The Black Spire was a monolith of obsidian jutting out of the grey ash.
I was pinned down.
"Taking fire!" I yelled into the comms. "Sector 4 is swarming with Drones!"
I was behind a rock, my shield flickering. Fifty enemy drones were circling above, raining plasma fire. My Ouroboros was overheated. I couldn't punch my way out of this.
This is it. Life #5,002 ends here.
I checked my ammo. Zero.
"Well," I sighed. "Resetting in 3... 2..."
ZOOM.
A silver streak cut through the air.
One of the enemy drones exploded. Then another. Then three more.
I looked up.
Descending from the sky like a valkyrie was Vesper. She was wearing a flight suit, her six Laplace Drones spinning around her in a deadly dance.
"Marshall?" I gasped. "What are you doing here?"
Vesper landed next to me, her boots crunching the ash. Her glasses were glowing intensely as she processed the battlefield data.
"My calculations indicated a 100% chance of your death," she said, raising a hand. Her drones formed a hard-light barrier in front of us, deflecting a hail of bullets. "And I need my test subject alive."
"You came to save me?"
"I came to collect my data," she snapped. A trickle of blood ran from her nose—the strain of controlling the drones was frying her brain. "Now, Specialist! I will calculate the trajectories. You provide the force!"
"Understood!"
For the first time in this timeline, we fought together.
[Link Established: CPU (Vesper) + GPU (Caelum).]
"Drone approaching, Vector 3-9-5!" Vesper shouted, clutching her head.
I didn't need to look. I trusted her math. I spun and punched the empty air at Vector 3-9-5.
CRACK.
My kinetic blast hit the invisible stealth drone exactly as it decloaked.
"Target two, Vector 1-1-0!"
I punched again. Another explosion.
It was a dance. She was the conductor, and I was the instrument. We moved in perfect sync, a harmony of math and violence. For a moment, the war felt... easy.