On the ship, the Author scratched his round face, watching all of it unfold.
Through the pffrrr sound of his breathing—
or maybe his despair—
he muttered:
“And there’s the third one…
1618th—The Golden Architect.
Yeah… it’s getting hotter and hotter…”
Dick lunged at the console and barked:
“YOU ROUND MORON!
SWITCH FOCUS TO THE NEW FUCKER THAT JUST SHOWED UP!”
The drone, which had been quietly filming the fight this whole time,
jerked, spun around in a hurry,
and tried to lock onto the target.
But instead of the Golden Architect,
the screen filled with pixelated squares—
the exact kind
they slap over very specific parts in Japanese porn.
“What the fuck is this shit…?!” Dick growled.
Jackie tapped a few keys,
stared at the pixels for a long moment,
then said softly—almost gently:
“Alright… just keep filming the others, Big-Eye.”
The drone let out a tiny beep
and instantly looked away,
like it had just seen something it was NOT supposed to see.
Jackie rested a finger on her lower lip,
tilted her head, and said—
in that exact tone of someone about to break two laws of science in a row:
“Hmm… Zeros is entropy… destruction…
And the Architect is structure… proportion…
They’re literally opposites:
CHAOS versus GEOMETRY.
Interesting… very interesting…”
Dick perked up, put on the smartest face he could manage—
which wasn’t saying much:
“Yeah, yeah… cool, philosophy…
But NONE of the machines can see that golden asshole!”
He leaned closer to the screen:
“Look down—Airi and her little ‘brothers’
are about to beat the shit out of that giant bastard,
and that costumed idiot dancing on his shoulder.
This is NOT like her at all…”
He squinted harder:
“And what the hell happened to Zeros?!
Why’s he just standing there like someone factory-reset his ass?!”
Shiori suddenly leaned into the terminal,
her voice tight, almost sharp:
“Airi-chan! Soba ni arata na teki!”
And then Phoenix’s voice came through—
low, filtered with static,
but steady:
“Shiori… please…
don’t disturb Airi-chan.”
Then Phoenix spoke again, more firmly:
“1618th is a different kind of Reaper.
Airi-chan will fall under his control.
She won’t be able to handle him.”
Shiori snapped toward the screen:
“What?! But Zerosu-san—”
“I’m with Zeros,” Phoenix cut in.
“Give me some time.
I’ll try to pull him out.”
A short burst of interference—
“Just… please… don’t distract them.
They must not look X1618 in the face.
It’s dangerous for any machine architecture.”
While Zeros remained “offline”—
like a dead-tired high-rise worker
who decided to take a nap mid-welding
on top of a skyscraper—
Blindy stood there, completely fucked out of his mind,
turning his head,
trying to figure out where up was, where down was—
when the air exploded—
—and in that exact moment, Airi tilted her head,
light, feline,
lifting slightly onto her toes—
and launched forward like a detonation.
The air couldn’t take it.
A pink trail of energy ignited behind her,
like a shot from an infernal firework
ripping the atmosphere itself apart.
“Yoroshiku onegai shimaaaasu~! [≧∀≦ ]♡”
Exponent instantly snapped into a
“Napoleon Commanding Pose”
and screamed:
“FINAL EXPONENT!”
Constant shifted his weight,
raising waves five stories high,
his entire mass swelling upward as he roared:
“EVOLUTION ACCELERATION!”
Then quieter—like he was hyping himself up:
“No need to rush.
They’re mine anyway.
Ha. Ha. Ha.”
He barely finished his idiot laugh…
…when darkness fell on him.
White darkness.
An ARMY.
Blindy lost it completely and screamed,
forgetting he was even alive:
“Oh, Zeros—beep—look what the hell—beep—is happening!
Don’t just stand there—beep—like—beep—
DO—beep—SOMETHING!”
Up on the ship, Dick winced like a migraine just hit him.
“Baby, take your fingers off the censor button!
That beep’s drilling into my brain!”
Jackie slammed the panel, annoyed:
“I CAN’T. He swears more than he breathes.
There’s a DEADLY situation down there—
and above it, it’s nonstop cussing every two seconds!”