Awakening: Broken Gods, Beating Hearts"?

The heartbeat echoed through Kainen's skull, a deep, resonant thrum that rattled his bones. He stumbled back, fingers tightening around the grip of his plasma rifle. It wasn't much—certainly not enough to take down an Aether God—but old instincts died hard.

The machine remained still, half-buried in the dunes, its massive frame slumped as if it had been waiting for centuries. The only movement came from the Divine Core embedded in its chest, its light pulsing in slow, uneven intervals.

A second pulse.

A third.

Then, the voice again—closer this time.

"You… hear me?"

Kainen swallowed hard, forcing himself to breathe. This wasn't possible. Aether Gods didn't speak. Not anymore. Their minds had been erased when their Cores were drained. What little remained of them was just broken machinery and shattered divinity.

But this one… this one was different.

He hesitated, then activated the speaker in his helmet. "Who are you?"

A pause. The Core's light flickered, as if considering. Then—

"I… do not know."

The words shuddered through Kainen's thoughts, weighted with something almost like pain. The machine's head tilted slightly, hollow eyes locking onto him.

"What… am I?"

Kainen exhaled sharply, lowering his rifle just a fraction. Great. It doesn't even know what it is. That was both good and bad—good because it wasn't immediately trying to kill him, bad because a confused Aether God was just as dangerous as an angry one.

"An Aether God," Kainen answered cautiously. "A war machine. Built centuries ago, before the Collapse."

The Core pulsed again, brighter this time. The engravings on its armor shimmered faintly, the dormant circuits awakening with each heartbeat.

"War… machine." The words came slower now, dragging through Kainen's mind like the weight of forgotten memories.

Then, the heartbeat quickened.

The sand beneath Kainen's feet trembled. Gears groaned as ancient servos struggled against centuries of stillness. The machine moved—not much, just a twitch of its fingers, a slight shift of its shoulders—but enough to make Kainen take a step back.

"I remember… fire. Battle." The voice was sharper now, carrying echoes of something far older than Kainen could comprehend. The Aether God's fingers flexed, the rusted joints cracking like old bones.

"I was… left behind."

Kainen's grip on his rifle tightened. "You were abandoned," he said, scanning the Core's readings. The energy signature was still weak, but growing.

"Yes."

Something about that single word sent a chill down Kainen's spine. The Aether Gods had been left behind for a reason. They were weapons—divine and terrible. And yet, for all their might, they had fallen.

"Why?" Kainen asked, the question slipping out before he could stop it. "Why were you left behind?"

Silence.

The Core dimmed. The heartbeat faltered. For a moment, Kainen thought it might shut down entirely.

Then—

"I was… betrayed."

A gust of wind howled across the dunes, carrying the stench of rust and time. Kainen's mind raced. Betrayed? That wasn't part of the old war records. The Aether Gods had been used, yes—commanded by human hands, fueled by stolen divinity—but they hadn't been betrayed. Had they?

And if they had… by who?

The machine's head tilted again, studying Kainen with something that felt too human.

"You are… not one of them."

Kainen stiffened. "One of who?"

"The betrayers."

A shiver crawled down his spine. "No," he said carefully. "I'm just a scavenger."

The Aether God's hollow eyes bore into him.

"Then tell me… scavenger… what remains of my kind?"

Kainen hesitated. He could lie. He should lie. But something about the weight of the question—about the raw, ancient sorrow buried in those words—made him pause.

"…Nothing," he said finally. "They're all gone. Just ruins and dead Cores."

The Aether God was silent. Then, its fingers clenched into a slow, deliberate fist. The sand around its body trembled as power rippled through its frame.

"Then I am the last."

Kainen took another step back. "Maybe," he said. "But you're also dying. That Core of yours? It's running on fumes. Whatever divinity's left in there won't last much longer."

Another silence. Then—

"You can fix me."

Kainen almost laughed. "That's not how this works."

"You carry tools. Technology. You are not just a scavenger—you are a builder."

"I'm a salvager," Kainen corrected. "I take things apart. Not put them back together."

"Then learn."

Kainen swore under his breath. This was insane. Absolutely insane. Even if he could fix the Aether God, why would he? The old war-machines had brought nothing but destruction. If he revived this one, what then?

But as he looked at the shattered machine before him, he saw not a weapon—but something else. Something lost.

Maybe even something afraid.

Kainen exhaled sharply, glancing toward the horizon. His ship was at least two clicks away, and he wasn't sure how long the Aether God's Core would hold out. If he was going to do something, he had to do it now.

"…Fine," he muttered. "But if you try to kill me, I'm scrapping you for parts."

The Core pulsed again, steadier now.

"Understood."

Kainen took a step forward.

The last Aether God was waking up.