[Oliver's PoV]

  “Permission granted,” Oliver announced.

  He didn’t realize yet how much difference that extra twenty percent of thrust would make or how decisive it would be in the next minutes. On his monitor, he watched the M1 squad scatter, weaving through enemy fire, avoiding direct combat, buying time. But time was running out.

  “Capsules ready. Leviathans prepared for launch,” one of the engineers reported over comms.

  Oliver felt the sudden jolt as massive chains clamped onto the front of his machine, dragging it into position along the launch pad.

  With a grinding roar, the chains released. He heard the metallic clatter echo as the capsule sealed around his mecha, enclosing him in a coffin of steel.

  The world went dark.

  Every external feed cut to static. No signals. No contact. Nothing but the faint glow of his internal diagnostics and the grainy feed from the mecha's exterior cameras.

  ‘It’s time,’ Oliver thought, steadying his breath as he reached inward.

  He summoned his Energy.

  A faint crackle of blue light flickered across his body, sparks dancing over his arms and shoulders before coalescing into form. The Blue Ranger Armor took shape around him, thin, and light. Not the heavy plates he would use in open combat, but a minimal shell of protection.

  This armor wasn’t for fighting. Not this time. It was for enduring the launch.

  As the suit sealed around him, Oliver flexed his fingers, feeling the hum of power coursing through his body.

  Then came the sound he had been waiting for. Three sharp knocks against the capsule walls.

  ‘They’re starting the launch.’ Oliver thought.

  He gripped the restraints across his chest, tightening his hold until the leather bit into his gloves. His heart pounded once, twice, then he counted down with the rhythm of his breath.

  'Three. Two. One.'

  Gravity slammed him into his seat like a giant's hand. His vision blurred at the edges, his chest compressed, every bone in his body straining against the acceleration. The capsule roared forward.

  Any ordinary human would have been pulped instantly, their body annihilated by the sheer G-force. But Oliver was no ordinary soldier. Only Androids and Rangers could survive such brutality. Their armor and augmented bodies shielded them from destruction.

  'Breathe.'

  Oliver repeated the word in his mind, clinging to it as if it were the only rope keeping him tethered to life. His chest fought against the crushing weight pressing down on him, every inhalation shallow and ragged. It was as though a mountain had been dropped onto his lungs. His vision narrowed, the edges collapsing into darkness until the world became a tunnel of flickering light.

  His stomach lurched violently, his head throbbed with a pressure that felt like it might split his skull. For a fleeting, terrifying moment, he was about to lose consciousness. His body refused to obey, his hands numb around the control sticks, the glowing panels of his cockpit blurring into indistinct colors.

  And then, release.

  The crushing hand of gravity let him go. The weight vanished in an instant, replaced by a disorienting lightness. His stomach leapt into his throat, his body suspended in zero-G, held in place only by the harness straps. The silence that followed was ghostly, broken only by the pounding of his own heart and the faint metallic reverberations inside the mecha.

  A hiss echoed through the cabin, followed by a sharp crack from the controlled detonation. The capsule shuddered, fragments of its launch casing breaking away. Oliver’s screens flickered, static giving way to clarity as his systems reconnected.

  “How’s our status?” Oliver asked, his voice trying to be steady as he nudged the control sticks. The Leviathan’s thrusters humming to life with a low growl.

  “The M1's are still evading,” Hermes-1 reported, his tone heavy with strain. “We’ve downed a few of theirs, but… we’ve lost three of ours.”

  Oliver exhaled slowly, jaw tightening. “Understood.”

  His eyes scanned the feeds from the external cameras, trying to piece together the chaos of the battlefield. Mechas twisted and clashed in brutal dances of light and steel, and amidst it all three Leviathans were approaching.

  Even through the grainy drone footage, they were impressive.

  Three titans, each one a design unseen anywhere else in the galaxy. No Great House had machines like these. They were something new, something born of Aquarius’s engineering.

  Each Leviathan stood three times the size of a standard mecha. By every conventional measure, they should have been easy prey. Slow, cumbersome targets waiting to be torn apart.

  “Leviathan-Scylla. They’re surrounding me. I’m engaging,” one pilot’s voice came through, stressed with anticipation.

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  “Leviathan-Charybdis. Copy. Engaging.” The second pilot confirmed.

  Oliver’s hand hovered over his own console. His heart pounded, not with fear, but with the weight of command. “Leviathan-Typhon. Permission to active APU allowed. Initiate combat.”

  The difference between a Leviathan and any other mecha was deceptively simple. A single switch in the cockpit, a toggle marked with three letters: APU.

  Auxiliary Power Unit.

  Oliver reached up and slammed the switch down.

  At once, the Typhon shuddered violently, the entire frame trembling. The Leviathans were the first of its kinds, the only design able to use more the one Crystal as a power unit.

  “Leviathan-Typhon. Weapon Power Unit online,” Oliver announced, his voice a low growl as his radar lit up with forty hostile signatures closing in. “Releasing primary weapon.”

  On the tactical feed, one of the drones caught the moment in perfect detail. Against the endless blue curve of Aquarius, the Typhon’s silhouette appeared into view. A towering figure of yellow alloy scarred with burn marks and battle scratches.

  Then it's back split open.

  Six armored panels unfolded like the gills of some sea beast, venting steam and sparks. From within, segmented cylinders extended outward, snapping into place with mechanical precision.

  Metallic tentacles unleashed in fluid arcs, coiling and twisting around Typhon like the limbs of some predator. Blue plasma crackled along their lengths, waves of energy flowing across the surface.

  The tentacles writhed in perfect synchronicity, spiraling and weaving around the Leviathan’s frame, ready to lash, to crush, to destroy.

  The first wave of enemy mechas dove toward him, blades of energy raised high.

  Oliver didn’t flinch.

  The tentacles struck.

  In an instant, the attackers were ensnared. Three mechas caught mid-strike. The limbs constricted with terrifying force. Metal screamed as armor buckled. Cockpits shattered. In seconds, the enemy frames were reduced to nothing more than steel drifting lifeless.

  “M1, evacuate immediately,” Oliver commanded. “Clear the field for the Leviathans.”

  There was a pause, then Thalos’s voice crackled through the comms, tinged with grim satisfaction. “Finally. But… I might’ve made things harder for you. I took out one of their commanders. They’re going to be furious.”

  Oliver’s jaw tightened. “Damn it,” he muttered. He didn’t need to ask which commander, it didn’t matter since Alan wasn't one of them.

  The consequence was clear. The enemy would be enraged, reckless, and more dangerous than ever. But that was the risk of war. And Oliver knew as he tightened his grip on Typhon’s controls.

  Though Oliver’s focus had faltered for a few seconds, Typhon’s tentacles moved on their own, autonomous extensions of the Leviathan’s will. They lashed out like serpents of steel, intercepting enemy fire and shredding mechas that dared get too close.

  “I’ve already taken down ten!” the pilot of Leviathan-Charybdis cheered.

  “Only ten?” the pilot of Leviathan-Scylla teased, his laughter echoing across the comms.

  But the jokes ended quickly.

  “Alert. Cruisers moving into formation!” Hermes-2’s urgent voice cut through the channel. “They’re closing in around the Dawn!”

  Oliver’s eyes narrowed as the drone feed lit up with massive silhouettes. The Republic’s warships slid into position, their colossal frames dwarfing the mechas around them. One cruiser, larger than the rest, broke formation and surged forward into the battlefield.

  “What the hell is he doing?” one of the Leviathan pilots muttered in disbelief. “He’s not planning to bring a cruiser into direct combat with mechas, is he?”

  Oliver’s tone was cold, sharp. “In war, everything is fair game.”

  The Republic’s mechas began to retreat, falling back toward the advancing cruiser as its weapons systems came online. Dozens of heavy cannons started to glow, missile bays opening like the jaws of a beast preparing to devour them. The ship was moving in to annihilate the Leviathans in one decisive strike.

  “What’s the plan?!” one of the pilots asked.

  “Scatter,” Oliver ordered. His voice was calm, but his hand hovered over a switch that none of them could see. “I’ll handle this one.”

  Near the toggle for the APU, another switch gleamed faintly: Reset Energy System.

  Oliver flipped it open. A hidden compartment slid out near his legs, revealing a small housing chamber. Inside sat a crystal, dim, pale, ordinary. He reached down, hand trembling slightly as he pulled it free.

  From his Gauntlet, he withdrew another. This one pulsed with a sinister glow, its light deep and unnatural, a violet hue that seemed to thrum with violence, the Purple Crystal.

  Oliver smirked as he pressed it into place. “You may not want me to wear you,” he muttered under his breath, mocking the artifact as if it could hear him. “But you can’t stop me from using you in my weapons.”

  The compartment sealed shut with a hiss.

  At once, Typhon convulsed. The APU roared back to life, its systems surging with raw power. The entire frame shook, every panel vibrating under the force of energy now coursing through its systems.

  'One Unique Crystal should be a hundred times stronger than a common one,' Oliver thought, his lips curling into a grim smile. "Let’s see what you can really do. Redirecting all power to Thrust Engine"

  He shoved the throttle forward.

  The effect was immediate.

  Typhon became a blur.

  The titanic mecha streaked forward with impossible speed, inertia itself seemingly discarded. To any observer, it looked as though physics had been rewritten.

  The cruiser’s cannons hadn’t even finished charging when Typhon slammed into it.

  Oliver thrust the tentacles forward, their plasma-sheathed tips drilling into the cruiser’s armored hull. The steel shrieked, splitting apart as the tentacles tore through ripping apart decks and detonating fuel lines. Explosions erupted along the ship’s spine.

  But Oliver didn’t stop.

  He surged from ship to ship, Typhon carving through the Republic’s formation like a god of destruction. Each cruiser he struck was gutted, left as a burning carcass adrift in space. Missiles detonated prematurely, their payloads scattering as Typhon’s speed outpaced their targeting systems.

  By the time Oliver finally slowed, his breathing ragged in the cockpit, the battlefield around Aquarius had changed.

  Where once cruisers and frigates were positioned, now there was only wreckage. Hulks of shattered warships drifted silently. The stars themselves seemed dimmer, hidden behind the graveyard Oliver had created.

  Typhon floated at the center of it all, its tentacles coiled like serpents.

  The space around Aquarius was no longer a battlefield. It was a cemetery.