The cataclysm lasted for five full minutes. To Cleo, adrift in the sudden silence, it felt like an eternity. The chaotic storm of unraveled reality ceased as abruptly as it had begun, the warped space smoothing over like a bad memory. The void returned to its cold, star-dusted stillness.

"...Rex?"

Her voice was like a whisper in the vacuum that was met with nothing. She reached out through their shared psychic link, a bond that had been a constant hum in the back of her mind for centuries. She searched for the familiar, steady warmth of his presence.

But... she found only a deafening silence. A hollow, absolute nothingness.

For the first time in ages, a cold, sharp feeling of being utterly lost pierced through her core. It was a vulnerability she had not felt since the fall of her own empire. Her hand tightened into a fist, her knuckles glowing white with a contained energy that mirrored the storm within her.

Slowly, she turned to face the fleet of the Free Colonies. Her form was insignificant against the colossal warships, a mere speck of dust in the infinite expanse. Yet, when she spoke, her voice echoed through every bridge, every cockpit, and every comms unit in the enemy armada, as she instantly hacked their entire network.

"What is it that you have done?!"

"Who knows?" the envoy's voice came back, dripping with the same arrogant contempt, though a slight tremor of fear now lay beneath it.

"Those void gems... when destroyed, they don't kill. They teleport anything in their path to a random location in the deepest, most empty voids of the galaxy. So, I suppose your man is as good as dead. Hahaha!"

A chilling calm settled over Cleo. "Is that so?"

Her words were quiet, almost conversational, but they were the calm before the storm. In that moment, she made a decision that would ignite the first massive, tripartite war the galaxy would see in millennia, a conflict that would burn for years and redraw the maps of power.

The reason was simple, primal, and absolute... she was mad. A cold fury that had been dormant for eons had been awakened because someone had dared to lay a hand on her only emotional anchor in the vast, cold galaxy. They had taken her sun, and she would plunge them into an eternal night.

"Initiate full-scale galactic protocol," she commanded, her voice resonating with ancient power. "Ancient Machina, Protector of the Kaelzars. Your new Empress commands you. With my energy as your fuel, awaken from your slumber. Show these insects, who dare to bare their fangs, what true fear tastes like."

As she spoke, she was enveloped in a swirling vortex of bluish holographic screens, data streaming at an impossible speed. One by one, they winked out, their energy and information being consumed, until a single, radiant, golden screen remained before her. It displayed a single, devastating word.

[Executing]

The space behind her groaned. A spiderweb of cracks, glowing with the light of a dying star, fractured the very fabric of reality. From within, massive, metallic fingers, each the size of a battleship, emerged, gripping the edges of the rift and straining to force it open.

The vast reservoir of planetary energy Rex had used to shield her now surged from her body, being siphoned at a terrifying, unsustainable rate to fuel the awakening. The air vibrated with a deep, resonant hum that shook the very bones of the nearby ships.

With a final, deafening shatter that sounded like a crystal galaxy breaking apart, the rift was torn open. From within the impossible darkness, a shadow loomed, wreathed in the fires of a contained sun. The silhouette was that of a giant, a titan of forgotten wars, its form barely discernible through the inferno.

"Tsk! Attention to all fleets! Full speed reverse! Divert all power to the warp drives, now!" the envoy screamed, his veteran instincts screaming of an existential threat. The sight of that shadow sent a primal shudder of dread down his spine, an urge to flee that overrode all pride.

But it was far too late.

"Where..." Cleo's voice cut through the chaos, cold and absolute, "do you think you are going?"

She raised her hand, and across the enemy fleet, a wave of destructive digital entropy surged. Engine cores flickered and died, power conduits exploded, and thrusters fell silent as their systems were brutally, simultaneously bricked.

Yet, the effort was colossal. Summoning the Solar Titan while simultaneously crippling an entire fleet was a drain beyond comprehension.

Cleo could feel it... a terrifying vacuum within, as both her life energy and her planetary reserves were being consumed at a rate that threatened to extinguish her very being. She was burning herself out to become the vessel of their annihilation.

"Report! My lord, all fleet engines have suffered catastrophic failure! We're sitting ducks!" The officer's voice was a strained attempt at professionalism, but the sheer, primal dread emanating from the space rift had him trembling uncontrollably; his hands shook too badly to operate his console.

"I can see that, you fool!" the envoy screamed, his mind racing between the shame of a solo escape and the dwindling hope of a stand. "What about the weapons? Are our fangs still bared?!"

"Affirmative, sir! Only propulsion is offline! All weapon systems and shields remain operational!" the officer confirmed, a sliver of desperate hope in his tone.

A brittle, hysterical laugh escaped the envoy's lips. "Hahah! Very well! Then we shall bite until our last breath! All vessels, hear my command! Combat readiness, maximum level threat! Raise all defensive shields and power every weapon to overload! Our target is that Tier 5 bitch and the abomination in the rift! Destroy them before it fully emerges!"

From her vantage point, Cleo saw the terrifying shift. The enemy armada, though crippled, transformed into a fortress of gleaming, energized weaponry.

A thousand turrets, missile batteries, and energy lances swiveled toward her and the dormant Titan. She tried to fight back, her will lashing out through the digital realm to disable shield generators and power down cannons.

A few systems flickered and died, but they were quickly rebooted and reinforced. It was like trying to hold back the tide with her bare hands. The last dregs of her energy were seeping away; the living metal of her armor, once radiant, now flickered like a dying star, sections of it crumbling into inert, grey dust.

"Not yet..." she whispered, the words a raw scrape against her soul. "You will all pay!" With a final, agonizing act of will, she wrenched every last piece of power from her own core, a final, desperate offering to the slumbering Titan.

She felt the terrifying void of total energy depletion claim her. Her vision dimmed, her systems issuing one final, silent scream before shutting down entirely.

As her consciousness began to unravel, her last sight was of the Solar Titan, still and silent within its fiery rift. Her sacrifice had been for nothing. The grand protector of her people would not awaken. And without a link to her original core, this shutdown was not a temporary failure.... it was true death. The eternal silence awaited her.

She felt herself drifting, a ghost already, untethered and aimless in the vast, cold dark. On the very edge of oblivion, she could still perceive the gathering light of the enemy's final, devastating salvo, a wave of pure annihilation destined to erase her from existence... It was over.

But in that final fraction of an instant, the space between a dying heartbeat and eternity, a new rift tore open the sky.

Not gold, not blue, but a violent, glorious crimson. It erupted directly in front of her, and a voice, laced with a playful, arrogant melody she would recognize across a thousand galaxies, slipped into her dying mind.

"Mmm~ And here I took my sweet time to come and visit you. I finally break free, and all I find is that you've made an even bigger mess of yourself than I did~?"

The voice was like a spark thrown into the void of her being. Suddenly, strength did not just return; it flooded back into her, a torrent of crimson energy that violently jump-started her systems.

Her vision snapped back into focus, not with the dull glow of a reboot, but with a brilliant, fiery clarity.

The first thing she saw were two immense, beautiful wings of burning crimson, folded around her like a protective cocoon, holding back the blinding, destructive fury of the entire Free Colonies fleet as if it were nothing more than a gentle rain.

"...You..." Cleo managed to whisper, even though her voice sounded like a fragile thread of sound. The sight of those fiery wings, the familiar, arrogant cadence of that voice... it was a lifeline thrown to her in the abyss.

A single, warm, metallic finger, gently glowing with crimson energy, was pressed against her lips, silencing her.

"Shhh, no, no. Be a good girl and rest," the entity, Virus, cooed, her head tilted in mock sympathy. "I was tasked with helping you by my other half, you see? I have to do a good job, or she'll be ever so cross with me."

A playful, wicked grin spread across her features. "Then again, what can she truly do? Scold me? We share the same body. It would be like punishing herself~"

Just as she was about to lean in and tease Cleo further, the universe intervened. A colossal plasma beam, the combined main cannon fire from a dozen capital ships, lanced through the void and struck Virus square in the back.

The impact was titanic, a silent, sun-bright explosion of energy that hurled her forward. She was pushed back several kilometers, skidding through the void with a screech of protesting energy, coming to a stop dangerously close to the seething, unstable rift holding the Solar Titan

A fall into that would mean being consumed by the raw, gravitational fury of a red sun.... a certain, vaporizing death even for her.