Behind Youri, Leonora's flagship held formation while four Royal Knight units ignited into combat positions, their ivory frames cutting sharp silhouettes against the debris field.
"Knight formation delta," Leonora ordered over the open channel. "Box it in. Don't give it a vector to escape."
The Knights moved in disciplined synchronization, their heavy thrusters firing in controlled bursts as they surrounded the rogue unit, and their shoulder cannons locked on with every targeting array converging. "Fire."
Four beams lanced toward the black Orbiton, and it moved — not fast, but precisely. It twisted between the first two, raised an arm and threw out a curved barrier of energy that deflected the third, then took the fourth squarely on its chest plating, where the armor flared and held. Youri didn't wait. NOIR vanished in a red blur with its micro-thrusters screaming and reappeared above the rogue unit with its blade carving down in a brutal arc. The strike connected, slicing across the black shoulder and shearing away a section of armor. For the first time sparks burst from the enemy frame.
Leonora saw it. "Pressure it!"
Two of the Knights charged together with their hydraulic fists swinging — and the rogue unit answered instantly. Its twin back cannons swung forward and discharged at point-blank range. One of the Knights took the blast full in the torso. Its ivory armor disintegrated, and the machine split apart in the middle of space, its pilot's signal vanishing into static.
"Knight Three is down!" an operator shouted aboard the Millia.
The debris hadn't even finished scattering before the rogue unit lunged with its plasma blade igniting in a vicious crimson flare and drove it straight through the second Knight's abdomen, pinning it in place. The Knight's pilot tried to grapple, its claws locking onto the black shoulders — too late. The blade ripped upward, and the Royal Knight exploded in a blinding white flash.
Leonora's breath caught, but her voice stayed sharp. "Maintain formation!"
Inside NOIR, Youri's jaw tightened. "You're overextending," he muttered at the rogue unit, as if it could hear him. It probably could. It turned toward him fully now, ignoring the remaining Knights, its amber visor flaring brighter. "Good," Youri whispered. "Focus on me."
He accelerated straight at it, and they collided like meteors. NOIR's blade met the rogue's lance in mid-thrust with shockwaves rippling outward. Youri disengaged one arm, drove his knee into its midsection and dented the plating inward. The rogue answered with a backhand strong enough to send NOIR spinning away through the drifting wreckage while alarms screamed in Youri's cockpit and his hull integrity dropped.
Leonora saw the impact, and made her decision. "Deploying," she said coldly.
Her own Royal Knight launched from the Millia, its ivory armor brighter than the others and her command markings etched along its shoulders. She hit the battlefield at full burn with her shoulder cannons unleashing a synchronized barrage. The rogue unit staggered under the concentrated fire. Youri used the opening. He reappeared behind it and drove both blades through its back plating, deep enough to expose the golden mechanical joints beneath its armor in a violent spray of sparks. For one moment, it looked as though they had it.
Then the rogue unit did something new. Its whole frame pulsed amber, and a shockwave of compressed force detonated outward from it in a sphere. NOIR was thrown violently backward. Leonora's Knight took the brunt of it; her left arm tore away at the shoulder joint and went spinning off into space. Warning lights flooded her cockpit as her stability faltered.
"General!" a comm officer shouted.
"I'm fine," she snapped, and forced her damaged Knight upright.
The rogue unit turned slowly between them, its armor cracked in a dozen places now — but still operational — and Youri steadied NOIR, whose crimson veins were flickering erratically. "You're adapting in the middle of the fight," he said under his breath. "Learning."
The rogue tilted its head again, almost curiously. And then it charged Leonora.
Youri reacted at once. He pushed NOIR's thrusters past every safe limit and caught the rogue in mid-lunge, slamming into it and dragging both machines into a spinning collision of metal and energy with their blades scraping deep lines across each other's armor. Leonora got back partial control and fired her remaining shoulder cannon into the rogue's side. The blast tore off one of its back cannons. Finally — real damage.
But they paid for it. The rogue unit drove its lance into the torso of Leonora's Knight, deep into its internal systems, which failed in cascading flashes, and her cockpit shook violently. Structural collapse imminent, her onboard system warned.
Youri roared and unleashed a full-power discharge from NOIR's core into the rogue at point-blank range and forced it to let her go. Leonora's Knight drifted backward, crippled, one arm gone and its chest caved in. Two Royal Knights destroyed. One crippled. NOIR straining at its limits. And the rogue unit hung there between them, battered but unbowed.
And then a new signal appeared. Unidentified. Massive. Dropping out of high orbit without any conventional engine signature at all. Everyone froze. A dark shape came out of the void behind the rogue unit — a long, sleek ship unlike any Terrian design, its hull smooth and almost organic, without a single visible weapons port and yet radiating power. It had no markings and no transponder.
"Do you have that on scan?" Leonora demanded.
"I'm reading nothing, General. It's… it's as if it isn't there."
The rogue unit turned slightly toward the approaching vessel. Its amber visor dimmed. For the first time since the battle had begun, it hesitated. Youri saw it. "So you're not alone," he said quietly.
A beam of pale light reached out from the unknown ship and wrapped the rogue Orbiton in a soft containment field. The black machine didn't resist. Within seconds the space around both of them began to distort, folding subtly in on itself.
"Stop them!" Leonora ordered.
Youri fired. NOIR's blade discharge sliced through empty space — too late. The rogue Orbiton was gone, and the unknown ship followed it, dissolving into nothing as though it had never existed.
Silence returned to the debris field, with only the wreckage drifting through it. Youri hung there in NOIR, breathing steadily but heavily, with Leonora's crippled Knight drifting nearby, barely operational. Two Royal Knights gone. The enemy wounded, but alive. And now they knew the truth. This wasn't a single machine acting alone. It was part of something larger — and whatever had just intervened had no intention of revealing itself. Not yet.