The Forge's blow shook the plaza, but Kaelen moved faster than his own reflexes, Cortex burning lines of choice into his vision. His crew pulled civilians back, and for a breath, there was silence.
Then the sky sang.
Not a melody, an ocean-deep vibration that made the towers shiver. Clouds rolled aside as a shape eclipsed the stars.
A Titan.
It was impossible to take in all at once. A body the size of a small moon, but not made of stone or metal. Its surface shimmered like liquid glass, shifting into ridges, plates, spines. A being older than this system, hanging weightless over Neptune's storms.
Ryn froze mid-step, his voice flattening as he relayed.
"Designation: Aurasteel Titan. Council member. Weight beyond measure. Span: half the orbit of this world."
Around it, others stirred, vast silhouettes against starlight, each carrying a different shape: one wrapped in chains of molten crystal, another with wings that bent into triangles too sharp for the eye to follow. They did not hover like ships. They loomed, each one a mountain adrift in black seas.
To the civilians screaming below, they were monsters. To Kaelen, they were watchers.
And still, they spoke only through Ryn.
"Consensus: fulcrum under trial. Civilian priority secondary. Anchor must endure."
Lyra clenched her fists. "They watch, but they won't act?"
Kaelen didn't answer. He knew better than to ask Titans for mercy. Their scale was too large, their patience too ancient. To them, cities weren't homes, they were markers in a war map.
But before he could speak, a new signal screamed through comms.
The Armada.
On the far edge of the system, long-range scans lit up red. A swarm of geometric ships, tens of thousands, pressing against the Kuiper belt like an oncoming tide. The Fractal Armada.
Even from here, the closest Titan shifted its head toward the swarm. Its voice came low, through Ryn.
"Enemy fleet advancing. Pattern precise. Objective: Sol siege."
Seris' eyes widened. "They're not waiting. They're coming now."
Kaelen felt the threads splitting, racing. Neptune burning under the Forge. Earth and Mars unprepared for the Armada's arrival. His Cortex howled, trying to calculate both at once. His nose bled from the strain, vision cracking.
And still, he forced himself to look upward.
"Then we don't have time. We finish this here, fast."
The Forge answered. Its chest rippled, its mirrors aligning again. The half-formed torso straightened. Limbs bent into symmetry. Its face was still jagged glass, but there was a jaw now, a mouth-like slit forming where nothing had been before.
Not human yet. But closer then before
Kaelen didn't flinch, but his crew noticed something else: the Titans overhead had stopped their low resonance. Silence filled the sky. Silence that pressed down heavier than their thunder.
Then Ryn spoke. His voice layered with their harmonics, machine-flat:
"Directive: fulcrum under observation. Action threshold pending Titan Council judgment."
The words carried across open comms. And that was the mistake.
Because the other council was listening too.
The channel burst alive with voices, human voices. Panicked, sharp, political.
"Kaelen, this is the Sol High Council. Confirm Titan interference. Are they making decisions for us?"
Static drowned out half the call, but their desperation was clear. These weren't ancient titans. These were men and women chained by borders and votes, hearing their authority slipping away.
Seris snarled under her breath. "They're listening in. They'll choke on this."
Lyra spat, firing another stabilizer dart into a wall. "Let them choke. We need reinforcements, not speeches."
Kaelen didn't answer either side. He couldn't. The Forge advanced again, its glass mouth cracking into a mockery of expression. Its voice was wrong, a grinding of mirrors.
"You… choose…"
The sound wasn't words so much as reflections of words. A thousand possibilities of the same sentence, bleeding into one.
The Titans stirred in response. Their vast silhouettes shifted in orbit, and Ryn translated without emotion:
"Council note: adversary acquiring language. Pattern convergence accelerated."
The human comms erupted again. "Kaelen! Do not let the Titans dictate, Sol's fleets answer to us, not to alien consensus!"
Kaelen's Cortex roared with collapsing threads. He saw the fracture widening:
The Forge turning more human with every second.
The Titans watching, refusing to act until their "consensus" aligned.
The Human Council screaming for control, powerless from across the void.
Two councils. Two chains pulling opposite ways. And only him standing on a burning street, choosing which thread to cut.
Kaelen's voice, when it came, was low, steady.
"Both of you..., shut up."
He raised his weapon, the Cortex blazing in his skull. "This isn't about your councils. This is about survival."
He fired.
The Forge staggered back, its forming jaw cracking into splinters. The battlefield shook, silencing both human comms and Titan harmonics.
And for one heartbeat, Kaelen was the only voice that mattered.
On the other side,
High above Neptune's storms, where sunlight curved faint through ice, the Titans drifted. Their vast bodies glimmered against the void, each one a world-sized silhouette, older than Sol's own birth.
They did not speak with mouths. They resonated. Harmonic waves rolled between them, deep, seismic pulses that carried meaning like tides.
To lesser ears it would have sounded like storms colliding. To them, it was council.
Aurasteel Titan, plates shimmering like continents of steel, resonated first:
"Fulcrum adapts. Cortex altering at velocity not modeled. Alignment with adversary probability: rising."
A second shape rippled in response, wings folded into impossible angles. The Prism Titan, whose body scattered starlight into broken rainbows:
"Then the fulcrum is unstable. Remove it. Collapse probability here before enemy convergence."
A silence followed, heavy as gravity. Then came the deep thunder of The Chain-Bound Titan, its crystalline ligatures glowing faint across its body.
"Not removal. Not yet. Fulcrum demonstrates resistance where no other has. Potential outweighs fracture risk."
The harmonics clashed, each resonance pressing into the void, shaking debris rings to dust. Their debate was not of emotion, it was calculation stretched across centuries, choices weighted in tones beyond human hearing.
Finally, the eldest presence stirred. A Titan vast enough its outline swallowed entire constellations behind it. Its harmonics rolled slower, deeper, like mountains grinding.
The Abyss Titan.
"Both Forge and fulcrum… change. The mirror takes shape. The lattice bends. One reflects the other. Their threads converge."
The others quivered at its tone. None contradicted.
"Observation must continue. Do not intervene. Let fracture reveal truth."
On Neptune's surface, Ryn's voice echoed the harmonics without pause, as if the Titans were speaking through him directly:
"Titan Council consensus: fulcrum remains under trial. No intervention. Observation priority. Survival test ongoing."
Kaelen never looked up at the sky. He didn't have to. He could feel the weight of their judgment pressing on his skull, heavier than the Forge itself.