198. Victory Within Reach!
“Surrender now!” Zetius’s voice boomed, though he was clearly panting. The howling wind indicated that they were still aboard the airborne battlecruiser.
“Am I on the topside?” Rhok asked himself, gasping for breath.
“Do not move!” Zetius yelled, jabbing the tip of his blade closer.
“Ha… ha… Zetius…” Rhok muttered, his voice faltering.
“Tell your knights to stop! Do it!” Zetius commanded, his voice solemn.
“3% remaining,” Cubie pinged.
“It’s fine…” Zetius whispered, his voice a low growl. In a blur of motion, he unleashed two precise, devastating slashes. The ionised blade sang through the air, shearing through metal and circuitry with ease. The Archangel's arms were severed in a shower of sparks and molten shrapnel, crashing onto the deck with a deafening clang that echoed across the battlecruiser's topside.
“AHH!” Rhok screamed, his mind went blank. Eventually, he sucked in his lips and nodded in defeat.
“I said, do it now!” Zetius ordered again with his tone hardened, pointing his blade at Rhok's torso.
“Stand down. All of you!” Rhok relayed his message, his voice eerily calm. “I repeat, stand down.”
“But sir?!” Admiral Quin objected.
“Just do what I say!” Rhok thundered. Before long, the distant rumbling of ballistic missiles and energy blasts ceased.
The raging battle eventually stopped.
“At least, if you want to subdue me, let me out of this junk heap,” Rhok bargained.
“Fine! Get out slowly,” Zetius replied, moving his bladetip away.
The cockpit hatch hissed open, and the dark knight climbed out with his hands raised. His helmet retracted, splitting in two before tucking into the collar around his nape.
His damp brown hair clung to his forehead, his dark eyes locked onto the imposing Celer.
“It’s really him!” Frain growled.
“Not even a day older,” Zetius mumbled.
Rhok kept his arms raised as the massive blade tracked his every move. He found an empty spot and knelt, placing both hands on the back of his head.
[Incoming call from Astrid Ember Lorne!] The system voice interrupted.
“Do not move!” Zetius repeated to Rhok, who obeyed eagerly.
“Patch her through, Cubie,” Zetius agreed.
“Will do!” she replied.
“Zeta! A battlecruiser is heading toward Vanguard Alpha!” Astrid’s voice crackled through his comm. “I hear you've captured their Platinum Knight?!”
“Wait? What?” Zetius blurted, his expression confused. “But Rhok is defeated. He told his subordinates to stand down. The battle is over.”
Then her voice became distant, as if she were talking to someone else. “Listen, Knight! Tell your allies to stand down or I’ll knock your lights out!”
“But lady…”
“Apparently not! Zeta! They are coming in hot!” Astrid shouted. “Do something!”
“What’s going on?” Zetius mumbled, almost to himself. “Alright, Astrid. There might be some sort of miscommunication.” His hand flicked the hatch lever. The hatch swung upward.
As he unbuckled his belt, he felt a hand on his shoulder.
“What are you doing, Zetius?” Frain asked, her expression full of concern.
“Let’s get down. The Celer is running out of juice anyway,” he rationalised, cupping her hand to ease her anxiety.
With swift motions, Zetius, Cubie, and Frain landed next to the base of the 10-metre steel giant.
Rhok, still on his knees, gazed at the approaching people.
Shuffling hurriedly, Zetius raised two fingers, and a glowing red orb of flame formed. “There’s a battlecruiser, flying an Umbral flag! Tell them to stop!”
Meanwhile, Frain summoned her axe, just in case.
Rhok let out a dry laugh. “That isn't under my command, Zetius,” he said coldly, his eyes locked onto Zetius’s. There was something sinister about them.
“I’m not playing one of your games!” The Empyrion orb twirled with power, ready to be unleashed with a flick of his fingers. “Tell them now!”
“Okay.” Rhok smirked. His hand steadily reached toward his comm. “Vanguard Charlie, this is Rhok Wagner. I command you to stop your advance now. I repeat, this is Rhok Wagner. Stop your advance ASAP.” He snapped his head to the side, as if to say, ‘I did what you asked. ’
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“No response from their command. I told you,” Rhok rasped with a grin.
“You liar!” Frain roared, raising her axe, its edge glowing.
“Astrid? You there?” Zetius called out through his arc comm.
“Yeah! I’m here,” she said, her voice panting, her armour shuffling as she ran.
Soon, the battlecruiser emerged over the horizon and drifted toward the Vanguard Alpha.
Zetius stammered, “Don’t tell me…”
“Friederich, Adamas!—” Astrid shouted before her comm shut off.
A deafening, apocalyptic shriek of tortured metal tore through the sky.
The two leviathans of war collided with unimaginable force, a titanic impact that sent a blinding flash and a concussive shockwave across the high heavens.
“Oh, Gaia, Astrid?! Astrid?!” Zetius roared.
He couldn’t believe his eyes. Micro-bombs erupted from its flank.
Their hulls buckled and merged, viewports imploded, and a grotesque fusion of steel and fire blossomed where the two ships met, their dying forms locked in a brutal embrace.
Yet, the main thrusters were still firing wildly as the automated systems fought to keep the mangled crafts airborne.
Zetius snapped to confront Rhok, his eyes burning with fury.
“What did you do!?” Zetius yanked him up by the collar.
“I did not do anything. It was one of your allies,” Rhok answered honestly.
“My ally!?” Zetius questioned, visibly baffled.
“Zetius, don’t listen to him. He’s trying to trick us!” Frain muttered, readying her axe to strike. “Let me finish him, Zetius!”
“Osten Empire… The Shadowbringers of Russha,” Rhok revealed.
“Ziyue?!” The name sent his mind spiralling.
His eyes darted around.
His ears ringing so deafeningly he couldn’t hear Frain’s shouting.
THUD!
Rhok launched his jab.
Zetius was thrown 30 metres before collapsing on the metal ground. His stomach clenched. “AHH!” Zetius yelped as a shocking pain seared through his side.
“Zetius!” Frain struggled with Rhok, who was now able to overpower her.
“Frain's strength should have been enough,” Zetius thought, scrambling to his feet with a grunt.
Rhok brought his hand up, blocking the handle of her attacking axe. An arcane outline rippled around his hand.
“Adamas?!” Frain gasped at the durability enhancement, pulling her axe back.
But he spun and punched her in the stomach, the impact sending her tumbling backwards.
Zetius whipped his two fingers. “Empyrion!” A fire beam shot out.
Rhok turned and ran straight through, the fire hit and dissipated as if it were nothing.
Two consecutive fire beams shot out, only to be deflected by Rhok's bare hand.
Rhok closed the distance, arching a hook punch.
Zetius’s fist, erupting in a blazing inferno, arched in return.
The counter-attack landed. Zetius’s fist on Rhok’s side. Rhok’s fist on Zetius’s cheek.
But it was Zetius who fell to one knee, choking on blood.
His vision swam with red.
“YOU!” A shout boomed from behind him as Frain threw Hemileos.
The spinning axe missed his head by a few millimetres.
Rhok turned his attention and dashed toward Frain, lifting his fist.
“Hemileos!” Frain recalled her axe, but Rhok snatched it from the air before it could reach her.
“Sister!” Cubie shouted, beaming out to construct a shield between them.
Rhok struck down with the axe, sending out a thunderous shockwave.
“Nnnngh!” Frain growled, her hands on the construct shield, her feet trembling within the crater of metal.
“Interesting. I always hated that stupid cube!” Rhok spun and, with a flick of his arms, he threw the axe at the glowing cube.
It flew at Cubie with an overwhelming momentum, while she constructed another wall to intercept it.
“Cubie, no!” Zetius snapped, judged from its speed and momentum that it wouldn't hold.
Too late.
The wall shattered, and the axe hit Cubie squarely. She vibrated violently before falling onto the ground.
“NOOOOO!” Zetius shouted, his voice strained.
A void opened in his chest, frigid and absolute. His ragged breathing was the only sound in a world that had just lost its colour.
The thought of this loss, the despair, obscured his vision into the haze, until—
"Owwww…" Cubie whimpered softly. It was a sound so small, yet it was everything.
“She’s alive?” Zetius murmured.
“Cubie! Return to me!” he commanded immediately, raising his palm and recalling her to his slot. She floated through the air and plunged into his chest. Her presence and warmth lingered like the flicker of hope.
“I’m sorry, Zetius,” Cubie’s voice faltered within him. The blue light on his chest slowly faded.
“No, no, no… You rest now. Take my mana,” Zetius mustered his remaining energy. The relief was a tidal wave, but the rage that followed was a colossal wave, a tsunami. Rhok had hurt her. He had tried to take her from him. Now he would have to pay.
For that, there would be no compromise. His head snapped back to the fight.
On the battlefield, Rhok clasped both hands into a steel-like ball and slammed them down onto the lioness Wildren.
The final blow sent her and the floor beneath her collapsing. Frain fell through the roof and slammed onto her back, rolling in pain.
“Awww…” She squeezed her eyes shut, unable to move freely.
The wind blew gently as Rhok stood with his back turned toward Zetius. He looked at his palm and the surging power coursing through his veins. This profound sense of strength felt new to him, better than any Armatus he piloted.
“D’Arcane,” Zetius muttered. He fell into a basic stance, one side leading, his fingers arcing with lightning.
The lingered pain from a prior training ignored.
“Correct,” Rhok replied, his voice a low murmur that barely carried over the howling wind. His gaze drifted past Zetius, becoming distant as he stared at the grand spectacle of destruction he had orchestrated.
The two merged battlecruisers, now a single, grotesque monument to his betrayal, struggled to defy gravity. Against this backdrop of fire and ruin, a desperate exodus was underway. Tiny escape pods and shuttles streamed away from the dying battlecruisers, their escape accompanied by the sounds of groaning metal and distant explosions.
“You couldn’t have used it yourself. It must be my former master, Ignius,” Zetius hypothesised, circling his foe warily.
“How perceptive of you, Zetius,” Rhok muttered. “Well, I need to finish what I’ve started.”
Rhok then dropped through the hole that Frain had fallen through.
Zetius hissed air and jumped into the opening. He hurried and landed on the floor, only to find Rhok already there, catching her. His fingers yanked on Frain’s dark blonde hair.
“You…” Zetius bared his teeth.