Sector 04 lay silent, a graveyard of steel and smoke. Where hours before the ground had trembled under the fury of Zeta androids, now only dust and fractured earth remained. Not even the scattered limbs of machines were left to testify to the carnage.
And yet, something stirred.
From the charred horizon emerged a towering figure, cloaked in layered hoods that devoured the light. Its stride was too measured to belong to any man, and its shadow clung unnaturally close, like a predator unwilling to let go of its prey. The air thickened as it walked, static whispers bleeding through the air like fractured signals.
It paused where the androids had fallen. Its head tilted, slow, deliberate, studying the barren earth. Metal claws flexed at the ends of its hands as though expecting to find carcasses of machines to sift through. But there was nothing. No scraps. No proof.
A sound broke from beneath its hood a growl, guttural and inhuman. With a single movement, it produced a beamer, a prism of humming energy that pulsed with unstable light. It pressed its taloned hand into the device. Light flared, brilliant and cold.
And the figure vanished.
Far from the scarred wastes of Sector 04, Edo soared above clouds in his blackened aircraft, the wind whispering against its sleek hull. In his hold lay the scavenged remnants of android plating proof of an abomination he refused to let remain hidden.
He had not told Alya. He knew her too well. The girl's stubborn fire would not let her sit idle, and he had no patience for her insistence on shadowing him. This task was his.
Ahead, Lunaria unveiled itself.
The city was less a metropolis and more a dream conjured from light and geometry. Towering spires of silver and glass climbed into the heavens, their tips crowned with orbs that pulsed like artificial moons. Suspended bridges laced the skyline in arcs of brilliance, and beneath them the ground glowed with networks of veins streams of neon plasma that carried power and life through Lunaria's heart.
It was not merely a city; it was a temple to ambition. And its name, Lunaria, whispered of a lunar mystery, a place poised between science and sorcery. Astronomers perched on its outer rings, peering into galaxies. Geologists mined the hidden bones of moons and asteroids. And scholars of war remembered all too well why cities like Lunaria must stand fortified because history's shadows had long arms.
Edo's skybolt descended toward the epicenter: a structure that dwarfed the skyline, half-castle, half-skyscraper. Its walls shimmered like obsidian glass, etched with constellations that shifted faintly as though alive. This was the Citadel of Helixia's Higher Ops, seat of the elite nobilities who steered the fate of nations.
The moment Edo's boots touched the platform, a squad of knight-warriors closed around him. Their armor gleamed like moonlight hammered into plates, visors reflecting pale fire. Wordlessly, they escorted him through winding halls to the summit of the Citadel, a chamber vast and echoing, where the nobilities convened in a circle.
Above them hung a holographic sphere, rotating endlessly, a fractured moon, symbol of their vigilance.
Edo bowed low. "Greetings, Elite Nobles. I am Edo of Avril ."
One figure, draped in robes of pearlescent weave, gestured. "You may speak, Edo of Avril. What shadow brings you here?"
Straightening, Edo set down the fragments of android plating, their edges still singed from battle. His voice sharpened. "Someone is violating sacred law. Zeta androids are being constructed in secrecy. We fought and destroyed a unit last night, but I fear there are more."
The chamber stirred. Murmurs licked the walls like flames. Another noble leaned forward, face lined with ancient scars. " Impossible. The manufacture of autonomous machines was forbidden generation ago. Do you dare claim our decrees are being mocked?"
In answer, a hologram bloomed from the fragments. Two figures emerged in spectral light twin androids of titanic scale, carved from the myths of their ancestors. Alpha and Omega.
The chamber fell silent, memories pressing heavy as stone.
"Long ago," intoned one noble, "our forebears forged two minds greater than man. Alpha, the Architect. Omega, the Annihilator. They turned upon us, nearly unmaking all of Helixia." The hologram split, showing shards of crystalline cores. "From their defeat, we recovered six fragments known as Cerebrox. Yet those outsiders stole four fragments, leaving two within our grasp."
Another noble rose, voice hard as steel. "The fragments cannot remain dormant. They must be wielded. Ivo Omicron and Alya Aerius, these are the chosen candidates."
Edo bent to one knee, lowering his head. "Then grant me the right to investigate. I will trace the source of the abominations and cut it down before it festers into war."
The chamber deliberated in whispers that echoed like wind over broken glass. Finally, a voice emerged, steady and final: "Permission granted. Alya will join you, welcome her. Go, Edo of Avril. The shadows thicken, and the hour demands hunters."
He rose, fist against chest. "As you see fit."
Escorted once more by the knight-warriors, Edo departed, the Citadel's great doors closing behind him like the weight of destiny itself.
Back at Avril City, Zuhdar bar looked like it had been hammered together from shipwrecks metal ribs exposed, scarred planks bolted over gaps, a roof that creaked whenever the wind shoved its way through Avril City's canyons. Neon signs burned in crooked letters over the door, wavering between defiance and exhaustion. The place smelled like fried noodles, spilled liquor, ozone from cheap energy packs, and the oil that leaked out of busted servos whenever hunters and warriors came to drink off the night's work.
Alya pushed through the batwing doors and let the noise hit her. Tables jammed with mercenaries and scavengers; laughter that sounded like broken glass; a jukebox coughing out a tune older than the concrete under their feet. On the far side, a dartboard leaned crooked, the wall around it pitted and torn like someone had been throwing knives instead. A ceiling fan turned lazily, stirring air that never decided whether to be warm or cold.
Kaylin slipped in behind her, breath at her shoulder. "This is where Thane said he'd be. Be careful, this place looks dangerous," he murmured.
"I won't fight them as long as they don't fight," she said. "I need to get answers."
"You won't get one without the other," he said, with that half-smile that always pretended he wasn't worried for her.
Heads tilted. Several pairs of augmented eyes adjusted focus, lenses clicking. Alya's bare feet found grip on the plank floor. She could feel the whole bar through her soles the thrum of generators behind the wall, the slow foot-tap of the bartender, the heavy cadence of weapons hanging at hips and across backs. She moved forward, and the noise thinned the way sound thins before thunder hits.
Jorrah detached from a cluster of swordmasters as if he'd been waiting for the cue. He wore arrogance like armor and metal like jewelry...an exposed rib of gleaming alloy down his temple into his cheek, an elaborate muscle-carved chestplate polished to a mirror sheen, and on his back the blade, folded metal like ripples in water. His smile wasn't to be trusted.
"Well, if it isn't the little stray," he said, looking past Kaylin to Alya. "We serve milk in babg cups, but it's extra."
"You must be Jorrah. I was expecting something more.....," Alya said, voice steady. "I'm in searching of a person. Someone constructing zeta androids, and I hear you know something about it so let's cooperate."
Jorrah's eyes slid to the others, inviting them to enjoy this. "Oh? And what would this... something...be?"
"I need all of your asisst," she said. "So let's hear it.Tell me the mastermind behind it."
The laughter was immediate. Someone slapped a table. A woman with a turquoise mohawk screwhead leaned back and grinned around a toothpick. "Wait, you want us to follow you into the dark because you said so?"
"Because you should," Alya said. "Because someone should ."
"Aw," Jorrah said. He stepped closer until she could see the tiny imperfections in his chrome cheek: a hairline scratch, a polish swirl. "That's real sweet. Tell you what ..why don't we start a little demonstration? You're new to the list. Let's test your...credentials."
Kaylin put a hand out to her shoulder, gentle pressure. She shifted away from it without looking, eyes on Jorrah. "I didn't come to fight you."
He leaned down as if confiding something. "Oh, but we did."
He moved first, a flicker of motion, and the bar adjusted with him chairs scraped, mugs lifted off tables to keep them from spilling, the room widening like a pupil in low light. Alya felt it like a signal through the floor. The blade on Jorrah's back chimed as his body turned, and she met his step with her own, a glide that put her just inside his reach. He smiled, misreading her calm for inexperience.
He reached, fast, a hand like a clamp snatching for her throat.
She let the hand pass like wind. Pivot. Weight through her hips, through the ball of her foot, like she'd always known balance. She palmed the center of his ornate chestplate. Not hard. Just enough to say no.
Jorrah staggered, surprise bleeding into anger. Chairs scraped louder. Someone laughed nervously and then stopped when they realized they were the only one. The bartender set a glass down carefully.
"Try that again," Alya said.
He obliged with a flurry that would have disassembled a normal person. Alya drifted through it. Fist cuts here, elbow there, a knuckle grazing her cheek like a bee sting and then her hand found his wrist and folded it wrong. He grunted. Her knee kissed the inside of his thigh and stole his base. She stepped through, rolled her shoulder, and his breath exploded as she planted him against a table so hard the drinks jumped.
"You're making a mistake," Jorrah muttered from the edge of the room. He didn't mean Alya.
The room inhaled; the room held it. Jorrah shoved off the table, drew steel in a smooth arc that sang like a note coins couldn't buy. The blade slid into the open air, gorgeous and filled with threat. Patterns chased across its surface as he brought it up.
"Last chance to ask for milk," he said.
"Nah," Alya said. Not to the milk. Not to him. Not to anything that tried to define her.