In the suffocating gloom behind the boulder, the symphony of battle was a terrifying composition of cracking lightning, the whip-like snap of Galit's weapons, and the guttural roars of both Atlas and the demonic entity. The air itself felt thick, resistant to breathe, charged with the oppressive weight of Tot Musica's dissonant presence.
Eliane flinched as a nearby clash sent a shower of stone fragments skittering over their hiding spot. Her wide, terrified blue eyes darted from the fray to Vesta, and then to the guitar on her back. "Vesta," she whispered, her voice trembling. "What is Mikasi doing?"
The living instrument was anything but still. It bucked and vibrated against Vesta's spine, not with fear, but with a raw, insistent energy that felt like a second, frantic heartbeat. Vesta reached over her shoulder, her fingers closing around the familiar neck, and pulled it into her arms. "I don't know," she breathed, her own confusion a stark contrast to the guitar's clear intent. The wood was warm, almost feverish, to the touch. As she held it, the form shimmered and collapsed in on itself, the strings vanishing, the body reshaping and solidifying into a robust, hide-covered drum, its frame etched with playful, swirling patterns that seemed to move in the low light.
"This isn't the time for a concert!" Vesta hissed at the instrument, her voice strained.
Mikasi responded by bouncing violently in her grip, its deep, internal thrum a silent demand.
Eliane, clutching at Vesta's sleeve, asked the question that was hanging in the air. "What does it want you to do?"
Vesta shook her head, her vibrant rainbow hair swaying. "It wants me to play, but…!" She gestured helplessly at the chaos before them, where Atlas was being driven back by a sweep of Tot Musica's bladed limb and Jannali was barely dodging a volley of solidified sound-shards.
"But what?" Eliane pressed, her child's logic cutting through Vesta' performer's panic. "It looks like Mikasi wants to help."
"How?" Vesta's voice cracked with desperation. "How can playing music help in a time like this? It's a demon, Eliane! We need swords and lightning, not a… a rhythm section!"
The young Lunarian chef, whose entire life was about creating joy from simple ingredients, looked at the drum, then at Vesta, her expression earnest. "Can it hurt, though?"
The profound simplicity of the question struck Vesta. In the face of absolute, world-ending noise, what was the one thing she had that no one else did? The power to create a different kind of sound. With a sigh that was part resignation and part prayer, she positioned the drum. Her hands, usually so graceful on strings, hovered for a moment before she brought them down.
The first beat was hesitant, a lone heartbeat against a cacophony. The second was stronger. By the third, a change began. Vesta's eyes, initially wide with fear, lost their focus on the physical battle. They glazed over, seeing not the crumbling courtyard, but the flow of the rhythm itself. Her will, her passion, her desperate hope, began to pour directly into the notes, feeding the ancient power within Mikasi. The drumbeats were no longer just sound; they were a conduit.
From the spaces between the drumbeats, where silence should have been, figures began to step forth. They were not solid, but woven from shimmering sound and shifting light, their forms echoing the coyote-like trickster god, Huehuecoyotl. They had lean, athletic builds, with long, expressive limbs and grinning, mischievous masks of pure energy. These were the Huehuecoyotl warriors, manifestations of chaotic creativity. They carried no brutal weapons, but instruments of war—flutes that doubled as blowguns, rattles that swirled like bolas, and jagged-edged lyres.
As one, they turned their grinning masks towards Tot Musica and charged, not with a battle cry, but with a wild, syncopated rhythm.
The sudden shift in the battle's score was impossible to ignore. Atlas, poised to deliver another Electro-charged blow, paused mid-swing, his lynx-like eyes widening. Galit, his whips tangled around a Sing Sing soldier, used the moment to yank the creature off its feet, his head snapping towards the source of the new sound. Jannali, landing from a graceful backflip, skidded to a halt, her spear held defensively.
"Well, I'll be damned," Jannali breathed, a slow grin spreading across her face. "The songbird's finally composing her magnum opus."
Atlas let out a sharp, impressed laugh, the sound a welcome crack in the tension. "Now that's a good beat, songbird! A little faster, I've got a dance to finish!"
But Vesta was too far gone to hear them. She advanced from behind the boulder, her feet moving in a trance-like shuffle, her entire being consumed by the rhythm she was beating out. She was no longer a spectator or a victim; she was the composer, the conductor, the heart of this new, rebellious symphony.
The initial charge of the Huehuecoyotl warriors was a spectacle of beautiful chaos. They didn't clash with the Sing Sing soldiers; they played with them. One warrior somersaulted over a soldier's head, its flute-blowing a sharp, piercing note that made the soldier's form flicker and destabilize. Another spun through a group, its rattle creating a disorienting sonic field that caused the soldiers to stumble into one another, their coordinated attacks falling into disarray. They were untouchable, unpredictable, using the demon's own rigid, destructive song against it by introducing pure, unadulterated rhythm.
Tot Musica, the entity of absolute acoustic control, recoiled as if struck. This was not a power it could simply overwhelm; it was an infection, a virus of joy and chaos invading its sterile landscape of despair. The demon's multiple crimson eyes blazed with a new, infuriated light. It raised a bladed limb and brought it down, not at the warriors, but directly at the source—at Vesta.
A wave of pure, black, soundless force erupted towards her, a void intended to erase both her and her music.
Still entranced, Vesta didn't flinch. She pounded the drum harder, the beat becoming a defiant, warring staccato. The Huehuecoyotl warriors reacted as one, converging in front of her. They didn't form a shield but an orchestra. As the wave of nothingness hit them, they played a single, dissonant, shrieking chord. The two forces collided not with a boom, but with a deafening shredding sound, like a universe of sheet music being torn apart. The warriors dissolved back into motes of light and fading notes, but the wave shattered with them, dissipating harmlessly around the steadfast Vesta.
The silence that followed for that half-second was more profound than any noise. It was the silence of a demon, for the first time, being challenged on its own terms. The battlefield, for a fleeting moment, was held in a precarious, shocking balance, all because a musician had finally decided to play her own song.
---
The world dissolved into the scent of salt, old timber, and a profound, unnatural silence. One moment, Marya was in the chaotic courtyard; the next, she stood on the familiar, worn planks of the Red Force. The iconic ship was adrift on a sea of glass, its water so still it perfectly mirrored a sky the color of a fading bruise. In the distance, a wall of black clouds loomed, lit from within by silent, crawling veins of lightning. The air was heavy, pregnant with a storm that refused to break.
Uta appeared from the shadow of the mast, her form seeming to solidify from the gloom itself. Her smile was a fragile, practiced thing. "It's peaceful, isn't it? Just like when we were kids. Remember how our dads would fuss at us for venturing out on our own like this?"
Marya didn't take the bait of nostalgia. Her golden eyes, calm and observant, scanned the impossible scene before settling on her cousin. "How does it work, Uta?"
Uta's chuckle was a light, airy sound that didn't reach her eyes. "What are you talking about? How does what work?"
Marya took a slow breath, the leather of her jacket creaking softly. She was a pillar of stillness in the eerie calm. "If your memories stay intact every time a new clone is activated, does that mean your consciousness is shared or transferred? What would happen," she continued, her voice dropping to a deliberate, analytical tone, "if I destroyed all the clones? Would that force your consciousness back into its original body, or would it splinter you into nothing?"
Uta flinched as if struck. The cheerful mask cracked, revealing the raw, frightened girl beneath. A sniffle escaped her. "Why are you doing this? You should just stay here, with me. It can be like it was—"
"No," Marya cut her off, her voice firm but not unkind. "It can't. I can't stay. I have to go." She took a single, purposeful step forward, closing the distance between them. The air grew colder. "But I promise you, Shanks will come for you. I will make sure he does."
The name was a trigger. Uta's face contorted, her balled fists trembling at her sides. "He won't!" she shrieked, the sound tearing across the silent deck. "He is the one who abandoned me here! He left me!"
Marya's gaze remained steady, her own complicated feelings about fathers and legacies locked away behind a wall of unwavering certainty. "And he is also the one who will rescue you from here."
"NO!" Uta stumbled back, her voice a desperate, broken thing. "NO! YOU CAN'T! I DON'T... I DON'T WANT...!"
Marya reached out, her movement surprisingly gentle, and placed a hand on Uta's trembling shoulder. The contact was a stark contrast to the surrounding hostility. "I don't know what happened in the past, Uta. But I can help you with your future. We can free you from this. You just have to choose!"
"I DON'T HAVE A CHOICE!" The scream was a confession of utter powerlessness. "HE ABANDONED ME! THERE IS NOTHING THAT CAN BE—"
The Red Force suddenly lurched, a violent, groaning heave that sent Uta staggering. The calm sea was now churning with sharp, angry waves. Marya's eyes flicked to the horizon, where the storm was now raging, lightning striking the water with furious, thunderous applause. A slow, knowing smirk touched her lips. She turned back to Uta, who was panting, struggling to maintain her form.
"They're giving you more of a hard time than you thought they would, aren't they?" Marya mused, her tone almost conversational. "This new body... it most likely won't last much longer, right? Can't quite figure out how to get her stamina up, can you?"
Uta's head snapped up. The fear in her eyes was suddenly eclipsed by a cold, ancient hatred. The shift was subtle but absolute. The cousin was gone; the tenant was now in full control. Marya was no longer talking to Uta.
Uta's body straightened, her movements becoming fluid and predatory. She took a dramatic, menacing step, closing the gap Marya had created. Her voice, when it came, was a layered, dissonant whisper. "You speak of things you cannot understand."
"When he comes for her," Marya said, her voice dropping to a deadly whisper, staring directly into the entity's core, "it will be the end of you. I promise you that."
In that moment, Uta's feet left the deck. She levitated, a puppet on invisible strings, as the corrosive blackness of Tot Musica erupted from her once more. The demon king' jagged, monstrous form materialized fully on the deck of the Red Force, its multiple crimson eyes burning with pure, undiluted malice. It loomed over Marya, the embodiment of acoustic chaos, a symphony of ruin.
"YOU WILL NEVER LEAVE THIS PLACE," its voice was the sound of a thousand instruments shattering at once.
Marya's smirk didn't falter. With a whisper-soft sound, she unsheathed Eternal Eclipse. The obsidian blade seemed to pierce the dim light, the crimson runes along its length glowing like embers in the storm's gloom.
"I think I am leaving," Marya declared, her voice echoing with a conviction that challenged the very fabric of the dreamscape. "And so is Uta. Enjoy what little time you have left... because I will be back for her."
With a world-ending scream of rage that made the storm seem quiet, Tot Musica lunged.
*****
The churning colors of the Indrexu Spiral were now streaked with the violent, brief-lived light of energy weapons. The four frames, with the monstrous swarm clinging to their heels like a second shadow, hurtled toward the immense, spiked silhouette of The Bastion. Its grey hull, pockmarked with gun emplacements, grew from a speck to a continent in seconds.
A sharp, authoritarian voice crackled over the general comms channel. "Unidentified frames, you are on a direct collision course with a CUA penitentiary! Divert immediately or you will be fired upon!"
Kuro's response was to push his throttle forward, his frame shuddering with the strain. "They really do love stating the obvious," he muttered, weaving around a drifting chunk of ice.
The voice returned, harder now. "This is your final warning! Turn back!"
Aurélie's voice cut through, calm and definitive. "You know what to do. Stick to the plan. Meet at the rendezvous point."
"Right!" Ember's reply was a squeak.
"Copy," Souta acknowledged, his mind already mapping the new variables.
"Understood," Kuro bit out.
As one, the four frames broke formation, scattering like shrapnel. Souta veered hard to port, Kuro to starboard, while Aurélie dove and Ember climbed. The swarm, a single-minded entity of hunger, hesitated for a split second before fracturing, large segments of it peeling away to follow each diverging target, splintering the overwhelming force into more manageable, but still deadly, streams.
From the dark sides of The Bastion, dozens of launch bays bloomed with light. CUA Sentinel Frames, blocky and functional, poured out like angry hornets, their weapons already spitting searing lines of red laser fire into the void. The nebula became a spiderweb of deadly light. A blast erupted near Ember's frame, the shockwave slamming into her and sending her spinning. She cried out, grappling with the controls as stars and lasers pinwheeled across her viewport.
"Ember, fire back! Don't just be a target!" Aurélie's command was sharp, a verbal slap.
Snapped from her paralysis, Ember's hand flailed, slamming down on a firing button. A wild, unaimed burst of laser fire shot from her frame's rifle, streaking harmlessly into the distant gas clouds. "I'm trying!" she wailed.
In contrast, Aurélie, Souta, and Kuro moved through the chaos with a predator's grace. Aurélie's frame flowed around incoming fire, her movements economical and sure. Souta's was a study in calculated evasion, using debris and the larger Typhon as momentary shields. Kuro's was all aggressive jinks and sudden, unpredictable thrusts, a spectacled shark in a sea of madness.
Then, the CUA's focus shattered.
A panicked scream ripped over the open channel. "TYPHON! BY THE OLD GODS, TYPHON!" A Sentinel Frame hung motionless for a moment, its pilot stunned, as the leading edge of the swarm washed over it.
Another voice, trying for control, barked, "What class? Report the class!"
The first voice was pure, undiluted terror. "ALL THE CLASSES! IT'S A SWARM! A FULL-BREED SWARM!"
The CUA formation broke. Discipline evaporated under a primal fear. Laser fire that had been aimed at the four interlopers swung wildly towards the true threat. It was too late. The Typhon were among them. A Class III, all jagged limbs and crystalline teeth, closed its claws around a Sentinel, the metal shrieking as it was compacted into a ball of scrap. A smaller Class II latched onto another, its whip-like tendrils probing, then tearing, the cockpit canopy open, the pilot inside pulled into the silent, airless void with a final, frozen scream. Frames were struck with enough force to send them tumbling, dark and dead, into the infinite night.
Through this hellscape, a new sound came over their private channel—a high-pitched, broken squeal of static from Ember, punctuated by the sound of a violent impact.
"Ember! Status report!" Kuro's voice was uncharacteristically urgent.
"Ember, respond!" Souta demanded.
Only the hiss of dead air answered.
Souta cursed, a raw, human sound amidst the digital and alien noise. "I'll go! Her last vector was—"
"We should all go," Aurélie interrupted, her tone leaving no room for argument. She sliced her beam saber through a lesser Typhon that drifted too close, its body parting with a sizzling crackle. "These guards are well occupied. She won't last alone."
Without another word, the three surviving frames—Syndicate strategist, Consortium blade, and rogue scholar—abandoned their individual escape routes. They turned as one, a makeshift alliance forged in desperation, and plunged back into the thickest part of the fray, fighting their way toward the last known coordinates of their most vulnerable member, the nebula burning around them.
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