Kael didn’t hesitate.
His Warden kicked its thrusters and leapt, one grappling hook screaming out and anchoring into the side of a high-rise with a thunderous crack. The second line snapped forward an instant later—not to escape, but to strike.
The hook slammed into Sera’s black mech, biting deep into its armor. Kael yanked hard.
“Hold on—!” Elias shouted, but it was already too late.
Kael swung, using the full mass of his Warden like a wrecking ball.
Sera’s mech was ripped off its footing and hurled sideways, her frame smashing into a concrete tower. The building collapsed inward, floors pancaking as steel beams screamed and glass detonated outward in a cloud of dust and fire.
The street vanished beneath rubble.
For half a second, there was only silence—and then the blackness moved.
Micromachines boiled out from the wreckage, severing Kael’s grappling line mid-tension like it was thread. Sera burst free from the collapsing building, her three-legged frame reconfiguring midair, black tendrils hardening into grapples of her own.
She launched.
Lightning-fast.
“WHAT IS THAT THING?!” Jax yelled, barely keeping his Warden upright as the shockwave hit.
Sera crossed the distance in a heartbeat.
Her blades unfolded—long, curved, impossibly sharp—and she collided with Kael.
The clash was brutal.
Kael raised his Warden’s arm just in time, Sera’s blade screeching across reinforced plating, sparks tearing through the haze. She struck again. And again. Each blow faster than the last, her movements predictive, inhuman.
Kael fired point-blank.
The rounds sparked uselessly off her armor as she twisted, blades carving into his shoulder joint. Warnings exploded across Kael’s HUD.
STRUCTURAL FAILURE
LIMB INTEGRITY: 62%
REACTOR STRAIN—
“Crap—she’s cutting him apart!” Tavian shouted.
Kael kicked his thrusters and jumped, severing contact by sheer force, reeling another grapple across the town. He swung low over shattered streets, buildings blurring past as he tried to gain distance.
Sera chased him.
Not by following.
By anticipating.
Her mech leaned forward, micromachines rippling, and she leapt—each bound cracking the ground beneath her. She didn’t slow. She didn’t miss.
“She’s matching his vectors,” Amélia breathed. “No—she’s predicting them.”
Rhys clenched his fists, watching helplessly from the rooftop, his ruined Warden sparking beside him.
“That’s not a Schreitpanzer… that’s not anything.”
Kael’s HUD screamed again.
TRAJECTORY LOCK DETECTED
“—shit.”
Sera’s main gun unfolded along her spine.
The barrel shifted, angling not where Kael was—but where he would be.
The shell fired.
Kael twisted hard, releasing his grapple at the last second—but the explosion caught him anyway. The blast detonated just off his flank, a concussive wave slamming into his Warden and throwing him through the air.
He crashed down hard, legs first.
The ground cratered beneath him.
His magnetic suspension shrieked, barely holding his frame upright as dust and smoke swallowed the street.
Kael groaned over comms. “Legs… still responding. Barely.”
Sera landed across from him.
Slow. Deliberate.
Her mech straightened, black armor flexing as micromachines crawled and sealed minor damage. Her head tilted—just slightly—as if studying him.
Rhys stared, heart pounding.
A conscious Schreitpanzer.
Self-repairing.
Predictive fire.
“…What the hell is going on?”
Kael’s Warden shuddered as it stabilized, pistons screaming in protest. Warning glyphs burned across his HUD, but he grinned anyway, teeth clenched, breath sharp in his helmet.
He lifted his mech’s chin and shouted straight into the open channel, voice raw with adrenaline.
“HEY—!”
His speakers boomed across the ruined street.
“WHO THE HELL ARE YOU?”
The black mech kept walking.
Each step was slow. Heavy. Deliberate.
Cracked asphalt folded beneath its talons, micromachines whispering like insects beneath metal skin.
Then her voice answered.
Distorted. Layered. Not quite human.
“Victim.”
Kael’s grin vanished.
The world collapsed into motion.
Sera launched.
Not a leap—an erasure of distance. One frame she was there, the next she was everywhere, her blade already descending, velocity so extreme Kael’s systems failed to register it.
TARGET LOST
MOTION BLUR—
Then—
IMPACT.
A second Warden slammed down from above like a falling god.
Steel screamed.
A massive blade punched straight into Sera’s turret, driving her into the street with an earth-shattering crash. Concrete detonated outward, a shockwave ripping windows from buildings as dust and debris consumed the block.
Kael staggered back, bracing himself.
Mara stood atop the black mech, her Warden crouched low, blade buried deep, smoke curling from her thrusters.
Kael exhaled hard. “She’s dangerous.”
Mara didn’t look down.
“Mm,” she said coolly.
“Right now? She’s disappointing.”
The rubble moved.
This story is posted elsewhere by the author. Help them out by reading the authentic version.
Sera’s voice rose from beneath the blade—no longer calm.
“You are underestimating me.”
The metal around Mara’s sword liquefied.
Black micromachines surged upward like a living tide, crawling along the blade, swallowing it inch by inch. Mara’s HUD flared red.
WEAPON INTEGRITY FAILING
FOREIGN MATERIAL—
“What—?” Mara pulled back—
Too late.
Sera screamed.
Not through speakers.
Through everything.
“YOU WILL ALL SUFFER.”
The black mech changed.
Two new arms tore free from her sides, micromachines hardening mid-motion, skeletal at first—then fully formed. They seized Mara’s Warden with impossible force.
Mara didn’t even have time to curse.
Sera slammed her into the nearby building.
The impact was catastrophic.
Steel met concrete in a deafening explosion, the structure caving inward as a massive crater bloomed across its face. Floors collapsed. Fire erupted. Mara’s Warden vanished into dust and flame.
“MAR—!” Kael shouted.
Sera didn’t stop.
Two more blades unfolded from her new arms, six weapons now humming with lethal intent. She pivoted—
—and launched at Kael.
Kael fired desperately, rounds sparking uselessly as Sera tore through them. Her blades hit.
One cleaved through his right turret.
Another sliced clean through his torso plating.
A third carved through his left leg.
Metal flew. Systems screamed. Kael’s Warden came apart in violent pieces, his frame collapsing as he ejected at the last possible instant, skidding across the street in a shower of dust.
“KAEL’S DOWN!” Jax yelled.
Sera turned back—
—but Mara was already moving.
She burst from the smoke, armor scorched, her unique blade humming with a pitch that cut through the noise.
Their swords met.
The clash was unreal.
Mara’s single blade against six.
Sera struck like a storm—slashes, stabs, hooks, feints—each attack overlapping the last, blades moving so fast they left afterimages. Mara’s reflexes were the only thing keeping her alive, her Warden twisting, parrying, barely deflecting strikes that should have killed her outright.
Sparks filled the air like rain.
Mara was driven back—step by step—into a shattered corner between two buildings.
Her HUD was a wall of red.
STRUCTURAL LIMIT
REACTION TIME MAXED
NO MARGIN LEFT
“She’s too fast—!” Mara growled.
A blade skimmed past her cockpit. Another gouged her shoulder. A third slammed into the wall beside her head, burying itself deep enough to crack the concrete.
Sera loomed.
Blades raised.
Then—
“NOW!”
Tavian hit first, slamming into Sera’s flank.
Jax followed, blade screaming as it struck her leg.
Amélia crashed in from above, her damaged Warden ramming Sera’s turret with everything she had left.
The combined force knocked Sera back.
She slid across the street, talons carving trenches in asphalt before she caught herself, six blades folding outward as she rose again.
Slowly.
The black mech looked at them all.
And smiled—somehow.
Amélia felt it in her chest.
This wasn’t a machine.
This was a vengeance given form.
The street below was a warped graveyard of metal and fire.
Tavian, Jax, and Amélia stood between the black mech and the rest of the city.
Jax’s Warden shook—actually shook—gyros whining as his targeting reticle jittered over Sera’s silhouette. His breathing was loud in the comms, fast and uneven.
“Guys…” His voice cracked. “Kael went down in seconds. Mara—Mara—barely held her. We don’t— we don’t have a chance against that thing.”
Sera stood motionless across from them.
Black micromachines flowed like liquid armor, constantly shifting, sealing microfractures as they appeared. Four blades rested along her reverse-jointed legs, folded and ready, while two more extended from the extra arms at her sides—long, thin, cruelly sharp. They moved on their own, twitching, adjusting angles as if tasting the air.
Amélia swallowed.
Sweat dripped down her spine despite the cockpit’s climate control. Her hands were locked white-tight around the controls, eyes darting between the blades, the shifting armor, the way Sera’s mech breathed.
“She’s… she’s not even damaged,” Amélia whispered. “She’s adapting.”
Up on the rooftop—
Rhys sat jammed into the gunner seat of Elias’ Warden, bruised, blood streaking down his temple. Below them, the fight teetered on a razor’s edge.
“Elias,” Rhys snapped, grabbing his shoulder harness and shoving. “Go. Help Amélia. Now.”
“I am going,” Elias barked back, fingers flying over controls, “but if we just drop on her, she’ll slice us apart before our feet touch the ground!”
“Then I’ll shoot.”
Elias froze.
“Don’t you—”
Rhys was already turning the gun.
“RHYS—WAIT—!”
Too late.
The Warden’s main gun fired.
The recoil slammed through the frame, nearly tearing Rhys from his seat as the shell screamed downward, detonating exactly where Sera had been.
The street erupted.
Fire, debris, shattered concrete—an expanding shockwave that tore through the dust cloud like a second explosion.
“Direct hit!” Rhys shouted.
Silence.
Then—
Elias breathed. “She’s gone.”
The dust moved.
Sera burst out of it like a shadow made solid, already airborne, micromachines flaring as she launched upward at impossible speed.
“She’s in the air—!”
Sera twisted mid-flight and fired her main gun.
The shell didn’t aim where Elias was.
It aimed where he would be.
“MOVE—!”
Elias yanked the controls, thrusters screaming as he grappled sideways, the cable snapping taut just as the shell detonated beneath them.
The blast ripped through the rooftop they’d been standing on, the entire structure collapsing inward in a roar of fire and steel.
Elias’ Warden swung hard, the grapple line pulling them clear by meters.
Barely.
Rhys laughed—half panic, half disbelief. “That was close!”
“You absolute IDIOT!” Elias screamed. “She’s chasing us because of YOU!”
Sera was already behind them.
Closing.
Fast.
Too fast.
Her mech skimmed across rooftops, talons tearing grooves in concrete as she vaulted from one building to the next, six blades extended like the limbs of a hunting insect.
TARGET LOCK
PREDICTED TRAJECTORY CONFIRMED
“Oh no no no—!” Rhys yelled.
“She’s gaining!” Elias shouted. “We’re screwed—!”
A voice cut into the open channel, cold and sharp.
“You are both unbelievable.”
“Mara—?” Rhys gasped.
“No one told you to shoot.”
“THIS IS RHYS’ FAULT!” Elias shot back.
“Oh, I’m aware.”
Sera leapt.
The gap between them vanished—
—and something slammed into her from the side.
Metal collided with metal in a thunderous crash as another Warden intercepted her mid-air, blade locking against Sera’s with a shower of sparks.
The impact knocked Sera off-course, forcing her to skid across the rooftop in a spray of shattered concrete.
Amélia landed between Sera and the fleeing Warden.
Her mech crouched low, damaged armor scorched and cracked—but her blade was raised, steady.
Her face, visible through the cockpit glass, was grim.
No fear now.
Just resolve.
Sera straightened, six blades unfolding once more.
The two mechs stared at each other across the ruined rooftop—
—and the world seemed to hold its breath.
The city then became a vertical graveyard.
Amélia and Sera tore through it like falling stars, steel screaming against concrete as they leapt from rooftop to rooftop. Every impact sent shockwaves through the buildings beneath them—windows bursting outward, steel frames bending, old structures collapsing into dust.
Amélia fired her grappling hook first.
The cable snapped forward with a metallic crack, biting into the edge of a tower. She swung low, boots skimming the rooftop as she pivoted mid-air, her mech’s sword igniting with a sharp, white glow. She came up fast, blade arcing—
Sera was already there.
Black micromachines folded and unfolded around her liquid armor, reshaping as she moved. Six blades flared out—two in her hands, four extending from her legs like scythes. She twisted in midair, inhumanly precise, and Amélia’s strike rang uselessly against a shifting wall of black metal.
Sparks exploded between them.
Sera countered.
Her blades flashed so fast they left afterimages, carving through the air in a storm of silver-black arcs. Amélia barely blocked the first, her mech skidding backward across the rooftop, claws digging into concrete to keep from being thrown off the edge.
“Amélia—!” Rhys’s voice cracked over the comm.
“I’ve got her,” she lied, teeth clenched.
She fired her main gun point-blank.
The shell detonated between them, a deafening blast that ripped the rooftop apart. Amélia used the explosion to leap backward, grappling hook firing again, yanking her across the gap to the next building.
Sera burst through the smoke untouched.
Micromachines flowed, sealing fractures instantly as she launched herself after Amélia, her main gun roaring. The shell screamed past Amélia’s cockpit, shredding a skyscraper behind her, molten debris raining down like hellfire.
Elias’s Warden landed hard two rooftops back, Rhys in the gunner seat, eyes wide.
“She’s gaining on you!” Rhys shouted.
“I know!” Amélia snapped.
She landed, rolled, and immediately met Sera head-on—blade against blade. The impact rang like a cathedral bell. Amélia pushed, servos screaming, but Sera didn’t budge. Black veins pulsed across the frame as Sera leaned in, overpowering her with terrifying ease.
Another blade slammed into Amélia’s side.
Warning alarms shrieked. Armor plating tore away, spiraling into the street below.
Amélia broke contact and ran.
She vaulted off the rooftop, dropping into open air, grappling hook firing downward. She swung low—too low.
Sera followed without hesitation, leaping straight down after her.
They crashed onto a wide avenue in a thunderous impact, asphalt exploding outward. Amélia hit hard, her mech skidding across the street, tearing through abandoned vehicles before slamming into the remains of a transit station.
She tried to stand.
Her mech stuttered.
OWER FAILURE – LEFT LEG
HYDRAULICS BREACH
REACTOR STABILITY CRITICAL
“Come on… come on…” she whispered, forcing the controls.
Sera landed at the far end of the street.
Slow. Deliberate.
Her tripod, straightened, micromachines flowing like a living shadow, blades unfolding one by one. The distorted glow of her eye burned brighter as she walked forward, every step cracking the ground beneath her.
“Amélia!” Rhys shouted, panic breaking through his voice. “Elias, faster—!”
Elias pushed the Warden past safe limits, buildings blurring as they dropped toward the street.
Sera stopped a few meters away.
Amélia raised her sword with shaking arms. Her mech’s lights flickered. Systems died one by one.
She was cornered.
Sera tilted her head, voice bleeding through the speakers in a warped, hollow echo.
“You fight for sinners.” she said. “But all that ends now.”
She lunged.
Rhys fired.
The Warden’s main gun thundered, the shell tearing through the street and detonating between them, throwing Sera sideways in a storm of fire and debris. Elias landed hard, skidding into position between Sera and Amélia.
Rhys didn’t breathe until he saw Amélia still standing—barely.
“Don’t you dare die on me,” he muttered, hands shaking on the controls.
From the smoke, black micromachines began to rise again.
And Sera stood back up.