The silence of the salt flats was broken only by the rhythmic, heavy clank-hiss of Bastion’s damaged leg servos. Vex walked a few paces ahead, her eyes fixed on the horizon, her hand never far from the holster at her hip.

  ?"It’s too quiet, Bastion," Vex said, her voice barely a whisper. "When Julian’s patrols were active, you could hear the pneuma-hum for miles. Now? It’s like the world held its breath and forgot to let it out."

  ?Bastion rumbled, a deep vibration that shook the loose salt off his shoulders. "The absence of... Julian's signal... is illogical. A man of... his calculation... does not simply... cease. Unless the Spark... was greater than the Machine."

  ?Vex stopped and turned to look at him. "You think Jay did this? You think that kid caused an explosion that could be seen from the Sinks? He’s a 'Spark,' Bastion, not a bomb."

  ?"He is... Noise," Bastion corrected, his visor dimming as he conserved power. "And Julian... hated Noise. If they met... the result... was always going to be... catastrophic."

  ?Vex looked back at the fading violet smear in the sky. To her, it wasn't a sign of a god falling—it was just a sign that the biggest bully in the world might be gone, leaving a vacuum she didn't know how to fill.

  ?"We don't know what's waiting for us at those coordinates," Vex said, her face hardening. "If Julian is dead, his soldiers are going to be headless. They’ll be twitchy. And if Jay is at the center of whatever just blew up... he’s going to be hurt. Or worse."

  ?"We move," Bastion said simply. He didn't have the capacity for "what-ifs." He only had the mission. "If the boy... is at the center... we find him. If the enemy... is still there... I break him."

  ?"Right. The hammer and the wrench," Vex muttered, resuming her pace. "But watch the sky, Big Guy. The air is getting colder, and for some reason, the salt is starting to feel... wet. Like something is melting under our feet."

  ?They continued their march, two small shadows moving across a white wasteland, completely unaware that they were walking into a world where the "enemies" they knew had already been replaced by horrors they couldn't even imagine.

  The salt flats eventually gave way to the Grey Shallows, a region of cracked mud and dead mangroves. The stillness here was different—it wasn't empty; it was heavy.

  ?As Vex and Bastion rounded a bend in the dried-out canal, they stumbled upon the remains of a camp. It wasn't a military outpost. It was a cluster of tattered tents and overturned carts, abandoned so quickly that meals were still sitting in bowls, now covered in a thin, yellow dust.

  ?Vex held up a hand, her fingers twitching toward her sidearm. "Bastion. Stop."

  ?From behind a pile of rusted scrap, a man scrambled out. He wasn't a soldier. He was a scavenger, his clothes reinforced with bits of rubber and wire, but his eyes were wide with a primal, glassy terror. He was dragging a young girl by the hand, her face buried in a ragged scarf.

  ?"Don't shoot!" the man shrieked, collapsing to his knees as he saw the massive, hulking frame of the Breaker. "Please! We aren't part of the Legion! We're just passing through!"

  ?Bastion stood perfectly still, his visor dimming to its lowest setting to appear less threatening. "Identify... your threat," he rasped. "We are not... Julian’s collectors."

  ?Vex stepped forward, her voice low and steady. "Easy, friend. We’re looking for someone. A boy. But what the hell are you running from?

  ?The man let out a wet, jagged laugh that sounded more like a sob.

  ?"Talk sense," Vex snapped, though her eyes were darting to the yellow dust coating the man’s sleeves. "What happened to the camp?"

  ?The man leaned in, his voice dropping to a terrified whisper. "It came from the East. We thought it was a cloud at first. Just a golden mist. But then the ground started to... heave. Like it was breathing."

  ?He gripped Vex’s sleeve, his fingers trembling. "My brother... he didn't run fast enough. The mist touched him, and he didn't die. He just started to melt. His skin... it started to knit into the person next to him. They became... a mound. A pile of... screaming meat."

  ?Bastion’s internal processors whirred, a high-pitched sound of confusion. "Biological... fusion? That is not... within the Architect’s... parameters."

  ?"Julian is gone, you giant tin-can!" the man wailed, his voice cracking. "Whatever held the world in place is broken! The meat... it has a voice. It’s a child’s voice, coming from a mountain of gore. It says we’re 'lonely.' It says it wants to 'stitch' us back together."

  ?Vex pulled her arm away, looking at the yellow dust on her own glove with sudden revulsion. "A child’s voice? In a mountain of meat? That’s impossible."

  ?"Go see for yourself if you're so brave," the man spat, scrambling to his feet and pulling the girl toward the salt flats. "Go West! Go into the Void! Just don't go East. The Union doesn't kill you... it just makes you part of the scream."

  Vex stood in the center of the abandoned camp, her hand trembling as she watched the refugees disappear into the white haze of the Salt Flats. She looked down at the yellow dust on her boots, then back at the massive, silent machine beside her.

  ?"Bastion," Vex said, her voice sounding thin in the vast quiet. "Did you hear what he said? 'Screaming meat.' 'Stitching' people together."

  ?Bastion’s internal fans whirred, a low, mourning sound. "My databases... do not contain... such entries. Julian’s Legion... was built on the logic of the forge. Iron. Glass. Pneuma. There was no... organic... component."

  ?"That’s what I’m saying!" Vex turned to face him, her eyes wide with a growing realization. "The 'Architect' was the only thing we were taught to fear. He was the one with the 'Order.' If he’s gone... who the hell is doing this?"

  ?She gestured vaguely toward the horizon where the yellow mist was beginning to thicken.

  ?"I don't know about any 'Union'," Vex continued, her voice rising with a frantic edge. "I don't know who’s in charge of the 'East' or any other direction. I just know that the world we spent our lives hiding from... just got replaced by something that doesn't even have a face."

  Did you know this story is from Royal Road? Read the official version for free and support the author.

  ?Bastion shifted his weight, the salt crust cracking under his massive iron feet. "The man... mentioned a child's voice. A voice... coming from the mass."

  ?"Yeah, a child's voice," Vex whispered, her grip tightening on her lead-lined coat. "You think... you think it's him? You think Jay... did something? Or maybe... maybe Julian’s 'Final Equation' just went so wrong it turned the whole world into a slaughterhouse."

  ?"The Spark... is Noise," Bastion rasped, his visor pulsing a steady, grounding amber. "But this... this sounds like... Rot. The boy... would not... create a scream. He would... create a song."

  ?Vex took a deep breath, trying to steady her racing heart. "Then we’re walking into a war where we don't even know who the players are. We’re just two pieces of scrap moving toward a fire we don't understand."

  ?"We move," Bastion said, his tone final. "We do not... need to know the name... of the shadow... to know it must be... broken. If the boy... is in that mist... then the mist... is the target."

  ?Vex looked at the massive, scarred Breaker. He was a relic of a world that made sense—a world of metal and missions. Now, he was all she had left in a world that was turning into a biological fever dream.

  ?"Alright," she said, her voice hardening. "No blueprints. No names. Just the boy. We follow the 'screams' until we find the 'Noise' we know."

  The Grey Shallows were no longer grey. As Bastion and Vex pushed deeper, the air grew thick with a scent that made Vex gag—the smell of a greenhouse built over a locker room.

  ?Propped against a petrified mangrove was a Hollowed Soldier. He was one of Julian’s "Perfection" units, encased in sleek, indigo-tinted pneuma-glass and iron. But the perfection had been violated.

  ?"Look at his chest-plate," Vex whispered, her hand hovering over her sidearm. "It’s... moving."

  ?Bastion stepped forward, his heavy boots squelching in mud that felt increasingly like wet velvet. He leaned down, his visor scanning the soldier.

  ?Where there should have been a cold, humming pneuma-core, thick, corded muscle was bursting through the seams of the iron. Pale, translucent vines—looking more like veins than plants—were threaded through the soldier’s glass joints, twitching with a rhythmic, hypnotic pulse.

  ?"His armor... is being... discarded," Bastion rasped. His internal fans kicked into high gear, sensing a heat that wasn't mechanical. "The life... is growing... from the inside."

  ?The Hollowed soldier’s helmet had been pushed aside by a growth of fibrous, red tissue. He wasn't dead. His one remaining eye—still human, though clouded with a golden film—flickered toward them.

  ?"Help..." the soldier gurgled. It wasn't the sound of a voice box; it was the sound of air being forced through wet sponges. "The... loneliness... is over. Can you... hear it?"

  ?"I don't hear anything but you dying, pal," Vex said, her voice shaking despite her attempt at coldness. She looked at Bastion. "Bastion, do something. Can you... can you pull the vines out?"

  ?Bastion reached out a massive, scarred finger and touched a vine. The plant didn't snap; it clung to his metal, trying to find a seam in his plating. Bastion pulled back as if burned.

  ?"Negative," Bastion rumbled, a deep tremor in his vocalizer. "The biological... is integrated. If I pull the vine... I pull the heart. He is... no longer... a unit. He is... a garden."

  ?"A garden?" Vex spat, looking at the soldier’s hand. The metal fingers were falling off like dead leaves, revealing raw, pink flesh underneath that was rapidly shaping itself into something claw-like. "Julian turned us into machines to 'save' us, and now... what? Something is turning us into this?"

  ?The soldier let out a wet, whistling breath. "The Architect... was a cold father. The Mother... is a hungry one. But the Child... the Child is... warm. We are... all... going to be... one."

  ?"The Child?" Vex stepped back, her eyes wide. "He’s talking about Jay. He has to be. He’s talking about a child's voice in the meat."

  ?"No," Bastion said, his amber visor flashing a sharp, warning red. "The boy... is Noise. This... is a Song. This is... a different script, Vex. Julian’s 'Order' didn't break... it was eaten."

  ?Bastion looked down at his own rusted limbs, then back at the soldier who was slowly being swallowed by the mangrove tree behind him. For a machine who viewed himself as scrap, the sight of metal being conquered by meat was a new kind of horror.

  ?"We cannot... save him," Bastion said, his voice heavy. "The logic of the wrench... does not apply to... the pulse."

  ?"Then what do we do?" Vex asked, looking at the golden mist creeping toward them from the tree line. "If the iron can't hold it back, what chance do we have?"

  ?Bastion looked toward the center of the world, where the Spire-Forge used to stand.

  ?"We find the boy," Bastion said, his massive hand tightening into a fist that could crush stone. "If he is the 'Noise'... then he is the only thing... that isn't... part of the Song. We find him... or we become... part of the screaming meat."

  The golden mist didn’t scream as it moved; it hissed, a sound like a thousand dry leaves skittering across the mud. Vex had been too busy looking at the Hollowed soldier’s face to notice the thin, needle-like vine creeping through the crack in her discarded crate.

  ?It happened in a heartbeat. The vine lashed out, piercing the heavy leather of her boot and sinking deep into the pneuma-burn on her forearm.

  ?"Vex!" Bastion’s voice was a thunderous roar of distorted static. He reached for her, but his massive fingers were too clumsy to catch the microscopic intrusion.

  ?Vex gasped, her body jerking violently. She collapsed against the Rust-Eater’s hull, clutching her arm. The yellow dust on her sleeve didn't just sit there anymore—it began to glow. Underneath her skin, something thick and dark began to ripple, moving up her veins like ink in water.

  ?"It’s... it’s warm, Bastion," she whispered. Her voice was already changing, losing its sharp, cynical edge and becoming soft—horrifically calm. "The noise... it’s finally stopping. I can hear the heart. The big one. Under the ground."

  ?"Vex. Resist," Bastion commanded, his internal cooling fans screaming as his core temperature spiked in distress. "You are... Noise. You are... a Scavenger. Do not... integrate."

  ?She looked up at him, and Bastion’s sensors flared a warning. Her emerald eyes were being swallowed by a golden, fibrous bloom. A small, pale flower sprouted from the corner of her mouth, its roots stitching her lips into a permanent, tragic smile.

  ?"Why would I want to be scrap, Bastion?" she asked, her voice now layered with a dozen other whispers. "Why be a broken part... when we can be the whole machine? The Child... he’s so lonely. He’s calling for us."

  ?She stood up, but her movements weren't human. Her bones cracked and reset as the vines inside her tightened, turning her limbs into a scaffold for the growth. She reached out toward Bastion, her fingers elongating into wet, pink tendrils.

  ?"Come here, Breaker," she whispered. "Let me strip the iron away. Let me see the soul in there. We’ll be... beautiful."

  ?Bastion backed away, his massive feet churning the salt and mud. "Vex. Stop. I cannot... process this. The mission... is to protect... the Spark."

  ?"I am the Spark now," she said, and for a fleeting second, the real Vex—the girl who saved him for the 'Noise'—flickered in her eyes. It was a look of pure, agonizing terror. “Bastion... please... before I’m gone... don't let me join the scream...”

  ?The moment of clarity vanished as the yellow flowers exploded from her neck, weaving a collar of meat and thorns. She lunged at him, her body no longer her own, but a weapon of the Union.

  ?Bastion channeled every ounce of his failing core’s pneuma into his massive right fist. He moved with a speed his rusted joints shouldn't have been capable of.

  ?"Vex," he rasped, the word a funeral dirge. "You are... not... scrap."

  ?The blow was instantaneous. He struck with enough force to shatter stone, a mercy that ended her existence before the Union could fully claim her mind. The impact sent a cloud of white salt and yellow dust into the air.

  ?When the dust settled, Bastion was alone. He stood over the shattered remains of the woman who had taught him that refusal was a function. The vines were already beginning to wither, deprived of the life they had been trying to steal.

  ?Bastion looked at his hand. It was scorched and leaking a dull, orange fluid. He didn't have a heart to break, but his internal processors began to cycle in a feedback loop of "Error: Unit Lost."

  ?He stood there for a long time, the grey ash of the Forge falling onto his shoulders.

  ?"The Noise..." Bastion whispered to the empty flats. "It is... too quiet."

  ?He turned his visor toward the East, where the golden horizon waited. He was no longer a protector. He was a Breaker with nothing left to break but the world that had taken her.