The wind howled across the cracked plains of the Hollow's edge, thin and dry like the rasp of a dying breath. The Dawnbreakers moved cautiously, their exosuits sealed tight against the faint, lingering radiation. They had crossed into an area the map on Aera's datapad labeled simply as: Zone N-23: UNSANCTIONED.
It was a dead place.
The air shimmered with heat, but no sun shone. The clouds here were unnaturally thick, laced with copper-colored static. The further they went, the more their boots kicked up fragments of something not quite ash, not quite metal—like the detritus of old war ghosts ground into dust.
"Are you sure this is the path?" Elian asked, watching the sky flicker with residual energy discharges. "The radiation's spiking again."
Aera didn't respond right away. She was staring at the terrain ahead, where shattered husks of once-massive war machines lay like the corpses of titans. Arms torn off, plating split open, reactors exposed like bones. Her datapad's screen flickered, fighting interference.
"This is the shortest way through the Hollow," she finally said, then added with a touch of dry humor, "unless you'd like to take the scenic route through the Valley of Needle Storms."
Elian sighed. "No, thank you."
They pressed forward, careful to keep their environmental filters running. But the silence of the place got into their heads. Even the youngest recruits spoke little. It was as if they were walking through a place time had abandoned.
Then came the first anomaly.
Juno, one of the former Vanguard scouts, stopped dead in her tracks. "Movement," she said, eyes narrowing.
Aera knelt beside her. Through the filtered lens of her HUD, she saw the flicker too—a figure, humanoid, but… wrong. Metallic plating. Archaic design. A Mark II Synthframe, no doubt—but moving in patterns that didn't match patrol protocols.
"Rogue mech?" she asked.
"Most likely." Elian already had his rifle raised.
As they crept closer, more emerged from the ruined terrain—six of them, moving in eerie synchrony, but with no visible command signal. Their exoshells were cracked and worn, pieces of them fused with the surrounding terrain like they'd grown out of it.
"They're not just rogue…" Aera murmured. "They're corrupted."
"Left to rot for decades," Elian said. "And still walking."
The mechs suddenly shifted. Heads turned in unison. Energy pulses charged in their cores.
"DOWN!" Aera shouted.
Bolts of searing plasma lit up the hollowed ruins.
The Dawnbreakers scattered, their formation disciplined. Aera moved like lightning, weaving between cover and unleashing suppressive fire. Her squad responded without hesitation—no panic, just coordinated retaliation.
Elian flanked wide, throwing a disruptor mine. One mech seized up mid-charge and collapsed into the sand with a muffled thud.
Another charged, blade arm glowing white-hot—Aera barely dodged, countering with a short-range EMP round that overloaded its joints. It dropped, twitching.
But there were more.
"Two more squads coming in!" shouted Nyle, dragging one of the new recruits behind a fallen transport chassis.
Aera gritted her teeth. "We're not dying in a graveyard."
She activated her comms. "Flashbang pattern Gamma-Seven. Now!"
White light erupted, blinding sensors. In the confusion, Aera led the Dawnbreakers into a narrow canyon of fractured obsidian stone. The rogue mechs followed—but it was a trap. Elian was already waiting.
He detonated a cave-in charge.
Half the squadron of mechs was buried under a mountain of ancient alloy and blackened shale.
Silence returned. Just the sound of strained breathing and humming coolant systems.
They regrouped quickly. No casualties. Aera looked over her squad—dirtied, tired, but alive.
She looked back at the field behind them, now half-covered in smoke and settling dust.
"This whole place…" she said quietly, "is a mausoleum of forgotten wars."
Elian nodded. "And we just woke the dead."
They moved on, deeper into Zone N-23.
But Aera couldn't shake the feeling.
Something had reactivated those machines. Something deeper beneath the Hollow still breathed—and it wasn't finished yet.