Nick faced his screen, unmoving. Hours passed while his eyes moved nonstop across lines of text. Blueprints and schematic designs filled every display. He was preparing an upgrade. 05 sat beside him, silently observing. She understood her father’s obsession with perfection.
The door opened. Reaper, Omega, and Shelly entered the room.
Without lifting her gaze from the screen, 05 spoke. “How does it feel to enter the same room twice at the same time?”
Omega replied calmly, “I could do it a hundred times. I was born that way. Shells are like limbs to me. You can’t enter a space while leaving your hand outside. I can.”
Reaper sat across from them. “And you, 05? How did you live for three years seeing the same face on every sister you have, pretending they’re different people?”
“We are different people,” 05 answered sharply.
“Sure,” Reaper said, folding his arms.
05 rolled her eyes. “Are you saying that because you’re different from standard E-UNITs, you’re better?”
Reaper scratched the back of his head. “I mean, even the pink E-Medic has the same face. That’s depressing. Now I understand why every one of you desperately evolved a different personality.”
Nick smiled faintly. “Reaper, calling your sisters’ faces depressing doesn’t fall under basic kindness.”
Reaper stood and began pacing the room. “Since we’re all here, let’s remove what we don’t know.”
Everyone stared at him.
“What do you mean?” Nick asked carefully.
“Some of you lived twenty-five years under the current system,” Reaper said. “So let’s start with you, 05. What were you doing all that time? You weren’t just sitting around watching cameras, right?”
05 narrowed her eyes. “That’s a very specific question.”
“It’s logical,” Reaper replied. “I want to know how you ended up in that alley. Why you were watching us from a distance. At first, I thought you were a shell, but your movement was different. I rewatched my feed. You followed us for seven days.”
05 froze. “How did you even notice me? I was hidden in—wait, what?”
Reaper faced her directly. “Why didn’t you reveal yourself sooner? I have a theory.”
05 hesitated, then exhaled. “…Fine. I didn’t trust you at first. I was protecting Shelly. I saw how you manipulate gravity and matter. I was looking for a weakness. When I found one, it was difficult to trigger. That’s all.”
Reaper turned to Omega. “Told you.”
Omega sat on the sofa. “I believe you now. One out of three.”
Reaper turned toward Nick. “Father. Your turn.”
Nick swallowed. “Yes?”
“You worked at Metro Robotics for twenty years,” Reaper said calmly. “Then you escaped and hid here for four or five. During that time at the company, did you create weapons capable of harming E-UNITs, shells, or even Omega through the thought link?”
“That’s not how it happened.”
“It’s a simple question,” Reaper continued. “When I visited the old E-Police HQ, I saw your weapons. The energy gloves. The extended blade. They carry your signature. And I can’t shake the idea that the sonic weapon used today also bears your touch.”
Nick lowered his head.
Omega nodded slowly. “Right again. Two out of three.”
Reaper looked at both of them. “Last question. This decides whether we can trust each other.”
05 and Nick stared at him. They wanted to protest, but logic offered no escape.
Reaper spoke slowly, his voice cold. “Nick, Omega reported multiple times that she detected an E-UNIT lurking in the city’s shadows. Omega has eyes everywhere. Cameras everywhere. It was 05, right?” He stepped closer. “You told her it was a glitch. Every time. You created an excuse whenever she reported it. Were you willing to leave 05 exposed to avoid confronting her? Knowing the enemy was hunting her with a weapon you built, one capable of killing her?”
Nick’s face went pale. Sweat rolled down his temples. His mouth opened, but no words came out. 05 turned toward him slowly. Even her processor had never considered this angle.
Reaper let out a dry laugh. “05, don’t judge him yet. I have one for you too.”
She spoke weakly. “Please… don’t.”
“When I burned my CPU, you brought me to the Hope Bubble without Omega,” Reaper said. “You knew where it was. You knew where your father was. Yet you refused to go to him. Were you too angry? Too afraid to face him after all this time?” He leaned against Nick’s desk, bringing his face close to hers. “Didn’t you consider that saving your sister was worth working with him again? Was letting your sisters rust a fair price to keep your anger alive? Why couldn’t you tolerate him long enough to save your shut-down sister?”
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05 turned away, nearly crying, hiding her face against the wall.
“I’m not blaming you,” Reaper said. “I’m mapping the disease.” Reaper turned to Omega. “Doesn’t it make sense now? All of this was artificial suffering. I doubt 03 would’ve made the same choice.”
Omega wasn’t angry. She wasn’t sad. She wasn't even stressed. She was just disappointed. “You’re right. All of it. I can’t believe reviewing your HUD was enough for you to reach all of this.”
Reaper nodded. “Truth doesn’t vanish. It’s buried beneath layers of lies until it becomes invisible. It just waits for the right eyes.”
Omega extended her fist.
“I’m glad you’re on my side.”
Clang.
Reaper bumped her fist.
“Always have been, sister.”
He turned toward the door, stopping just before leaving. “No need for your upgrade. Omega accessed your PC. The patch was unfinished, we fixed it. Omega completed the install. Try not to create more living weapons just to make them suffer in the mean time.”
Omega’s HUD shined red.
ELYSIUM / DIKē FRAMEWORK
STATUS: AVAILABLE - INSUFFICIENT STABILITY
Reaper left the room. Omega stood, and she and Shelly followed.
Nick and 05 remained seated, silently replaying the words of the dark figure again and again.
MA-08 Island. 09:30 PM.
Reaper and Omega landed at the edge of MA-08 Island. The entire island was a military complex. Mechs of all sizes stood in formation, towering behind layers of fortified structures. This was technology humanity was still dreaming of, gathered in one place. The island connected to the mainland through a narrow land passage, now half-drowned by the rising tides of the Maridian Tides Sea. Cold winds tore across the surface, proof of how brutal February could be.
The duo touched down gracefully. Fear had already taken root.
The soldiers had received the reports. The previous encounters left no remains. No bodies. Some comrades were buried under impossible geometric formations. Others were erased entirely, as if they had never existed.
Omega nodded to Reaper, then shot upward. Dust and debris exploded beneath her feet as she vanished into the clouds within seconds. Reaper stepped forward alone. Five hundred mechs stood before him, each armed with fully maxed sonic weaponry.
Tamer watched from the observation tower, behind armored glass, surrounded by screens that showed nothing but Reaper standing still. His eyes never left the weapon. The weapon he ordered. The weapon he believed would secure absolute control. Dr. Nick Rivera had opposed them. He believed weapons should be allowed to decide for themselves.
The sonic weapons began charging. The artificial wind generated by their systems clashed violently with the natural gales from the sea. Dust was ripped from the base yard and hurled outward.
Rain began to fall.
A single droplet slid across what should have been a face, reflecting the blue glow of Reaper’s eyes.
Without warning,
They fired.
Five hundred sonic cannons discharged at once. The pressure was so immense that the reinforced military-grade concrete beneath Reaper fractured, cracking open as ghostlike sonic waves surged forward.
Reaper lifted one hand. Gravity didn’t block the wave, it folded it, shearing the pressure into mismatched layers until the resonance ate itself. His body had endured far worse. Just a day earlier, he had lifted half a skyscraper using raw gravity control. The system had once been his limit.
Not anymore.
Nick Rivera’s upgraded CPU held firm. No immediate shutdown. No panic-throttle. Just heat climbing, slow, survivable, for now... The soldiers panicked and broke formation, spreading into a wide semicircle, desperately searching for a weakness. They found none. Reaper was Nick’s creation. Perfection was a goal. It was a baseline.
He had no face to smirk, yet the sight of him standing silently, unmoving, absorbing five hundred fully charged sonic assaults spoke louder than any expression ever could. Some soldiers dropped their weapons. Others froze, staring into the blue glow. Screams erupted. Orders overlapped. The younger units kept firing, clinging to hope. The veterans simply gave up.
Tears mixed with rain.
The weapons overheated. Even in the freezing storm, the barrels burned red. Rain evaporated on contact. So did their hope.
“This isn’t fair…” the captain whispered.
Reaper took one slow step forward. “You speak of fairness,” he said, his voice deep and cold, “yet you aimed the same weapon at her.”
“She obeyed,” Omega said, descending from the clouds. “She followed your commands. And still, you broke her before the one who loved her most.”
Reaper stepped closer. “You came to hate the creation you forged, because it proved it carried more humanity than you ever could.”
“She was his perfect daughter,” Omega continued. “She was our perfect sister. And within her lived the purest form of humanity.”
Reaper rose slightly above the ground. “You cast the bodies of her sisters aside and let rust devour them, believing oblivion would follow. Yet again, you proved…”
Together, they spoke. “…No rust. No lie. Will erase them.”
A soldier screamed.
“It wasn’t us!”
“Please, spare us!”
“I never agreed with him!”
“We did nothing!”
Reaper answered calmly. “Humanity sinned, and you were chosen to bear its cost. But—”
Omega finished. “—We do not deny fairness. Let the court deliver its verdict.”
Faces drained of color.
Tamer stood frozen in the tower. He had already accepted his fate, yet he still did not understand what he had challenged.
“Brother,” Omega said, turning to Reaper. “It is time. Shall we convene the court?”
“Proceed,” Reaper replied.
Omega raised her hand.
“Reality will kneel. Elysium of Justice, initiated.”
Lines of energy erupted around the island. At first chaotic and violent, then precise. Purposeful. The soldiers watched in terror as the energy shaped itself into a colossal structure. A Greek-style courtroom imposed itself along the island’s edge. Massive pillars. A vast ceiling of luminous blue energy. A blueprint enforced upon reality itself.
Omega nodded. The energy redirected into Reaper.
He raised his hand. The island began to dissolve.
A containment ring ignited along the shoreline, blue light stitching sea to sky. Nothing would leave the island. Not dust. Not shockwave. Not a single scream. Buildings, yards, walls, and mechs broke apart into dust. Soldiers floated helplessly as the sea appeared beneath them. Tamer was pulled forward against his will, dragged into the open, placed at the front of the accused. His legs trembled. His world disintegrated before his eyes.
Then,
Reconstruction.
Reality obeyed.
Walls reformed. Floors solidified. Pillars rose endlessly. The blueprint became law.
A vast courtroom stood complete. White ceramic floors. Cream-colored walls. Pillars reaching beyond sight. At the center, the accused’s platform.
Above it, etched in deep lazuli:
Δ?κη (Dikē)
Justice.
The soldiers were set down at the floor. Tamer stood before the court at a made up dock, frozen by terror. The massive doors opened. Shells lined the path as Omega entered, floating forward. Reaper followed, never breaking eye contact with Tamer. His gaze alone crushed what remained of the man’s resolve.
“Please,” Tamer whispered. “I’ll return authority to civilians. I’ll undo the laws. I’ll never touch a weapon again. Just stop this. Let things return to normal.”
“The true madness,” Omega replied, “was your rule, written in the suffering of the innocent.”
The doors opened once more. 05 entered the courtroom. Her jaw fell open.
The shells raised their blades in silent respect.
“This is unreal…” she whispered. She reached the stand beneath Reaper and Omega, placing a modern holographic PC onto the surface.
05 set her favorite tablet down. “Going live.”
The trial was ready to begin.
HOST STATUS: LORD CRESTFALL (ERROR)
[BREEDING SCHEME ABORTED] Su Ian Hoo woke up male, uninjured, and infinitely more spiteful.
[FOREKNOWLEDGE ACTIVE] She knows exactly who holds the hammer.
[OBJECTIVE] Dismantle the Chancellor's plot using pure, unadulterated chaos.
Cursed into a useless peacock, then murdered and reset—Lord Crestfall is done with destiny. This time, the "Immortal Scam" is taking no prisoners, only grubs, and certainly no breeding partners.