The sight of Quill’s demise left Aria rooted to the spot, scrambling to remember how to think or talk. Halcyon planted a foot on Quill’s body and pushed it off of the rod, letting it fall lifelessly to the cave floor.
At the same moment, the hacking program finished, and the last barrier fell. The Cosmic Shroud, a spiraling shape like a conch shell glittering faintly with Code, floated in place, now free for the taking.
“Sorry you had to see this, Aria. You’re dead either way, but it would’ve stung less if you died in ignorance.”
“Why? Master Quill did nothing to you!”
Halcyon tapped the Cosmic Shroud lightly. “For this. Do you have any idea how valuable the Shroud is? It’s wasted here, protecting some backwater colony. With this, you could wage a war on the whole galaxy, and nobody would ever find your base of operations. I’m going to give it to people who have better uses for it.”
“And who would that be?”
“Sorry. Even if you’re a walking corpse, I’m not giving you any names.”
Aria quietly sized Halcyon up. It was clearly far more powerful than it had claimed to be - that star over its head had to be a Controller, meaning it was at least Version 1.0 - but it was also badly damaged. Quill had taken one of its arms, caused serious damage to the rest of it, and Aria wouldn’t be surprised if its reactor was running on fumes. Would it be enough to bridge a gap of two Versions?
“I can guess what you’re thinking. Do I still have enough left in me to kill another Alpha? Why don’t you find out?”
Halcyon plucked the Cosmic Shroud out of position, attaching it to its belt. Faceplate flashing bright red with fury, Aria charged in. Far overhead, in low orbit over the planet, a human bigger than the entire temple cast its twenty-eight eyed gaze downwards.
Trebuchet had estimated that it and Baron were roughly equal in power. As their fight went on, it began to revise that estimate.
While they were the same Version, Baron was near the peak of Beta, nearly ready to upgrade. Trebuchet was closer to the middle of the pack, and the difference was felt most strongly in defense. Nearly all of Baron’s Code was spent reinforcing its armor, making it virtually indestructible. Nothing but a clean hit from Trebuchet’s trident would crack it, and getting that clean hit wouldn’t be easy.
Even with only light Code enhancement, Baron’s flail was a killer weapon. While Trebuchet needed a clean hit, even glancing blows from Baron were strong enough to deal lasting damage. Fortunately, Trebuchet was more nimble than it looked, and it was able to avoid most of Baron’s attacks, even if doing so meant it had precious few opportunities to hit back. Meteor was doing what it could, delivering palm strikes infused with Code whenever it could sneak close, but the gulf in power between them was simply too great. No matter what Meteor did, it couldn’t get past Baron’s armor, and Baron was starting to realize that it could just ignore Meteor completely, focusing all of its attention on Trebuchet.
It was becoming a long battle, with neither side able to land a decisive blow, but eventually, Baron got lucky. Its flail connected with Meteor, and the single blow sent it tumbling across the cave floor, landing in a heap. One of its legs snapped, and the spikes left several holes in its torso. It tried to get back to its feet, but the damaged leg couldn’t support its weight anymore.
Trebuchet jumped back out of range, both of the Betas taking a moment to stabilize their overheating reactors. It raised its trident, Code gathering into it in angular golden spirals. Baron had seen this technique once before - the Javelin Comet.
“Trying to bet on ending this in one move? I don’t hate it.”
Baron extended its hand away from Trebuchet, the flail flying backwards to extend as far as it could behind it. Code gathered in a haze, coalescing onto the flail head’s spikes, preparing the same technique it nearly used to kill Legacy.
One way or another, when they released their techniques, the fight would end.
As a student, Halcyon had revealed less than a quarter of its techniques. Rather than specifically focusing on cold, its Controller granted it general control over heat.
When Aria kept its distance, it had to contend with volleys of bolts so cold that they threatened to leave its body frozen and brittle even on a near miss. When Aria tried to get up close, it was fended off with a blindingly hot tungsten staff. Halcyon’s suite of techniques had no clear openings, overpowering Aria both at range and in melee. It couldn’t find any opportunities to take the offensive. Because of the gap in Version, a single hit from Halcyon would shatter limbs or worse.
The only thing keeping Aria alive was Halcyon’s damage and ego. The damage Quill had dealt it slowed down its attacks, and the energy it expended killing the teacher left its reactor straining to draw in more Code. Furthermore, Halcyon simply didn’t consider Aria to be a credible threat. No matter the circumstances, an Alpha beating a 1.0 was an absurd fantasy. On one hand, this meant that Halcyon wasn’t focusing on a swift kill, because it believed it couldn’t possibly lose. On the other hand, it was also more or less right.
The slightest of mistakes opened Aria up to a counterattack, and Halcyon took it. Its staff struck Aria in the hand, breaking it but also half-melting it. It wasn’t just hot, it was infused with a technique that channeled that heat instantly into anything it touched, leaving Aria’s left hand as a molten blob of fractured metal.
Aria took a few steps back, trying to find a safe balance between exposing itself to metal-melting heated strikes and shattering cold Code bolts. As the enormity of the wall standing in front of it dawned on Aria, a familiar voice whispered from its memory.
You aren’t a person.
Your value is measured in death.
Then, a different voice, one that it couldn’t quite place, sounded inside its mind.
I’ll protect you.
Halcyon mentally cursed Quill as it tried to stabilize its Code cycling. The blind machine had cracked its reactor with its last attack, and it had left the reactor gate flickering unpredictably. If it hadn’t been for that damage, it would have killed Aria easily.
When it finally scored a hit, it allowed itself to relax a bit. Against an opponent this weak, the damage from one hit would quickly compound, leading to more hits, and the fight would wrap up quickly. However, when Aria staggered clumsily out of reach, it did something that troubled Halcyon.
Aria’s faceplate went black, and it stopped moving completely. Halcyon almost thought it had had a fatal crash and shut down, but when it went to deal the killing blow, Aria dodged it by a millimeter. In the same motion, it countered with a blade of Code aimed at its reactor, which Halcyon only barely evaded in its surprise. When it jumped back, Aria immediately pursued with a volley of Dynamic Bolts, tracing complex pre-programmed paths through the air towards it, not letting Halcyon rest for a moment.
It was as if it was fighting a completely different person. This new Aria made no unnecessary movements, and showed no fear of death. Every single attack it made was aimed at the head or the reactor. The overeager novice had been replaced with a silent machine focused solely on killing its target.
Ultimately, though, no amount of skill or efficiency would be enough to make up a two-Version gap. Halcyon believed this with absolute certainty.
Halcyon went on the defensive for a minute, stopping its attack and focusing entirely on blocking or evading Aria’s techniques. Most of them were too weak to damage it, so it could ignore those ones. The remaining attacks that were still dangerous were too slow to hit it, so it could avoid those ones. It just had to be patient and careful.
Eventually, Halcyon saw its chance, and delivered a short-range spear of cold that Aria couldn’t avoid, even with perfect reaction speed. The attack cut a whole slice out of its side, piercing cold seeping into its internal modules. Rather than fall back, though, Aria made a simultaneous stab at Halcyon’s face with a Code blade. It twisted to dodge, but still took a painful cut along the side of its head. It felt like an impossibility that this Alpha had damaged it, but outrage over that wouldn’t help it now, so it accepted the hit and pushed forward, aiming to end the fight before it got further out of hand.
Halcyon thrusted with its staff with lightning speed and force, striking Aria square in the chest at full power.
