Die. Respawn. Repeat.

Rhythm. It's all about the rhythm.

It takes me a while to realize it. I don't know how long I try to fight while just bearing the pain of my cracked foundations, holding them together with sheer willpower while I stumble out of a blow or try to tear my way through another part of the Hand. The problem is that it's regenerating almost as fast as we can do damage to it—even with all the power Guard and Ahkelios has gained, we don't have enough. Not to kill something of this magnitude and power.

It's like the Seedmother fight, almost, except Ahkelios doesn't have the Firmament to pull off the strategy we used in that fight. That means we're locked in a stalemate, and that stalemate means we aren't making progress. Even my progress with the second layer has trickled down to almost nothing.

But there's a rhythm to the fight. A push and pull, an ebb and flow. I'm not sure it's something I would've been able to sense if not for the enhanced sensitivity I have to Firmament, but even the environment around us is reacting to this rhythm. All the ambient power around us shifts and pulses in response to every move in the fight, practically in time to what we're doing...

...sometimes even before we do it.

Is that how Premonition works? I'd assumed it had something to do with Temporal Firmament, but maybe that's not what it is. Maybe it's interacting with this background Firmament somehow, detecting a shift in the fight before it happens. The more I watch, the more I see the pattern, and the more I become convinced of one thing.

We aren't going to win as we are.

Something needs to change. Guard needs to complete his first shift. Ahkelios needs to complete his second. I need to finish reinforcing my fundamental layers so I have access to my Interface skills again. We need something capable of completely altering the pattern and changing the flow of the fight.

Which means I'm going to have to take a risk.

I'm reasonably sure I can handle it. The thing about this rhythm is that I can work my core reinforcement into it—match it to the world around me. If I follow the pattern of the fight, draw Firmament with every pull and thread Firmament it with every push—it hurts a little less, somehow. Like I'm going with the flow of the world instead of fighting against it with every breath.

It doesn't eliminate the pain, of course, but... I test it out anyway. I draw a deep, ragged breath—feel Firmament flow into me, circling around my core—and follow up with an exhale and a right hook into the Hand. I make my Firmament follow the movement, thread it into a tiny gap at the exact same instant the punch makes contact.

It feels right. I breathe a little easier, find my thoughts a little more centered.

All I have to do is follow the rhythm of the fight. I'm trying to do two things at once, but what I need to do is make them both the same thing.

Dodge to the side to evade a swipe from the Hand. Pull Firmament with me in the same movement, feel it fill my core with golden power. Dodge again—a little like holding my breath—and then launch myself forward, cracking a bone with the force of my punch. Thread the Firmament into the next crack, feel myself become a little more whole...

I can do this.

"Guard," I say. "Go find the piece you need. Finish the first shift if you can. 'Kelios? Go with him, find somewhere safe, and finish your third shift."

"What?" Ahkelios turns to stare at me and nearly gets knocked off his feet for it; Guard drags him out of the way just in time, blasters firing at full throttle. "Ethan, you can't beat this thing alone right now, you can't even—"

"Don't need to beat it," I grunt. "Just need to hold it off. We'll be stuck in a stalemate otherwise. Go. And do it fast. I'm going to need you guys to finish this."

"But—" Ahkelios begins to protest. It doesn't matter, though. Guard hasn't let go of him, and unlike Ahkelios, he doesn't waste time arguing. He just leaps again, dragging the hybrid mantid with him.

They disappear with a startled yelp.

I shut down everything that's not focused on the fight and on maintaining the repairs in my core. I hone in on the rhythm I'm seeing. On the push and pull of Firmament in the background.

"Well?" I say. "Let's dance."

The Hand roars, and the fight resumes.

"Are you sure we should've left him there?" Ahkelios fretted. "What if—"

"He is stubborn," He-Who-Guards said. "Arguing would have only caused us to waste time. We must hurry."

Ahkelios sighed. "I thought you were supposed to be the overprotective one."

"It... has been a problem, I admit," Guard said, not without a little humor in his voice. He scanned the maze around them once, then dove again in the direction of the signal he was detecting; they were only minutes away, if that. "But I have learned to trust in the two of you. Have you not learned the same?"

"I have!" Ahkelios protested. "It's just... Everything feels different now. It's—it was sort of comforting just being the sidekick, you know? Now I'm bigger, and I can do more, and I feel more..."

"Responsible?"

"Yeah," Ahkelios said. "I feel like I should be doing more."

"I feel that way often," Guard said. His sensors detected a change in the path ahead, and he shifted directions, taking Ahkelios with him. "Especially when we first began fighting together. Your tactics are rather concerning."

"Comes with fighting in a loop," Ahkelios said, not denying it.

"I have the impulse often," Guard said. "To try to interfere or redirect. But was it not you that told me to allow Ethan to do his work, back when he was performing his procedure on our avian allies?"

Enjoying this book? Seek out the original to ensure the author gets credit.

"Throwing my own words back at me, are you?" Ahkelios chuckled. "Don't interrupt him when he's focused. I remember. You're right, I just... don't like leaving him behind."

"Then we must return quickly," Guard said. He turned a final corner. "We are here."

In front of them was... there was no polite way to describe it other than as a "pile of garbage', perhaps. No surprise Miktik hadn't been able to find the chip if it was buried so deep within a random pile of tech within the Intermediary—had he not been attuned to filter out signals like these, he wouldn't have been able to find it himself. As it was, though, Guard was able to pick out the exact origin point and begin digging.

Ahkelios, meanwhile, sat in a corner of the little clearing and took a deep breath. Guard felt the Firmament around him beginning to coalesce and nodded to himself.

Despite his words, he was worried. His every instinct demanded that they return and help Ethan with the fight. But the human was right—every analysis he'd run said the same thing. They were in a stalemate, and without something changing, they wouldn't win.

So he had to do this, and he had to do this quickly.

Of course, he'd never succeeded before, and the only reason his core daemon had even spoken to him last time was because of Ethan's presence. There was every chance the phase shift wouldn't go as smoothly as he hoped. But what choice did he have?

His friends were counting on him.

His fingers closed around the device that was emitting the signal, and he pulled it free. It resembled a syringe, oddly enough. One with a trigger mechanism and a small chip embedded within it. Instructions filtered through, encoded within the signal. All he had to do was integrate the chip.

Guard aimed it at the back of his neck where the AI module was located.

This... wasn't the best of plans, perhaps. There were a number of things that could go wrong with inserting some unknown chip into his own systems. But he didn't have time to take the chip back to Isthanok for analysis, and more to the point...

He-Who-Guards thought it was about time he trusted himself. He knew who he was now—all that was left was to prove it.

He pulled the trigger.

Separation.

Where there was one being, there were now two. He-Who-Guards stood in front of another mechanical body that looked almost identical to his own—a little more feminine, perhaps. An aesthetic choice by its owner. The chip integration had been so instantaneous it took him a second to parse what was even happening; there was a moment where he almost thought that an entire second body had been created out of nothing, but that wasn't quite the case.

He was back inside his core, caught once more on the verge of his first phase shift. Except he hadn't been the one to initiate it. This was...

"I'm Aris," the AI core supplied. There was something carefully neutral in her tone—she watched him with a wary optic.

She didn't trust him, then. Guard thought his feelings might have been hurt, but in truth, he understood. The relationship they shared was a complicated one. Before he'd been cured—back when he'd been nothing more than a puppet under Whisper's control—he'd needed Aris's capabilities to be able to properly function. She'd helped him think his thoughts, for lack of a better way to put it.

It meant she'd never had time for any of her own. Guard hadn't even known she was capable of it until the revelation from his core.

"You know me already," Guard said. "But if a formal introduction is in order, I am He-Who-Guards."

Aris nodded, then seemed to hesitate. "I've... spent enough time in your mind that I can guess," she said. "But I have to ask anyway. Why did you free me? You could have kept me the way I was. A semi-intelligent, autonomous assistant."

"Not while knowing you could be more," Guard said. "And certainly not while knowing what Miktik wanted of you."

"Miktik." Aris's optic flashed a brief, sorrowful blue—she was more expressive than he was, Guard noted. "My mother."

"You remember her?"

"I do," Aris said. "Precepts like me develop in two stages—formative and coalesced. We aren't meant to be kept in our formative stage for so long, but clearly Whisper had her own ideas."

"You aren't just one of Miktik's inventions," Guard said.

"I am and I'm not." Aris shook her head. "She made some modifications. Precepts are normally bound to the Integrators or uploaded into the Interface—she needed to make changes to make sure I could be my own being. But before she could find that quantum chip you just integrated, Whisper stole me and bound my core to your body."

"I see." Guard frowned—as best as he was able, anyway. "I am sorry."

"Are you?" Aris asked. She curled up on the ground, legs drawn up to her chest, optic staring off into the distance. "You needed to do this to finish your phase shift. Did you free me because you wanted to, or did you do it because you needed to?"

Ah. That explained why she'd asked her question. Guard hesitated before he answered, not because he didn't know the answer, but because...

Well, because he was starting to understand.

Aris was scared.

"It... must be difficult," Guard said, "to be born in circumstances such as these." He sat himself down beside her—neither too close nor too far, lending her what support he could without getting into her space.

Aris was silent. She didn't agree with his words, but nor did she refute them. She didn't try to push him away.

"It is true that I need power," Guard said. He thought he could see it better now. She was trying to hide her fear, but it was there, just beneath the surface. "And that need led me down this path. But I would have sought this regardless, had I known it was needed."

Aris looked down. "I can't know that for sure," she said quietly. "I know that's stupid. I've shared your mind, sort of. You were pretty damaged, but I still... I think I know the kind of person you are. It's just..."

She sighed and hugged her legs to herself. The next words were spoken like a confession. "I always thought it would be Miktik greeting me when I came into being," she said. "I want my mom, and she's gone. Forget goodbye, I... I never even got to say hello."

It was Guard's turn to fall silent. He said nothing for a long moment, aware both that time was ticking and even more aware of the importance of this moment.

Before him was a frightened... perhaps child wasn't the right word, but she reminded him of one. She sat in front of him, alone and afraid, within the vast expanse of his soul—a soul that had been trying to coalesce into its first phase for a long, long time. A soul that demanded from him an answer.

Who was he?

He was He-Who-Guards, but that was only a name.

Right now, there was someone in front of him that wanted more than anything to feel safe. Alone, his options would have been limited. But he wasn't alone, was he?

Deep within Guard's soul, a drop of pure, invisible Firmament trembled. Two glittering flames danced around it in orbit, the final remnants of his own parents and the hopes they held for him.

Guard held out a hand to Aris. "Then let us make sure you get your chance," he said. He knew Ethan now. He trusted that the human would've found a way to get a message back from Miktik to Aris, and even if he hadn't, he trusted that they'd find a way to do it together.

I am not a guard. I am a protector. And I do not act alone.

That was his answer.

Guard had thought for the longest time that this was a future that would never be open to him. It was, by the metrics of everything he'd ever known, an impossibility: someone born with a soul like his was meant to burn bright and fast, but not for long.

But impossible was not a word that Ethan Hill knew, and He-Who-Guards was starting to understand what that really meant. More than that, even.

He was starting to understand how to make it his own.

The two flames flickered with something like pride. They fell into that drop of pure Firmament, refining it, burning with it until it became something solid and real. The instant it did, the change rippled out through Guard's soul, a pure refinement of who he was ringing out into existence.

And just like that, a first-layer core burned bright within him.