K’s head seemed to spin, his blade dripping with the fallen Vashki’s blood.

"Ae’ho—"

"Shut up!"

The propulsion engine in his feet boomed, heat searing the spot he once stood in.

SYNCH RATE: 99%

"Control to Mech-K-0-0-1, fall back! Do not engage the enemy"

K burst forward, his rifle discarded and plasma blade humming as he advanced towards the Vashki,

"K-0-0-1! This is an order! Fall back!"

"Sol-Kha Vae’tren Shee Kae’thal.(That whore ought to have taught you some manners.)"

It’s rings rotated violently and the space around it distorted. An invisible force slammed K many meters away.

ARMOR INTEGRITY- 39%

His visor blared several warning alarms.

OXYGEN SUPPLY COMPROMISED

PLASMA BLADE: Failed To Discharge

"I’ll kill you" he rasped, pushing himself off the cracked road.

"Shi sol’orthel nor vaeshi. Vae thae’kir shi ith-khevar.(It seems your human weapon doesn’t work anymore. I shall grant you hand to hand combat with me.)"

Blood sloshed in K’s mouth.

Burning wreckage still crackled around the ruined streets while smoke choked the skyline overhead.

But around K and the Vashki, everything else had stopped.

Even the surviving UDF soldiers hesitated. Awaiting K to board the evac ship"

LEFT ARM OUTPUT REDUCED

NEURAL STRAIN CRITICAL

PLEASE HEAD TO DETOX!

Across from him stood the Vashki commander, its knees bent, an open palm facing K and its other palm pressed against its chest.

Its pale body reflected the fires surrounding them while black resonance rings rotated slowly around its neck and fingers. Unlike the others, this one wore additional halo structures along its spine, each ring humming with layered frequencies that vibrated through the air.

U’Kan

Then its layered voice echoed softly across the battlefield.

"Come at me, Child"

K tightened his grip on the damaged remains of his plasma blade.The weapon sparked uselessly in his hand.

"...Fuck you."

The Vashki tilted its head slightly.

K moved first.

His mechanized frame exploded forward with so much force, a small crater formed beneath him. Artificial muscles screamed through his legs as he crossed the distance instantly, combat blade igniting from his forearm.

He swung directly for the Vashki’s neck.

The alien caught the blade barehanded.

The impact detonated a shockwave through the street.

K’s eyes widened.

The Vashki hadn’t merely blocked him. It didn’t even try to.

It had stopped the strike completely.

Its pale fingers tightened around the energized blade.

Then crushed it.

Metal screamed apart in its grip.

K reacted immediately, pivoting low and driving his elbow into the alien’s torso with enhanced force.

The hit landed.

The Vashki slid backward several feet across the ruined road.

The halo rings around its neck accelerated slightly.

K didn’t give it time to recover.

He lunged again, fists flying in brutal mechanized combinations fast enough to blur through the smoke-filled air. Every strike carried enough force to dent armored vehicles.

The Vashki avoided them with terrifying precision.

A slight tilt.

A shift of the shoulder.

One precise sidestep after another.

Like it already knew exactly where every punch would land.

K growled and slammed a reinforced fist downward.

The Vashki caught his wrist.

Pain exploded through K’s arm.

The alien twisted violently.

CRACK!

Warning signals screamed across K’s visor as his cybernetic elbow partially dislocated.

The Vashki struck him once.

Its palm connected lightly with K’s chest.

The shockwave launched him through the remains of a skyscraper.

The entire structure collapsed behind him.

Dust swallowed the street.

"K!"

Finch’s voice screamed through comms.

"Stay BACK!" K roared, coughing blood as he forced himself upright beneath the rubble.

His chest plating flickered violently.

That thing was strong.

Too strong.

The Vashki stepped calmly through the dust cloud. Its halo rings hummed softly as it approached.

Porcelain-white plates unfolded silently outward.

Its ugly madibles flexed beneath layers of black biomechanical tissue while glowing inner eyes fixed directly onto K.

Every nearby UDF soldier froze in horror.

No matter how many times humans saw it—the face splitting never stopped being terrifying.

"Is that all you’ve got?"

K spat blood onto the pavement onto this visor

"...You talk too much."

The Vashki vanished.

K barely reacted in time.

The alien appeared directly in front of him and drove a fist into his ribs.

Something shattered inside his body.

K flew backward across the street, bouncing violently off the pavement before crashing into an overturned transport.

Pain blinded him.

His neural systems overloaded with more warning messages.

INTERNAL DAMAGE DETECTED

SYNC RATE: 100%

CAUTION — NEURAL CASCADE RISK

PLEASE HEAD TO DETOX!

The Vashki approached again.

K forced himself upright slowly, blood dripping from his chin.

Then he smiled. A small one that didn’t reach his eyes.

The Vashki paused.

K rolled his damaged shoulder with a sickening crack.

"You know..." he rasped. "I had this little pellet thing in my back removed, so I could feel the battlefield for once, I have to admit removing it had my sync rate slow"

Then he activated overdrive.

Blue-white energy exploded across his mechanized frame.

Every augmentation inside his body surged simultaneously as artificial tendons tightened hard enough to tear apart steel. Heat vented violently from the plating along his spine.

Nearby soldiers stumbled backward.

"K’s overclocking?!" someone shouted.

"He’ll fry his nervous system!"

K launched forward again.

This time—the Vashki’s rings accelerated immediately.

The street beneath them exploded apart as both collided head-on.

K’s fist slammed into the alien’s jaw hard enough to break through the distortion in the air it tried to create around itself.

The Vashki retaliated instantly.

Their blows became invisible.

Shockwaves ripped through the district with every exchange as they tore across the battlefield faster than human eyes could properly track.

Concrete shattered.

Cars flipped.

Windows exploded outward across nearby buildings.

K ducked beneath a strike that sliced clean through a transport behind him. He drove both fists into the Vashki’s abdomen, boosted upward, and smashed his knee directly into its face.

CRACK.

For the first time—the alien stumbled.

Silver blood splattered across the street in glowing fragments.

The surviving UDF soldiers stared in disbelief.

"He cracked its head!"

The Vashki straightened slowly.

Its exposed mandibles twitched.

Then all the rings around its body aligned simultaneously.

K’s instincts screamed.

MOVE.

Gravity collapsed around him.

The street imploded.

K barely escaped as invisible pressure crushed the entire section of roadway into a massive crater.

Dust and debris spiraled upward violently.

The Vashki emerged from the distortion untouched.

Its layered voice echoed again.

"Impressive, now come, let our fists

sing the songs of Inko!"

"...Pretty sure we’re already doing that."

The Vashki attacked again.

Its movements changed completely.

Its body twisted through impossible angles while bladed appendages unfolded silently from beneath its arms. Halo rings spun so fast they became glowing black circles around its body.

K blocked one strike.

His arm plating shattered instantly.

The second attack carved through his shoulder plating.

The third nearly removed his head.

He countered wildly, catching the Vashki across the ribs with enough force to crack nearby buildings from the shockwave.

Both fighters launched backward simultaneously.

Burning debris drifted between them.

K’s vision blurred badly now.

His body was failing.

The same went for the Vashki, a nice big hole sat across its chest area, blood pooling where it stood.

Its movements now less fluid.

Then it spoke again.

"You are really your father’s child"

K frowned.

"...What?"

The Vashki stepped closer slowly.

Its face partially folded shut again.

The monstrous insectoid features disappearing beneath smooth porcelain.

"Khae’el"

Hearing his name in that layered voice made K’s stomach twist. Only one person knew his real name.

"How do you know my name?"

The Vashki simply watched him. "Ira’oka sees you"

Distant sirens screamed overhead.

"Orbital strike warning!"

Finch shouted through comms instantly.

"K! GET OUT OF THERE!"

The sky lit up blue.

The alien ships in the sky shrieked and zoomed out of the atmosphere, leaving a white trail and a sonic boom behind.

The UDF had finally authorized orbital bombardment.

The Vashki looked upward.

Then back at K.

The alien stepped backward.

Its rings slowed.

Then the surrounding shadows distorted as another Vashki transport descended silently through the smoke above them.

The Vashki spoke one final time. "Return... child."

Then it vanished into the descending light just as orbital fire rained from the heavens.

"K!"

Finch yelled, racing to K’s side.

"Get up!"

WARNING — CRITICAL DAMAGE

SYNC RATE DROPPING

NEURAL FEEDBACK DETECTED

K coughed hard, blood splattering across the cracked visor of his helmet.

His body refused to move.

Heavy boots slammed across the rubble toward him.

Then Lieutenant Finch appeared through the smoke.

Unlike most officers in the Universal Defense Force, Finch looked less like a polished commander and more like a soldier too stubborn to die. His dark combat coat hung torn over reinforced armor plating while half his face glowed faintly beneath damaged helmet.

"K!"

K groaned weakly.

"Still alive," he rasped.

"Unfortunately," Finch muttered.

A faint explosion thundered nearby.

The lieutenant immediately dropped beside him, rifle raised as he scanned the area.

"You planning to get up," Finch asked, firing several rounds into the smoke, "or am I dragging your heavy ass myself?"

K tried pushing himself upright.

Pain detonated through his spine instantly.

"...Give me a minute."

"We don’t HAVE a minute."

Finch hauled K over his shoulder, groaning as the heavy suit pressed into his armor,

"Finch to control, N-Squad is taking off, give stats on enemy positions"

Static.

"Control to Lieutenant Finch, Medic Evac ship is behind re-routed to command base. No enemy ship or entity, area is clear"

"Did they retreat...or are they hiding?"

Static

"Meredith Satellites picked up images of the enemy ships leaving the planet"

"..."

Finch set the half conscious K on the metal panel of the ship,

"Begin analysis" he commanded the ship’s Ai integration

STARTING ANALYSIS

"It called me by my name..." K muttered.

"Shut up and rest, the doctor is going to kill you himself when he finds out you took out your pellet and without authorization"

1600 hours

Planet Meredith—Clarity—Universal Defense Force—Command Base.

"Clear the area, medic coming through!"

"Doctor Thira, K-0-0-1 was severally injured in battle, their ship just arrived at the West hangar," a nurse hurriedly spoke as she pushed a cart packed with first aid

A Vashki dressed in a lab coat, jogged down the hallways, reading the details off a clipboard,

"Big guy give allow?" The ring around its ankle hummed as it spoke,

"Yes, you’ve been given authorization from Above"

"I take K"

The Vashki raced down the hallway, it’s form barely visible as it made its way to the West Hangar of Command base.

It watched several soldiers wheel K out of the ship on a stretcher and towards him,

"Doctor Thira" Finch reluctantly saluted,

"Tell me"

"Fractured ribs, punctured lungs, the bastard nearly fried his nervous system, broken arm...just do the analysis in your lab"

"I fix him"

Thira tried to reassure Finch, pulling the stretcher from the stretcher. It planted its forehead against K’s,

"Vae’Thira sees you"

"You better"

"K to lab, I fix him!" He yelled, pushing the stretcher back into the base’s lab area.

The laboratory wing smelled like antiseptic and burnt circuitry.

Cold white lights reflected across polished steel floors while distant machinery hummed endlessly behind the walls. Rows of reinforced recovery chambers stretched across the massive room, separated by transparent glass panels glowing faintly with diagnostic data.

Thira continued pushing the stretcher until they got to a sealed area with a blinking neon sign that read,

’DETOX’

Some patients slept motionless beneath breathing masks.

Others twitched violently as surgical drones worked over exposed cybernetics and fractured mechanized limbs.

"Stupid! Ignorant like a child! How dare you remove your pellet! You could have gotten yourself killed out there!" the Vashki rambled, the ring attached to its ankle hummed and clicked as each word was said.

"Look at you! All beaten and battered! Stupid! Stupid!"

K’s retort was a small groan,

"Stay silent, you fool!"

"Who is Inko?"

"Inko?"

"The Vashki I fought, he said it"

"Inko is god of war, in U’Kan theology"

"Ira’Oka..."

"..."

"He said I was just like my father"

"They took away everything we both loved, our families"

"Why do they keep telling me to...return?"

"You must rest"

"They speak like they know me..."

"We’ll talk about that once you’re out of DETOX"

Thira successfully ripped the last piece of armor off K and rolled him unto his back,

"I’m putting your pellet back in"

"...no"

With a scalpel, he tore into K’s back and placed a small ball unto the open flesh,

"Begin pellet insertion"

The ball wiggled, split into two and eight tiny limbs sprouted and slid in, wedging itself cleanly into the dip of K’s spine.

"Take you to detox"

The other ball sprouted two limbs and began stitching the flesh close.

Long pale fingers brushed lightly against K’s hair in a delicate gesture.

"Thaek nor...(do not fear...)"

The layered voice vibrated softly through the chamber. Thira lifted K, heading over to a cryotube that hissed gas as it opened.

Blue-white light spread across the chamber as cryogenic systems awakened around the pod. Vapor hissed upward in slow spirals while frost climbed steadily higher along the glass as it sealed shut.

K’s heavy eyelids fluttered weakly.

"Who are you?"

"...K...0...0...1"

"What are you?"

"I am...human"

"You are human"

"And I am...the strongest"

The cryotube sealed completely.

Frost swallowed the glass.