I caught up to Thaedus's massive flagship just on the outer edge of Viltrum's solar system.
It was a behemoth of Coalition engineering, a flying fortress meant to lead armadas, and it was hauling ass toward the planet.
The moment I reached it, I immediately unleashed a rapid-fire barrage of energy blasts straight at its rear thrusters.
The impacts violently rocked the massive vessel, shattering the outer shielding of its lower engines. The flagship's automated defense systems instantly registered me as a hostile threat. The hull bristled with heavy artillery as dozens of plasma cannons locked onto me, while tracking missiles detached from the lower bays, leaving trails of blue exhaust as they homed in on my heat signature. I pushed my speed, weaving and evading through the lethal web of plasma and explosives, letting the missiles detonate harmlessly against one another in my wake.
Recognizing that automated turrets weren't going to stop me, the flagship adjusted its tactics. The side hangar doors slid open, deploying dozens of heavily armed Coalition spacecraft fighters to swarm me.
I tore through them with brutal, unforgiving efficiency. I slammed straight through the cockpits and engines of the fighters, my solar aura melting their hulls like butter. Explosions blossomed silently in the void as I shredded their defense line in a matter of seconds.
While dodging the remnants of the swarm, I noticed the flagship's damaged thrusters were already beginning to self-repair. The metallic plating was shifting, locking back into place as the ship prepared to ignite its hyper-engines and blast out of my reach.
Oh no, you don't, I thought, stopping on a dime.
I allowed some of the swarm to hit me, absorbing and converting the kinetic impacts into enough thermal energy to unleash a concentrated beam of heat vision directly into the flagship's primary hyper-engine.
The beam sliced straight through the reinforced armor plating and struck the volatile fuel cells inside. A small but impactful explosion ripped through the back half of the vessel, causing the flagship to shudder violently as its forward momentum died.
But Thaedus was well prepared.
The flagship's primary cargo bay doors suddenly blew open, and fifty heavily shielded, smaller drop-ships rocketed out. They scattered instantly and accelerated toward Viltrum at maximum speed.
I watched the flagship's command bridge power down and saw Thaedus abandon the crippled vessel, soaring toward the planet alongside his fleet. The remaining Coalition fighters were trying to regroup, angling their cannons to block my path and buy the drop-ships time.
Ahh, so that's your plan, I thought, drawing my solar energy inward. You want to guarantee that it gets to Viltrum no matter what. And these guys are your sacrificial pieces. I compressed the energy tightly around my body. But you've underestimated how long they'd stall me for. I released it all at once.
A massive, dome-like explosion of raw thermal energy violently erupted from my body in all directions. The omni-directional blast wave caught the remaining fighters instantly, crushing their hulls and pushing the burning wreckage far out of my way in a blinding flash of golden light.
With my path finally clear, I rocketed past the dead flagship, chasing Thaedus and his fleet straight into what was waiting at Viltrum.
When I finally arrived, I was greeted with a chaotic scene.
The Coalition's decoy armada was engaging the Viltrumite defense fleets. The vacuum of space was filled with the blinding flashes of plasma fire, exploding dreadnoughts, and massive chunks of floating debris.
However, what really captured my attention wasn't the ships, but the giant ring of billions of floating corpses surrounding the planet. It was as eye-catching as portrayed in the show. A planetary graveyard that was piling up with more bodies from both armies by the minute.
And that's not all I saw as I flew in. In the distance, Space Racer was expertly weaving his hover-bike through the debris, sniping Viltrumite dreadnoughts with his Infinity Ray. Near him was Zoe, firing energy beams that tore through the space and assisted with taking down Viltrumite soldiers.
While that was happening, Allen was trading earth-shattering blows with Lucan. Not far from them, Battle Beast was swinging his massive mace to keep the blade-wielding Thula at bay. On the opposite side, Kregg and Anissa were fighting back-to-back, fending off a vicious pack of unleashed Ragnars.
Now where's that old bastard? I questioned, thoroughly scanning through the chaos in search of Thaedus.
As I scanned, my eyes happened to land on Grand Regent Thragg floating as calmly as could be, observing the surrounding battles like they were nothing more than a casual spectator sport. And right beside him floated Nolan, adorned with a more troubled expression.
It was strange, but it looked like they were looking for something in the fray of blood and bodies.
Seeing Thragg in person was also pretty jarring. The man was exceptionally large. He had an extremely wide upper torso, broad shoulders, and long arms wrapped in impossibly dense, heavily layered muscles. I knew he was huge, but even from a distance, I could tell he somewhat dwarfed me. Over the course of my training, I had grown to 6'4" and packed on a solid 40 more pounds of muscle, now weighing 285 pounds. But looking at him, he had to be at least 6'6", something I found surprising because I thought he'd be taller, but he was as large as he was tall, looking like he weighed nearly four hundred pounds.
Big brolic bastard, ain't he? I thought, shaking my head at the absurdity of his figure.
Another thing that was strange was that both Thragg and Nolan were wearing the exact same color uniforms—red and grey—standing out starkly against the rest of the Viltrumite forces who sported white and grey.
What exactly is Nolan's plan here? I wondered briefly, my eyes narrowing. Even at a moment like this, seeing all this carnage and destruction after going through his great change. Why did he choose to go back to their side? What could possibly be the end goal? What does he gain from—
BOOOOOOOM!
My brief moment of contemplation was cut short when one of the decoy ships that evaded me crashed into one of the Viltrumite fleet ships.
They had perfectly intermixed with the Coalition decoys and attempted to use the chaotic melee and the rings of the dead as cover to quietly slip past the Viltrumite orbital defense cannons. And the most irritating thing was that there was no way to distinguish them from each other. Which meant that I couldn't tear through them haphazardly or it'd be game over for us all.
The only way to get to that bomb is to find Thaedus, I thought, looking frantically over the battlefield. And I have to do it before the ship holding the bomb gets shot or it manages to slip past the fleet.
After a brief moment of searching, I finally found him fighting a couple of Viltrumite soldiers with a few of his own men. I completely ignored the Viltrumite forces that were attempting to jump him from different angles and launched towards him in an instant.
Before he could even register me coming, I slammed into him at well beyond the speed of light, wrapping my hands tightly around his throat.
"WHERE IS IT?!" I roared, projecting my voice into his mind. "WHICH SHIP HAS IT?!"
Thaedus gagged, his hands clawing weakly at my wrists.
"In one of the ships that will eventually break through the defense line," he transmitted. "You're too late, Mark. The Viltrumite Empire, as well as your family and I, will fall today."
"We'll see about that!" I responded, drawing my fist back. "Maybe if I beat the information out of you, then you'll see reason.
"Mark, what the hell are you doing?!" he yelled telepathically, tackling me off Thaedus, his single eye wide with shock at the sight of me attacking his leader.
"MOVE!" I roared, throwing him off me and pushing towards Thaedus. "DON'T GET IN MY WAY!"
Allen tried to obstruct my path again. "Mark! Why are you—"
"I SAID MOVE!" I exclaimed, backhanding him away with so much force that he spun wildly into a debris field. Then, I launched towards Thaedus again who was still getting his bearings.
My attack on Thaedus hadn't gone unnoticed by the rest of the battlefield. Seeing me effortlessly toss aside one of the Coalition's strongest fighters triggered Battle Beast's primal instincts.
Abandoning Thula entirely, the massive lion-man locked his sights on me as the ultimate prey. "Such glorious ferocity!" he roared, charging across the void using his high-tech jetpack. "Let us see if your blood burns as hot as your rage!" He raised his massive mace high above his head for a lethal, crushing strike.
"DON'T GET IN MY WAY EITHER!" I yelled, easily cutting into his guard, parrying the heavy metal shaft with my forearm, and pivoting into a devastating uppercut straight into his jaw.
The impact was sickening. Battle Beast's space helmet shattered into a thousand pieces. As he reeled backward, completely stunned, I grabbed him by his ankle, spun on my heel, and hurled him violently into the dark, endless abyss of deep space.
As soon as that was over, I turned my burning gaze back to Thaedus.
"I'M DONE ASKING NICELY, THAEDUS!" I projected, pulling my fist back. "WHERE'S THE BOMB?!"
I was fully prepared to start breaking bones until he told me which ship had the bomb. But Thaedus didn't cower. And he didn't beg for his life or try to fight back. Instead, a bloody, zealous smile stretched across his face. He looked completely at peace, like a martyr watching his life's work come to fruition.
"WHAT THE FUCK ARE YOU SMILING ABOUT?!" I yelled, grabbing him again.
He wasn't even entirely looking at me. His eyes were locked on something across the battlefield.
When I followed his gaze, my heart dropped into my stomach. A dozen of the fifty drop-ships had just violently collided with the Viltrumite defense fleets closest to Viltrum's exosphere, using suicidal maneuvers to aggressively push through the blockade.
There's no time for this, I realized, panic flaring in my chest. I threw Thaedus to the side like a ragdoll and immediately kicked off towards the descending ships. I have to destroy all of them manually.
But before I knew it, a hand clamped down on my ankle like a vise grip.
My momentum was halted entirely. Before I could react, I was spun swiftly in a circle and hurled backward, though I was able to recover quickly.
I looked to see who the perpetrator was, and to my surprise, It was Thragg. And Nolan floated right beside him.
Oh, what now?! I hissed internally.
Thragg didn't immediately attack again. He just floated there, looking down at me with an intense expression that I could only assume was approval.
"You fought alongside this traitor," his deep, commanding voice echoed telepathically in my mind. "You defeated Conquest for his coalition of gnats. But now, you treat him exactly as you should have when you first met him. Why?"
"Because of those ships!" I exclaimed, pointing frantically toward the chaos occurring above the planet's atmosphere. "You need to intercept them at all costs! Right now! Thaedus has a bomb filled with—"
"Those ships matter little," he said, cutting me off instantly. He looked completely unimpressed by my desperation. "Our defenses will swat them from the sky," he dismissed arrogantly, his tone laced with absolute boredom regarding the Coalition's tactics.
"You don't understand!" I roared, trying to bypass him. "It's not just a bomb! It's a—"
"Enough," he commanded, his eyes narrowing. He gave a sharp nod to Nolan. "It would only be appropriate if you dealt with the traitor."
Nolan paused for a moment, giving me a brief, hesitant glance before launching himself toward the drifting Thaedus to carry out the Grand Regent's order.
With Nolan gone, Thragg set his focus entirely onto me. The air around him seemed to grow impossibly heavy.
"You carry the blood of the Empire, yet you panic over falling debris like worried prey," he growled, his muscles visibly tensing as he lowered himself into a combat stance. "Let us see if you truly have the strength to stand above."
Oh, you've got to be fucking—
He didn't give me another second to think.
He blurred forward at an incredible speed, his massive fist aimed squarely at my face.