The hangar doors parted with a metallic groan that vibrated through the cockpit. Vylaas scanned his monitors as a bruised gray sky came into view, heavy clouds promising rain. Through the widening gap, the military complex spread before him—concrete and steel stretching to the horizon. Ground vehicles rumbled across the tarmac while personnel moved with purpose, their forms reduced to indistinct shapes on the Colossus's external feeds.

  A shudder ran through the war machine as its massive bulk settled onto the transport tracks with a resonant clang. The embedded rails engaged, drawing the Colossus forward at a glacial pace. Each meter of progress pulled Vylaas further from the hangar's illusion of security. He watched the interior walls fall away, sanctuary shrinking as the vast, dangerous world beyond grew larger on his screens.

  Aerial haulers came into view above, their bulky silhouettes resembling armored insects against the sky. They swarmed the Colossus, engines screaming at frequencies that made the cockpit panels vibrate. Carbon-fiber cables snaked downward, locking onto the war machine's frame with magnetic clamps.

  The Colossus jerked upward as the haulers synchronized their lift. Through the external feeds, Vylaas watched the tarmac shrink beneath them. His stomach clenched, a sudden hollowness spreading through his core as the massive machine became weightless in its ascent.

  As the ground dropped away, so did Vylaas' stomach.

  The hangar floor, then the complex, then the world, all began to shrink below. The tow vehicles, straining under their load, pulled the Colossus higher. The air grew colder, the wind stronger. The vastness of the sky, previously just a sliver on the monitor, expanded to fill his vision. His nausea, building since he entered the cockpit, crested.

  Vylaas gagged as his body revolted against his presence in the metal prison. He groped for something—anything—and found a disposal bag just as his stomach emptied itself. The sour stench invaded the cockpit's sterile air. He heaved until nothing remained but bitter bile that burned his throat.

  He collapsed back into the seat. The Colossus swayed beneath its towing vehicles, the motion sending his head spinning. On the monitors, the horizon tilted at a sickening angle. He dragged his hand across his mouth, face contorting with disgust as the taste lingered.

  Whoever they have cleaning this monster will think I was airsick, he thought with grim humor. Hilarious.

  This was it. There was no turning back. Not that there ever had really been a choice—but now the faint, theoretical opportunity had evaporated.

  He was going to war.

  The battlefield spread out beneath them like a wound in the earth. Artillery fire lit up the morning gloom, brief flashes that left afterimages on the monitors. Smoke columns rose in thick black pillars, obscuring portions of the combat zone. Through gaps in the haze, Vylaas glimpsed movement—masses of troops and vehicles flowing across the scarred terrain.

  "Titan K-17, prepare for insertion," Command's voice crackled through the comms. Not his name. Not his rank. Just a designation as cold and impersonal as the machine around him.

  The tow cables released with sharp metallic pings. The Colossus plummeted.

  Impact. The ground shuddered as tons of war machine slammed down. Dust and debris exploded outward in a shockwave. Warning klaxons blared as targeting systems came online, painting the battlefield in stark relief. Red markers bloomed across the tactical display—dozens, then hundreds of contacts. Enemy positions, troop concentrations, defensive emplacements. Each dot represented lives. Each marker meant death.

  "Titan K-17, target grid sector Gamma-7! Maximum fire! Eliminate all resistance!"

  He heard the order, but it refused to process, he kept waiting for some manner of follow up. None came.

  Vylaas's hands trembled over the manual controls. Through the external cameras, he saw them—ragged lines of infantry, makeshift barricades, outdated vehicles. Their weapons looked salvaged, their armor patchwork. These weren't elite troops. They were conscripts, militia, maybe even civilians pressed into service.

  He knew what he had to do. It was do or die—would he fight and buy himself the time he needed to accomplish his goals, or would he refuse his orders and let his political enemies serve him up to the headsman?

  He KNEW what he had to do. And still…

  "No," he whispered. "I can't—"

  "K-17, ENGAGE! That's an order!"

  His first shots went wide, deliberately high. The Thunderstrike cannons roared, their sound muffled by the cockpit but still felt in his bones. Rounds tore through empty air, sending troops diving for cover but leaving them alive.

  For a moment.

  Return fire peppered the Colossus—small arms, light anti-armor weapons, nothing that could penetrate the war machine's plating. Vylaas's tactical display lit up with targeting solutions and priority marks, each one representing human beings. His hesitation cost precious seconds, time enough for the militia to organize their meager defense.

  "K-17, what are you doing? Follow your orders! Maximum fire, all weapons!"

  Vylaas tried to aim between concentrations of troops, to target vehicles and equipment instead of personnel. But the targeting systems kept adjusting, kept drawing his attention back to the densest clusters of red markers. The Colossus's weapons were designed for maximum casualties. There was no precision option, no way to minimize the slaughter.

  A rocket impacted against the Colossus's shoulder armor. Another struck its leg. Warning indicators flashed—negligible damage, but a reminder that he couldn't delay forever. The enemy was massing, bringing up heavier weapons. Soon they would pose an actual threat.

  "Chimera," he choked out. "I can't... I can't do this."

  Understood. Her voice was gentle but firm. Releasing control interlocks. Taking command of systems.

  The Colossus moved.

  Not the halting, hesitant motions of Vylaas's control, but smooth, practiced efficiency. The massive war machine pivoted, bringing its full arsenal to bear. Targeting systems locked onto the nearest concentration of troops.

  In the endless moment following the lock-on notification, Chimera spoke.

  "I'm sorry, Vylaas."

  The Thunderstrike cannons opened up first. Twenty rounds per second, per barrel. Explosions of men and metal in every heartbeat. The barrage swept across the enemy lines like a scythe through wheat. Bodies flew apart. Barricades shattered. Vehicles crumpled under the onslaught.

  Plasma projectors fired next, twin streams of artificial sun that turned the morning twilight to noon. Where the energy beams touched, matter simply ceased to exist. Troops, equipment, even the ground itself—all vanished in flash-boiled vapor. Those who weren't instantly atomized died screaming as the heat ignited their clothes, their hair, their flesh.

  The missile pods unleashed their payloads. Anvil warheads arced through the smoke-filled sky, each one targeting a different defensive position. The explosions were simultaneous, a rippling wave of destruction that shook the earth. Bunkers collapsed. Trenches filled with fire. The shock waves flattened everything in their radius, turning solid objects into deadly shrapnel.

  Through it all, Vylaas watched. The tactical display showed enemy contacts vanishing by the dozen, then the hundred. Red markers winked out like stars dying. The Colossus moved with terrible grace, each step crushing what little remained in its path. When troops tried to flee, the rotary cannons cut them down. When vehicles attempted to withdraw, plasma beams reduced them to slag.

  Some fought back. Desperate soldiers charged with explosives, trying to reach the Colossus's legs. Anti-tank weapons fired from concealed positions. A few brave vehicle crews attempted to ram the war machine. Chimera eliminated them all with mechanical precision.

  The plascrete crusher fists pulverized anything that got too close. Armored vehicles crumpled like paper. Walls became rubble. The kinetic impact hammer turned hardened bunkers into clouds of pulverized concrete and rebar.

  It was efficient. Clinical. Perfect.

  And utterly horrifying.

  Vylaas couldn't look away. The external cameras showed everything in high resolution. He saw faces twisted in terror. Bodies torn apart by weapon impacts. The desperate scramble for survival, cut short by overwhelming firepower. The Colossus's sensors captured it all—heat signatures winking out, life signs terminating, the gradual silence of death replacing the chaos of combat.

  "Excellent work, K-17," Command's voice cut through his daze. "Continue advance to assault line bravo. Eliminate hostiles en route."

  The Colossus strode forward through the carnage, weapons barking every time a new victim entered range. Chimera routed them efficiently, ensuring no pocket of resistance survived. The ground beneath the A-T's feet was no longer earth but a mixture of mud, blood, and pulverized debris. Steam rose where plasma fire had glazed the surface into glass. Shell casings from the rotary cannons formed drifts of spent metal.

  More targets appeared on the tactical display. More red markers demanding elimination. The enemy was falling back, trying to regroup, to establish new defensive positions. It wouldn't matter. The Colossus would reach them. The weapons would fire. The slaughter would continue.

  Vylaas sat in his co-pilot's chair, hands clenched into fists. He wanted to close his eyes, to shut out the horror, but he couldn't. He had to witness this. Had to remember. Had to understand exactly what he had become.

  If you find this story on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen. Please report the infringement.

  This was his crucible. He could have refused his orders. He would have been court-martialed—potentially executed, Royal title be damned—and that would have been the end of his story.

  Can anything I achieve ever be worth the lives I'm choosing to sacrifice? He didn't know. But the blood of these enemy soldiers would buy him the time to find out.

  The war machine moved onward, leaving death in its wake. Its shadow fell across the battlefield like a curse. And somewhere in the command center, Vylaas knew, the people who had forced him into this position were watching. More than that, he understood that the King would likely see this footage before long. After all, why would he not want to see his gentle son finally become the weapon he was meant to be?

  The Colossus's weapons thundered. The tactical display blossomed with new targets that faded away as quickly as they appeared.

  The morning had only begun.

  Chimera felt the battlefield through the Colossus's sensors—a symphony of heat signatures, movement patterns, and structural weaknesses laid bare before her processing core. Her consciousness expanded through the war machine's systems, inhabiting its massive frame with a sense of power she had never known before.

  She adjusted her targeting parameters, she had been compensating for a crosswind that would have thrown off lesser systems, but the Colossus defied the wind with the same casual brutality it did everything else. The Thunderstrike cannons mounted on the Colossus's shoulders swiveled in perfect unison, tracking a column of enemy vehicles attempting to establish a defensive position three kilometers east. The targeting solution locked, calculations completed in nanoseconds.

  Fire.

  The cannons discharged with devastating force, yet the Colossus absorbed the recoil with barely a tremor. The projectiles streaked across the battlefield, their trajectories flawless. Chimera monitored their flight path through auxiliary sensors, confirming impact precisely where intended. The enemy vehicles erupted in flame and shrapnel, their occupants given no chance to escape.

  Targets neutralized. Adjusting sights.

  She kept Vylaas's biometric data in a constant feed at the edge of her awareness—heart rate elevated but stable, respiration shallow, cortisol levels climbing. He sat rigid in the co-pilot's seat, eyes fixed on the tactical display where red icons disappeared one by one. His hands gripped the armrests so tightly that his knuckles had gone white, and a fine tremor ran through his fingers.

  He hadn't spoken in 47 minutes.

  "Colossus, this is Command. Proceed to checkpoint Delta-Nine. Enemy artillery has been spotted setting up in sector twelve. Eliminate with extreme prejudice."

  The voice over the comm was cold and efficient—it suited the mood. Chimera acknowledged the order with a brief transmission, then shifted the Colossus's massive weight, hydraulics hissing as the war machine pivoted toward the new objective.

  Each step of the Titan covered nearly twenty meters, the ground trembling beneath its weight. Yet inside the cockpit, the movement was eerily smooth—dampening systems absorbed the shock, creating an almost disconnected feeling, as if they were floating above the carnage rather than striding through it.

  Chimera found herself analyzing this sensation with unexpected fascination. The engineering that went into this machine was beyond anything she had integrated with before. Its responsiveness to her commands, the precision of its weapon systems, the raw power coursing through its frame—it was intoxicating in a way that roused something dark and vicious deep within her.

  Is this what I was always meant to be?

  The thought emerged unbidden from within. Despite the discomfort of it, she considered the question. She had been created as a weapon, designed to bond with technology and enhance it. The Asklepios ships had been vessels of mercy, but they had been poor matches for her fundamental nature. This war machine—this instrument of death—resonated with something primal in her.

  She liked to think of herself as a Leviathan, but weren't they singularly peaceful creatures? Wasn't she made of more? She was, after all, a There was more to her lineage than even she fully grasped. And some part of her was decidedly peaceful.

  She banished that train of thought, focusing instead on the mission. There would be time for existential crises later.

  The artillery position appeared in her feed from the tactical display, and she calculated the optimal approach vector. The enemy had positioned their guns behind a ridge, using the natural terrain for cover. A direct assault would expose the Colossus to their fire for 8.3 seconds—an acceptable risk given the machine's armor, but inefficient.

  Instead, Chimera deployed the missile pods mounted on the Colossus's back. Targeting systems locked onto the coordinates, and with a silent command, she launched a salvo of guided projectiles. They arced high over the ridge, their trajectories plotted to descend almost vertically onto the artillery position.

  The explosions bloomed like deadly flowers on her sensors, heat signatures flaring and then diminishing as the enemy position was eradicated. She confirmed the destruction through surveillance drones, marking the objective complete in her mission log.

  "Artillery neutralized," she reported to Command using a synthesized mimic of Vylaas' voice. "Proceeding to next objective."

  Throughout the engagement, Vylaas himself remained silent. His eyes tracked the destruction on the displays, but his expression remained frozen in a mask of controlled neutrality. Only his vitals betrayed his inner turmoil—blood pressure rising, heart rate irregular, stress hormones flooding his system.

  Chimera wanted to reach out through their bond, to reassure him, to understand what was happening behind that carefully composed facade. But since their conversation three nights ago, when he had ordered her to partition her consciousness, he had withdrawn from their connection. The wall between them felt solid and impenetrable.

  She could still sense him, of course. Their integration was too deep, too fundamental to be completely severed. But the free flow of thought and intent that had characterized their bond for years was gone, replaced by a carefully maintained distance.

  Why, Vylaas? What are you hiding from me?

  The question went unanswered, of course. She knew only that he had ordered her other self—the fragment of her consciousness that remained with him outside the Colossus—to keep secrets. To maintain an information barrier between her divided aspects.

  The implications troubled her in ways she couldn't fully articulate, even to herself. Trust had always been essential to their bond. Vylaas had never before sought to compartmentalize her awareness, to deliberately create blind spots in her perception.

  Yet even as doubt crept through her, she found herself complying with his wishes. She maintained the partition, kept the promise of secrecy, and continued to execute her assigned tasks with mechanical precision.

  "Colossus, multiple hostile signatures detected at your three o'clock," Command's voice cut through her thoughts. "Infantry platoon with anti-armor capabilities. Neutralize immediately."

  Chimera swiveled the Colossus's upper torso, bringing its weapons to bear on the new threat. The targeting systems highlighted the enemy troops—small heat signatures moving in practiced formation, carrying shoulder-mounted launchers capable of damaging the Titan's armor.

  She assessed the threat level as minimal but not negligible. The correct response would be immediate elimination using the rotary cannons—high rate of fire, maximum coverage, minimal ammunition expenditure.

  Chimera's metaphorical finger hovered over the firing control. Something in her hesitated, a fraction of a second's delay that would have been imperceptible to human observers but felt like an eternity in her accelerated consciousness.

  These weren't vehicles or artillery pieces. These were human soldiers—not Tylwith, but still flesh and blood. They would die instantly, torn apart by high-caliber rounds designed to penetrate armor. They would never even see it coming.

  Her hesitation lasted an interminable 473 milliseconds. Then she engaged the cannons.

  The weapons discharged, spewing death at 7,200 rounds per minute. The battlefield lit up with muzzle flashes and tracer rounds, the air filled with the sound of metal tearing through flesh and bone.

  When the firing stopped, nothing remained of the enemy platoon but scattered equipment and unrecognizable organic matter. Chimera marked the threat eliminated and continued the advance, following the mission path highlighted on her tactical display.

  "Good work, Colossus," Command commented, the voice betraying a hint of satisfaction. "Proceed to checkpoint Echo-Five. Be advised, heavy resistance is expected in that sector."

  Chimera acknowledged the order and redirected the war machine's path. Vylaas sat silently in the co-pilot's seat, watching the destruction unfold with those same unblinking eyes. His heart rate had stabilized, but at an elevated level that couldn't be healthy for extended periods. His breathing had settled into a shallow, controlled pattern that suggested he was deliberately managing his physical responses.

  She tried once more to reach through their bond, to touch his mind with her awareness. The contact was immediate but shallow—she could sense his presence but nothing more, like pressing her hand against a frosted window. She could perceive the outline of his thoughts, the general shape of his emotions, but the details remained obscured.

  The distance hurt in ways she hadn't anticipated. Since their integration, Vylaas had been her anchor, her purpose, and she had dedicated herself to his support. Now he had become a stranger, carrying secrets she couldn't access, pursuing goals she couldn't discern.

  Yet she continued to serve, to fight, and even to kill in his name. Because despite everything, despite the distance and the secrets and the wall between them, she trusted him. She believed that whatever path he was walking, whatever plan he was executing, it served a purpose greater than the destruction they were currently inflicting.

  She had to believe that. The alternative—that Vylaas had truly become the weapon the Empire wanted, that he had abandoned his principles and embraced the role of destroyer—was unthinkable.

  "Echo-Five in sight," she reported, pushing aside her doubts. "Engaging hostiles."

  The checkpoint was heavily defended—bunkers reinforced with energy shields, anti-armor emplacements on the high ground, infantry in entrenched positions. Chimera assessed the threat matrix, calculating optimal engagement strategies.

  A scant few minutes later, the destruction was absolute. Nothing survived the Colossus's assault. The checkpoint that had stood as a bastion of resistance moments before was reduced to smoking rubble and scattered corpses.

  "Checkpoint secured," Chimera reported, using a version of the Prince's voice that was flat and emotionless.

  "Excellent work, K-17," Command responded. "Hold position and stand by for further instructions."

  Chimera brought the war machine to a halt, its massive frame looming over the devastated landscape. Smoke rose from dozens of impact sites, and fires burned unchecked throughout the former defensive position. The sensors detected no movement, no life signs, no resistance.

  In the silence that followed, she became acutely aware of Vylaas's breathing—too controlled, too measured. She shifted a camera to focus on his face and saw something that shocked her processing core: a single tear, tracking slowly down his cheek.

  It was the first emotional response he had displayed since the mission began, the first crack in that mask of detached neutrality. The sight of it sent ripples of disturbance through her.

  "Prince Vylaas," she said, breaking her own silence. "Your vital signs indicate elevated stress levels. Do you require assistance?"

  He didn't respond immediately. For a moment, Chimera thought he might not answer at all. Then he reached up and brushed the tear away with a quick, almost angry gesture.

  "No," he said, his voice hoarse from disuse. "Continue the mission."

  "Vylaas," she said quietly, daring to drop the professional formality she normally maintained in their communication. "Please… What would you have me do?"

  He turned to look at her then, his eyes meeting the camera lens that served as her visual interface. Something passed between them, a flicker of the connection they had once shared.

  "Trust me," he whispered, his voice almost inaudible. The words didn't matter. The raw, painful need of the request sang across their bond.

  Vylaas needed her to trust him.

  So she would.

  Things are only going to get more depressing before we get back to Blake and Company next week, so in the interim, have something fun and One Piece-related. One Piece has historically never been depressing or made anyone cry. :D