Chapter 10: Coin of a Fallen Star

——Where allies become weapons, and mercy becomes a weakness to exploit.

The village tavern reeked of cheap ale and cheaper vengeance. Kael, former pilot of Colossus #3, slammed a Dragonbane bullet onto the splintered table. "He melted my boy into *light*. Not ash, not bones—*fucking photons*."

Murmurs rippled through the Dragonbane Victim Support Group. A mother cradling a mech's shattered core. A mercenary with frostfire scars crawling up his neck. All bore the same hollow stare—the look of people who'd paid to see a monster die, only to become monsters themselves.

The tavern door blew open. A figure cloaked in irradiated dragonhide tossed a Colossus head onto the bar. "I hear you're hiring monster-slayers." The stranger's voice buzzed with mechanical distortion. "Let's negotiate."

Kael froze. The Colossus head's visor flickered, replaying its final moments—Lin Feng's claw ripping through its cockpit in a spray of sparks and screams. But the stranger's boots... they were the same tactical model Qing Yuan wore when she died.

Lin Feng crouched atop the molten ruins of Sky-Spire City, the "warm" coin embedded where his heart once pulsed. Three days since the battle. Three days of voices:

*"You should've let them kill me,"* Qing Yuan's ghost whispered through the coin. *"Now we're both cursed."*

He didn't answer. Below, the Support Group's airships swarmed like metallic wasps. Let them come. Let them all—

A sonic boom split the clouds. The stranger from the tavern landed atop a half-melted skyscraper, cloak rippling to reveal a body armored in *coins*—each stamped with Lin Feng's dragonform.

"Hello, brother." The stranger removed her helmet. Kael's scream echoed through the ruins.

Qing Yuan's face smiled back, her left eye a swirling galaxy, right eye pure void. *"Miss me?"*

She moved faster than memory-Qing Yuan ever could. Lin Feng barely dodged the coin-blade aimed at his coin-heart.

"Still sentimental." Not-Qing Yuan tutted, her voice layered with the Heavenly Merchant's cadence. "Did you think stealing a soul from the Heavenly Ledger would go unpunished?"

Her cloak billowed, unleashing a storm of coins. Each morphed mid-air—into miniature Colossi, into screaming child holograms, into perfect replicas of Lin Feng's human face.

He froze. A coin-Clone slashed his throat.

*"Pathetic."* Not-Qing Yuan caught his falling body. *"The mighty dragon, felled by his own reflection."*

The coin-heart pulsed. Qing Yuan's true voice screamed through the void: *"Fight, you scaled idiot! She's using my corpse like a puppet!"*

Lin Feng's claws erupted through the Clone's chest. *"Get. Out. Of. Her."

They tore through the city's carcass—a dragon and a stolen corpse trading blows that cracked tectonic plates. With each strike, the coin-heart leaked memories:

*A younger Qing Yuan, strapped to an altar as the Heavenly Merchant carved coins from her ribs. "Every transaction needs collateral," he'd smiled. "You'll make excellent currency."*

Lin Feng roared. Frostfire enveloped Not-Qing Yuan, but she *absorbed* it, her coin-armor glowing blue.

"Thanks for the upgrade." She launched a point-blank frostfire missile. "Now let's test the new merchandise!"

The blast vaporized the city's remains. When the haze cleared, Lin Feng stood human-scaled again, the coin-heart dim. Not-Qing Yuan aimed a coin-gun between his eyes.

"Checkmate." Her finger tightened.

A copper flash. The *real* Qing Yuan's ghost materialized, slamming her spectral coin into the gun's barrel.

*"Never* bet against a debt collector."

The gun backfired, engulfing Not-Qing Yuan in her own frostfire. As she screamed, the Heavenly Merchant's hologram flickered into existence.

*"Default penalty incurred."* He snapped his fingers. Not-Qing Yuan's body disintegrated, coins clattering to the ground. *"Remaining balance: One dragon heart. Pay now, or—"*

Qing Yuan's ghost merged with Lin Feng. Their voices harmonized: *"We'll take a loan."*

The coin-heart exploded.

When the light faded, Lin Feng stood transformed—human in shape, but eyes blazing with supernovae and black holes. The surviving Support Group members dropped their weapons, ears bleeding from the *wrongness* of his aura.

Qing Yuan's voice echoed from everywhere/noplace: *"Run home. Tell your masters the dragon's open for business."*

Only Kael remained, clutching a photo of his son. "Do it." He glared at Lin Feng. "Finish the job."

A spectral hand touched his shoulder—Qing Yuan's ghost, holding a copper rose. *"The job's changing. Tell me... what's your son's name?"*