The golden titan moved.

  It was not the hesitant, clumsy lurch of a man unfit for his mae. It recise—a dispy of trolled power. The Sorion-Lupus Revise, bathed in the sun's amber glow, shifted forward, the Azeroth Drive whirring within the cockpit. The oagnant relic, a cruel jest of nobility meant to remind Garrett Fenralis of his magical impotence, was now a fully realized war mae. His war mae.

  Leona Leonis watched in silence.

  Her Direhound-and stood beside his mech, its blue armor streaked with golden highlights, The lion-shaped pauldron on its left shoulder gleamed uhe midday sun - a silent herald of its pilot’s lihe massive shield mounted on its left arm, both barricade and bde-scabbard, nted firmly into the ground like a waiting executioner’s axe.

  Leona had barely spoken sihey arrived in the Emerald Forest, a thick expanse of t verdant giants that stood several kilometers north of Vallorien. That silence was unlike her, and Garrett knew why. The Iron Revenants had been sighted here. Undead ogres power armor. Perverted corpses of warriors long sin—She had seen one during their re. She had remaiill, expression unreadable, yet he had seen her knuckles whiten on her trols.

  Garrett, even from inside his cockpit, could sehe chill of her restraint. It was a quiet thing, sharpened by years of discipline, yet fragile at its edges. The Fallen House of Leonis. The butchered heirs of her bloodliheir bodies raised to serve as part of Drais’s undying legions. The scars left behind were more than just history. They were wounds that festered beh her armor.

  He switched on their private s. “Leona… are you alright?”

  A brief pause. Then, steady as steel, she answered, “I’m fine.”

  Garrett frowned. “Leona.”

  Silence again. Then, she exhaled, long and slow. “You already know the answer.”

  “I do,” he admitted. “But I also know you don’t have to carry it alone.”

  A soft scoff crackled through the s—not amusement, but something brittle, something old. “Don’t I?” Her mech shifted slightly, fiightening around her greatsword’s hilt. “You weren’t there. You didn’t see them drag my brothers away. Didn’t see my father’s face when they raised his sons as mindless ons against him.”

  Garrett’s grip tightened on his trols. There was nothing he could say to undo that pain. He could only stand beside her now.

  “I’m here,” he said. “That’s all I offer.”

  Leona was quiet for a moment. Then, barely above a whisper, she said, “Then fight with me.”

  Today, they would test the Azeroth Drive. And today, they would hunt Iron Revenants.

  The Battle in the Emerald Forest

  The thunderous steps of the Iron Revenants shook the ground long before they came into view.

  Six of them.

  Massive, grotesque behemoths of rotting flesh and steel, their power armor patchworked together from ruined warframes, their cores burning with iergy. Their eyes—if they could be called that—glowed with an eerie green light, the dim remnants of stolen souls trapped within their monstrous frames.

  Leona’s voice cut through the s, cold and precise. “ation. They are not men. They are mockeries.”

  Garrett exhaled sharply. This was it. The Sorion-Lupus Revise’s first true battle.

  The moment they saw the two mechs, the Revenants charged.

  Leona moved first. Her Direhound surged forward, a shockwave rippling outward from the sheer force of its acceleration. The massive shield met the first Revenant head-on, sending it reeling. Her greatsword fshed out, cleaving through armor, carving deep into rotted flesh beh. The Revenant staggered, but did not fall.

  Garrett followed.

  His golden warframe, sleek yet armored, maneuvered with unnatural precision. The Azeroth Drive processed thousands of magical calcutions per sed, adjusting miovements, optimizing his rea speed. Fortifying armor. Creating barriers. He was not simply piloting. He was in symbiosis with the mae.

  A Revenant lu him.

  Garrett’s psma-edged saber snapped into position. He sidestepped—not dodging, but redireg—his bde carving through the Revenant’s left arm in a fluid arc. The severed limb fell away, sparks aic filth spraying from the wound.

  Another came from his fnk. A warning fshed. The Sorion-Lupus twisted on instinct, its golden gau grabbing the enemy’s wrist, leveraging momentum to sm the Revenant into the earth. A metallic heel crushed its skull, ensuring it did not rise again.

  Leona, relentless as a storm, fought two at once. Her bde tore through them, hag apart armor, shattering bohat should have never moved agaihey did. They always did.

  Garrett pushed forward, the Sorion-Lupus Revise proving its worth, the meo lilded mockery but a warrior reborn. A decration. He had no magic, but he would carve his p this world with his own hands.

  The battle raged.

  —----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

  Lyra sat atop the wagon, the massive Warbisons sn as they idly stomped their hooves into the dirt. The creatures were half-buffalo, half-horse, beasts of sheer endurance, built for the long marches across the Vale.

  Beside her, Nyx was still. Too still.

  She did not speak at first, only watg as the battle unfolded with an expression that was her approval nor disappoi. Merely… calcution.

  Finally, she murmured. “It is fasating.”

  Lyra g her. “What is?”

  Nyx’s silver gaze remained fixed on Garrett’s mech. “That he was denied magic, yet refuses to bow to fate.”

  Lyra looked back at the battlefield. Garrett fought as though he had something to prove. Perhaps he did.

  “He’s proving he belongs,” she said.

  Nyx’s lips curled into a knowing smile. “Perhaps.”

  A pause.

  Then, she said, “You have doo keep him close.”

  Lyra frowned slightly, sensing something deeper beh those words. “You think he’s suitable?”

  Nyx did not answer immediately. Instead, she watched as Garrett and Leona stood victorious, their mechs t over the remnants of the fallen Revenants. The battlefield was silent now.

  Then, she spoke, voice light as air, yet heavy with meaning.

  “Not yet.”The cockpit hummed with dying embers of battle—heat-dissipatios hissing, diagnostics scrolling across Garrett’s HUD, his breath steadying from the fight’s high. His fingers moved across the interface with meical precision, rec the bat data into the bck box. Every movement, every calcuted shift in the Sorion-Lupus Revise’s frame, every fraal g in respoime—all of it would be studied, dissected, improved.

  Garrett exhaled, flexing his fingers. "Not bad for a first workout."

  Leona’s voice crackled through the private s. "A little bit."

  Garrett blihat was… close to a fession.

  The ice was thawing.

  For a moment, he sidered pressieasing her about it even. But the silehat followed wasn’t unfortable—it was the kind of silence where words were unnecessary. Leona wasn’t oo spill her heart in one go. She let things leak, piece by piece, and this—this was something.

  He smirked to himself. Progress.

  Then, the s fred to life, sharp and anding.

  "This is Captain Anya Bckstark."

  The weight in her voice sent a ripple of tension through Garrett’s spine. Bckstark never wasted words. If she eaking, it meant something.

  "We’ve swept Elderwynd. The Iron Revenants have been elimihe Guild deployed adveo aid survivors and provide backup for any stragglers. Damage is extensive. Casualties firmed. But…"

  A pause. Then:

  "Ealdorman Cedric survived. He’s injured, but stable."

  Garrett’s breath hitched.

  Lyra’s father was alive. Barely, but alive.

  Leona exhaled sharply through her nose. Not relief. Not shock. Something else—something unreadable.

  Bckstark tinued. "One of our Direhounds took heavy damage. We need Squires and meics dispatched for repairs. Please Prioritize that immediately."

  Garrett goward Leona’s mech. Her fingers had flexed around her greatsword’s grip at the mention of Elderwynd. The fall of that city wasn’t just another battle. It was Lyra’s home.

  Garrett switched back to private s. "Leona."

  She didn’t respond at first. Then, after a pause: "What?"

  "Lyra should know."

  Silehen, in a voice just barely above a whisper, Leona said, "I know."

  She didn’t want to be the oo tell her. But she would. Because that’s what warriors did. They carried the weight others couldn’t.

  Garrett leaned back, the golden titan of the Sorion-Lupus standing tall amidst the wreckage of the battlefield. The war was far from over. But today, they had won something.

  And tomorrow, they would fight again.