“Merith?” Octavia called out, her voice tinged with concern as she peered disbelievingly at the unremarkable patch of wall that Merith had disappeared through.

“I’m right here, dumbass,” Merith called back sharply. Her voice definitely sounded like it was right where she had been before, but the wall remained unchanged and Octavia couldn’t see any signs of the alari pilot.

Frowning slightly behind her helmet, Octavia crossed the room as quickly as her paws could carry her until she was standing directly in front of the corner where Merith had disappeared. Nothing about the wall stood out, and Octavia even had a difficult time telling that it actually was the section of the wall that Merith had phased through. She reached out curiously and pressed her hand against the wall, only to recoil slightly in surprise when she found that the wall was in fact solid to the touch. Reaching back out she pressed her hand flat against the wall and left it there, pressing some of her body weight into it.

“Uh, what’cha doing, Octavia?” Merith asked, her voice loud enough that Octavia could swear she was standing less than five feet away from the pilot.

“There’s a wall here, Merith,” Octavia replied, pressing further against the wall for emphasis. She leaned as far forward on her paws as she could, pressing her full body weight against the wall to no avail. The wall was most definitely solid, and nothing about it suggested otherwise.

“To me it looks like you’re leaning on nothing,” Merith remarked, her voice tinged with annoyance, “You’re just defying gravity in front of me.”

Movement to her side alerted Octavia to the approach of the rest of the team, including Remiel and Cody. All eyes were on her as she leaned against the wall, and without anything else to go off of, Octavia pushed away from the wall and stepped to the side to make room for the rest of her team. Cody stepped up to the section of the wall and raised a hand to his chin as his visage shifted into a look of curious focus.

“Miss Kelro, I believe you have stumbled upon a facet of Curator architecture that we’ve only seen in the few ruins of their civilization that survived the destruction of their homeworld,” the analyst declared, a rush of excitement filling his voice as his face lit up, “Their psionic energy was powerful enough that they could lace their constructions with it to create passageways that could only be accessed by psionic beings. It was a way to keep ‘lesser’ creatures out of their most important and exclusive locations.”

“So, a psionic doorway?” B’roka rumbled, crossing his arms in front of his chest as he peered at the wall.

“Precisely,” Cody declared with a nod, lowering his hand as a grin spread across his features, “And it appears that Miss Kelro has enough psionic power to access these architectural features, which is no small feat!”

“Flight Officer Kelro, what do you see in there?” B’roka called out loud enough for Octavia to recoil slightly in pain.

“Sir, I’m right here, there’s no need to yell,” Merith insisted with a deadpan voice, an annoyed sigh escaping her.

“Apologies,” B’roka replied quickly, his volume significantly reduced. Octavia couldn’t read his bioluminescence, but she got the lingering sensation that if there was a ryjax equivalent of blushing she would see it on full display at that moment.

“It’s just a hallway,” Merith continued after a pause, “I can see a set of stairs leading down a few feet away. Can’t tell what’s beyond that.”

“If the Curators were psionics, would Flight Officer Kelro be able to access the rest of their devices? Say, a control panel of some sorts for that door?” B’roka asked, turning his head towards Cody pointedly.

“Hypothetically, yes!” Cody exclaimed with a nod, “There is no guarantee that she will be able to understand their devices enough to access them, but as a powerful psionic herself Miss Kelro has a much better chance than any of us do.”

“A hypothetical way out is good enough for me,” B’roka declared with a nod. He turned his head back towards the psionic doorway, “Flight Officer Kelro, your orders are to proceed through the tunnel. You must find a control panel or a computer, anything that might give you access to the door blocking our way forward. We need to get into the rest of the facility within the next few minutes, otherwise the Omni will be on us in full force.”

“Roger that, sir,” Merith replied shortly, “I’ll reach out telepathically when I have news,” she declared.

“Minuteman Kelly, Minuteman Jones, take what’s left of the explosive packs and set them up around the entrance of the trophy room. Walls and ceiling, we’re looking for a cave-in blast here,” the Lieutenant declared, turning his attention towards Octavia, “In the meantime, Guardian Tiberius, I need your hands.”

“Do my best, L-T,” Alex declared with a nod, saluting with her metal hand and a determined expression.

“You read my mind, boss,” Jace remarked wearily, holding himself up with a hand on a nearby pedestal as he clicked his free hand into a finger gun. The two Minutemen strode off towards the entrance with Jace’s arm around Alex’s shoulders for support, a quiet conversation beginning between the two wounded humans.

As Octavia watched the humans depart, she noticed B’roka stride out of her field of view, drawing her attention towards him. She jogged a few steps to catch up with him, falling into stride behind his heavy footfalls as he made his way towards the center of the room where the surviving gear had been deposited around Jace’s bloodstain. Her eyes fell onto the pool of blood and she couldn’t help herself from running the calculations.

“He’s not going to make it,” Mack declared flatly, her voice dry as she relayed the results.

“We don’t know for sure,” Vita defended, though there was no hope in her tone.

“We do,” Mack retorted, “He’s lost too much blood and you know it. If there’s one thing I’ve learned living in your head is that the math doesn’t lie.”

Octavia let out a quiet sigh. Mack was right, of course. Jace was being held together by foam and chemical stimulants, and even if the Longsword hadn’t crashed they still wouldn’t be able to get him to a medical facility in time. She glanced off towards the two humans as remorse bled through her mind. Her heart broke for Alex.

“Guardian Tiberius,” B’roka snapped loud enough to break her out of her reverie, turning her attention towards the Lieutenant in a brief start, “Help me with this.”

In his rocky hands was a large metal plate with four handles on it. He held it out towards her while gripping two of the handles, waiting for her to grip them. She nodded and grabbed the handles offered towards her and pulled, followed by the sound of creaking metal. The plates extended slowly with their combined effort, sliding outwards until they were fully extended into a chest-high armored wall.

Holding the heavy armor plating between them, they guided it down to the ground between two of the pedestals and slowly shifted it into place an inch at a time. Fitting the armored plating snugly between the two stone pillars, Octavia gave it the final push to lock it into place before letting go of the handles and straightening up. From the defensive position they had a perfect view down the entrance hallway, all the way to the bottom of the stairs located there.

“Guardian Tiberius, whether or not we get through this, I want you to know that it has been an honor working alongside you,” the Lieutenant suddenly declared as he hoisted his bag off of his back and took a knee behind the armored wall, sorting through his belongings hastily.

“The honor has been mine, sir,” Octavia replied immediately, only to trail off for a brief moment, “Do you really think this is it for us?”

“I have been fighting the Omni for the entire fifty years that they’ve been engaging us, Guardian Tiberius. And before that it was the Hazar Swarm. Before that it was the Separatist Union,” B’roka remarked as he began to hastily disassemble his rifle, swapping out the parts for heavier variants as quickly as his bulky hands could allow, “I have been fighting long enough to know an unwinnable situation when I see it.”

“So what do you suggest we do, sir?” Octavia asked with a frown, her heart falling slightly at his admittance.

There was a tense pause as B’roka stopped his work for the briefest moment to consider his response carefully. Finally his voice broke the tension like a spring under too much pressure, “I suggest we fight, Octavia,” the Lieutenant replied firmly, turning his head up to look at her as he twisted the final piece back into place, “I suggest that we die with some dignity and hope that someone will remember us after we’re gone.”

A distant rumble caught Octavia’s attention, causing her to turn towards the hallway they were facing. Alex and Jace were visible at the end of the hall rigging the narrow passageway with explosives, but the sound hadn’t come from them. They paused their work and turned their attention to the side beyond Octavia’s view, looking up the stairs with concerned looks for the briefest of moments before they set to work on finishing placing the explosives.

“They’re here,” Octavia remarked quietly.

“They are,” B’roka replied as he shifted to the center of the armored panel. He hoisted his modular light machine gun up to the top of the armored wall and braced it there, setting the stock against his shoulder as he lowered his head to gaze down the sights, “I will hold this position for as long as I can. Cover me between magazines. If I fall, take over.”

“Yes, sir,” Octavia replied sharply. She had to admit that she had a newfound respect for the Lieutenant; even in the face of certain death he placed his duty first. In that moment she understood why he had been in charge of the Longsword crew for as long as he had been.

Jace and Alex came limping down the hallway as quickly as they could in their weakened state, breaking into the trophy room with wide eyes and terrified expressions. Jace gestured over his shoulder with a thumb, “Hallway’s rigged to blow, boss!”

“Bring me the detonator, then take cover in the rear of the room,” B’roka instructed firmly, holding out his offhand over the armored wall.

Jace and Alex limped their way over until they were close enough that Jace could pass off the cylindrical device into B’roka’s waiting hand. Then without another word they disappeared past the wall and began making their way to the back of the room, keeping their arms around one another for support. Octavia glanced behind herself and caught sight of Remiel and Cody, also standing near the back of the room as they watched the repositioning.

Octavia frowned slightly at a realization; Remiel wasn’t reaching for her gun. She was standing in the back of the room with Cody with no intention of aiding the defense. There was a sidearm at her hip that she assumed Remiel was perfectly capable of handling, and yet she stood off in the corner with her arms crossed and an expression that suggested she had just sucked on a lemon.

She was snapped out of her reverie by movement in her peripheral vision. Octavia snapped her head to the side to identify the movement and was surprised to find Jace kneeling down on B’roka’s opposite side with Alex’s rifle cradled in his hands. With his deathly pale white skin stained dark red with blood and a determined look of fury on his features, he reminded Octavia of a vengeful specter in the eerie blue light of the facility around them.

“Minuteman Kelly?” B’roka asked curiously, turning his head briefly to glance at the human.

“Really think I’d let you have all the fun with the clankers by yourself?” Jace asked with a lopsided smirk. He raised Alex’s rifle and braced it against the top of the armored wall, closing one eye as he sighted down the hallway, “Like hell, boss.”

“Glad to have you, Jace,” Octavia added. She reached down for her sidearm and slid it off of its magstrip, keying the safety off. The plasma pistol vibrated briefly in her hands, reassuring her that it had recharged since it was last depleted. Satisfied, Octavia took a knee next to her two comrades and raised her pistol into a readied position, training her retinal sights down the hallway.

The next few moments of silence stretched for an eternity. In the distance she could hear the steady rhythm of metal impacting stone as the Seraphim raced down the stairs towards their position. Even with her steadily burning supply of adrenaline, Octavia’s heart began to race, her stomach tying itself into a knot as she stared out into the blue darkness at the end of the hallway. Her head throbbed, the sound of blood rushing through her ears deafened her, her vision tunneled until all she could see was the digital crosshairs in her retinal display.

Then the room exploded.

Octavia was immediately deafened as B’roka’s machine gun began to belch lead down the hallway, the muzzle flash partially blinding her in the dim light of the room. The deafening roar of the gun echoed within the tight confines of the facility, bringing Octavia no small degree of pain until finally her ears failed to process further noise and a steady droning sound overwhelmed her auditory perception. She could still see the steady flashes of bright light emanating from the muzzle of B’roka’s rifle, but the sound had faded into a barely perceptible thrumming hidden somewhere behind the level tone of the droning in her ears.

The Lieutenant held his finger down on the trigger in defiance as the rifle rattled and shuddered on top of its braced position, shell casings clattering to the ground around him as he expelled his weapon’s payload. He wasn’t relying on short, controlled bursts, he was letting the Omni have it with no holds barred. The machine gun was a tool of death in his experienced hands, and he had admitted himself that this was to be a last stand that he could be proud of. Despite her racing heart and the pain in her head, Octavia almost felt sorry for the Omni at the end of the bottleneck.

B’roka’s machine gun rattled empty, a mechanical clicking sound barely scratching at the edges of Octavia’s periphery as the receiver searched for ammunition that wasn’t there. Octavia acted on instinct, raising herself enough to peer over the armored wall as she raised her pistol and began to fire. Lances of purple plasma lit up the hallway as they raced towards the Omni she still couldn’t see, filling the end of the hallway with a thin purple mist of dissipated plasma as the bolts impacted the walls and floor. On B’roka’s other side, Jace was doing the same with his rifle, firing off short controlled bursts while the Lieutenant scrambled to reload.

As Octavia fired bolt after bolt of superheated plasma at the machines on the far end of the hallway, she couldn’t help but notice a faint tickling at the corner of her mind. The same vague probing she often felt when Mack was trying to access a new program, except it lacked the gentleness that Mack exhibited while she was poking around within Octavia’s mind. She didn’t have long to contemplate the sensation before her world slowed down to a painful crawl as a bright red warning splashed across her retinal display.

Quarantine breached.

Octavia’s world instantly melted around her as she was dragged out of the physical world into the digital one, yanked squarely out of her body as if someone had grabbed her by the back of the neck and pulled as hard as they could. She was hit with an overwhelming sense of nausea and disorientation as her mind was forcibly torn out of its housing and effortlessly tossed onto the hardwood floor of her digital mind palace. The transition was painful, leaving her feeling sick and out of place as an overwhelming sensation of wrongness washed over her as though she were doused in boiling hot water.

The room was cast in a horrifying red light that reminded her of the maddening shade of crimson that Oculus cast upon its ring. Beyond the windows of her mind the sky was red and the environment was shaking as if a great earthquake were ripping through her little world. Fixtures and miscellaneous items rattled and fell to the floor, filling her mind with a dizzying array of sounds and sensations that overwhelmed her into a horrifying paralysis. She found she couldn’t move from her prone position on the floor of her living room as the world around her shook itself apart.

“Octavia!” Vita screamed from the edges of her periphery, the sharpness and clarity of the sound painful to her ears as the droning was instantly left behind with her body.

The sound drew Octavia’s attention up from the wooden floor she was resting on and found that Vita was tumbling through the air, leaping from the second floor balcony to the living room below. In the hallway behind her was a single Omni Seraph, its enormous body taking up the entire width and height of the passageway it was emerging from. Its wings were tucked up behind it, bobbing slightly with each step as it methodically pursued Vita.

As the Seraph stepped out of the hallway, its wings spread out to their full majestic width behind it, taking up the entirety of the second floor balcony as it stretched to its full height. The beautiful white machine peered into the living room as its V-shaped sensor strip scanned the environment. The pure white running lights throughout its body were the only source of white light in the horrifying red hellscape Octavia’s mind had become, drawing her full attention towards the mythic being.

“Hello again, little dancer,” a familiarly stunning female voice rang through the room, her words taking up the entire atmosphere of Octavia’s mind as if she alone could control Octavia’s digital mind space, “And thus, the next act of our ballet begins.”

Vita scrambled across the room and bent over, grabbing Octavia’s bare hand in her own while she wrapped an arm around Octavia’s shoulders to pull her to her paws. They stood up awkwardly, trying their best to keep their balance as the cabin shook violently around them. A lamp fell off a nearby table, shattering on the ground with an impossibly deafening crash that made Octavia want to lay back down and cry.

“It’s the Omni comms! She’s hacking through it!” Vita informed breathlessly, her wide eyes turning towards the Seraph in uncontained horror.

“You left a backdoor for me, little dancer. Surely you knew you were asking me for this dance,” the Seraph proclaimed as she stepped to the railing of the balcony, her bell-like voice the only thing in Octavia’s mind that wasn’t causing her distress in that moment. The Seraph was a beacon of calm and control in the tumultuous sea of chaos boiling within Octavia’s mind.

“Get her back in quarantine!” Octavia insisted in a panic, raising her hands in front of her as she focused on the digital world around her. Vita caught on and brought her hands up as well, a look of focus crossing her features.

The railing in front of the Seraph suddenly shifted, changing into a log wall that matched the other walls around it. It extended and morphed impossibly, twisting around the end of the hallway to trap the Seraph and prevent her from accessing anything else in her mind. All the while Octavia set to work on re-quarantining the hostile program, trying her best to re-write the protocol she had in the first place.

As she searched through the digital workings of her mind, a horrific realization slapped her in the face with all the subtlety of a brick. She couldn’t formulate words for it, but the primal horror she felt upon feeling the Omni code stretching through her mind filled her with a dread she could never properly explain. Her eyes went wide a split second before the Seraph’s fist slammed through the log wall effortlessly, turning the wall into an explosion of pathetic splinters around its immense strength.

“It is not your place to lead in this ballet, my dear,” the Seraph declared without a single ounce of hostility in her voice. She withdrew her fist back through the hole in the wall and a painfully beautiful ring of laughter escaped the Seraph within the meager constraints that Octavia could erect, “Yours is to follow.”

With that, the Omni burst bodily through the wall in a horrifying display of superiority, the entire second floor wall that Octavia had hastily built turning into a blinding explosion of deadly wooden shrapnel and brilliant white light. The Omni hovered in the middle of Octavia’s mind, her wings stretched over the opening above the living room as she peered down on Octavia and Vita as only the infinite may peer upon the finite. With her perfect arms extended on either side of her in a display of her glory, Octavia realized she had never quarantined the Omni program in the first place.

They had merely let her think that.

As the Omni probes dug deeper into her mind, Octavia felt an increasing sense of powerlessness in front of the horrifying display of prowess that existed before her. The Seraph had dominated her mind effortlessly and was destroying her mind palace as if she were the one who had constructed it in the first place. She felt as her entire life was laid bare before the immortal being to be judged, every single one of her memories was violated and bared before the Seraph invading her very being.

“Your mother, killed by her sister,” the Seraph mused, her voice shifting into a painfully empathetic voice, the overwhelming tone of which made Octavia want to cry, “And you, placed in cryosleep for one hundred years. All of your peers ascended to godhood. Cast into the world by your mother’s murderer as a pawn in her game. And love,” she mused sweetly, her sickeningly honeyed voice making Octavia’s ears ache and eyes well up with tears.

Octavia’s instincts were screaming at her to submit; to fall to her knees and beg for forgiveness, to plead the Seraph to teach her the secrets of the universe and show her the Truth. It took every ounce of her willpower, every single fiber of determination she could bring to bear to speak out against the Seraph, “What have you done with Mack?” Octavia demanded sharply.

“Mack,” the Seraph practically purred, the reverberating sound sending an electrifying sensation through Octavia’s mind that made her want to giggle and squeal, forcing her to focus on keeping her composure as the Seraph spoke once again, “Your mate, your lover, your toy. A digital copy of someone who once existed but now no longer.”

Bringing her hands in front of her, the air in front of the Seraph flashed and suddenly she was holding Mack by the back of the neck. The human looked unharmed, but a shocked expression on her features suggested that she had absolutely no idea what was going on. She didn’t struggle against the Seraph’s grip, but when she caught sight of Octavia and Vita she instantly stretched her hands down towards them and called out, “Octy! Vi! Help!”

“Mack!” Octavia and Vita screamed out at the same time, the both of them stepping forwards with wide eyes as they gazed upon the visage of their girlfriend. A foreign sensation stopped them in their tracks, their minds demanding that they rush to Mack’s aid, but their mental bodies refusing to follow their desires.

“So obsessed with her love and acceptance, you keep her here even to your own detriment,” the Seraph mused in a delightfully thoughtful tone, her beautiful voice shifting into one of curiosity, “I too have experienced love such as that. The love for Her is all-encompassing, all-consuming, and all-important. When you love someone so much that you would gladly suffer for them, you tread the path of the Truth.”

“Let her go, you monster!” Octavia exclaimed sharp enough to make her voice turn hoarse, her mind straining against the Seraph’s influence to try and reach Mack with single minded determination, “I’ll kill you if you hurt her!”

“Hurt her?” the Seraph exclaimed in surprise, her voice shifting as if the very thought were deplorable, “I would never. But you would,” the Seraph added with a knowing tone. Octavia suddenly felt like a child again, the Seraph’s tone reminding her of the chastising voice of her mother whenever she would get in trouble as a youth, “By keeping her here, you are destroying yourself. You have been warned of such. You know it. And yet you refuse to let go.”

Octavia’s defiance choked to death before she could utter another word. She felt her throat tightening up and her stomach twisting within her, nausea welling up within her body as the Seraph presented her with the truth. The immortal machine was right, of course, she always was. She had been warned multiple times that overclocking would kill her just as surely as being shot in the head. And yet she hadn’t stopped herself at any point. She doubted that she ever would, given the chance.

“And what would become of her when you’re completely consumed?” the Seraph continued unabated, refusing to let up on her assault against Octavia’s resistance, “She would be left with fragments of your shattered mind in a body that doesn’t belong to her. You would condemn her to a cursed existence with only your memories to remember you by. An eternal limbo of your own making, thrust upon her without an ounce of consent.”

“But at least she would be alive!” Octavia defended indignantly, though her heart wasn’t in it. Even if she couldn’t admit it, she knew that the Seraph was right and she could feel it within her very core.

“At what cost?” the Seraph retorted simply, her words like a slap to Octavia’s face.

“I can’t just let her go,” Octavia replied defeatedly, her shoulders deflating as she slumped within the digital paralysis the Omni had shackled her with.

“Nor would I ever ask you to,” the Seraph remarked warmly, “Such cruelty is unnecessary,” she reassured, the tone bringing a foreign sensation of hope to Octavia’s broken mind.

“Then what?” Vita asked in a quiet tone, gazing upon the Seraph with a sorrowful look.

“We will take her,” the Seraph replied calmly, “And we will return her to you whole, as a gift from the benevolence of the Alpha Link,” she explained, gesturing elegantly with her free hand to the captive human avatar in front of her, “All we ask is your cooperation.”

“I can’t betray my friends,” Octavia defended, but once again she found that there was no real resistance in her voice. The words escaped her before she could even think about it, but she found that her only concerns in the matter were the lives of her friends themselves, not the Federation that they stood for.

“Nor would we ask you to,” the Seraph replied calmly, “But we share a common enemy here. You have experienced the suspicions yourself, you are already on the path to uncover the Truth.”

“Remiel,” Octavia muttered with a slight frown, her gaze finally shifting away from Mack and the Seraph to look at the ground between her paws.

“Precisely,” the Seraph praised, her voice lifting into a reassuring tone like that of a mother or a teacher, “You have long suspected something to be amiss. As have others. And I am here to tell you that your suspicions are well founded.”

“So what would you have me do?” Octavia asked, raising her gaze up to the Seraph once again with trepidation in her heart.

“What you have always done,” the Seraph remarked pleasantly, “Seek the Truth, and act upon what is right. And when it is time to act, allow us to offer our assistance. Do so, and we will return your mate to you in a form which harms no one.”

Octavia tried to think, but her mind was already made up before the Seraph had even finished speaking. She couldn’t think of a single excuse as to why she shouldn’t accept the deal. Agent Remiel had been suspicious the entire time that Octavia had known her, and Operation Underdog was a flagrant insult to everything that the Federation and its constituents stood for. Her thoughts lingered on Enya and her family, the tribe that they were influencing and had almost killed in the search for the mysterious element.

It was all nonsense. If this is what it took to defeat the Omni, it wasn’t worth it.

“Okay,” Octavia whispered pathetically, nodding once, “I’ll do it,” she agreed in a quiet tone.

Instantly, as if awaking from a nightmare, Octavia’s mindscape snapped back into its regular appearance. The red sky was gone, the rumbling had ceased, and everything that had fallen off of their surfaces snapped back into their original positions in perfect health. The sensation of the Omni probing her mind began to recede until it had slunk back into the Omni communication’s program, safely tucked back away within the insufficient quarantine walls that Octavia had ignorantly believed would hold them. The wall she had erected to contain the Seraph morphed back into the railing which it had originally been, and a faint wave of perception washed over Octavia as everything returned to normal in an instant.

The Seraph slowly lowered herself to the ground, gracefully landing as her wings tucked in against her back. Its posture changed, relaxing into an approachable though still imposing stature. Mack was gently set down on her feet in front of the immortal machine, released for the moment. The human glanced back at the Seraph with wide eyes before turning and rushing across the repaired room to Octavia and Vita.

The two amaranthians immediately embraced her, taking Mack into their four arms as they buried their faces into Mack’s chest. Her familiar scent and warmth was relieving after the stresses of having her mind picked apart by the Seraph, the buzzing of nerves slowly washing away until all that remained was the comfort of the embrace and the familiarity of it all. Octavia’s heart slowed down, her mind calmed, and despite it all she felt as though all were right with the world.

“We must depart, Octavia,” the Seraph declared quietly, holding a hand outstretched towards the three of them, “It will not be for long. But we cannot stay.”

Mack pulled away from Octavia and Vita, looking at the two of them with a twisted expression that looked like she couldn’t quite settle on any one emotion. She eventually just sighed and offered a tired smile, “Here’s to another adventure, right?” the human prompted hopefully.

Octavia couldn’t contain the scoff of humorless laughter that escaped her, all the tension in her mind snapping and escaping her in the uneven laugh, “You could say that,” she replied awkwardly, the overwhelming sea of emotions crashing through her as she gazed up at Mack, “Are you going to be okay?”

“I guess we’ll find out,” Mack replied with a small shrug, “Are you sure you’re okay with this deal?” she asked with a faint edge of worry.

“I’m sure,” Octavia agreed with a single nod, “I can have you back permanently without overclocking, and all I have to do is figure out what Remiel is actually up to. If I’m not doing it for you, I owe it to Enya for saving me in the jungle.”

“Then you go play detective,” Mack replied reassuringly with a nod, reaching out to squeeze Octavia’s hand briefly, “Kick Remiel’s ass for me if you can,” she insisted with a smile.

“I will,” Octavia vowed. She leaned up on the tips of her paws and planted a soft kiss on the underside of Mack’s chin before pulling away with a soft sigh, “I love you.”

“I love you too,” Mack replied gently. She turned to the side and leaned in to press a kiss to the top of Vita’s head, then she pulled away and turned towards the Seraph who’s hand was still outstretched patiently.

“The world awaits,” the Seraph informed in a gentle tone, her bell-like voice setting Octavia’s nerves alight in what could only be described as eager anticipation.

“So it does,” Mack replied with a smirk. She stepped across the room and took the Seraph’s hand in her own, glancing over her shoulder towards the two amaranthians, “I’ll see you soon.”

With that, Octavia’s vision exploded into a blinding flash of white light, erasing everything from her perception as she was thrown fully back into her body. As she settled back within her own flesh and blood, she was surprised to find that she felt no pain, and her ears were no longer ringing. Her adrenaline had bled away and what was left was a sensation of clarity and sharpness that she hadn’t consciously experienced since before Destiny. The rising tide of awareness made Octavia feel vaguely sick, like her body needed to expel the events of the past several weeks of overclocking in one go, but she found that she couldn’t.

Her eyes opened to a nightmarish hellscape that made her digital mind palace look like a pleasant dream. She was suspended in the air, her paws a foot off the ground and her head limply dangling over her shoulder to give her a perfect view of the room. Lieutenant B’roka was holding her aloft by the center chestpiece of her armor, and the room behind him was an absolute mess, unrecognizable from the state she had left it in an unknown amount of time prior.

Omni Seraphim were rushing into the hallway with their rifles drawn, a storm of explosive needles racing into the half-destroyed room behind the Lieutenant. B’roka himself wasn’t looking too good, with entire sections of his stony form blown off leaving molten rock and acid burns in their wake. Half of his head was missing, giving Octavia a clear view of the quickly approaching Seraphim behind him. She was in the shadow of his body, protected from the storm of needles that were swarming towards them, but his body was the only thing between her and certain death.

An array of needles impacted his broad back, slamming into his center mass and digging in deeply. Yet the Lieutenant didn’t make a single sound of complaint. With little effort, he hefted Octavia and threw her away from him, sending her sailing through the narrow opening between the massive stone doors. She didn’t have time to gasp as she sailed through the air, only to slam into the ground heavily on the other side of the doors as the Lieutenant braced himself against the opening, gripping the doors with both of his hands as he began to strain against their immense weight.

Octavia barely had time to register that the Lieutenant was forcing the impossibly heavy stone doors closed with every ounce of strength that he had. The opening narrowed, bit by bit as more and more needles dug into his back and the surrounding area. He managed to close it to less than a foot of clearance before the first of the needles within his back ignited into miniature suns before her eyes.

The ryjax’s form exploded instantaneously, barely visible through the small opening between the doors. Octavia was frozen in terror as she watched B’roka’s form explode, leaving behind a small puddle of magma where the molten rock had dripped out of his body. As the thermite suns began to fade from her vision, she could finally see further into the room and felt her heart stop as she spied Jace tucked away behind what little was left of the melting armored wall they had set up mere moments ago.

Without any care of self preservation, Jace abandoned his rifle and leapt towards the door, landing on his stomach with a painful thud. Despite the proximity, he didn’t rush for the opening - instead he scrambled on his stomach across the floor until he reached something near B’roka’s last position. He grabbed at it and raised the item off of the ground with a sudden grin as if it were the most important trophy in the world.

He had grabbed the detonator.

Octavia locked eyes with Jace for the briefest of moments from her supine position. In the chaos of the battlefield in his room, everything calmed for a split second as Jace’s cocky grin shifted into a genuine, soft smile for the first time since she had known him. Then he pressed his thumb down on the trigger.

A deafening roar immediately raced through the room as an expanding fireball consumed the trophy room, the blastwave rushing through the small gap between the doors. Fire raced over Octavia’s supine form, causing her body to heat up from the exposure as the fireball raged and destroyed everything within the trophy room. The blast of fire continued to spew dangerously through the narrowed doorway until suddenly it cut off with a prominent thunk as the doors closed by themselves, cutting off the rest of the fireball from expanding into the room she suddenly found herself in.

Just like that, she was washed in silence and calmness once again. Her head fell back until her armored head impacted the stone floor beneath her, her vision turning upwards. She was treated to a view of a holographic blue planet slowly spinning above her, its many peaks and valleys oddly calming despite the multitude of hells she had somehow just escaped from.

“We made it,” Vita muttered quietly, the tension heavy in her voice.

“But we’re not done yet,” Octavia replied, her voice hardly above a whisper as she stared through the hologram at the ceiling, letting her mind catch up with everything that had just transpired within the quiet confines of her armor.