A golden figure streaks swiftly across the planet’s red sky. I follow it with my eyes until it disappears in the direction of the demons’ mountain.

  “Looks like it’s already begun,” I murmur, stepping out of the bush where I’d been hiding. “I have to hurry.”

  I brush aside the branches and leaves covering the Cadejos and leap into the cockpit.

  “I know I said I wouldn’t… but the situation has become too dangerous,” I say as I activate the communicator. “White, this is Red. We need to talk. It’s an emergency. Respond, White.”

  I wait a few seconds.

  Nothing.

  “Come on, White, I need support. Otherwise I’ll have to head to the mountain without a plan.”

  [This is White. Red, I told you to maintain radio silence until further notice] the Princess’s voice sounds firm and slightly annoyed, but even so, hearing it after so many days is a relief.

  “I know, but the situation here is about to turn into chaos. We can’t keep being cautious, we have to act now.

  [Copy that. Brief me on the situation] she replies, slipping into her professional mode.

  As I check the Cadejos for takeoff, I give her a summary of everything: how Alex and I were captured, and the villagers’ mistrust.

  [How did you manage to get out unharmed?]

  “With difficulty. When the mountain demons started attacking villages and kidnapping people, they blamed us and even suggested handing us over,” I explain quickly.

  [That makes sense. You seem to be the variable that changed the demons’ behavior.]

  “…Don’t help us like that. In any case, Ger knew we were telling the truth, and Cir was indebted to us. They returned our belongings and helped us escape the village. After that, Alex and I went back for our armors to repair them and plan the assault on the mountain.”

  [A smart plan. So… what caused the situation to change?]

  “While I was at the river fetching water, I saw Alex’s armor take off toward the mountain. I ran back to camp and found a note.”

  [What did it say?]

  “‘Ger and Cir came looking for help. Apparently, when Mir found out that the village planned to hand us over and that we had fled, she went into the forest to look for us. Cir went after her… only to witness in horror how a golden armor flew toward the mountain with the little girl in its grasp,’” I explain as I activate Cadejos, and it lifts off the ground.

  [This doesn’t look good. A golden armor’s capabilities far surpass those of the Leonidas; facing three is impossible] the Princess doesn’t take long to silently calculate Alex’s chances of success.

  “That’s why we need your help. You’re the legendary strategist Princess; with your plans, the kingdom emerged victorious even when we were outnumbered four to one. Please, grant me a similar miracle,” I plead, staring at the screen.

  She remains silent for a few seconds.

  […That victory came with great sacrifices. If you expect a similar outcome, you’ll have to accept the same consequences.]

  I look into her eyes and hesitate. I can feel the weight of the losses she carries; it’s clear she understands better than I do what I’m asking. Every mission carries risks, and not everyone comes back. As a strategist, she’s the one who has to make those decisions.

  “If you could choose again… would you have made a different decision, Princess?”

  She hesitates for a moment.

  […No. I might have planned it better, but I still would have chosen to fight for the kingdom’s citizens.]

  At her answer, I smile, not out of confidence, but to push the fear away.

  “Now it’s my turn to fight.”

  The Cadejos lifts off smoothly as, on the screen, the Princess nods.

  [I understand. Then I’ll accompany you in this fight.]

  “That’s what I wanted to hear. Tell me… were you able to find anything from the list I left you?”

  [I searched with the drones, but it’s a very unusual list of extremely rare items.]

  I feel a bit disappointed. Damn it! Anything on that list would have increased our odds.

  [I was only able to find one] she adds, cutting through my dejection.

  “Really? Which one?” I ask urgently.

  That’s pretty lucky! What could it be? A functional warhead? A super-massive rail cannon? No, no… one of the ten relics of the First Standard-Bearer? Well… maybe that last one was a bit much.

  [Item 17: you wrote “anything with this symbol.”]

  A chest appears in the projection, adorned with the emblem of an elongated, deformed skull—clearly alien—pierced by a spear.

  “What a beauty…” I murmur in delight. “Put it in a capsule and prepare it for Alex. It’s exactly what he needs.”

  ***

  “Are you sure we shouldn’t have waited for your companion?” I hear Ger’s voice in my mind as we cut through the planet’s red skies aboard the Leonidas.

  “There’s no time. Besides, I left him a note,” I reply.

  “And you’re sure he’ll come? Mir didn’t have a very good opinion of him,” Cir presses.

  “He will. He’ll arrive angry and scold me, but with some crazy plan that’ll get us out of this,” I say firmly.

  My confident tone seems to convince them to trust me and Rob. I just hope he’s not too angry.

  “Still, it’s incredible that we’re flying in a giant made of metal. If I told this story in the village, they’d call me crazy,” Ger comments, watching the ground race past on the screens.

  The story has been illicitly taken; should you find it on Amazon, report the infringement.

  “And you say you’ll defeat the demons with this giant?” Cir asks, tapping the metal plating.

  “I won’t; at least not against three. The plan is simple: I’ll draw their attention while you rescue Mir. Do you understand?”

  “Yes,” they answer in unison.

  “Good. We’re nearing the mountain,” I announce as I zoom in on the summit.

  The mountain looms before us, imposing. At its peak, the storm churns violently: lightning and thunder race through it while pulsing waves shake the entire sky.

  “That doesn’t look good… Is it always like that?” I ask nervously.

  “Only when they take people,” Cir replies.

  Her words unsettle me, though I don’t quite know why. I start searching for the little girl with the cameras, but I can’t find her. I suppose I’ll have to check the summit directly.

  Slowly and carefully, I push through the red clouds toward the peak. The armor trembles under the increasingly intense energy waves, until I finally break through the cloud layer.

  On the other side, the Eye greets me; a deep crimson vortex spinning with tremendous power, releasing new waves skyward with each turn. Inside it I make out a small shadow, perhaps the size of my palm, emitting flashes of light.

  Before it stand two large golden figures. One holds a native who struggles in vain to break free. They advance slowly toward the core of the maelstrom until they’re just a few steps away. Suddenly, without warning, they hurl their prisoner into the vortex.

  Cir lets out a small cry. I look away for an instant, but something unexpected happens.

  Instead of being torn apart by the energy, the individual is absorbed by the core. As a result, the storm and the waves intensify with savage violence. I can barely grasp what’s happening when, a moment later, a gut-wrenching scream rings out and the native’s body is expelled—bleeding from every orifice—falling like a lifeless rag doll and smashing into the ground.

  One of the armors approaches, lifts the body, and tosses it into a ravine, where I glimpse several more corpses.

  “Damn demons, they’re sacrificing our people to feed the storm in some kind of profane ritual,” Ger exclaims, fists clenched in rage, while Cir struggles to suppress the urge to vomit at the repugnant sight.

  “We have to find Mir fast, before they sacrifice her,” I say, snapping out of the shock.

  I scan the cameras for the prisoners with little luck, until I see the armors heading toward a cave sealed by a large boulder. They remove it and, inside, reveal several natives and, most importantly, little Mir, trying unsuccessfully to hold back her tears.

  “Mir!!!” we all shout in unison.

  “No time to waste,” I say as I descend onto a nearby slope and drop off Ger and Cir. “I’ll draw them away; you take the chance to get Mir and the other people out. Run back to the village and tell everyone to hide as best they can.”

  “Good luck,” Ger wishes me.

  “Thank you for everything,” Cir says gratefully.

  I take off without looking back or saying goodbye, Mir could be next at any moment.

  No longer needing to hide, I accelerate at full speed toward the summit and burst in just as they try to drag another poor soul to his doom. The golden armors stare at me, stunned by my sudden appearance. Without wasting time, I open fire on them, careful not to hit the native, who drops to the ground and scrambles for cover among the rocks.

  The laser smoke dissipates, revealing two furious monsters. I should say something, but I’m terrible at taunts… What would Rob say right now?

  “Come on, you bastards! I’ll show you what humans are capable of!” I shout as I fire my thrusters at full power and pull away.

  I accelerate to maximum speed and plunge into the dense forest, trying to buy as much time as possible for the others to escape.

  Bestial roars thunder behind me, accompanied by the crash of splintering trees and flying rocks. They’re too fast, I veer deeper into the undergrowth to slow them down.

  But this game of cat and mouse can’t last long. After a few minutes, a golden armor cuts off my path. I try to retreat, only for another to appear behind me. I’ve been flanked. I attempt to break to the side, but a slashing claw forces me back just as a third armor emerges.

  “Damn it… looks like this is as far as I go,” I mutter in frustration.

  The armors tighten the circle, baring their fanged maws in a macabre grin.

  I brace myself: my newly repaired lance in one hand, shield in the other, ready to endure as long as I can.

  The first blow comes head-on, fast and brutal. I barely manage to block with the shield, which shudders violently on my arm, on the verge of being torn away. I force Leonidas to hold on with everything it has.

  I haven’t even recovered when a heavy impact slams into my back, ripping several plates from my armor. I spin to fend off the claws, only to take a kick to the side that shatters even more pieces. The blows start coming from every direction. They’re not trying to kill me outright; they’re playing with me, tearing my armor apart bit by bit, smiling hideously at their sick amusement.

  But I smile wider. Every blow, every wound, every piece lost is another moment Mir and the others gain to escape. So I raise my dented shield and my splintered lance, resolved to endure for as long as I can.

  Their fun doesn’t last forever. Soon they grow bored of a prey that no longer gives them the thrill they crave. In a moment of carelessness, one grabs my legs while the other two seize my arms and pull with savage force, trying to tear my limbs off or rip me in half. I suppose, to them, it’s all the same.

  “Damn you!” I snarl, pushing my unit in a futile attempt to break free.

  So this is the end. They’re going to tear me apart piece by piece, until they rip me out of the armor. Maybe it’s a kind of revenge; after all, Rob did something similar to one of them.

  Sparks begin to fly from my arms and legs as the joints grind under the strain, on the verge of giving way. I can only hope the natives are already far away, and that Rob and the Princess manage to get out of this alive. He’s going to be furious, for sure. I wish I could have been more useful.

  “Mom…” I whisper, thinking of home in these final moments.

  At my darkest instant, a massive beam of light slams into one of the golden armors, blasting it flying into the forest.

  “Well, I’m not your mother, but if she’s pretty I could become your father. What do you say?” a voice crackles over the comm.

  “Rob!!!” I shout in joy as I see the gray armor hovering in the sky, a massive energy cannon still smoking.

  The other two armors toss me aside and turn their attention to the new—and apparently far more troublesome—enemy.

  “Alex, you look like hell. Can you still move?” Rob asks, ignoring the foes entirely.

  I quickly run a systems check. Most functions are still operational. It seems that in their “game” they were careful not to damage anything vital. They stripped away all my armor plating, but left the mechanisms intact. The only thing truly destroyed is my pride.

  “I can still fight,” I say as I force myself upright, “but without my armor I’ve turned into a glass cannon.”

  “Well, I think I can help with that,” Rob replies. “White, send it.”

  An instant later, a projectile slams down and explodes near the two demons, forcing them to retreat. When the dust clears, I make out a gigantic chest engraved with an ominous black crest.

  “I’d love to stay and explain, but our two guests aren’t going to wait any longer… and the third will be back any moment,” Rob says, turning toward the enemies already charging at us in a fury. “I’m leaving the third one to you. You don’t need to defeat it; just delay it while I deal with these two,” he adds before launching himself at them.

  As he reaches them, he fires harpoons that latch onto their bodies. Then he yanks on the winches and, with a brutal burst of power, rockets toward the mountain, dragging them behind him as they dangle in tow.

  “If you have any questions, check under the panel: I left you a little present while I was repairing your unit… You’d better make it out of this alive; you still owe me for that note,” those are his last words before he vanishes into the crimson clouds.

  I stand there for a few seconds, staring in disbelief. He came and went like a whirlwind, leaving nothing but mystery behind. That’s just how he is. I look at the box, baffled.

  “Under the panel?” I mutter.

  I feel beneath the controls until my hand touches a small object. I pull it out and examine it: it looks like a memory unit, with a red dog drawn on it and something written underneath.

  “‘CliffUSB’?” I read aloud.

  If I try to make sense of all of Rob’s eccentricities, I’ll lose the entire day… and the enemy won’t give me that kind of time. Without thinking too much about it, I insert the device into Leonidas’s console. The screen flickers for a few seconds and then, suddenly, a familiar red puppy pops up, raising its little paws.

  [Hello, user. Allow me to introduce myself: I am Clifford, the space puppy, or rather, the AI created from him. I contain everything you need to know about this vast and enigmatic universe] the cartoonish creature says as trumpets blare and confetti floods the screen.

  “…I can’t even sigh anymore. This is so Rob…” I mutter in resignation.

  It’s a brilliant idea. Under any other circumstances, I would’ve downloaded it to my portable device. But testing it in the middle of a life-or-death battle… Rob, you really are one of a kind, aren’t you?

  My thoughts are cut short by a distant roar and the cracking of trees being torn apart, drawing closer and closer.

  “No time. Clifford, what is that box and how do I use it?” I ask as I try to open it.

  [A box? Oh my, that’s a most fascinating item! It’s a vermin-hunter tool kit] he replies excitedly.

  “Tools? Doesn’t matter. How do I open it?”

  [Open it? Nothing like that. Stand in front of it and say: “Time to hunt vermin.”]

  “‘Time to hunt vermin’?” I repeat, confused.