Otomedius Excellent — -ntsc-u--iso-

It wasn't a core. It wasn't a battleship.

“Status report!” Aoba yelled into her comm, strapping into the cockpit as the neural interface hummed to life. Otomedius Excellent -NTSC-U--ISO-

But Aoba had downloaded the . The illicit, black-market data fragment that Esmeralda had flagged an hour ago. It wasn't a file. It was a memory. A ghost from the first Bacterian war. It showed a lone pilot, a woman with steel-gray hair and dead eyes, flying a black Vic Viper into a similar living moon. The ISO ended with a single line of text: “The core sings. But only the damned can hear the lyrics.” Aoba’s hands trembled on the controls. The others launched in formation: Tita with her laser-focused precision, Strue in her armored Goliath unit, even the wildcard Diol in her unorthodox Fairy type. They were a wall of firepower. It wasn't a core

Nergal’s Cradle screamed. The flesh hardened. The spires crumbled. The moon began to collapse in on itself, not from an explosion, but from a . It couldn’t process the infinite song. It couldn’t stop listening. But Aoba had downloaded the

“Which is why we are buying time,” Tita replied. “Not winning. There is a difference, Anoa.”

Aoba’s Vic Viper plunged into the crater. The flesh tried to consume her, but she was already inside. She reached the crystal heart, ripped open her cockpit, and pressed her bloody palm against its surface.

, the ship’s stoic, bespectacled operator, appeared on the main screen. “Bacterian signature is off the charts. It’s not a standard strain. It’s… intelligent. It tore through the outer perimeter in twelve seconds.”