The training yard beneath the temple was built from blackstone, old as the first foundations of the Warborn Order. No civilians were allowed here. No overseers. Only the echo of metal meeting metal, and the silent discipline of giants.
Mitus was sparring again—this time with Valkar.
The clang of gauntlets, the shock of armored limbs colliding, the tremor of thunderous movement—it was a language all its own. Mitus had grown sharper, more fluid in his form. Valkar still overwhelmed him, but it no longer looked like training a pup. It looked like a duel.
Fitus leaned against a nearby pillar, arms crossed. "The kid's faster now," he said.
Riven grunted. "Still sloppy with his left block. Valkar could've ended that three moves ago."
Candren sat on the edge of the steps, running a blade across a whetstone, not even watching. "He's not supposed to win. He's supposed to bleed and learn."
Maverick stood further off, by the edge of the overlook. Below the training yard, the city sprawled in heat and dust. His helmet rested on the stone railing beside him, a rare gesture of openness. The wind tugged at his short-cropped hair.
He said nothing.
He hadn't said much since the war table.
They all felt it.
⸻
Valkar disarmed Mitus with a swift pivot and shoulder slam, sending the younger Warmachine onto the stone with a grunt.
"You're rushing again," Valkar said, offering a hand. "Strength means nothing if you swing without thought."
Mitus grabbed his arm and rose, exhaling hard through his mask. "Right."
"You're learning," Valkar added, quieter now. "Keep doing that."
The younger soldier gave a slight nod and looked around, as if searching for approval. His eyes briefly met Maverick's, but Maverick didn't return the look.
Riven broke the silence next. "So. We just gonna keep punching stone until someone tells us what hellhole we're heading to next?"
"Not complaining," Fitus replied, adjusting a bracer. "Better to train with brothers than wait in silence."
Candren glanced toward Maverick. "He's waiting for something else."
Mitus followed his gaze. "He hasn't spoken since the chamber."
"No," Valkar said, stepping beside them. "But something broke loose in him that night. You all felt it."
They watched Maverick for a moment. His eyes were locked on something far away—something none of them could see.
Fitus exhaled. "He told us part of it. About the one he left behind."
"Not all of it," Riven murmured.
Candren sheathed his blade. "We'll hear more soon. Or we won't. But whatever's coming… it's not just war. Not this time."
⸻
A low hum echoed across the yard—an old signal bell from the inner sanctum. It meant nothing urgent, just that the day's training window was closing.
Valkar clapped Mitus on the back. "Clean yourself up. You're dripping more coolant than skill."
Mitus gave a tired smirk. "I'll take that as progress."
As the others began to disperse, Maverick remained still.
Candren was the last to pass him.
He paused, looking toward the horizon Maverick seemed to be locked on.
"You see him in the distance?"
Maverick didn't answer.
Candren nodded anyway. "We're with you. Whenever you choose to speak again."
He walked away, leaving Maverick alone.
The wind shifted. Clouds moved in over the city below.
Maverick's fingers flexed slightly at his side. Not from pain. Not from rage.
But from memory.
Not long now.
___________________________________
The heavy stone door sealed behind them with a hiss and a groan.
The chamber they entered was dim—lit only by the flicker of war-scarred lanterns and the faint pulse of Warmachine sigils embedded into the walls. The kind of room designed for reflection… or confession.
Their footfalls echoed. Boots of war grinding into sacred ground.
Mitus was the first to speak—of course.
"I know we just learned some grim shit," he said, adjusting the pauldron on his shoulder, "but… if I get vaporized by this guy Armatus, someone please loot my body. I got a canister of—"
"SILENCE."
The word didn't come from Maverick's voicebox. It didn't echo.
It cracked through the room like thunder across a funeral pyre.
Even the walls seemed to recoil.
Mitus shut up immediately, eyes wide. Fitus crossed his arms. Riven raised a brow. Candren turned his head. Valkar… simply waited.
Maverick stood in the center of the room, hands clenched.
"This isn't a mission briefing," he said.
"It's a reckoning."
He turned to face them all—his brothers. The only ones who could even begin to understand.
"You've heard the name now. Armatus. Warmachine Zero."
He stepped forward, each bootstep deliberate.
"You know that I left him behind. You know that he survived a planet's death and now lives on its moon, Vornex Prime."
Maverick's helmet hissed and released. He pulled it off—steam trailing from his jawline, blood vessels still knitting themselves together from an earlier wound. He set the helmet down like it was a ritual object.
"But you don't know what he's become."
He looked up at them, eyes hard enough to crack iron.
"After we left him… after I left him… he changed."
⸻
"There was no evac. No support. No transmission.
Only silence. Dust. Rage."
"I saw it," he continued, "in visions… nightmares I didn't know could breach a Warmachine's mind. I felt his pain. His betrayal. His wrath."
"He didn't just survive the cataclysm."
Maverick looked up—his eyes far, as if staring at the stars through the ceiling.
"He leapt."
"What?" Mitus blinked.
Maverick nodded once. "From the planet's crust. To its moon. Vornex Prime."
Fitus stepped forward, disbelief edging his voice. "That's—impossible."
"No," Valkar said, grim. "It's not."
Maverick continued.
"He gathered mass. Momentum. Anger. And in a single act of will, he shattered the limits of flesh and gravity alike. The world behind him cracked as he launched. The surface below fractured into oblivion."
"And when he landed on Vornex Prime… he did not crawl."
"He rose."
⸻
The room was silent.
Even the flames seemed to lean in.
Maverick's voice deepened, slow and sharp like metal dragged across bone.
"On that dead moon, his hate became armor. His blood, stone. His grief… fire."
"His body changed. Grew. Hardened. His frame stands now at fourteen feet tall. Taller than any of us. Taller than me."
"His armor is red and black, forged in agony and moonstone, wrapped in tendrils of void-metal and bone."
"He has become something no longer bound to our kind. A relic of wrath. A living weapon without purpose but retribution."
⸻
"And he is not alone."
Maverick paced now. Each word heavier than the last.
"He forged an army—not from men, not from flesh, not from recruits."
"He carved them from the dust of Vornex Prime.
He breathed life into rubble, ash, and hatred.
He molded soldiers from the very grit of his pain."
"They are made of him. Of what he bleeds. What he breaks. They are legion."
"One million strong."
Riven finally spoke, a low growl in his throat. "An army… of himself?"
Maverick nodded once.
"They carry his essence. His memories. His fury."
"They do not eat. They do not sleep. They burn. They wait. They whisper his name through a thousand mouths, even in silence."
"And soon…"
Maverick looked up.
"…he will send them to Earth."
⸻
Mitus exhaled sharply, unable to joke.
Candren sat down on a reinforced bench. "What does he want?"
Maverick didn't hesitate.
"Everything."
⸻
"He believes humanity failed him. That the Warmachine Program used him, broke him, discarded him."
"And he's not wrong."
A long pause.
"I left him."
The words stung to speak—even now. Even centuries later.
"He fought beside me through wars that broke galaxies. We bled on worlds no map remembers. He stood by me at the siege of the Abyssal Gates. We slaughtered tyrants. Burned fleets. Built peace from ruin."
"I watched him laugh once."
That stunned the room into stillness.
Maverick pressed on.
"I called him brother. Not as a metaphor. As truth."
"I failed him."
⸻
Valkar stepped forward. "You said… he was Warmachine Zero."
Maverick looked at him.
"He was the first."
"And you?" Valkar asked.
"I was the second."
⸻
The weight of that revelation sent a ripple through the air.
Maverick's next words came slower.
"We were the prototypes. The genesis. The first successful wielders of the Warmachine system. We were tested, broken, reforged… and made gods of war."
"But no god should be left to rot."
He looked down at his gauntlet.
"I've tried to forget. For thousands of years. I've tried to erase the images."
"But the orb… it showed me everything he became."
"Not to warn me."
Maverick looked up.
"But to invite me."
⸻
Mitus took a step back.
"He wants you to come to him."
Maverick nodded.
"He's not sending his army to kill us."
"He's sending it to call me."
"To make me face what I left behind."
"And I will."
⸻
The others stood still. Processing. Reckoning.
Fitus muttered, "We're gonna have to fight this… thing."
"No," Maverick corrected.
"We're going to fight my brother."