The temple walls did not echo Maverick's thoughts.
They swallowed them.
He walked slowly through the torch-lit corridor, the weight of his steps more deliberate now—less like a warrior returning from glory, more like a man trudging through mud thick with memory. The weight on his back wasn't his gear. It was something older.
The orb.
The past.
The name etched in his silence—Armatus.
He had not spoken it aloud in centuries.
The war-table confrontation left him jagged inside. He hadn't even gone back to his quarters. The halls still smelled of incense and ash, but all of it felt foreign—distant, hollow, muted.
He turned a corner and saw them.
Valkar. Fitus. Mitus. Candren. Riven.
All of them were there, seated around the long stone bench in the central atrium chamber. The light above cast long shadows. They looked up when Maverick stepped in—but none spoke.
His shadow fell over the room like a verdict.
Valkar nodded solemnly, his arms crossed.
Mitus gave a small smile, a hopeful look of someone who still believed.
Fitus just stared.
Unblinking. Uncertain.
Maverick didn't sit. He stood at the far end of the room like a monument grown from the floor.
Finally, Mitus broke the silence. "You alright, brother?"
It was a simple question.
Too simple.
Maverick didn't answer. His head turned slightly, acknowledging—but not answering. Instead, his hand hovered briefly over a nearby support pillar, fingers brushing the smooth stone.
Riven grunted from his corner. "He's not alright. None of us are."
Valkar, calm and steady, looked to Maverick. "You've been through more than we know. More than maybe anyone. You don't owe us your pain… but you don't have to carry it alone either."
Another pause. Maverick still said nothing.
Fitus stood. His boots clicked as he stepped forward slowly, folding his arms.
"I don't get it," he said. "All this fury. All this silence. You come back from hell, slam your fist through a damn war-memorial, scream like a dying god—and now you won't say a word to your brothers?"
Candren frowned. "Fitus—"
"No," Fitus barked. "We all bled out there. We all lost people. You think you're the only one haunted, Maverick? You think you're the only one with ghosts gnawing on your spine when you try to sleep for five damn minutes?"
Maverick looked at him now. Slowly. Not as a threat, but as something deeper.
"I don't think that," he said finally—his voice low and serrated like a rusted blade pulled across steel.
Fitus stepped closer, jabbing a finger in the air. "Then talk to us! What did they mean in there? What aren't you telling us?"
Valkar moved between them, holding up a hand—not a warning, but a shield. "That's enough. He's not ready."
"I'm not asking if he's ready!" Fitus snapped. "We're fighting side by side, dying side by side. I've earned the right to know who the hell I'm marching next to!"
The room fell into heated silence.
Maverick didn't flinch.
Then he spoke.
Not loud. Not fast. But deep.
"I left someone behind."
Every sound in the room vanished. Even the low hum of the temple's ambient systems felt like it ducked its head.
Mitus blinked. "What do you mean?"
Maverick stepped forward, one step. "Long ago. A battle not recorded. A mission lost to the archives. The first time the Warmachines failed… it was because I survived."
He looked at them now—at each face.
"His name was Armatus. Warmachine-000. He was the first. I was the second. We were brothers. Built to be humanity's edge, the original sword and shield."
Candren leaned forward, eyes narrowed. "What happened?"
Maverick turned his head slightly. "We were sent to a planet not far from Vornex Prime. A trial world. We were to test our limits—destroy a threat that had wiped out thousands. We did. But at a cost. Our evac window closed. The planet's crust began to collapse. I… made it off-world. He didn't."
Mitus' voice was barely a whisper. "You left him."
Maverick's fist clenched, the servos in his gauntlet tightening with a shriek of restrained power.
"I didn't want to. I was ordered to. I was forced to." He looked up. "But it doesn't matter. He didn't die."
Silence again.
Fitus stepped back slightly, the anger draining.
"He's alive," Maverick continued. "I saw it. The visions… the orb… it brought back more than memory. It showed me him."
Riven spoke now, for the first time with fear. "How could he survive that long?"
Valkar shook his head slowly. "He was the prototype. Maybe stronger. Maybe something else now."
Maverick looked down. "Twisted. Changed. Turned into something else. Hate that long… becomes something deeper."
Candren muttered, "We need to tell the Temple."
Maverick turned his gaze like a blade. "No."
Everyone stopped.
"I will face him. When the time comes. But not now. Not through their commands."
Valkar nodded. "Then you won't face it alone."
Mitus stepped closer, his voice soft. "You saved me. Back at the canyon. You didn't leave me. That's what matters now."
Fitus inhaled sharply. "I'm sorry, brother. I pushed too hard. I just… I just didn't know."
Maverick looked at him.
"I don't blame you," he said. "I blame myself."
Valkar placed a hand on Maverick's shoulder. "Then let us carry the weight together. That's why we were made. Not just to kill. But to endure."
Maverick let out a slow breath. A nod.
Small. But it was there.
The five of them stood in quiet unity. The past still looming. The war still raging.
But tonight—there was peace.
A fragile thread of it.
And in the broken world of the Warmachines… that was something.
___________________________________
The oil lamps flickered low, throwing restless shadows across the chamber. The silence after a storm of truth had its own weight—heavier than battle, more suffocating than smoke.
They hadn't left.
No one had said "good night" or "dismissed" anyone. The five of them simply remained—Maverick seated now, the others nearby. The room wasn't built for comfort, but after what they'd shared, comfort wasn't needed.
Only presence.
Valkar leaned back against the wall, arms crossed. Riven stood with his helmet tucked under his arm, tapping the side absently. Mitus, ever restless, paced in a slow circle around the room, boots clicking lightly.
And Fitus… he sat on the floor, elbows on knees, head down. Quiet. Reflective.
No one spoke for a while. The air itself seemed hesitant to disturb what had just happened.
Then Mitus broke the silence—not with a question, but a memory.
"I used to think becoming a Warmachine meant I'd feel nothing," he said softly, still pacing. "No fear, no pain, no doubt."
He looked over his shoulder toward Maverick. "But you feel everything. Don't you?"
Maverick didn't answer right away. His helmet sat beside him, eyes dark. The faint hiss of internal hydraulics filled the pause.
"More than I want to," he finally said.
Riven scoffed, not unkindly. "You think we don't? You think we just punch through walls and sleep standing up?"
"Riven does," Fitus muttered. A weak grin cracked his face.
That got a low chuckle from a couple of them. Even Maverick's jaw shifted—a twitch of amusement not yet fully born.
Mitus sat on a low crate. "I used to have a younger brother. Before the trials. Before the experiments. He used to draw ships. Said he wanted to fly to the outer moons, see if the stars were softer out there."
Candren, quiet until now, tilted his head. "Did he make it?"
Mitus shook his head. "Didn't survive the flesh trials. They said he wasn't compatible, he died from his wounds. He was only 10."
The room dimmed slightly.
Riven's voice was next—unusually somber. "I had a squad once. When I was a pup, a young Warmachine. Special Ops, orbital jumps, hull breachers. We were called the Wolves of Cellian."
He looked at no one as he spoke.
"On our last mission, we boarded a rustic warship to destroy its core. The enemy detonated it before we reached the engine. I survived because I got separated during breach. They all burned in vacuum and blue flame. No bodies left."
He clenched his jaw. "Sometimes I still hear them on comms when I sleep."
No one laughed this time.
Candren stepped forward, eyes shadowed with old grief. "I volunteered for the process after my home colony was glassed by the Covenant. I was 12. My family didn't make it. I remember pulling my little sister's necklace from the wreckage of our home and wearing it into the trials. Still have it, built into my armor's chestplate."
He looked to Maverick. "You're not the only one forged in fire."
Valkar stepped forward now, voice low and steady. "We all lost someone. Friends. Families. Names we don't speak anymore."
He looked at Maverick. "But none of us carry what you carry. You were first… or damn close."
Maverick didn't deny it.
Fitus finally spoke again. "How long has it been, for you? Since you were… just a man?"
The silence stretched.
Then Maverick spoke.
"I don't remember my name."
The words dropped like an anvil. Mitus blinked.
"You mean… you don't use it anymore?"
"No," Maverick said. "I mean it's gone. Forgotten. Burned out of me in the forging. I've fought wars older than most cities. I've outlived empires. I remember faces, screams, the smell of broken planets… but not the boy who became this."
He gestured to himself.
"This armor is more me than my flesh."
The silence afterward wasn't heavy. It was holy.
Mitus stood up, walked to Maverick, and without permission, placed a hand on his shoulder.
"You might not remember that boy," he said, "but he never stopped fighting. That's why we're here."
Riven grunted. "I hate to say the runt's right, but he's right."
Valkar stepped forward. "Then let us mark this moment."
He reached into a nearby case—stored within the wall—pulling out a small metallic flask with the old Warmachine symbol scorched into it: the skull and blade.
"This was passed to me by my mentor when I completed my first planetary purge. It's not oil. It's not fuel. It's something older. Something to remind us we are still men underneath the armor."
He handed it to Maverick first.
Maverick looked at it for a long time.
Then, without a word, he took a sip. A sharp hiss escaped through his teeth. Not from pain. From memory. The burn was ancient.
He passed it to Mitus.
One by one, they all drank.
No toasts. No speeches. Just silence.
They sat together, the flask empty now, the silence fuller than before.
Eventually, the others began to leave the room one by one. No ceremony. Just a nod. A glance. A clasped shoulder. Maverick remained seated.
Until only Mitus was left.
He looked back at Maverick. "You're not alone. Not anymore."
Maverick didn't respond, but the nod he gave this time was different.
It meant something.
Mitus left. The door hissed closed.
Maverick sat alone again.
But this time, the silence did not crush him.
It held him.
And for the first time in lifetimes…
he let it.