We cleared the alley into a metal grid that looked like a food court built by accountants. Square silver kiosks, two neat rows, each a shut mouth with a slot for a window. Something smelled like burnt sugar and hot plates. An alien with a metal forearm flipped a brown slab on a glowing panel and chanted “Strix buns” like he wanted to be anywhere else. He saw us, the royal alien and the golden dragon, and slammed his shutter with a terrified expression. Locks clacked. The rest copied him in sequence. One click became twenty. A vat hissed shut on steaming broth; a rack of lacquered skewers retracted into a sterile slot; a sign blinked off mid-scroll: Nutripaste 4, Strix, Sizzle-Broth, Airfruit. Airfruit was code for nothing.

  “Wow. It’s a… friendly place, ahaha,” I said, feeling my face blush against the armour. My stomach rumbled.

  “Not to outsiders,” Oruun answered. “Especially ones who arrive with a scene.”

  An Islander wearing golden dragon armour probably met that criteria. We moved anyway.

  “There’s a ship coming,” Oruun said. “We should move.”

  A white shuttle descended on a tongue of fire, the red star of the Chinese Communist Party blazing across its hull. I didn’t have a good feeling about that.

  “Wait, the CCP ha a spaceship? How!? Why are they here…!? Wait… could it be… her?” I shouted, grabbing Oruun’s shoulder. I had only considered Oruun having that technology, not the country that nuked my own. He shrugged me off angrily and hastened his pace. But in the metal forest, we couldn’t traverse easily. The world was too crammed, too clean. There was metal always within an arms distance. The ship flew overhead, then became obscured by the monochrome treeline.

  “Nuxx. That’s why. We’ve been spotted.”

  I took a deep breath. “… It’s fine. You’ve brought me here because I can destroy Nuxx, right? So, we don’t need to worry.”

  The shuttle hit a distant platform with military precision. Its gangway dropped. A young woman appeared from the left alleyway and headed towards us. She wore her great sword across one shoulder and the easy smirk of someone who had done the math. The sword was much too big, eight foot long and made entirely of gold. It looked like a legendary artifact, yet physically impossible to wield. It was her. The Diamond Doll, hunting me down. What the fuck was going on in my life anymore?

  “Bǎo has spent so long trying to find you,” she said, stepping off the ramp. “The VIPs really don’t like you. So, well done, you can die knowing you’re a minor celebrity.”

  “Back away young lady,” Oruun said. “The boy is with me.”

  She grinned without humour. “And I’m with whoever’s giving me the bag.”

  Her feet turned into rockets, and she blasted through the alleyway in a flash of light. The blade came down in a diagonal arc. The impact jolted the platform, sparks spilling into the night. I caught the flat and shoved, but she rolled her wrists, turned the edge, and nicked the pauldron seam. Her second swing whistled past my shoulder, cutting a line of heat through the air that smelled like scorched coin. Oruun sent her flying into the air, but Bǎo just flew above us.

  “Nothing personal,” she said, breath even. “Bǎo thought your stunt was flashy.”

  Bǎo blasted downwards and slashed again. I blocked, pivoted, returned the strike. The catwalk shuddered beneath us, metal screeching. She stepped inside my guard with a heel rake to my boot, forced a stumble, and dragged her blade up the chest plate, testing welds. I answered with a vine lash at her ankle; she jumped it and punished the opening with an elbow under my chin that rang the dragon’s jaw. Edenfall’s wind howled through the spires like a choir of machines. She feinted, kicked, turned, and struck again. Her greatsword caught the golden light of my armour and threw it back as a sunburst.

  My Star Dragon shell cracked along its seams. Bǎo stepped in, both hands on the hilt, and drove her blade through the last plate.

  The light erupted, gold and blinding, and then fell away as harmless rain. Warm. Weightless. Gone. I stood bare. The armour fell to my floor. Once our saviour, now junk beneath our feet. I felt heat radiating down my chest. Warm, red liquid with specs of green seeped out onto the metallic floor. Bǎo’s sword hovered at my throat. She could have ended me. She didn’t.

  “Nice try, piggy,” she said. “And you, bug eyes! Don’t even think of using your magic on Bǎo, or I’ll cut off his head, believe it!”

  Stolen story; please report.

  “Since when were you so generous, Bǎo?” Oruun said, like he was an old friend.

  “Since the association pays bonuses,” she said.

  “If you’re looking for money, join us,” Oruun said, slowly inching towards her. “I’ve collected treasure for centuries.”

  “Stay where you are! Arata Tanaka. Bǎo has some questions for you. If you answer nicely, Bǎo will make sure not to turn your death into a meme, okay? Tell Bǎo… what is the armour, and what happened in Finland?”

  “Stop! I just want to kill Nuxx, I don’t want to fight…!”

  A slow clap rolled out across the catwalk. From the haze emerged a tall figure, completely monochrome. The temperature shifted.

  Tall, slim, too happy for his surroundings. Wide-brimmed hat pulled low, face half-lost in shadow, black lenses hiding his eyes entirely. The coat looked expensive until you watched it too long and realised it shifted, seams tightening and relaxing in tiny, insect movements. His mouth curved in something that wasn’t quite a smile. Too controlled. Too measured. Nothing about him felt alive in the normal sense. “You’ll kill me, will you,” he said. “I love your confidence. I’ll give you all one chance, so do your best.” As he clapped, he reminded me of a sports fan in the audience when their team won.

  The hat. The posture. The same calm curve of his mouth. My stomach dropped. He hadn’t died. He’d been watching.

  Bǎo turned and swung for his neck. Her blade froze mid-arc, humming. “So that’s how advanced CCP technology is these days,” the man mused. “Bǎo, a streamer should know better than to attack her benefactors…”

  I tried to use growth and move, but I couldn’t. The air folded around me too. Nanites poured from the clouds like metallic rain, locking into a monochrome cage. The bars smelled of cold tin and ozone. I grabbed them and tried to rip them open, but they turned sharp and cut my palm open. I dared not scream.

  “Consider yourselves guests,” he said, voice smooth as gravity. The faces of thousands of Nuxxani looked down on us from their homes. Wide, black, lifeless eyes. None of them dared to intervene.

  The metallic man walked closer, slow and conversational. “Arata Tanaka, the most wanted man on Earth. Bǎo, the doll CCP contract hunter. It’s rare I meet such uniquely ridiculous people. I really like that.” He smiled faintly. “Allow me to pay you both in perspective.” The cage lifted, gliding toward the central tower. The city unfurled below, towers of living metal, molten rivers pulsing with current.

  Oruun stood on a platform below. When he looked up, that once determined, ambitious demeanour was replaced by a cold glare. “Master Nuxx. Thank you for blessing me with your appearance, for the first time. I am not worthy. As you can see, I’ve brought Seraphel’s star dragon to you,” Oruun called, bowing low. It was him. The man I heard whispers of.

  “That’s great news,” Nuxx said. “The Star Dragon falls, and its keeper delivered me the remains.”

  My stomach twisted. He had handed me in. I almost threw up. The cage landed with a hiss of nanites turning to smoke. Nuxx gestured. Oruun approached, holding a crystalline tablet displaying my pulse, my name, my coordinates.

  “A faithful Nuxxani, the others should learn from you, my friend,” Nuxx said, approvingly.

  “I serve clarity,” Oruun said. “And clarity serves you.”

  Nuxx smiled. “Good. Then keep serving. I’m sure your wife will appreciate… upgraded lodgings as a reward?” The smile faded, as he poked Oruun’s chest “Next time though, answer my calls, or your wife will wake to find her kitchen thrown into outer space.”

  He turned his attention back to me. “The armour was never yours, Arata. It was a rental from something divine and made by an old friend of mine. It’s came home. Sorry.”

  “H-hold on, Nuxx…. Please, honestly, this was all Oruun’s idea. I don’t know you and have no problems with you at all… he’s the one who betrayed you, so please let me go,” I pleaded.

  “You get a second chance,” he said. “If you are interesting.”

  He pivoted to Bǎo. “You got your bounty. Congratulations. You’ve delivered him into something larger.”

  “Larger than the CCP?” she asked dryly.

  “Of course. You’ve delivered a parcel faithfully to your God,” he said. “Now, since you’re so interested in Edenfall, I think it’s time to arrange you fitting Nuxxani quarters. Though, as you can see, luxury is not our strong suit… please keep your expectations modest.”

  Oruun stepped forward. “Shall I escort them to Level 5 confinement then, Nuxx?”

  “Put them where Seraphel is, just out of reach. Record her reaction when she sees the little naked dragon writhing around,” He turned away, the watchers following his silhouette.

  Oruun led us through a winding corridor, with more monochrome walls. None of us spoke. The floor carried its own heartbeat. The room he brought us to was wide and windowless. Its walls rippled faintly, as if the metal exhaled.

  “This will do,” Oruun said. His tone was academic, not kind.

  He keyed a sequence into the wall. The door sealed. Bǎo leaned against a pillar, cuffs on her wrist, joined like a doll’s. “You handed me in, just like that, bug eyes? You’re seriously pathetic,” she said.

  “I did,” Oruun replied. “Edenfall demands loyalty. You have your own loyalties, too. That’s why you’ve ended up here.”

  “Who? For Nuxx?” I asked.

  “To whoever is winning,” he said. “For now, that is him. Because you did not meet my expectations, Arata.” He turned toward the wall and folded his arms. The watchers lingered outside like shadows pinned to glass. Silence. I sat down on the cold floor, feeling the phantom weight of the armour still pressing at my shoulders. The room vibrated with a low hum.

  Bǎo exhaled. “You know what? You should be grateful to Nuxx. If I didn’t have these cuffs on, Bǎo would be slapping the SOUL out you idiots right now.”

  I looked up. “He’s watching through them, isn’t he?”

  Oruun didn’t answer. He acted like he didn’t know me now. He hastened us into the darkness, and threw us in.

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