The sky above Scrap-City didn't turn red from the sunset; it turned red from the sails.
Dozens of sleek, predatory skiffs—the vanguard of the Red Gale—descended from the upper mists. Unlike the Consensus, who fought with cold, rhythmic precision, the Red Gale pirates fought with a chaotic, screaming fury. Their ships were adorned with the bones of sky-beasts and painted in the vivid, rusted crimson of dried blood.
"Jax! The Silver-Wing is mid-plating!" Kaelen yelled over the rising roar of sirens. "If they hit the drydock now, the hull will warp!"
"Not on my watch!" Jax bellowed. He slammed a heavy lever on his workbench, and a series of massive iron shutters began to grind shut over the smithy's entrance. "Lyra, get to the ship and prep the Aether-Core. Kaelen, you and the kid are with me. We're going to give these vultures a taste of the 'Forge-Heart'!"
They burst out of a side maintenance hatch just as a Red Gale boarding pod slammed into the walkway twenty feet away. The pod's doors hissed open, and out leapt five marauders clad in scrap-metal armor, wielding vibro-cleavers that hummed with a jagged, red energy.
"Take the one with the glowing chest!" the lead pirate screamed.
Kaelen didn't draw his blade. He wanted to test his new "recipe."
He stepped forward, his feet sliding into a wide stance. As the first pirate swung a massive cleaver at his neck, Kaelen didn't slip the blow. He reached out with his left hand, his palm open.
"Void-Style: Singularity Intake!"
The cleaver hit an invisible wall an inch from Kaelen's skin. But instead of bouncing off, the momentum of the strike—the kinetic energy, the vibration of the vibro-blade, even the heat of the pirate's exertion—was sucked into Kaelen's palm. The pirate gasped as his arm suddenly felt weightless, his weapon's energy drained to a dull, vibrating hum.
Kaelen's hand glowed with a fierce, concentrated white light.
"My turn," Kaelen hissed.
He slammed his glowing palm into the pirate's chest-plate. The stored energy released in a silent, high-pressure pulse. The pirate didn't fly back; the armor itself crumpled inward into a perfect, crushed sphere, pinning the man's breath and knocking him unconscious instantly.
"Impressive," Jax grunted, his bionic arm whirring as he grabbed another pirate by the face and tossed him over the railing into the abyss. "But we've got a bigger problem!"
He pointed upward. A massive galleon, the Crimson Typhoon, was positioning itself directly above the drydock. Its broadside ports were opening, revealing rows of heavy harpoon-cannons.
Standing on the Typhoon's railing was a woman with hair like a wildfire and a coat made of iridescent sky-serpent scales. She held a long, curved saber that dripped with a glowing, corrosive green acid.
"Captain Vesper," Lyra's voice echoed over the comms, filled with dread. "The 'Scourge of the Seven Winds.' Kaelen, she's not here for the ship. She's here for Nova!"
Vesper looked down and locked eyes with Kaelen. She didn't shout; she didn't need to. Her voice was carried by a localized wind-current, sounding as if she were whispering directly into his ear.
"Hand over the Living Core, Little Crow, and I might leave enough of Scrap-City standing for you to bury your friends in."
"You want her?" Kaelen shouted back, his glass hilt igniting into a jagged spear of black void. "Come and take her! But I should warn you—I'm on a very strict diet, and I'm still hungry!"
Vesper smirked and raised her saber. "Fire."
The Typhoon let out a thunderous roar as twenty harpoons, trailed by thick steel cables, hissed toward the drydock. They weren't meant to destroy; they were meant to anchor the smithy so the pirates could reel it in.
"Nova! The cables!" Kaelen cried.
Nova stepped forward, her mercury eyes turning a deep, swirling silver. She didn't use gravity this time. She looked at the steel cables—the very molecular bond of the metal.
"Brittle."
As the harpoons struck the stone and iron of the smithy, the heavy steel cables suddenly turned to dust. The momentum of the Typhoon pulling back caused the ship to jerk violently, nearly capsizing as its own anchors vanished into thin air.
"What?!" Vesper screamed, her composure finally breaking.
"Jax, the ship! Now!" Kaelen ordered.
They sprinted across the gangway as the Silver-Wing began to rise from the drydock, its new Null-Iron plates gleaming with a dark, oily luster. The ship looked heavier, meaner, and ready for war.
Jax leaped onto the deck and scrambled toward the galley. "I'm firing up the pressure-cookers! If we're going to outrun that galleon, we need the Aether-Core running at 110%!"
"Lyra, take us into the Lower Spires!" Kaelen commanded, jumping onto the railing. "We'll use the derelict hulls as cover!"
"On it!" Lyra banked the ship hard.
The Silver-Wing dove into the narrow, winding "canyons" of Scrap-City, with the Crimson Typhoon and a swarm of pirate skiffs in hot pursuit. Cannon fire erupted around them, shattering ancient clock towers and sending showers of sparks into the dark air.
Kaelen stood at the stern, his Void-blade ready. He wasn't just defending a ship anymore; he was defending a crew.
"Jax!" Kaelen yelled over the wind. "How far to the Iron Lung?"
"Too far if we don't lose Vesper first!" Jax shouted back. "But I've got an idea! Kaelen, can you create a vacuum-pocket behind us?"
"I can try! Why?"
"Because," Jax grinned, holding up a massive canister of highly volatile "Sky-Pepper" spice. "I'm about to cook up a smokescreen that'll burn the eyes out of every pirate in the Gale!"