Side Story 1: The Fall of Artemis Unit

After departing the shrine and leaving Zero in the care of Shogun Hanzo, Artemis Unit began their return flight to Europe.

The cabin of the Flatwing was quiet except for the low hum of the engines. Arthur sat near the center, still adjusting the straps of his golden armor. Beside him, Merlin reviewed data on a portable Codex while Lancelot checked the edge of his lance. Morrigan sat with her staff across her knees, expression thoughtful.

“That prisoner was something else,” Morrigan said at last.

Arthur gave a short nod, shifting his gear.

“Indeed. A formidable ally. The Sidhe didn’t stand a chance. I hope he is well — it cannot be easy, carrying that kind of strength with no memory of who you are.”

Before anyone could reply, an emergency alert cut through the cabin.

A holographic projection flared to life in the center of the compartment. High King Edgar Fairbrook appeared, looking visibly strained, his usual regal composure frayed at the edges.

“Artemis Unit. ETA?” he asked, voice tight.

Arthur straightened.

“Three hours, sire. You look… haggard.”

Edgar did not bother denying it.

“We have an emergency. The London Eye has gone dark. Report to the base there immediately. Don’t worry about your report regarding the shrine — Shogun Hanzo has already forwarded it himself. For now, focus only on the London Eye. If there is a breach, I want it sealed quickly. Do you understand?”

Arthur bowed his head.

“Yes, my king.”

The hologram flickered and vanished.

Arthur turned toward the cockpit without hesitation.

“Pilot. Take us to Jubilee Park Base. Sharpish.”

The Flatwing banked hard, engines flaring as it shifted course and accelerated into subsonic flight. Outside the reinforced windows, the sky stretched empty and gray.

None of them spoke for several minutes.

Lancelot finally broke the silence, voice low.

“The London Eye going dark… that shouldn’t be possible. Not with the wards and the permanent Delver presence.”

Merlin’s fingers moved rapidly across his Codex.

“I’m already seeing gaps in the regional Magicyte network. Whatever happened, it was fast.”

Arthur stared ahead, jaw set.

“Then we find out what caused it — and we end it.”

The Flatwing screamed westward toward Britain.

Jubilee Park Base was on full alert.

Massive Magicyte cannons lined the perimeter, their barrels locked onto the warped entrance of the London Eye Dungeon. Searchlights cut through the low fog, and heavily armed Delvers moved in tight formations behind reinforced barricades. The air itself felt wrong — dense, charged, and heavy with unstable Magicyte.

The Flatwing touched down hard on the landing pad. The moment the ramp lowered, Artemis Unit stepped out into the controlled chaos.

Arthur’s voice cut through the noise.

“Captain. Sitrep!”

A veteran Delver in scarred plate armor hurried forward and snapped a salute. Captain Fargrave had years of experience, but even he looked strained beneath the weight of the situation.

“Lord Arthur! Several unknown creatures emerged from the dungeon entrance. We destroyed the first wave, but they’re coming in continuous surges. We can hold them for now, but only just. Some of the other regional dungeons are reacting as well — quiet shifts, abnormal readings — but we don’t yet know what’s causing it.”

Arthur’s expression hardened as he surveyed the defensive line. The entrance to the London Eye pulsed with an unnatural light, and distant shapes were already beginning to form again in the gloom beyond the threshold.

“We’ll carve a path through,” Arthur said. “Any civilians still in the area — evacuate them to the nearest secure bunker. Immediately.”

“Yes, my lord!”

Fargrave turned and began issuing rapid orders. Sirens shifted pitch as the evacuation protocols deepened.

Arthur looked to his unit.

“Lancelot, front. Morrigan, barriers and support. Merlin, I want continuous analysis of whatever is coming through that gate. We move as one.”

Lancelot lowered his tower shield and stepped forward without a word. Morrigan’s staff began to glow with soft white light. Merlin’s glasses reflected cascading streams of Magicyte data as he prepared diagnostic spells.

Arthur drew his bastard sword, the golden armor catching the harsh floodlights of the base.

“Artemis Unit — advance.”

They moved toward the dungeon entrance as the next wave of unknown creatures began to pour out into the night.

None of them yet realized that the true threat was still waiting deeper inside.  Arthur raised a fist.

“Hold fire!”

The base cannons fell silent as Artemis Unit carved a bloody path through the remaining creatures at the entrance. Steel, magic, and precision cut a lane straight into the London Eye Dungeon.

What waited beyond the threshold was nothing like the structure they remembered.

The London Eye had once resembled a towering vision of a 1950s future — clean lines, gleaming steel, and ambitious architecture twisted into dungeon form. Now it looked as though a catastrophic force had torn through it from the inside. Mangled metal jutted at impossible angles. Entire sections of the structure hung collapsed and burning. The air stank of scorched Magicyte and ruptured stone.

Monsters crawled from the wreckage in constant waves, dragging themselves through broken steel and across the smoldering ground.

Lancelot charged first.

His lance pulsed with Magicyte circuits, lightning arcing along its length as he drove forward. He bashed one creature aside with his tower shield, then smashed the rim into another with bone-breaking force. Behind him, Merlin raised a hand and released a cascade of chain lightning that ripped through a dozen more, leaving them convulsing and smoking on the ground.

“They’re still coming,” Merlin called out, eyes locked on the readings streaming across his lenses. “Whatever is drawing them through must be massive. I think we’re dealing with a reality tear.”

Arthur nodded once, expression grim.

“Then we find it and close it.”

They pressed deeper, descending a wide, fractured spiral stairway that wound down into the heart of the ruined dungeon. The further they went, the more unstable the air became. Magicyte density spiked. The walls themselves seemed to breathe.

At the bottom of the stairway, the space opened into a vast, broken chamber.

There, at the center of the destruction, stood a massive tear in the fabric of reality — a vertical wound of black and violet energy that pulsed like a living thing. And standing before it was a figure that made every member of Artemis Unit freeze for half a heartbeat.

A Sidhe.

But not only a Sidhe.

The creature was merged with something else — bone, shadow, and warped Magicyte fused into its frame, creating a towering amalgam that radiated wrongness. Its presence alone made the air taste of metal and ash.

Every Codex in the unit screamed at once.

ALERT. ALERT.
UNKNOWN AMALGAM DETECTED.
MAGICYTE LEVELS REGISTER AS CLASS 4 PRISONER.

Arthur raised his sword.

“Formation. Now.”

The amalgam turned its head toward them, and the reality tear behind it flared brighter.

Whatever this thing was… it had been waiting for them. The creature radiated pure malevolence.

It stood at the edge of the reality tear, tall and wrong, gripping a long, thin sword in one hand. When it opened its mouth, the motion was nothing human. The lower half of its face split and unfolded like a grotesque flower, revealing row upon row of thin, needle-like teeth. A sound emerged from the distorted maw — something that might once have been a laugh, warped into a wet, crackling noise.

“It’s… eerie,” Morrigan murmured, staff already raised.

“Stay in formation,” Arthur ordered.

Artemis Unit locked into position without hesitation. Lancelot took the front with his tower shield. Arthur stood just behind and to the side, bastard sword ready. Merlin and Morrigan held the rear, magic already gathering around them.

The amalgam Sidhe adjusted its unfolded mouth with a wet click, the needle teeth shifting as it spoke. Its voice crackled like broken static layered over something older.

“Well…” It tilted its head. “Not the one I was expecting. But I’ll take it.”

It stepped forward.

The long thin blade in its hand warped unnaturally, the metal thinning and lengthening until it moved more like a flexible steel whip than a proper sword. The air around the weapon shimmered with unstable Magicyte.

Lancelot didn’t wait.

He gripped his shield tight and charged.

The amalgam Sidhe leapt to meet him, twisting in mid-air and driving a powerful kick into the center of the tower shield. The impact rang out like a struck bell. Lancelot braced hard, boots carving shallow grooves into the broken floor as he absorbed the force, then immediately answered with a thrust of his lightning-charged lance.

The Sidhe twisted aside with unnatural grace, the whip-blade already lashing toward Lancelot’s exposed side.

Arthur moved at the same instant, golden armor flashing as he closed the distance to support his vanguard.

“I can’t pin him down!” Lancelot shouted, shield still raised as the whip-blade cracked against its surface again and again.

Merlin stepped forward, hands already moving through the rapid forms of a binding spell. Threads of glowing Magicyte began to weave through the air, seeking to lock the amalgam in place—

The Sidhe was faster.

With a sharp twist of its wrist, the steel whip-blade lashed out in a wide, unpredictable arc aimed straight at Merlin. The mage’s eyes widened as the weapon came for him.

Morrigan reacted instantly.

A barrier snapped into existence around the whip, catching the length of living steel mid-strike. Without hesitation she forced the shield to travel up the weapon itself, the construct racing along the blade until it slammed hard into the Sidhe’s body.

The impact was brutal.

The amalgam twisted unnaturally under the force. Its head spun the wrong way on its neck with a wet, cracking sound. One arm folded backward at an impossible angle. Its legs and feet jerked into reversed positions as the body contorted like a broken doll.

For a brief moment it hung there, deformed and still.

Then, with a series of sharp, sickening snaps, the creature forcibly corrected itself. Bones realigned. Joints twisted back into place. The head rotated fully forward again as the Sidhe straightened, needle-teeth clicking wetly inside its unfolded maw.

It looked at Morrigan with something like amusement.

“Cute.”

The whip-blade coiled and uncoiled at its side like a living thing, and the reality tear behind it pulsed harder, feeding the amalgam more unstable energy.

Arthur’s grip tightened on his sword.

“It’s adapting. Don’t give it room to breathe — press the attack!” 

Before Artemis Unit could press the attack, a deep, resonant sound cut through the chamber.

“Enough.”

Two massive hands gripped the edges of the reality tear from the other side and forced it wider. The wound in space strained and split further as something enormous began to push through.

Merlin’s face went pale.

“The fuck is that!?”

“Stay on your toes,” Arthur ordered immediately. “Keep the defenses up!”

The unit tightened formation without hesitation. Lancelot braced his shield. Morrigan reinforced her barriers. Merlin’s hands glowed with half-formed counterspells. Arthur raised his bastard sword and planted his feet.

The larger creature fully emerged.

It was huge.

Broad-shouldered and powerfully built, it resembled a dragon forced into a bipedal frame — thick scales, powerful limbs, and a pair of vast wings folded against its back. In one clawed hand it carried an enormous spear that radiated dense, oppressive Magicyte. The air around it warped under the sheer weight of its presence.

The amalgam Sidhe immediately lowered its head. The Harbinger gave a slight movement of its own, a silent command. The lesser creature obeyed at once, stepping back toward the tear and vanishing through it without protest.

Then the Harbinger turned its full attention on Artemis Unit.

It tilted its head and sniffed the air, glowing eyes narrowing.

“Little roaches… fighting against the wind.” The voice rumbled like distant avalanches. “I shall have my fun.”

It took a single step forward.

The ground cracked beneath its weight. Localized tremors raced outward across the ruined chamber, sending fractured steel and stone cascading from the broken walls.

“I am Draconi’Faltir, Harbinger of Fate.”
The declaration rolled through the London Eye like a judgment.
“You are fated to perish.”

Arthur’s golden armor reflected the unstable light of the reality tear as he raised his sword fully.

“Artemis Unit… engage!”  They charged.

Lancelot led the assault, tower shield raised and blazing with defensive Magicyte as he thundered toward the Harbinger. Arthur followed close behind, sword drawn, while Merlin and Morrigan prepared supporting spells from the flanks.

Draconi’Faltir moved with terrifying economy.

The massive spear thrust forward in a single, clean motion.

Lancelot stopped hard and braced, pouring everything into the shield. For a fraction of a second the barrier held — then the spear punched straight through.

A cold sensation spread through Lancelot’s chest.

Blood trickled from the corner of his mouth as he looked down. The spear had driven cleanly through both shield and armor, the glowing tip emerging from his back. His eyes widened in brief, stunned recognition.

Draconi’Faltir pulled the weapon free in one smooth motion.

Lancelot’s split shield fell first. His body followed, collapsing heavily to the broken floor.

“LANCELOT!”

Arthur’s cry tore through the chamber. The golden knight staggered half a step as if the loss had physically struck him, then his expression hardened into pure, focused rage.

The first of Artemis Unit had fallen.

And the Harbinger of Fate had not even shifted its stance. Instead of another thrust, Draconi’Faltir swung the massive spear in a wide, devastating arc.

Morrigan reacted instantly, erecting a reinforced barrier to intercept the blow. The shield took the full force of the attack — for a fraction of a second. Then it shattered. Her vision spun violently. The last thing she registered was the world tilting at an impossible angle before her severed head struck the broken floor with a wet, final thud.

“MORRIGAN!”

Arthur’s grief detonated into pure rage.

“DIE!”

He launched himself upward with everything he had, golden armor blazing as he brought his bastard sword down in a killing arc aimed at the Harbinger’s skull.

Draconi’Faltir did not dodge.

One enormous clawed hand shot out and caught Arthur in mid-air as easily as a man catching a thrown stone. There was a brief, terrible pause — then a loud, sickening crunch as the Harbinger closed its fist. Arthur’s armor crumpled inward under the impossible pressure. The light in the golden plates flickered and died.

Draconi’Faltir opened its hand and let the broken body fall.

Only Merlin remained.

The mage stood frozen for a heartbeat, face drained of color, as the Harbinger turned its full attention on him and advanced. The spear thrust came fast and precise. Merlin twisted aside at the last possible instant — not quite enough. The tip of the weapon punched through his shoulder and tore his arm completely free in a spray of blood and disrupted Magicyte.

Pain exploded through him. His remaining hand clamped over the wound as the emergency seals woven into his robes activated, burning the injury shut and stopping the worst of the bleeding. It did nothing for the agony.

Draconi’Faltir’s maw twisted into something like a grin.

Merlin did not wait for the next strike.

He slammed his remaining hand against the emergency teleport crystal embedded in his belt. Light erupted around him in a desperate, unstable flare. The Harbinger’s spear swept through the space where he had been standing a fraction of a second too late.

Merlin vanished.

The teleport carried him out of the London Eye and beyond the Harbinger’s immediate reach. Bound to the dungeon and the reality tear that sustained it, Draconi’Faltir could not follow.

The massive dragonoid regarded the empty air for a moment, then turned its gaze downward to the broken bodies of Artemis Unit.

It settled amid the ruin, spear resting against one shoulder, and began to feed.

The fall of Artemis Unit was complete.

Only Merlin remained to carry the warning back to a world that was already running out of time. Merlin reappeared in a burst of unstable light at the center of the royal throne room.

He collapsed to one knee, blood still seeping past the emergency seals on his ruined shoulder, his remaining hand braced against the polished floor. The teleport crystal at his belt cracked and went dark.

High King Edgar Fairbrook was on his feet in an instant.

“Merlin! What the hell happened?!”

He crossed the distance in several long strides and caught the mage before he could fall further. Merlin’s face was ashen, eyes wide and unfocused, the usual sharp composure completely shattered.

“Arthur… Morrigan… Lancelot…” Merlin’s voice broke. “They’re dead. Something… big came out of the tear. A dragon. It killed them without hesitation.”

The words hung in the throne room like a death sentence.

Merlin’s control finally gave way. His shoulders shook as the full weight of the massacre crashed over him. Edgar’s expression hardened into something cold and absolute even as he supported the injured mage.

“Medics!” the King roared. “Get him to the infirmary. Now!”

Attendants and royal physicians rushed forward, carefully lifting Merlin onto a stretcher as they began emergency treatment.

Edgar turned toward the nearest officers, his voice carrying the full authority of the crown.

“Seal the borders. Effective immediately — no one enters or leaves the kingdom without my direct authorization. Dispatch every available heavy unit to the London Eye entrance. I want that dungeon locked down and under constant watch.”

The officers scattered to carry out the orders.

High King Edgar Fairbrook remained standing in the center of the throne room for a long moment, staring at the empty space where Merlin had arrived.

Artemis Unit — the strongest force under his command — was gone.

And whatever had come through that reality tear was still inside the London Eye… waiting. Waiting for the Fatebreaker.