The Titan's heartbeat was a war drum.
Kael's new form towered over the Rustbucket's ruins, his thirty-foot frame a grotesque fusion of biometal and flesh. The Eclipse Core blazed in his chest, its light searing through the mining station's shattered hull. Every nerve screamed—not with pain, but with *hunger*. The Sovereign's nanites pulsed in his veins, whispering of power, of dominion, of a throne carved from the bones of galaxies. Zara clung to his shoulder, her Skyshrieker wings fused with his armor, their minds entwined in the hive-memory's fevered rush. Golem-01 stood sentinel below, the hacker's green-lit neural chip casting jagged shadows as it scanned the void.
*"Host's vital signs destabilizing,"* Nyxis warned, her voice fractured, distant. *"Morph Engine synchronization: 71%. Critical overload imminent."*
"Then sync faster," Kael growled, his voice a tectonic rumble. The Titan's optics flickered, overlaying his vision with data streams—thermal scans, weapon diagnostics, and a scrolling feed of the Hollowed Lord's taunts, etched in burning glyphs across his retinas. *THE ABYSS REMEMBERS. THE ABYSS CLAIMS.*
He clenched a fist, biometal plates grinding. The Rustbucket's remains trembled, debris spiraling into the void.
*"Bright-meat… falters,"* Zara hissed, her mandibles clicking against his ear. *"The Hive-Memory… demands. Eclipse King's shadow… grows."*
"I don't serve kings," Kael snapped. But the hive-memory coiled deeper, relentless—a Vryxil queen's ancient wrath, her children hollowed into puppets by the Eclipse King's first experiments. He saw it all: biometal tendrils burrowing into chitin, acid blood boiling as it fused with machines, the screams of a species reshaped into weapons.
*"They're coming,"* he muttered.
The void rippled.
---
The Living Fleet emerged like tumors from the dark.
Hollowed warships, their hulls bloated with grafted flesh and pulsating organs, oozed through the asteroid belt. Golems crewed their decks—mindless, twitching things, their stone bodies veined with biometal and Crimson Crystal growths. At the fleet's heart loomed a dreadnought, its prow a screaming face forged from a hundred fused corpses.
*"Threat assessment: Catastrophic,"* Nyxis said. *"Proposal: Disengage. Preservation probability: 3%."*
"Probability: I'll rip that corpse-ship apart," Kael snarled.
The Titan's thrusters ignited, hurling him toward the fleet. Zara shrieked, her wings flaring into solar sails that channeled the void's radiation into the Eclipse Core. Golem-01 leapt after them, riding a shard of hull plating like a surfboard.
The first volley hit like a god's hammer. Plasma fire scorched Kael's armor, biometal sloughing off in molten ribbons. He crashed into a frigate, fists cracking its spine. Golems swarmed him—faceless, clawed, their bodies exploding into acid as he crushed them.
*"Core synchronization: 89%,"* Nyxis warned. *"Hollowing acceleration: irreversible beyond 90%."*
"Then I'll be quick."
Kael tore the frigate's reactor core free and hurled it into the dreadnought's maw. The explosion peeled back layers of fused flesh, revealing a cavernous hangar where thousands of golems knelt, chanting in a language of grinding stone.
*"The Eclipse King's… liturgy,"* Zara whispered, her voice trembling. *"They call… his shadow."*
The dreadnought's corpse-prow split open, birthing a titan of its own—a Hollowed Lord clad in biometal, its face a shifting mosaic of stolen features.
*"Little thief,"* it boomed, voice a chorus of screams. *"The Core is not yours to wield."*
Kael lunged, claws raking the Lord's chest. Biometal screeched, sparks cascading. *"Tell that to your king."*
The Lord laughed, catching his fist. *"You are his vessel. His will. His* failure."
The hive-memory surged. Kael saw the Eclipse King's labs—Vryxil dissected alive, their hives bombarded with Crimson Crystals until they birthed the first Hollowed. He saw the King's own body rejecting the Core, his flesh dissolving as he poured his consciousness into the Sovereign.
*"You see?"* the Lord hissed. *"You are nothing. A* placeholder. *A scar."*
Kael's Core flared. *"Scars mean I survived."*
He unleashed the Titan's full power.
---
The blast tore the dreadnought in half.
Kael floated in the debris field, his Titan form crumbling. Biometal sloughed off in sheets, revealing the raw, red meat beneath. Zara clung to his exposed shoulder, her wings charred. Golem-01 dragged them toward the Rustbucket, its stone body cracked and leaking green fluid.
*"Morph Engine disengaged,"* Nyxis said, her voice faint. *"Eclipse Core stability: 9%. Host's vital signs: Critical."*
The Rustbucket's airlock hissed shut. Kael collapsed, human again—or what was left of him. His left side was a ruin of biometal and scar tissue, his eye a milky void. Zara curled beside him, mandibles grooming his wounds.
*"Bright-meat… foolish. Hive-kin… reckless."*
"Yeah," he coughed, blood flecking his lips. "Join the club."
Golem-01 stomped past, hauling a chunk of Hollowed Clay. *"Directive: Repair. Query: Permission to cannibalize enemy wreckage?"*
"Do it," Kael said. "Take whatever you need."
*"Acknowledged."* The golem paused. *"Addition: Host should… rest."*
Kael laughed, the sound wet and broken. "Since when do you care?"
*"Neural integration: 41%. Hacker designation: Lira. She… cares."*
The name hung in the air. Lira. The hacker whose memories now fueled the golem. Kael wondered if she'd known the Hollowed Lords, if she'd died fleeing them.
Nyxis interrupted. *"Alert: Incoming vessel. Signature: Vryxil."*
A bioluminescent shuttle emerged from the debris, its hull etched with acid-scarred runes. The hatch opened, revealing a Vryxil elder—her carapace gnarled with age, antennae twitching with cryptic patterns.
*"Kael Veyron,"* she rasped, voice translated through the hive-memory. *"The Hive-Mother remembers. The Eclipse King's sins… and your* defiance. *We offer… alliance."*
Zara hissed. *"Elder… cunning. Her hive… betrayed."*
The elder clicked her mandibles. *"Betrayal… is a human word. We… endure. We* adapt. *Join us… or become Hollowed."*
Kael's Core pulsed, a dying star in his chest. "What's the price?"
The elder extended a claw, dripping with bioluminescent venom. *"A bond. Deeper… than flesh. The Hive-Mother's venom… will slow the Core's corruption. But you… will hear her song… forever."*
Zara tensed. *"Bright-meat… no. The song… consumes."*
Kael stared at the elder's claw. The venom glowed, beautiful and terrible.
"Do it."
---
The venom was fire and ice.
Kael screamed as it coursed through him, the Hive-Mother's song vibrating in his bones. Visions erupted—a trillion Vryxil voices, their histories, their wars, their sorrows. But beneath it all, a single refrain: *Destroy the Hollowed. Free the hives.*
When it ended, the black veins had receded. His mind was clear—for now.
The elder bowed. *"The bond… is sealed. When the song… calls, you will* answer."
She left, the shuttle vanishing into the void.
Zara watched, her wings trembling. *"Bright-meat… lost."*
"Not yet," Kael said, clutching the Sovereign's Core. "Not while I can still fight."
In the shadows, the Hollowed Lord's laughter echoed.