The Thermal Baptism

Twenty cannons align in the gloom. My body's instinct commands me to raise a protective wall, to hide these fifty fragile silhouettes behind my flesh to absorb the volley of Stability. To play the shield.

But the forge is no refuge. Adaptation demands movement.

I plunge my obsidian fists through the floor, hunting the cryogenic pipes that keep this prison under ice. My Flame collides with the liquid nitrogen.

The impact shatters the room.

The concrete bursts. The load-bearing pillars give way in a white detonation, spewing geysers of boiling steam onto the front line. The steel colossi fire blindly into this deadly fog.

"Charge!"

Ta-tam. Ta-ta-tam. Marisol's drum beats beneath my collarbones, dictating the riot's cadence. The Forgotten rush into the incandescent cloud without the slightest hesitation. The superheated water bites their faces, and this bite tears them away from the anesthesia for good. Pain is our victory.

Lio throws his iron bar into the pistons of the first juggernaut. The machine collapses in a metallic crash. Instantly, the pack overwhelms it. They crush the sensors with destroyed servers, gut the armor with bare hands, drowning the guard under the weight of their Chaos.

Jolanda slices through exposed joints with her blade. Malik gauges this Mutation with an engineer's eye, counting every exploited flaw. We have just trampled the sentinels of the Seven Who Reign.

Yet, amidst the dismembered carcasses, the smoke tears open sharply. The boiling steam subsides, crushed by a new shadow advancing through the gutted corridor without a single sound.

What terminal cog have we just awakened?