Meliana gritted her teeth as she sent a barrage of explosive rounds towards the enemy mech. The enemy dodged, the rounds impacting the building behind it. The other mech fired a barrage of missiles in her direction.

    “You’re not getting the better of me this time!” she shouted, raising the defensive spells. The missiles hit the barrier, the explosions pushing her back.

    On the comms, she could hear Leora facing off against Darius. “Seems its time for a rematch!” Darius declared. “Feeling ready to die?”

    “Like I’m going to let myself be taken down by some grimdark punk!” Leora retorted, the hum of her magic circles – the ones that actually did something – filling the comms. Magical explosions registered, blowing out Leora’s microphone.

    “Stay strong, Leora,” Meliana muttered. “We just need to hold them off for a bit longer.”

    “You’re slow!” she heard Hancock banter as she fought Ken Tanaka and dodged Harry Spade’s bullets on the other side of the street. “You got too used to zombies!” But his voice sounded worn and tired. He wouldn’t last much longer.

    She turned and sent a hail of machine gun fire in Harry’s direction. Then the other mech slammed into her.

    “Your friend may have taken away my super-soldier powers,” she heard Selena declare over her mech’s loudspeaker, “but I’m a better pilot than you’ll ever be!”

    “You’re not wrong,” Meliana said, taking a deep breath and grabbing Selena’s mech with her own. “But if I’m going out anyway, the least I can do is take you with me!” She hit the self-destruct button. The hum of the reactors changed their pitch.

    “What do you think you’re doing?” Selena cried. “Are you insane?”

    Meliana turned off the loudspeaker. “No, just desperate,” she stated, closing her eyes and waiting for the end.

    And then the battlefield went silent.

    Meliana opened her eyes. The reactors were almost at critical. But, the fighting around them had stopped. On the street below, a woman in a black military coat with a popped collar made her way across by foot, helped by two others.

    Meliana blinked and cancelled the self-destruct. She turned the loudspeaker back on. “I’ll...um...get back to you.”

    With that she disengaged and backed up. She popped the hatch and jumped down onto the pavement. Her eyes were not deceiving her. Aquila was there, being helped slowly across the street by Kasumi and Natsuki.

    “What the hell are you doing here?” Meliana shouted, running towards them. “Are you crazy?”

    “I need to speak to Balthazar,” Aquila said, her voice thready. “Is he here yet?”

    “He’s close,” Meliana replied, looking around. “Look, you need to get out of here! This is a battle – none of you should be anywhere near here!”

    Aquila looked around. “There’s no fighting now. I need everybody to hear me. Did we bring anything that could help me be heard?”

    Kasumi winced. “We forgot.”

    Natsuki glanced at them. “Don’t look at me.”

    Aquila shook her head. “Well, this is just embarrassing.”

    Meliana blinked in disbelief and looked around. Everybody who had been fighting was just standing still and staring at them. “Take my earpiece,” she said, handing it over to Aquila. “It’s linked into my mech’s loudspeaker. Press that button there, and everybody will be able to hear you.”

    Aquila nodded, put the earpiece into her ear, and pressed the button on it. “They can hear me now, right?” Her amplified voice echoed across the battlefield.

    “Aquila,” Balthazar declared, descending from above to hover in front of them. “You survived. Are you here to fight?”

    Aquila stared at him. “Do I look like I’m in any shape to fight anybody? I came to talk, like you wanted me to from the beginning. I’m here. Let’s talk.”

    Balthazar cocked his head. “I’m in the middle of winning a battle. I don’t have time.”

    “Why not?” Aquila asked. “You’ve won.” She looked around. “Nobody here can stop you. All they can do is try to buy time so that some people can escape and live, at least for another couple of days. The worlds are going to collide, just as you wanted them to. You did the thing I never could – you won your war. I suppose I should congratulate you. So, if you’re already victorious, what harm will it do to take a moment to talk to me?”

    Balthazar blinked. “What do you want, Aquila?”

    “I wanted to introduce you to somebody,” Aquila said, motioning to Kasumi. “This is Kasumi, my creator. I’m like you – when I came to find her, she was gone. She’d killed herself. And I went mad with grief and anger, and waged my war against the world that had taken her from me. You were a humane killer – I never was. I made my victims scream so that the people who cared about them knew they were dying in agony. I’ve always hated that part of myself.” She turned to look at Ken and then Selena, who had just climbed down from her mech. “I’m sorry for hurting both of you.”

    Selena blinked in confusion. “No problem...I guess.” She looked at Natsuki with concern. “Natsuki, you need to get out of here.”

    “I had this power,” Aquila continued. “It was a miracle, and it brought Kasumi back to me. I tell people that this is what ended my war, but that’s not true. It was more complicated than that. It was Ragnar, my right-hand man, who ended my war. You see, by the end, I just wanted to stop too. But I was afraid – I was afraid that if I stopped and walked away, the other side would just hunt me down, and I’d never know peace. Ragnar convinced me that they wanted the war to end as much as I did, and that I could try something else...like a miracle.” She looked at Kasumi and smiled. Kasumi smiled back.

    “That’s very touching,” Balthazar said. “I’m happy for you. But, is this going anywhere?”

    Aquila nodded. “As I said, I was a sadistic killer. The things I did...I knew they were unforgivable. I managed to atone for them, and help save more people than I hurt, but I never hoped that I could ever be forgiven.” She glanced at Meliana, her eyes glistening. “And then somebody forgave me.” She looked back to Balthazar. “And if I can be forgiven for the terrible things I did, then so, I think, can you. And I’ll start – I forgive you.”

    Balthazar blinked and shook his head. “No. No! You can’t forgive me! I hunted you! I tormented you! I burned down an entire town to flush you out!”

    Aquila nodded. “I know. I can’t speak for the others, but I forgive you.”

    Balthazar pointed at Aquila, his finger shaking. “I agreed to a cease fire in bad faith just so that I could ambush and kill you! I manipulated and used one of your friends to do it!”

    “And I forgive you,” Aquila stated. “I forgive you for all of it.”

    Balthazar stared at her. Aquila swallowed and took a moment to catch her breath.

    Balthazar set down on the pavement, still staring at her. “My creator was murdered,” he said, his voice trembling. “By a gang. In plain sight, surrounded by people. She died screaming for help, but nobody lifted a finger. They just watched her die!”

    Aquila nodded. “I know.”

    “I have no miracle to bring her back,” Balthazar said, tears running down his cheeks. “She’s gone. She died screaming, and they just watched her suffer. All the people of this world suffer. They create stories and entire worlds so that they can watch our kind suffer. How can they do that? How can they just let people suffer like that? Why didn’t they help her when she begged them for it?”

    “Because they were scared,” Aquila replied. “That’s all it was – they were terrified that if they tried to help, they’d be next.” She looked around at the other combatants, all staring at her. “If being a hero was so easy or commonplace here, these accidental gods wouldn’t need to create all of you and your worlds to show them the way.”

    Ken, Selena, Darius, and Harry glanced at one another. Ken opened his mouth to speak, but then closed it again.

    Balthazar stared at her. “I don’t...how do I...how do we...how can I forgive them? How do I...do we move on from this?”

    Aquila gave him a kind smile. “You start by letting yourself be sad.”

    Meliana glanced over to Leora. Leora just stared at the scene in shock.

    “I have something for you,” Aquila said, reaching into her coat and pulling out a piece of paper. She held it out with a shaking hand. Balthazar took her wrist to steady it, and then took the piece of paper.

    “What is this?” he asked.

    “It’s the address and phone number of your creator’s parents,” Aquila replied. “When you’re ready, I’m pretty sure they’d like to meet you. They lost their only child a couple of years ago, and now you’re all that’s left of her.”

    Balthazar stared at the paper and began to weep.

    Aquila turned to Meliana and Leora. “I have some understanding of what he’s about to go through, and what he’s going to do. I will vouch for Balthazar’s conduct going forward.” She frowned, removed the earpiece and handed it to Natsuki, and tried to catch her breath. “I’m sorry, I’m feeling very light headed. I need to sit down and rest now.”

    Meliana turned to Balthazar. “Will you allow us to get her off the battlefield before this cease-fire ends?”

    Balthazar stared at her, tears streaming down his cheeks. “Do what you want. I’ll stop my war. I’ll get the story worlds back where they should be by the end of tomorrow.”

    Natsuki handed the earpiece back to Meliana as she and Kasumi started helping Aquila off the battlefield.

    Leora walked over to her, her eyes wide in disbelief. “Did we just...”

    Meliana nodded and wiped tears from her eyes. “I think...” She looked around. Everybody who had begun the battle was still standing. Some were bloody and bruised, but there weren’t any serious injuries. “I think...I think we just got our miracle.”

NEXT: “Metamorphosis”