[???]
From her elevated perch atop a fragmented outcropping of stone, Victoria stood with her arms folded and her hair billowing gently in the wind. Mana residue fell in the atmosphere, remnants of every violent clash between Fiona and the towering magitech—Alpha.
She simply watched and her eyes missed nothing. Every evasive twist of Fiona's form. Every swing of Alpha's shifting limbs—now blades, now cannons, now something more abstract.
A thought stirred in the back of her mind.
("Fiona's handling herself well… for now.")
The Solkari girl was dodging the onslaught, with newly acquired instincts—her enhanced ruin-wolf form more than proving its utility. But Victoria's expression remained unreadable. Her gaze was already set beyond.
("It's only a matter of time before Alpha recalibrates… that construct was no doubt designed to respond, to adjust, to learn. Its database is constantly expanding. Every dodge Fiona makes is another variable the machine will learn to counter.")
She exhaled slowly through her nose, her advice to Fiona had not been offered in hope of victory. It was a tactic of preservation. A means to hold the line longer. Copying the passive ability of the ruin wolf—having Fiona embody that breed of Astrothian through the Divine Relic—was not about enhancing strength, it was about outlasting.
("So long as she stays in that form… her endurance will outlast what she could otherwise manage.")
But even so…
("Fiona isn't the ideal combatant for this kind of engagement.")
Not because she was weak. Far from it. Victoria's fingers tapped once against her armored forearm, a rare sign of restless thought.
The girl—barely a month into synchronization with the Divine Relic of the Beast God—had already attained an almost unnatural harmony with it. Her ability to slip between forms, her compatibility with beast-aspect manifestations… it was all evolving at a rate rarely saw, even among prodigies.
With proper guidance and practice, Fiona could very well rise to the upper echelon of combatants.
Even so there was something else. A fracture in her movements. A tension in her breathing. An inconsistency in her choices. A hesitation before every counterattack that lasted no more than a heartbeat, but always returned.
It wasn't fear.
It was rage.
And that, Victoria understood far too well.
("It's not that she lacks strength. No—she's overflowing with it. But Fiona carries a vendetta in her blood. A personal one.")
Her gaze sharpened as Alpha unleashed a flurry of sweeping slashes, its blades carving through air and stone alike. Fiona barely managed to vault over the third, landing with a roll.
Every time Fiona's gaze locked with Alpha's, the air felt like it would boil, it was personal.
A rage burned within the girl's body—an almost primitive need to rip the machine apart piece by piece, metal shard by shard, until the pilot inside, Anuran, was torn screaming from her cockpit. And even then, Victoria doubted that would be enough to sate Fiona's desire.
("But it's understandable… after what happened… so long ago.") She said no more on that thought. The memory remained sealed. But then something else surfaced.
A deeper observation.
("No. Fiona says she hates magitech. But I've been watching. That hatred… isn't as simple as she lets on.")
Despite her thoughts, Victoria knew there was something more complex underneath. Something less about the tools of war and more about the philosophy behind them.
("If I had to wager… Fiona's hatred isn't for the machines themselves. It's for the idea behind them. The coldness. The programming. The void where empathy should be. Magitech doesn't hesitate. It doesn't reflect. It doesn't regret.")
She looked toward Alpha.
("It kills not because it hates. But because it's told to. Because it was built to.")
And that, perhaps, was what Fiona could not understand.
("To her… that's unforgivable.")
She, herself, could not truly relate. Her mind saw the logic behind Alpha, behind all magitech. They were weapons forged with purpose—reflections of the will of mortals who designed them. Efficient, cold and precise.
("They are machines… created by the hands of men. Nothing more.")
So what right had they to claim mercy or malice?
She glanced again at Fiona, who now stood, chest rising and falling with anger, her runes glowing ever brighter as Alpha reoriented itself, preparing for another assault.
Victoria's expression softened.
Just a little.
("Perhaps… that's where Fiona and I will always differ.")
And though that divide stood strong between them, she could not deny what she saw before her now. Not as a tactician. But as someone watching a girl fight a demon of her past.
"…Then let's hope you can keep your rage in place, Fiona," she said softly, watching the battle below. "Because if you lose yourself now… this thing will not just kill you. It will strip away everything humane left inside."
-------------------
Fiona's muscles tensed once more—shoulders square, legs bent, every tendon ready. Her breath steamed out in sharp bursts. Alpha stood across from her, as ready as she was.
Then a click rang out.
A mechanical shift—one Fiona felt more than heard. Twin hatches on Alpha's shoulders snapped open, and from within, two massive mana-charged cannons emerged.
Fiona's ears flattened.
"Here comes the appetizer," came Anuran's voice—smug and self-assured. "Do try not to burn too quickly, little wolf. I've barely even started to enjoy myself."
The sound of energy building surged, collapsing into themselves—then the cannons fired in a volley. Blistering bolts of condensed force erupted in waves, each one howling through the air, crashing forward.
Fiona's knees exploded with mana as she launched herself to the right, twisting mid-air into a horizontal spin just before a blast tore through the space she'd occupied a split second before. Dirt erupted into the sky. The shockwave alone rattled her bones.
But she landed—sabatons skidding across shattered stone. Runes on her gauntlets surged with power as she propelled herself into another motion, leaping upward just as three more bolts collided behind her, the blast pressure shoving her forward in mid-air—
And then she flipped.
She flipped into a dive, one hand brushing the ground before she kicked off again, narrowly slipping between two overlapping blasts that detonated.
Alpha was already moving.
With a howl of turbines and a burst of force from the back-mounted boosters, the entire mech lunged forward—shoulders first, arms morphing with a metallic squelch as the bladed appendages reshaped themselves mid-motion.
Anuran's voice echoed again—closer now.
"Come now, don't run. Show me what you are truly made of!"
Fiona gritted her teeth as she pivoted low, ducking beneath a diagonal slash meant to sever her from hip to shoulder. She twisted, pushing off the flat of the blade with one palm as it screamed past, launching herself into a somersault through Alpha's blind spot—but a second blade was already there, spinning in from the flank.
Her eyes widened—barely enough time.
Her foot slammed against a broken boulder embedded in the earth, using it as a launchpad. She vaulted straight over the incoming blade—but not cleanly. The outer edge caught her greaves, slicing a shallow gash across the armor. Sparks and blood sprayed into the air.
Pain lanced up her leg—but she didn't falter.
She landed, staggered, and caught herself on all fours, panting hard. Her body screamed for reprieve, but the runes glowed brighter now—feeding her. Pushing her forward.
"You're agile," Anuran mused. "I could watch this dance for hours. The way you squirm—there's a kind of elegance to it."
Fiona rose slowly, her arms trembling but her eyes burning.
Anuran continued.
"Such emotion in your movement. So wild, so angry. And that form you've taken—it's beautiful, in its own way. Blackened hair, sharpened fangs… you look more like an obedient little pet than a warrior."
A pause.
Then a grin in her voice.
"Perhaps once I've carved through your armor and broken your limbs, I'll keep you leashed, caged, studied and played with, closely."
Fiona's expression darkened.
She didn't answer with words.
The ground shattered beneath her as she sprinted forward, teeth bared, claws extended from her gauntlets. Alpha meanwhile raised both bladed arms, bringing them down in an X-shaped cleave meant to eviscerate her—
But Fiona slid between them.
Her knees scraped across stone. Sparks erupted from her armor. The pressure from the descending blades threatened to crush her body outright—but she forced herself forward through the roar, then spun, rising with a crescent slash of her own claws that collided with the underside of Alpha's arm.
The screech of metal filled the air.
A shallow dent. Barely anything. But it was something. Fiona leapt back, panting again. Her eyes met the mechanical monster's red optics.
Then, softly, through gritted teeth—
"I hate you."
The words were quiet.
"I hate everything about you—your shape, your sound, your breathless, mindless obedience to whatever orders you're given."
Alpha didn't reply.
But Anuran did.
"Oh, but you don't hate me," she said sweetly. "You're afraid of me. There's a difference. And that fear—it's delicious."
Fiona spat blood, then smiled—a slow, feral thing.
"I don't fear you," she said, voice ragged. "I pity you. You sit inside that thing like it makes you a God. But it doesn't. It's a shell—a coffin—and soon, when I'm tearing it open, you'll feel the difference between power and soul."
Anuran's laugh echoed.
"Such poetry for someone about to die."
"Keep talking," Fiona growled. "Maybe I'll forget how disgusting you sound."
Fiona inhaled deeply, the runes carved across her body began to ignite, one after another—glowing lines of blue, braided across her limbs, her back and her neck. The glow spread like wildfire through her armor, pulsing with mana. The aura around her expanded, exploding outward in a force of bright cerulean light, searing the ground beneath her.
"I'm done listening to your voice, Von Auerswald."
And in the blink of an eye—
—she vanished.
To the naked eye, it looked like she simply disappeared.
To Alpha's sensors, there was a momentary distortion in space—an overload of light, a spike of mana—then silence.
But Fiona was already near.
The air ripped apart in her way. She was no longer running—she was tearing through the air. A blue comet streaked toward Alpha with a shriek. The speed of her charge created a shockwave that split the earth open in a trail behind her.
Anuran's sensors locked on—too slow.
Fiona arrived and with a roar, she slammed her clawed gauntlet into Alpha's right forearm—through the steel—through the reinforced plating—through the shielding. Mana exploded outward in an azure burst, and with a metallic shriek, Alpha's entire right arm was torn clean from its socket.
Sparks rained from the clash.
The massive limb crashed to the side, still twitching from residual mana.
Inside the cockpit, Anuran winced slightly, blinking as alarms flared red across her interface—but her face remained calm.
"I wondered when you'd stop playing puppy and finally start biting," she said smoothly. "But your problem is always the same. You lead with emotion."
Fiona, still mid-air, turned toward Alpha's main body to lunge again—but she missed something. A sudden, sharp, mechanical hiss from Alpha's remaining arm. It transformed—not into a standard blade this time, but into a spring-loaded pike, built with a fold of segmented alloy pieces that shot forward with lightning speed. It didn't move like the rest of Alpha. This piece was newer and faster.
"Got you," Anuran whispered.
The blade screamed forward and pierced through Fiona's right side—deeply. There was no time to dodge, a sickening crack of rib on metal.
Fiona's eyes widened, her breath lost in an instant as the force of the thrust hurled her like a missile. She sailed backwards, body limp mid-flight, blood spraying in an arc as she crashed into the remains of a ruined column. The stone cracked violently, toppling under the collision. Dust erupted as the stone shattered.
And Fiona lay motionless.
Silence—then laughter.
"Oh, little wolf," Anuran cooed from within Alpha's chassis. "Was that it? All that barking and only one real bite?" A pause. "You disappoint me."
Inside the rubble, Fiona groaned.
Her claws twitched as one eye fluttered open—bloodied.
She clenched her jaw as agony surged through her ribs. Her side was on fire. The blade hadn't just pierced—it ruined her. Bone was cracked, muscle torn. She could feel blood pooling beneath her armor. She coughed once, wet and sharp.
Her vision spun—but she held on. Because pain was nothing compared to what she remembered. Nothing compared to why she hated magitech. From her shattered vantage point, Fiona glared at the hulking silhouette of Alpha through the smoke, and her thoughts screamed with venom:
("Cold. Unfeeling. Unregretful. Like the ones that—")
No.
Not now.
She pulled herself upright, hands trembling, blood dripping from her gauntlets. Her blue aura flickered—but began to stabilize.
The runes across her chest glowed brighter. And softly—half-whispered, half-growled, through clenched teeth:
"I'm not done."