The Child Dressed in Gold

I could hardly look at him.

Gideon.

Or what was left of him.

Didn’t know him that much, but he was unrecognizable now, mangled meat and broken bone scattered in a shape that only barely resembled human. His face gone. His chest opened like someone had gutted him for study. The smell made my throat revolt. My hand shot up, covering my mouth before I choked.

I almost did. Right then and there.

“Don’t move.”

Cassian’s hand clamped down on my arm, grounding me with a single whisper.

I swallowed hard. Swallowed everything—the grief, the screams. And I forced myself to watch.

Juno stood before the thing. The cracks across his skin glowed with every heartbeat, golden veins burning brighter, his fists clenched like they’d split the air itself. Exidus’s frame pulsed red in answer, the desert shimmering as if it couldn’t stand the weight of the two of them.

Then they collided.

Juno’s knuckles shattered sparks across Exidus. The return strike dropped him to one knee, blood spilling from his lip but his golden light only burning brighter. He slammed an uppercut into the machine’s chestplate. The sound rang like a bell, metal folding—but only slightly.

The machine didn’t stagger. It answered with precision: a backhand across his face, a knee driving into his stomach, a blade-arm slicing past his shoulder so close it cut fabric. Sand flew up like waves crashing against stone.

Still, Juno roared, swinging back, forcing it to give a single step. Just one. And he smiled through the blood.

But then Exidus spoke, voice low, grinding, certain.

“You misunderstand, child. Power does not grant you anything. It grants you delusion. What you are building, child vested in gold, will not end in the reality you see fit. It will—”

“Wait,” Cassian cut in. His head cocked. “Do you hear something?”

I blinked at him, confused. The hum was faint, buried beneath the clash.

“…sounds like a microwave.”

I just looked at him.

“What’s a micro—” I started, and then—

The machine was obliterated sideways, rammed full force by a roaring V2 that came screaming out of nowhere. It skidded across the sand in a plume of dust, limbs thrashing, half-buried in a dune.

I just… stared.

Engines thundered over the ridge. Five more V2s followed, cutting the horizon in half, but stopped short. The lead bike broke the storm, sliding to a halt before us.

The rider pulled his visor free.

The engines pounded against my ears but I still hear Juno’s voice of surprise.

“Vassier!” He said with through a mixture of blood and spit.

“I hope,” he called out, voice raw against the wind, “I came in time.”

He swept the battlefield with a glance—Sylvaine unconscious, Gideon… Juno glowing, Exidus clawing itself out of the sand. His jaw locked tight, his eyes softening when they fell on Gideon.

“They say things happen for a reason but the reasons never given.” he said,

“Only the loss.” His footsteps con-caved into the sand, not as deep as his words.

Then his gaze fixed on Juno as it hardened.

“You were right back then. There is a secret in Orati. One I was forced to keep, passed down by blood, generation after generation.”

He peered over where Exidus had been recently buried, his breath shuttered.

“You think Exidus is a bounty hunter? A monster set loose on this desert?“

“He was built. Forged by my ancestors as a defense system when they created Solaris. A sentinel meant to stop anything threatening this place.”

His hand shook as he pulled something from his coat. A torn scrap of paper. Keys. He threw them to Juno.

“I’ve no intention of following your reason, boy. I don’t care what it means to you.”

He turned, looked at me and Cassian, and tossed us a pair of keys. The jagged metal cut into my palm like it wanted blood.

“Take them. You’ll need the V2s if you want to make it past the surface.”

I couldn’t even answer. My eyes kept pulling back to Gideon, to Sylvaine’s stillness, to the golden fire bleeding from Juno’s skin.

The desert wind caught in my ears—then stopped. Just stopped.

No sound. No movement. No air.

And then the sand erupted.

Exidus tore free of the dune like the earth was giving birth to something it regretted. Its body burned red-hot, brighter than before, a molten fracture running across its face, its voice cutting the silence like a sermon carved in iron.

“Protocol: active. Anomaly persistence infiltrated threshold: two hundred miles.”

The words weren’t for us.

Vassier’s hand trembled at his side. His voice cracked when he forced the truth out.

“It isn’t a hunter. It’s a cage. A sentinel built to erase anything… anyone… it deems impossible.”

Juno’s chest heaved. His light brightened, swallowing the dark, golden veins spreading further across his skin, almost threatening to burn him alive.

And for one second, I thought the desert might split in two.