failure.
"Repetition index increasing. Delay loop confirmed."
Evading attacks was easy now.
"She doesn't know she's repeating it." Cain whispered, more to the inside of the cockpit than the system. Kasmina didn't slow. She drew in again. Hands low. Biotic flare beginning to coil inward.
The fire sparked, but didn't launch. Just hung there—shivering around her wrists, like liquid glass trapped between states.
Her body shifted as if to release it.
Too late. Too soon. At the same time.
The flame ignited sideways. Not cast, just ejected, like it refused to wait any longer. It whipped across her shoulder plating, left a glowing strip of fused ceramic. Her walker jolted back, instinctual compensation. Cain saw it: the first real stutter in her footing.
"What is this," she muttered. "What is this—"
Cain's HUD dimmed as MERIT once again bled onto the lens.
"Nightfall field saturation at 51%. Proximity overlap confirmed. Neural response lag exceeds trheshold for combat-type biotic functions."
Cain grinned.
Kasmina tried to think of one last cast, one last shape, one last name to scream.
But the fire inside her had already forgotten how to speak.
The flames stuttered one more time, balance compensators buckled. Servos locked. She pitched forward—and the fire died, all at once, like someone had turned off a star.
"No, no, no, no, no!" Kasmina snapped.
She flexed her fingers again. Not because she needed to—just to feel the motion echo through the joints. The wrist turned. The flame didn't come. Not even a spark this time. Just that soft, taut click of the biotic coil resetting behind the panel.
She had cast this before. She was sure she had.
Hadn't she?
But her arm was still raised, her shoulder locked forward, the caster coils wound tight behind the elbow—ready, aligned, waiting to be heard.
Nothing.
And then Cain moved, not quickly, not forcefully, but with the kind of quiet finality that meant nothing could stop what came next. Chernobog didn't leap or lunge. He simply shifted, a single vector-knee bending as though surrendering to gravity, letting momentum fold into itself until he was gliding, silent and weightless. From behind the scorched pylons, the shadow moved again—quieter this time. Still watching.
The air between them didn't ripple.
It receded.
As if it, too, had realized she was done.
Kasmina's targeting reticle jumped once, then spun out entirely. Glyphs fell off the corners of her HUD like autumn leaves, meaningless now, syntax without meaning. She tried to pivot—right foot twisting into a side-step, coil pressure surging up from her lower spine—but the cast never resolved. Not even heat this time. Just... cold. Empty rails waiting for a signal that would never come.
Chernobog closed the distance.
No charge. No flare. No weapon drawn. Just one arm extending, open-handed, palm glowing faint with the burnoff from its cooling core. It wasn't meant to strike.
It was meant to touch.
And when it did—when that oversized hand landed flat against her chestplate, directly over the remains of her biotic conduit—the entire system responded like it had seen a ghost.
There was no blast.
No explosion.
Just a pulse.
Like a heart murmur in the nervous system of a dying god.
It wasn't strength. It was gravity. As if his presence alone had mass enough to end her.
Kasmina's frame seized instantly. Every actuator in her upper limbs locked. Her HUD scrambled. Emergency override codes flashed in a forgotten dialect—testbed warnings from prototypes too old for current software to understand. The fire behind her eyes evaporated. Even pain forgot how to reach her.
And still he pressed forward—not violently, not cruelly, but like someone applying pressure to a memory. The weight of that hand alone pushed her walker backward across the fractured stone, each footfall leaving drag-lines behind it. Sparks arced out from her shoulder seams. One of her thrusters popped. She triggered a cast in panic, muscle memory alone—but nothing flared. The coils inside her gauntlet snapped instead, releasing a burst of smoke like breath into winter air.
Her knees buckled, but Chernobog's hand remained.
Kasmina cursed. The vector beneath her was dying—not from damage, but from rejection. The Nightfall saturation was too deep now, too thick in the bones of her Vector, and she had cast too long, too hard, for too many cycles. The air felt like static wrapped in silence. Her own fire wouldn't answer her anymore.
She sagged. Not from impact. From absence.
She knew this feeling.
Union Square. The crater. The breath before blackout. The taste of her own blood in recycled oxygen.
Chernobog tilted its head—fractional. Measuring something only it could see. Its hand released her with a deliberate pause, fingers unfurling like a clock's last tick, and for a moment, her frame remained standing purely from momentum, suspended in an echo of power.
Then she dropped.