Ch. 7: Human Uprise

The sky cracked open with the screech of metal and thunder as the colossal whale crept closer to the Containment Zone. Each beat of its massive anti-gravity engines trembled the foundations of the ruined city. Its size dwarfed even the tallest skyscrapers, casting a chilling eclipse over the battlefield as it got closer.

Conrad’s order had barely finished echoing when the soldiers launched their offensive. In a coordinated rush, they soared into the air, grappling across buildings, taking strategic positions to open fire. Bullets, rockets, and energy blasts rained onto the mechanical titan—but it didn’t flinch. Not even a single scratch, they began to wonder what this thing is made of. As their weapons are especially developed to destroy these robots.

The whale retaliated. Its crimson laser beams sliced through steel and stone alike, toppling buildings with terrifying precision. Entire squads vanished as towers crumbled under them. Fires erupted across the battlefield as debris and dust turned day into dusk.

Carolin and Conrad led from the front, their movements crisp and brutal. Using advanced maneuvering gear, they darted across the collapsing skyline, hurling explosives and sustained fire into the whale’s weak spots—its underbelly, its propulsion cores, its exposed weapon ports. Each hit sparked bright flashes, but the damage was minimal. The monster kept advancing.

On a rooftop barely standing, Leo stood frozen. He hadn’t moved since the battle began.

His hands trembled, clutching his rifle tight against his chest. His breaths were short, shallow. His mind—blank. The chaos, the screams, the death—it was too much.

Then he saw it.

The whale turned toward him. One of its cannons began to hum, charging a new beam. A searing light gathered, brighter than the sun. Its focus: Leo.

His knees gave out. He didn’t scream, didn’t run. He simply stood there and accepted it.

So this is it, he thought. This is where it ends.

He remembered the smiles of Keitz, Derwin, and Shelvi. The awkward chats with Carolin. The weird dream he had of the girl with pink hair. Was that all just a fleeting glimpse of peace before the end?

The laser fired.

A blinding light engulfed the rooftop. The building groaned, cracked, then collapsed. Leo disappeared in a cloud of pulverized concrete and flame.

“Leo!” Carolin cried, her voice slicing through the noise as she zipped across the battlefield. Dust swallowed her path, her heart hammering with panic. She scanned desperately for any sign of him.

A sudden flash split the sky—so bright, even Carolin had to shield her eyes midair.

And then, silence.

Everything seemed to pause.

From within the haze, a figure rose—slowly, deliberately.

It was Leo.

But… changed.

His uniform was torn, yet his body seemed untouched by injury. His skin glowed faintly, and from his back floated gentle pulses of teal-blue energy. Most striking of all—his eyes. Once deep and unsure, they now blazed with intense teal light.

No thrusters, no wrist device—yet he hovered effortlessly above the broken city. His expression was cold, unwavering.

Carolin called out, “Leo!”

But he didn’t respond. He didn’t even turn.

Without hesitation, Leo launched himself forward, faster than any soldier could track. His body blurred through the air as he slammed straight through the whale’s exterior armor, bursting out its opposite side with a deafening shockwave. Then again. And again. Dozens of times.

Each strike sent explosions ripping through the whale’s internal structure. Its systems faltered, its hovering grew unstable.

Conrad, seeing the inevitable, shouted through comms:

“All units, retreat! The whale is going to explode—get back, now!”

Soldiers scrambled to safety, diving from rooftops and clearing streets.

Leo kept going.

He pierced the whale one final time, lodging himself deep into its reactor core.

Then came the explosion.

A thunderous roar swallowed the battlefield. The whale burst apart from within, its body erupting in a blaze of molten metal and fire. The shockwave flattened several city blocks, forming a deep crater where the titan once floated.

Silence followed.

Smoke curled into the sky. The wind howled through what remained of the broken city.

And in the center of the crater, scorched and smoldering—

Leo was nowhere to be seen.

The dust slowly began to settle. The thick smoke that blanketed the shattered city thinned, revealing a landscape twisted by destruction. Rubble lay in every direction, and in the heart of it all—resting atop the smoldering remains of the colossal whale—stood Leo.

Still. Silent. Unmoving.

Then he collapsed.

Gasps rang out as soldiers rushed toward him. Conrad was among the first, weaving through debris with Carolin right behind him.

“Leo!” someone called out.

He stirred, slowly blinking his eyes open. Faces surrounded him—relieved, shocked, desperate for answers.

“Are you alright?”

“What just happened?”

“How did you do that?”

Leo winced, clutching his head. A sharp pain shot through his skull, and fragmented visions surged to the front of his mind: flashes of teal light, his body flying, piercing through the whale again and again—but none of it felt real.

“I… I don’t know,” Leo whispered. “I wasn’t… in control. It was like someone else took over.”

He looked at his hands, confused. “I didn’t do anything… at least, I didn’t mean to.”

Carolin and Conrad exchanged glances, neither knowing what to make of it. The silence was broken by Conrad’s voice, calm yet heavy:

“Whatever it was, you saved us. That thing would’ve wiped us all out.”

He looked around at the shattered skyline, his voice lowering. “Still… too many good people didn’t make it.”

There was a moment of quiet reflection before Conrad raised his head.

“Rest if you need to. Everyone else—start salvaging the whale. Whatever’s left in its systems or armor, we can’t let it go to waste.”

Soldiers fanned out. Some, too exhausted to move, rested atop the buildings, catching their breath. Others pulled tools from their gear and began cutting into the whale’s scorched plating.

Then a voice rang out.

“Commander! Over here—I found something!”

Conrad turned, motioning for a few nearby soldiers to follow. They stepped carefully across the wreckage toward the voice. Near the rear of the whale’s structure, a soldier stood beside a torn panel, pointing inside.

Conrad looked in—and froze.

Inside was a chamber unlike any other part of the whale. Smooth, intact, and glowing faintly with an unnatural pink light. And there, in the center, was a girl.

Unconscious. Her body pristine despite the destruction. She wore a flowing pink dress, her long, lush pink hair spread like silk beneath her. She looked human—too human to be inside something like this.

“…What in the world?” muttered one of the soldiers.

“Get her out,” Conrad ordered quickly.

They worked carefully, pulling her gently from the chamber and laying her down on the debris outside. A medic rushed over, checking her vitals.

“She’s alive… pulse is faint, but stable,” the medic reported.

A crowd gathered around, murmuring. Soldiers whispered, pointing—confusion spreading like wildfire.

From a rooftop in the distance, Carolin watched the commotion below, her body still aching from the battle.

“What’s going on now?” she asked aloud.

Next to her, Leo tried to get a better look. “No idea,” he muttered.

They were too far to make out much—only a growing crowd and murmurs of something… or someone being found.

“Maybe they found an energy core,” Carolin guessed, “or maybe…”

She trailed off.

Then Leo saw it.

A flash of pink.

His eyes widened. That hair… he’d seen it before. In his dreams. Always the same girl, always the same color. His heart pounded.

Without a word, he stepped onto the edge of the rooftop—and jumped.

Carolin gasped. “Leo—wait! What are you doing?!”

But Leo had already taken flight, soaring toward the wreckage.

Carolin cursed under her breath and followed, launching after him with her gear, not knowing why Leo was so determined—only that it had to mean something.