The sky above Aureus Prime had ceased to be blue. It was now a bruising shade of violet, veined with pulsing, organic lightning.
The Dissonance Mother descended.
It was a monstrosity of biology and physics-defying geometry. A sphere of weeping flesh the size of a small moon, surrounded by a halo of writhing tentacles and weeping eyes. It didn't float; it infested the space it occupied, bleeding a corrupting frequency into the atmosphere.
REEEEE-KRRR-ZAAAAT.
The sound was omnipresent. It wasn't heard; it was felt in the teeth, in the marrow.
On the bridge of the Sovereign's Will, Lyra fell to her knees, clutching her head.
"It's in my brain!" she screamed. "Get it out!"
"Psychic shielding is failing!" Skid yelled, her nose bleeding. "The signal is rewriting our neural pathways! It wants us to give up!"
Julian stood at the center of the bridge. He gripped the command rail with his nanite hand. The metal groaned under his grip.
He felt the noise. It was chaos. It was the sound of a billion scratching nails.
"Marcus," Julian said, his voice calm but strained. "Patch me into the fleet. Full broadcast. To every ship, every soldier, and every Titan."
"You're going to speak over that?" Marcus gestured to the screaming sky.
"No," Julian said. "I'm going to sing over it."
The Overture
Julian closed his eyes. He tapped into the Titan Network. He felt the six giants below. They were terrified. The Dissonance was their predator. They wanted to run.
Hold, Julian commanded.
He twisted the ring. He didn't project a thought. He projected a Rhythm.
Thump-thump. Thump-thump.
A heartbeat. Slow. Steady. Defiant.
He pushed the rhythm out through the Sovereign's Will massive transmitters. He pushed it through the Aether.
The screaming in the crew's heads didn't stop, but it was pushed into the background. The Heartbeat gave them something to latch onto.
"Status," Julian ordered.
Lyra gasped, standing up unsteadily. "I... I can focus. Weapons online."
"Titans are responding," Skid wiped her face. "They're syncing to the pulse."
Julian looked out the viewport at the descending horror.
"All stations," Julian said. "Begin the First Movement."
The Percussion
The Dissonance Mother released a swarm of Screamers—flying bio-forms that looked like manta rays made of teeth and muscle. Millions of them.
"Intercept," Julian ordered.
Titan 04 (The Gale-Warden) initiated the tempo.
The spinning gyroscope station unleashed a Sonic Cyclone. A tornado of compressed air shredded the first wave of Screamers, turning them into mist.
Titan 05 (The Frost-Breaker) leaped from the northern mountains. It howled, creating stepping stones of ice in the air. It bounded up the ice-steps, intercepting the lower tentacles of the Mother.
CRUNCH.
The Frost-Breaker bit into a tentacle the size of a skyscraper. Flash-freeze. The flesh turned to blue ice and shattered.
Titan 03 (The Magma Strider) provided the bass. It reared up and slammed its massive tail into the earth.
BOOM.
It wasn't an earthquake. It was a volcanic artillery barrage. The Titan vomited massive globs of molten rock into the sky. The lava bombs hit the Mother's underbelly, burning holes in the fleshy surface.
"Direct hits!" Zephyr cheered. "The monster bleeds!"
"It's regenerating," Marcus warned. "Look."
The wounds on the Mother bubbled and knit together in seconds. The flesh re-formed, thicker than before.
"We can't kill it with damage," Julian realized. "It's biological. It evolves instantly."
"We need to cut the core," Julian said. "Titan 00. The Chronos-Keeper."
He looked at the floating hourglass Titan hovering above the city.
"Chronos," Julian commanded. "Prepare the Entropy Beam."
Charging... The Keeper's voice echoed. Time required: 5 minutes.
"Five minutes," Julian said. "We have to keep that thing off the Hourglass for five minutes. Or we lose our only kill-shot."
The Swarm
The Dissonance Mother sensed the threat. It ignored the other Titans and turned its massive central eye toward Titan 00.
TARGET: ANOMALY.
The Mother opened its "mouth"—a canyon-sized rift in its side.
It didn't fire a laser. It vomited a Legion.
Thousands of humanoid creatures dropped from the sky. They were twisted, corrupted versions of Pre-Collapse soldiers, fused with Void biology.
They fell directly toward the Chronos-Keeper.
"They're boarding the Titan!" Lyra yelled. "They're going to tear it apart from the inside!"
"We're on intercept!" Julian turned to Marcus. "Take us in! Close range!"
"You want to dogfight a moon in a battleship?" Marcus asked, his hands flying over the controls.
"I want to clear the decks," Julian said. "Lyra, Isolde, Zephyr. Get to the airlocks. We're dropping onto Titan 00. We defend the Hourglass."
"On it!" Lyra grabbed her rifle.
The Defense of Time
The Sovereign's Will dove through the chaos. Flak burst around them. Screamers slammed into the hull.
The ship hovered over the central platform of the Chronos-Keeper.
"Drop! Drop! Drop!"
Lyra, Zephyr, and Isolde jumped from the ramp, using thruster packs to land on the black stone platform of the Hourglass.
They were instantly swarmed. The Dissonance Legion landed all around them. These creatures were fast, screeching horrors with blades for arms.
"Hold the line!" Lyra opened fire. Her bullets tore through the soft flesh of the monsters.
Zephyr spun his staff, creating a wind-wall to push the swarm off the edge of the floating island.
"There are too many!" Isolde yelled, swinging her wrench to crush a skull. "We need heavy support!"
"You have it," Julian said from the ship.
The Sovereign's Will rotated its broadside cannons.
BOOM-BOOM-BOOM.
The dreadnought rained fire on the edge of the Titan, creating a wall of explosions that vaporized the incoming wave of monsters.
The Corruption of the King
While the battle raged on the Hourglass, the Dissonance Mother made its real move.
It extended a massive, translucent tentacle. It didn't aim for the Chronos. It aimed for Titan 01: The Gilded King.
The tentacle phased right through the King's golden shields. It plugged directly into the King's chest.
INFECT.
The Gilded King froze. Its golden eyes flickered and turned purple.
NOISE... PAIN... SUBMIT...
The King turned. It raised its massive arm.
It aimed a Resonance Lance directly at the Sovereign's Will.
"Julian!" Skid screamed. "Titan 01 is compromised! It's targeting us!"
"It's the signal," Julian grabbed his head as a spike of pain hit him. "It's overriding the connection!"
"If the King fires, we're dust!" Marcus yelled, banking the ship hard.
"I have to sever the link!" Julian ran to the comms station.
He didn't use the radio. He plugged his nanite arm directly into the ship's main transmitter console.
"Warning: Neural Interface Unsafe," the computer chirped.
"Override!" Julian shouted.
He dove into the network.
The Mind of the King
Julian appeared in the Mental Landscape of the Titan.
It was a golden city, identical to Aureus Prime. But the sky was purple. The buildings were melting.
In the center of the city stood the Avatar of the King—a golden giant.
But it was wrapped in purple chains. The Dissonance was strangling it, whispering madness into its ears.
You are obsolete... You are rust... Sleep...
Julian materialized in front of the giant. He was small, a speck of dust.
"Hey!" Julian shouted.
The giant looked down with purple eyes. It raised a fist to crush him.
Julian didn't run. He stood his ground.
He projected a memory.
Not a memory of war. A memory of the Undercity. The people huddled in the dark. The hope when the wall fell. The feeling of the sun on their faces.
You are not a machine, Julian shouted, his voice resonating through the dream-city. You are a Guardian!
He twisted the Black-Iron ring.
WAKE UP.
He fired a pulse of White Noise—pure, cleansing static—at the purple chains.
The chains shattered.
The giant roared. Its eyes turned back to gold.
The Recoil
In the real world, the Gilded King flinched.
It lowered its arm, aiming away from the Sovereign's Will.
It grabbed the purple tentacle attached to its chest.
With a motion that shattered the sound barrier, the King ripped the tentacle out.
It held the severed, writhing flesh in its hand.
Then, the King looked up at the Mother.
It didn't shoot. It Threw the tentacle back like a javelin.
The massive spear of crystallized Aether pierced the Mother's side.
SCREEEEEEEEE!
The Mother recoiled, the song of madness faltering for a second.
"Now!" Julian gasped, pulling his arm out of the console. Smoke rose from his interface port. "Chronos! Fire!"
Titan 00 was ready.
The black sand in the hourglass had finished flowing. The beam was charged.
"Entropy Beam!" Marcus shouted. "Firing!"
A beam of absolute blackness shot from the Chronos-Keeper. It hit the Dissonance Mother dead center.