The wind howled across the barren expanse of Tartarus, dragging long trails of dust and ash over the endless desert. It screamed against the jagged remains of something that had once stood tall and unstoppable and was now a relic half-buried beneath the weight of time. Youri walked into that wind with every step heavy and deliberate, like a man moving not only through space, but through the consequences of his own choices.
The silhouette of the fallen Orbiton rose before him once more. What had once been Altopereh's vessel, a towering embodiment of annihilation, now stood like a grave marker in the middle of an uncaring world. Its legs were almost entirely swallowed by sand. Thick layers of dust clung to every joint and crevice, and its once-imposing armor plating had dulled, its metallic sheen replaced by a weathered, almost fossilized texture. It looked ancient. Forgotten.
Youri stopped. To him, he had only just left it — and yet what stood before him looked as though centuries had passed since it last moved. "So this is how time works here," he muttered under his breath.
The realization settled deep in his chest, heavier than anything he had carried before. Tartarus was not just a different place; it was a broken one, a place where time did not flow so much as fracture. He stepped forward, each movement stirring the sand and uncovering more of the buried machine. He reached out to brush the cold surface of the cockpit frame. The metal was rough beneath his fingers, worn away not by corrosion but by time itself. "This thing has been sitting here for decades," he whispered. "Maybe more." And yet he had been gone for what felt like hours.
He pulled himself up and climbed over the half-buried plating, sand sliding beneath his boots, until he reached the cockpit and paused. The glass was clouded, scratched and covered in dust so thick it almost hid the interior entirely, like the window of a tomb sealed shut by time. But something caught his eye — a faint flicker. He narrowed his gaze and wiped part of the glass clean with his sleeve. Beneath the grime a dim light pulsed weakly from one of the internal panels. "…No way."
His heart skipped. He forced the hatch open, the mechanism groaning as though it resented being woken, and sand poured in as the seal broke, cascading into the cockpit like a waterfall of time reclaiming its space. Youri stepped inside. The air was stale, heavy, dead. But the systems were not. He went to the left-side console, where the display flickered and glitched and barely held itself together. And yet it was active. There he saw it. A signal log, still running, still transmitting. He leaned closer, and his breath caught as he read the data. "Ping active… for two hundred years?"
His eyes widened. Two hundred years. The AI had been sending out a location signal for two hundred years without stopping. "That's impossible," he whispered. But it wasn't — not here. Not in Tartarus. He leaned slowly back as the pieces fell into place in his mind. Time didn't simply move differently here; it fractured depending on where you stood, so that what felt like minutes in one place could become centuries in another.
And then he saw himself, reflected faintly in the cracked surface of the display, and froze. His hand rose slowly to his face. The man looking back at him was not the one who had left Terria. Strands of white ran through his hair, subtle but unmistakable; his face was sharper and harsher, aged not only by time but by something deeper; and his eyes, once so steady and controlled, now carried something darker. Something worn. "So it got me too," he said quietly.
Tartarus had not spared him. Even standing still, it had taken something from him. He let out a slow breath and turned toward the pilot's seat. "Doesn't matter." His voice hardened. "If I stay like this, I die."
He dropped into the seat. The familiar structure closed around him, cold but still intact, and his hands moved by instinct, muscle memory guiding them to the emergency start-up controls. "Let's see what you've got left."
He began the sequence, and for a moment nothing happened. Then came a faint hum. The cockpit flickered to life, screens sparking one after another, dim at first and then steadying — systems straining, some failing outright and others barely answering, but enough of them remained. A mechanical voice echoed through the cockpit, distorted but functional. "Power level critical. Switching to substitute systems. Activating secondary core."
Youri's eyes sharpened. "The Brion core…"
He remembered. Long ago the Empire had tried to replicate the power of the God Units, and its failed attempts had led to the fitting of secondary cores — inferior, yes, but still able to sustain basic functions. And now that backup was all he had. The cockpit lights steadied further as energy began to circulate through the system, weak but constant, and outside, something shifted. Sand slid from the Orbiton's massive frame, and a low vibration spread through its structure as its systems woke for the first time in centuries.
Youri tightened his grip on the controls. "Come on…"
The monitors flashed again, clearer now. "Primary core: inactive. Secondary core: online. System state: NEO configuration enabled."
He frowned slightly. "NEO mode?"
The designation stretched across the central display. Not the original form, and not the god-state he had once wielded, but something different. Something reduced. And yet alive. The machine's massive frame trembled as dust and sand poured from its armor and its joints slowly unlocked, grinding against the weight of time. Its buried legs shifted and forced themselves free inch by inch. For the first time since its fall, it moved.
Youri felt it — not the overwhelming presence of the entity that had once lived inside it, but something else. A hollow echo. A shell waiting to be filled. "You're empty now, huh," he muttered.
No voice answered him. There was no laughter and no monstrous presence, only silence. For the first time since he had known it, Altopereh was quiet. He leaned back a little and breathed out. "…Good." His eyes hardened. "Then this time, I decide what you become."
The systems steadied further. The mobility functions came online, though limited, and the weapon systems flickered — some still working, others lost for good. It was no longer the god of destruction. It was something else: something broken, something surviving. Just like him.
Youri looked out through the cracked glass toward the endless crimson horizon of Tartarus. Storms raged in the distance; domains clashed beyond the desert; creatures he had yet to see were waiting. And somewhere in all that chaos lay the path to survival — and maybe even a way back.
He tightened his grip on the controls. "Alright." The massive frame rose further out of the sand and threw a long shadow across the desert. "Let's see what this world really is."