He didn't rush in. Didn't kick the door or call out. He just stepped through the half-open glass door like he'd been there before, which, in a way, he had. The same dim lights flickered overhead. The same glass chambers stood like silent witnesses. The same faint whirr-splutter of machines thinking to themselves filled the air.
And in the middle of it, Two, standing too close to the console, still and tight.
Two turned fast. The movement was sharp enough to send a nearby loose tube skittering across the floor with a hollow clatter-clonk. The gun was already in his hand, raised and pointed at him.
One froze. Hands went up immediately. "Whoa, whoa, hey," he said, breath catching. "It's just me."
Eidola then turned, moved, ran, straight past Two, to One, and stopped behind him, small hands clutching at the back of his coat, pressing herself into him like he was something solid she could hide behind.
Two didn't lower the weapon, nor did he blink. There was something wrong behind his eyes. Not anger, but something tighter, something wound too far.
That was all it took. Two saw it, how Eidola hid from him.
"…Eidola," he said. Sharper than it was loud."Come here."
She didn't move. Didn't even look at him. Something in Two's expression subtly shifted.
One glanced back briefly, just enough to see her there, then looked forward again.
"…okay," he said slowly. "I feel like I missed something important." His eyes flicked between Two and the gun. "…what happened, Two?"
No answer.
"…where's…" He hesitated. "…where's Three?"
That did it. Two's grip tightened. The gun wavered, just slightly as his jaw clenched. "…he's not…" he started then immediately stopped then tried again, "…he didn't…"
The words didn't line up. His breathing hitched once. "…he's gone."
The room didn't react. The machines kept humming. The lights kept flickering.
One went still. Not shocked, just still. Like something inside him had quietly rearranged itself. He nodded once. Slow and careful. "…right," he said. He didn't ask how. For some reason he figured the answer.
"…okay," One continued, softer now. "we'll… we'll deal with that. later."
Two let out a short, uneven breath. "…you came back," he said. It did not sound like a question
"Yeah," One replied. "course I did."
A faint attempt at something lighter flickered across his face. "…you didn't exactly leave a forwarding address."
Two didn't react. "You're here to take her," he said, flat and certain.
One blinked. "…what?" he took a small step forward. Hands still raised.
"Hey, no. no, listen to me," he said. "I didn't come here for that."
The gun tracked him instantly.
He stopped. "…I came for you," One said. "Both of you."
A beat.
"…this whole thing's gone wrong. we just need to…"
"I don't need rescuing," Two snapped. His voice cracked slightly under the weight of it. "I've already figured it out."
"…figured what out."
"What they are," Two said. "What she is. What they're going to do to her."
One's expression shifted. "…we can talk about that."
"No." The word came fast. Too fast. "She's not going with them," Two continued. "Either side. I'm not letting that happen."
One exhaled slowly. "…alright," he said. "then we agree on something."
Two faltered, just for a fraction of a second.
"I'm not here to fight you," One added, taking another careful step forward. "I'm just…trying to get us out of this without anyone else…"
Before he could finish, he moved. It wasn't clean nor planned, but instinct. One's hand snapped out, knocking the gun sideways.
It fired a deafening bangwhistle crack that echoed through the chamber, the shot slamming into a glass tank with a sharp, splintering clatterblast.
Two jerked back in shock right before One surged forward, shoving him hard.
They both stumbled. Boots slipping slightly on the smooth metal floor. Grabbing at each other's sleeves, collars, anything that would hold.
"What are you doing?!" Two shouted, trying to wrench his arm free.
"What are YOU doing?!" One shot back.
The gun hit the floor between them. Skidded then spun.
Both of them lunged for it and missed. Hands colliding instead, shoving each other off balance. They weren't trained. They weren't soldiers nor fighters. Just two farmers trying to overpower themselves.
Two swung, wild, unsteady.
One ducked, just barely and grabbed his arm.
They slammed into the console. Buttons lighting up under the impact with a frantic tick-tick-tick…whirr…fizzledy-fazzle.
Eidola pressed herself against the wall, hands clamped over her ears, eyes squeezed shut as the noise built around them.
Two twisted free, reaching for the gun. His fingers barely brushed it before One kicked it away and slid across the floor again, spinning out of reach.
"Stop!" One shouted, breath uneven. "You're not thinking straight…"
"I am thinking!" Two snapped, shoving him back. "You're the one who walked in here like nothing's changed!"
"Everything's changed!" One shot back. "That's the problem!"
Two lunged again but missed his footing just so slightly.
One grabbed him. Momentum carried them both sideways and they crashed into the main display panel. Something gave. The screen flared, then…alarm bellowed.
A shrill, rising hissle-hassle scream tore through the room as red light flooded the chamber. Panels along the walls flickered to life, warning signals blinking in rapid, chaotic rhythm.
Both of them froze.
"…you've got to be kidding me," One breathed.
The alarm wailed louder, relentlessly.
"Run," One said, turning sharply. "Eidola, go!"
She didn't hesitate this time. She ran out of the room. Her muddy white dressing gown fluttered through the door.
Two saw it. His expression twisted. "No!" He tried to move after her, but One grabbed him first, pulling him back.
"She can't run around here alone!" Two shouted, struggling.
"She won't if you stop chasing her!" One snapped.
Two wrenched against him, fury and something worse bleeding into his voice. "You think she's safer with you?"
"I think she's safer not being dragged around like she's yours!"
That felt like a punch to his face.
Two shoved him off again. Harder this time. "Stay out of this!" he shouted. "You don't understand what's happening…"
"I understand enough!" One shot back, stepping between him and the door. "And I'm not letting you…"
Footsteps marched. Not theirs. Boots on metal closing in fast. The Null Concordat. Both of them heard it and turned. Too late to stop, too early to run clean.
The alarm screamed on. The facility woke around them. And whatever came next…was no longer just between them.
Eidola ran. The corridor stretched ahead of her in long, flickering strips of light, pipes rattling overhead in a constant hisscrank chatter. Steam burst intermittently from the walls with sharp chuffspatter hisses, clouding her path, swallowing her small figure and spitting her out again further down.
Footsteps behind her were too many.
"Eidola, stop!" Two's voice echoed, breathless, strained.
"Don't stop!" One shouted over him. "Keep moving!"
She didn't look back nor did she slow down. She turned to a corner, too sharply and slipped. She caught herself against the wall with a soft thud and a whimper, then ran again.
A door ahead was half open and she pushed through.
It was a storage room. Crates stacked unevenly, chains hanging from rusted beams, tools scattered across the floor like dropped thoughts. The air smelled of oil and dust, thick and stale.
She barely made it three steps in, before the door slammed open behind her.
One stumbled in first, nearly losing his footing on a loose wrench that skittered away with a metallic clink-clatter.
Two came right after, harder and faster. Shoulder slamming the door wider with a splintering crack. "There!" Two pointed.
Eidola darted between the crates.
A soldier burst through the doorway behind them, with the rifle raised, "Stop!"
Two moved first. He grabbed the nearest crate and shoved it forward. It crashed into the soldier with a heavy crack, knocking him off balance.
One didn't waste it as he lunged forward and shoved the rifle aside.
The shot went wide, blasting into the ceiling with a deafening bangwhistle crack that rained splinters and dust over all of them.
"Move!" One shouted.
Eidola was already gone through another door, followed by them, then back into the corridor.
The alarm screamed louder now, echoing through every passage, turning the entire facility into a rattling, whirring nightmare of sound.
More soldiers poured in from the far end, shouts overlapping, boots pounding, metal clanging.
Eidola ran. Another turn. Another corridor. Narrower this time. Low beams forcing even her to duck slightly as she passed beneath them.
Two gained ground, fast. "Eidola, wait…!" he called, voice tight.
She didn't.
A soldier lunged from a side passage, with hand outstretched, fingers inches from her shoulder, before One slammed into him from the other side. Both of them hit the wall hard, the impact ringing through the metal with a dull clonk.
"Go!" One barked, shoving the man back.
Two hesitated, just a fraction, then ran after her again.
Another door that she pushed through. Larger this one. A laboratory room. Glass tanks, tables, instruments still humming faintly as she crossed it quickly, in her small shoes tapping against the hard floor.
The door burst open behind her again. Two entered first this time, faster. "Stop running!" he shouted. "You're going to get hurt…"
One crashed in after him, breath ragged.
"You're the one chasing her!"
"She's not safe out there!"
"She's not safe with you either right now!"
That landed. But not long enough to matter for another soldier entered, then another.
Two grabbed a metal rod from the nearest table and swung clumsily, hard and effective. The soldier went down with a sharp crack.
One ducked under another's arm, shoved him into a console that sparked violently with a bright fizzledy-fazzle.
Eidola reached the far door, and pushed through. And everything opened up. The next room was vast. A cathedral of glass and iron.
The ceiling arched high above, made entirely of reinforced panes, grey sky pressing down from beyond like a lid about to break. Light filtered through in fractured beams, catching the drifting dust and turning it into a slow, shimmering haze.
At the centre, a circular control platform, raised a few steps above the floor. Consoles wrapped around it in a perfect ring, lights flickering, data scrolling in frantic, unreadable bursts.
Scientists were everywhere in the room, running. Not organized nor controlled.
Papers flew through the air in loose, chaotic spirals. Clipboards clattered to the floor. Someone shouted for a shutdown that clearly wasn't happening. Another tried to carry an entire stack of files and dropped them halfway, scattering everything into a storm of white sheets.
No one looked at Eidola or One or Two. They were all trying to save something else. Or maybe just to save themselves.
Eidola slowed just slightly, caught in the open space.
One reached the doorway first this time, chest heaving. "…what are they doing?" he muttered, looking around. "Why are they…"
The answer came before the question finished. A roar from above. The glass ceiling trembled. Then shook. Then screamed under pressure as something massive tore across the sky beyond it.
All movement in the room faltered. Every head tilted upward. Through the fractured glass, a shadow passed. A huge one, armoured, alive in a way nothing else there was.
Then followed by an impact. The entire facility jolted violently.
The floor buckled under their feet, throwing One sideways into a console, sending Two stumbling down one of the steps with a sharp curse. Glass cracked overhead with a spiderweb crack-clatter.
"What was that?!" One shouted.
Another roar answered him, closer and louder.
Through the fractured ceiling, the silhouette became clear. The Cogbound Legion's war-beast.
The Aegis.
A brass-plated leviathan suspended in the sky, its massive frame bristling with rotating cannons and gear-driven plating. Steam vented violently from its sides in roaring chuffspatter bursts, rotors screaming as they tore the air apart.
"It's not just us," One breathed, staring up.
Another blast shook the facility. Harder this time. Chunks of debris rained from the ceiling.
"They're not just here for her."
Gunfire erupted above.
Sharp streaks of light cut across the sky as Replication Order aircraft swarmed upward, circling the Aegis in frantic arcs, returning fire in chaotic bursts.
The sky turned into a storm of bangwhistle cracks and whirr-splutter volleys, metal screaming against metal, smoke blooming in thick, choking clouds.
Everything broke inside. More alarms, all with different melody.
"Evacuate!" someone screamed.
"Shut it down!"
"You can't!"
The ground shook again. Hard enough to knock everyone off balance.
Eidola staggered. Nearly fell, before Two caught her. Instinct and Immediate.
Another explosion tore through the upper structure, sending a cascade of sparks and shattered glass raining down like a violent, glittering storm.
"…we need to go," One said, voice tight now. "whatever this was…it's not that anymore."
Two didn't answer. He just looked at Eidola, then at the collapsing room, then back at the central control platform.
And for the first time since they had started fighting, it stopped being about who was right.
It became about who would make it out alive.
The floor would not dare to stay still. Every time the Aegis fired, the entire facility shuddered like a struck bell, the shockwaves rolling through the metal bones of it in deep, grinding clankle-clonk tremors. Panels rattled loose. Glass shrieked overhead. Dust fell in soft, choking veils.
One staggered, catching himself against the edge of the central platform.
"…this isn't a retrieval," he said, breath uneven, looking up through the fractured ceiling. "They're tearing the whole place down."
Another blast.
The room lurched again, harder this time, throwing loose papers into the air in a frantic whirry-wharrel.
Two didn't answer. He ran up the raised steps to the circular control system, boots slipping once before he caught himself on the console. The panels flickered violently, data streaming in broken columns, symbols tearing across the screen faster than they could be read.
One followed, pulling Eidola close as another tremor rolled through.
"What are you doing?" he shouted over the rising alarm.
Two's hands were already moving across the controls, sharper now, more certain than before.
"They'll destroy the facility," he said, not looking up. "But not the data."
"What?"
"The data survives," Two continued, voice tight but focused. "Backups. Transfers. Archives. This place is just one node."
Another chuffspatter blast from above. The ceiling cracked further, a long fracture splitting across the glass like lightning.
"They can rebuild it," Two said. "They will…another of her." He glanced at Eidola, then back to the panels. His fingers moved faster now, forcing commands through the flickering interface.
One stared at him.
Two looked up, looking back at him. "I can remove it."
"Remove what." One frowned.
"The project," Two said. "All of it. The data, the models, the process. If it's gone, they can't do it again."
Another tremor nearly knocked him off balance. He braced himself harder against the console.
"I can end it here."
One hesitated. Looked at Eidola, then back at him.
"…you're talking about wiping the whole Replication Order off of the Null Concordat," he said. "You sure that's even possible?"
Two didn't answer immediately. Just kept tapping across the desk. "…it has to be."
The system resisted. Warnings flashed across the screen in sharp, stuttering bursts.
ACCESS DENIED
CONFLICT ERROR
OVERRIDE REQUIRED
Two forced past them.
"Come on…come on…"
Then another impact. Closer and louder. The entire platform jolted violently. Two's hand slipped across the panel, striking the wrong sequence.
The screen flared, then a new alarm screamed to life. Higher and sharper.
Two froze. "…no."
The interface shifted locking him out.
"What did you do?" One shouted.
"I didn't…" Two cut himself off, scanning the screen rapidly. "It interrupted the override. I lost the sequence."
Below them, heavy footsteps began to echo through the chamber entrance, closer and closer.
"They're coming," One said, glancing back.
"I can hear that," Two's eyes moved across the system again, searching, thinking, before he saw it.
"…there," he muttered.
A secondary panel lit up on the lower level, near a side exit. A heavy mechanical lever sat beside it, half-buried under flickering warning lights.
"It needs a manual trigger," Two said quickly. "Failsafe purge. It splits the command."
One followed his gaze. "…meaning?"
"You initiate it there," Two said, nodding toward the lower panel. "I hold the override here."
"And if we don't do both?"
"It doesn't complete."
Another tremor.
One didn't argue. He grabbed Eidola, lifting her into his arms as he stepped down from the platform, boots slipping slightly on the uneven floor.
"Just tell me when," he said.
Two nodded once, focused again.
The soldiers reached the main entrance. Shouts echoed through the chamber. Weapons raised.
Two forced the override through again, hands moving faster than before, ignoring the warnings now.
"Wait…" he said. "Wait…"
The system hesitated…then yielded.
"Now!" Two shouted.
One pulled the lever. It was heavy and stiff. Then gave way with a grinding hisscrank release, locking into place with a solid clunk.
The system responded instantly. The screens around Two flickered wildly as data began to collapse inward, lines vanishing, files fragmenting, entire structures dissolving into nothing.
"It's working," Two said, almost under his breath. Relief rather than triumph.
One looked up at him. Despite everything, they shared a brief, quiet understanding. A smile.
Then, a shot.
Two jerked. His body twisting slightly as the impact hit his left shoulder. He collapsed against the console, breath tearing out of him as the force drove him forward.
"NO!" One moved. Gunfire erupted from the entrance. Bullets tore across the space between them, striking metal, glass, consoles, forcing him back, forcing him down.
One crawled back to the lever, shielding Eidola as he ducked behind the lower platform.
Two pushed himself up slightly, one hand gripping the edge of the console, blood already darkening his sleeve.
He looked toward the entrance. Then toward One…then Eidola.
She was watching him from behind One's shoulder, still visibly confused. Still quiet. But she looked safer there with One more than she ever was with him.
Upon seeing her, something in him suddenly settled.
He reached across the console, and struck a button.
The main entrance slammed shut with a heavy, grinding clatterblast, metal doors locking into place between him and the advancing soldiers.
"Go," he said.
One shook his head immediately. "No…no, you're not staying…"
"I have to hold it," Two said, already turning back toward the system. "If they get through, they stop the purge."
"We can both…"
"No… I brought this to her. I should end this."
It wasn't loud.
"…go," he said again. "bring her to safety."
One hesitated, just for a second, before he moved, carrying Eidola toward the exit.
Behind him, the door began to buckle. Gunfire hammering against it. Metal screaming under pressure.
Two lifted the rifle on the desk, steadier than before. The door gave. And he fired. One shot after another, then another, then another.
The system behind him continued its work. Data collapsing, erasing, ending.
Outside, One burst through the side exit into open air, the sky above torn apart by smoke and fire. The Aegis loomed overhead, its massive form cutting through the clouds as smaller craft circled it in chaotic, desperate arcs.
The ground shook again, and again.
One didn't look back. He stumbled forward, raising one arm, waving through the smoke.
"HEY!" he shouted, voice raw. "DOWN HERE!"
A gunship broke formation, began descending.
Steam venting in violent chuffspatter bursts as its rotors screamed against the wind. It landed hard. The door slid open. Soldiers moved fast, pulling them in.
Noise dulled inside, just enough room for him to breathe.
The gunship lifted, rising back into the smoke-choked sky. Only then, only when the ground began to fall away beneath them, did One look back.
The facility was collapsing in on itself. Glass shattering. Metal folding. Fire blooming from within like something finally allowed to breathe. And then, it was gone, swallowed by smoke and flame.
One didn't say anything but sat there, catching breath, holding her, while the sky burned. And he closed his eyes.