Aster felt his whole body ache as he lay on the ground, as the rough rocks bit into him. He wanted to keep his eyes shut; he felt tired enough from his injuries that even the act of opening them was burdensome. But it wasn’t all too unfamiliar. Growing up, his family’s idea of training had been to beat him half to death until he could defend himself well enough to avoid being beaten half to death. Even then, it wasn’t as if one could get used to being half near death. It just made it somewhat more bearable.

  But the light that radiated onto his face made him open his eyelids, heavy as they were.

  It was a beautiful silver radiance.

  Selenia’s radiance.

  At least, that’s what she called it. It was that glowing aspect of her that appeared during the night when the moon shone. Except that it was day, according to the rotation of the planet. How strange. Who knew what it was really? He just hoped it wasn’t radioactive. If it were, that would be bad. And if it was radioactive, then he’d been in her presence a bit more than he would have liked…

  What was he thinking at this moment?

  His injuries might have been rattling his brain.

  He heard the heavy thuds of a kinetic rifle firing bursts straight at her. Each kinetic shell from the mobile frame’s massive rifle, one powerful enough to core a building, impacted the growing firestorm of silver energy that continued to grow larger as time went on and vaporized upon contact.

  Selenia herself seemed to be in a trance. She shone silver. She looked something like silver. Her silver hair and eyes seemed to become even more silver. Her whole body, her clothes, her features, all silver. Silver on silver. The silver energy that came from her licked the environment around her like a corrosive substance. It burned against the trees, the grounds, even the air around her, scorching and melting it as if it were lava.

  Selenia’s mind seemed to be blank, as if something had taken it over.

  Aster felt a flash go through him, as if warning him about the danger before him in his eyes. A cold shudder went through him. He felt as if something threatened to burst out from her. Something dark and dangerous, paradoxical to the bright silver light that came from her, as if there was a kind of wrongness to that light. A feeling of anger and pain.

  As Aster stared into Selenia’s blank eyes, as if something had taken them over, he sensed something indescribably powerful and vast within them as if the cosmos and the stars lay behind them.

  Selenia held an arm up, a palm out towards the mobile frame, the large humanoid machine that towered over the forest, several stories tall, pointing its massive rifle at her. A silver beam shot out of her hand, faster than one could blink, that traveled faster than one could think.

  The mobile frame dodged at the last moment, the silver beam melting straight through its rifle and arm as it stumbled backwards from the explosion that appeared where its arm used to be.

  Proto particles!

  That’s what it was.

  She was emitting Proto Particles! The Selenar family, the Selenar clan, had a long, storied history with Gaia. An ancient history. Before they moved to the Triplet Moons, after the colonization efforts had gotten underway during the Gaia Sphere Federation's heyday, but this was different.

  Someone emitting Proto Particles should have been impossible. They were exotic elementary particles that no person should have been able to interact with, a dangerous particle that had been militarized and weaponized after their discovery as a means of energy generation.

  Aster felt a healing energy flow through him. He tilted his head to see a small pixie, no larger than the size of his hand, hovering over him. Fafapan’s prismatic eyes glowered at him as she healed him, motes of prismatic energy coming off of her small body.

  “Guess you’re smallness really paid off, eh? You managed to dodge everything,” Aster chuckled weakly.

  “Shut it, dumbass! And don’t call me small,” Fafapan said. “How many times do I need to say it?

  Garrod, who was missing an arm, was helping Fia up, who coughed weakly. Fafapan busily scrambled amongst them, trying to make sure no one died from their injuries or blood loss.

  The mobile frame, though unbalanced and surprised by Selenia’s attack, quickly reoriented and steadied itself.

  Selenia attacked it again as the mobile frame flared its thrusters and dodged out of the way as more silver beams of Proto Particles shot from her. The beams went off into the distance, into the reinforced superstructure of Alsium Two’s cavernous walls. Though the walls of Alsium Two’s superstructure were made of solid bedrock, the energy beams melted right into it, explosions shaking everything as the damage could be seen from far off.

  Even though Selenia’s beam attacks were near instantaneous, the mobile frame continued to dodge skillfully, as if it could predict the next moment. The pilot of that mobile frame was good.

  “Who is in that mobile frame?” Aster asked.

  “It’s Etoile,” Garrod replied.

  “Etoile?” Aster frowned. As much as he disagreed with him about a lot of things, it wasn’t like he wanted to see him hurt. Dead. Or worse.

  Yet, it wasn’t like he wanted to see Selenia harmed either.

  Even in an outdated mobile frame like the GMF-03 Exan, Etoile was maneuvering it like a newer model. Yet, as one of the first militarized mobile frames of the Gaia Sphere Federation, it didn’t have any of the typical armament of modern mobile frames. All it had was a kinetic rifle, a weapon that shot out large shells powerful enough to blow up vehicles and buildings. And a pair of head-mounted autocannons. It lacked any particle weapons or missiles like newer mobile frames.

  The narrative has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the infringement.

  As it maneuvered in the air with its blue thrusters, the mobile frame shot back with its head-mounted close-in weapon system, its large-caliber autocannons, spitting out shells that blew the ground around Selenia into dusty chunks to no effect.

  But still, that silver energy from her kept growing, forming an impenetrable barrier around her. It was growing more intense, and he could see small rocks vaporizing at contact now.

  “The proto particles! They’re increasing,” Garrod said. He looked pale from the loss of an arm, but functional.

  “What is she? Some kind of living Proto Particle furnace?” Fafapan said.

  Then, Selenia's attention seemed to focus on the mobile frame. And the silver energy seemed to take a life of its own as it roared and moved in waves out from her, rushing the mobile frame, flowing like liquid, and washing over the mobile frame’s lower half, even as it tried to escape by blasting its thrusters. A crush and explosion followed as the energy melted and crushed the mobile frame’s lower half, causing it to crash into the ground.

  But that didn’t seem to satisfy Selenia. She immediately turned her attention towards anything around her. Silver beams flying off of her as they went off into the distance, wreaking havoc that he couldn’t see.

  “Regardless of what she is, she's going to destroy everything,” Fia coughed weakly.

  At this rate, the damage would be enormous. Who knew how many could die?

  “Aster, can you reach her?” Garrod said.

  “Me? Why?” Aster replied.

  “Just a hunch,” Garrod said, smiling weakly at him. “You seem less affected by that Proto Particle energy coming off of her.”

  “A hunch?” Fia said, hacking. “Garrod. Are you serious?”

  Aster rose. Fafapan had mended his wounds enough for him to move. He felt a surge of regret and responsibility for all this. He had to do something. Anything really.

  He ran towards Selenia.

  “Aster!” Fia called after him, futilely trying to move her mangled body. Garrod held Fia as Fafapan healed her.

  A flash went through him.

  Something about this felt strangely familiar, though he didn’t know why.

  Aster felt some kind of energy wash over him, protecting him as he collided with the silver energy that attacked him by simple contact. Every step he took towards her was painful. But he managed to get to the swirling vortex where Selenia was at the center. Her eyes were wide, with her hands holding her head, as if she were confused, alarmed, and anxious.

  Aster grabbed Selenia with his good arm, attempting to shake her out of her trance. Selenia seemed to be jolted awake into a half-conscious state. The silver beams that had shot from her ceased, and her attention zoomed in on him.

  He sighed in relief as Selenia seemed to recognize him, her own eyes looking tired.

  Then, in the distance, he heard a shake in the forest. He turned his eye, seeing the mobile frame off in the distance, and the largest inhabited settlement of Alsium Two right behind it, raised its still intact upper torso with one arm, and fired off a rocket from a shoulder-carried rocket launcher straight at them.

  Selenia’s eyes went blank once more as she pushed him off and pointed her hand at him. No, at the mobile frame, behind him. And behind it, the largest inhabited settlement of Alsium Two, right behind them both. Aster’s eyes went wide at the massive amount of energy being gathered. The largest yet. It was going to go right through the mobile frame and hit the city behind it.

  The energy released, the silver light overtaking his vision.

  Then a figure blurred between Selenia and him. Aster could make out a sharp figure, holding out an armored arm that held a large piece of metal debris as a makeshift shield. The silver energy ground down the makeshift shield, then ground down the figure’s arm as the figure approached Selenia. Behind them, the silver energy scattered around, consuming the rocket fired at them, blowing it up, and further damaging the mobile frame behind them, knocking it down. The figure adjusted the beam’s trajectory upward at the point of origin, near Selenia’s palm, to strike the reinforced dome ceiling of the Alsium Two’s superstructure.

  In the distance, debris fell as the artificial daytime skyline was broken up and visibly corrupted around where it was heavily damaged.

  Selenia’s blank eyes finally returned to normal as the silver energy pettered out, having been consumed in that final attack.

  Selenia blinked her eyes as she stared at the armless dragonoid in front of her, who looked burned, melted, and seriously injured. The dragon in humanoid shape looked where his missing arm was, flesh at his shoulder was melted and smouldering. And his dark red and black uniform was singed ash black.

  Then Selenia’s eyes blinked rapidly as she recoiled from the one in front of her.

  “W-what was I doing?” Selenia said, hands to her head in confusion. She seemed pale.

  “You okay, moon girl?” Captain Bernard said, then turned his attention to him. “How about you runt?”

  “I’m okay, I think,” Aster said, approaching the pair as Selenia nodded her head silently. She slumped to the ground.

  “Potassium,” Bernad replied, seemingly fine despite all his severe injuries. Even as armored as a dragon in humanoid shape like he was, the Proto Particle energy had still burned through his armor, his scales, and his arm.

  “A-are you okay?” Selenia asked from the ground, looking at where his arm used to be. “...sorry.”

  Captain Bernard looked at his missing arm. “Oh,” Bernard replied. “It’ll take a lot more than a little girl spewing beams everywhere to kill me.”

  A-Ah,” Selenia replied weakly.

  Aster sighed as a flash of light appeared before them all. A burning phoenix in red and gold soared towards them, coming to a stop as it neared the ground nearby them, then shifted form into a humanoid avian shape. The phoenix wore a Captain’s uniform of the AXIS unit in the typical dark red and black.

  “Captain Bernard,” the phoenix said.

  “Captain Blanche,” Bernard replied.

  They both seemed to grit their teeth at one another.

  “I’ve settled things with my troops from AXIS,” Blanche said. “And you?”

  “All settled here,” Bernard said, gritting his sharp teeth at the burning bird in front of him.

  “Good,” Blanche replied. “About time you got off your sleeping ass and actually did something.”

  “What was that bird brain!?” Bernard said. “I didn’t see you here. Or maybe you forgot because you have a bird’s brain for a head in there.”

  “You want to fight, you stupid lizard?” Blanche retorted as both the phoenix and dragon got into each other’s faces.

  Aster coughed, grabbing their attention. “Isn’t there something more important right now?”

  Bernard and Blanche turned their attention towards him. Then they both coughed as they backed away from each other.

  Aster helped Selenia up as Bernard pointed his attention towards them, Blanche crossing his fiery arms behind him.

  “You’re right about that runt,” Bernard said as he looked around Alsiium Two. “You’re all going to be performing manual labor to fix up this place! Since you all wrecked it.”

  Alsiium Two looked like a small war had taken place in it. It was littered with holes large and small, both in the ceiling and walls. The wreckage of ruined buildings lay off in the distance. The ground was carved and chewed up. And the forest looked as if a hurricane had blown through.

  “And that means you too, moon girl,” Bernard said as Selenia tried to make herself look small.