"When the world was created, first there was the Golden Age. Mankind knew no fear and no punishment, there were no soldiers nor weapons, and they had not learned of injustice yet. Spring was eternal, with flowers born seedless, and the trees bore fruit aplenty to feed the hungry without labor. When the Titans were send to Tartaros and the world came under rule of the Gods, the Silver Age began. Spring gave way to summer, autumn and winter, and for the first time the air was blazing with searing heat and freezing with icy cold. Mankind sought shelter from the forces of nature, now lacking their former benevolence, and began to plant seeds in the soil. The third Age that followed was the Bronze Age, and that was when mankind learned of war. But they still had not learned of injustice yet. Then came the Iron Age, when honesty and truth were lost to violence, malice and greed. The earth was still touched by the same light and mankind was breathing the same air, but long borders were drawn to divide here and there, and one and another. And underneath the soil that became weary with bearing more seeds, they dug deep until they found the cursed blood of the earth: iron and gold. War was fought with them, and over them, among brothers and sisters just as among strangers. And as morality lay in defeat, the last of the Gods to leave the blood soiled earth and take her place among the stars was Astraea, the goddess of purity, innocence and justice."

"Hm. I'm not sure if I like that story very much, Calliope."

"I am sorry, Evelyn. Perhaps you will remember it more fondly one day, when you're older, and recall that your father named you after a goddess of justice who ascended to the stars."

~ ~ ~

Astraea...

The name echoed through their mind as Null and Lars stared at the woman before them in disbelief. Her face was completely impassive as she wiped the blood from her temple. For a moment, she looked at her bloodied finger tips as if they were the most curious thing in the world.

Oh no. Oh hell, no. That's too insane even for Orion's Reach, Null thought, The ultra-fanatic leader of the Saiph Guard is a fucking augment herself? I can't believe it.

They hadn't noticed it during the one occasion they had met the woman before, at the shuttle bay, because they had had no reason to scan her. But the scanner data made it glaringly obvious now. Yaremova was riddled with hardware. Tons of combat augments had been packed into her body, most of them subtle and well hidden. All of it was high quality tech, implemented so intricately that the scanner data looked more like art than science. Underneath her scalp, a metal plate had replaced a part of her skull, and underneath that, a piece of hardware had replaced a part of her brain.

Oh... I get it now, Lars thought, sounding dismayed. I know why we know that name, Astraea. It's your middle name, Null. That file we found at Riga's place, Lazarus EAL, that's for Evelyn Astraea Langdon. And Lazarus XY, that's her. Xenia Yaremova. How could I not have seen that sooner?

"Fuck..." she just whispered. "So she's the other subject Blake talked about... she's what the Reach has paid him for!"

Suddenly, Yaremova's gaze snapped up and she stared at them with a blank expression on her face.

"I don't know what you're talking about, vermin, but I will not tolerate your presence in this place. You're unworthy!"

She moved fast, even for an augment. Their body tensed in preparation to dodge an attack, but Yaremova didn't charge at Null and Lars. To their surprise, she turned and moved toward Nova instead, who had frozen in the doorway. He just stared at Yaremova as she charged at him with full force. Null burst into a dash but she knew that she wouldn't make it to him in time.

But their connection was still there. Null could feel it as clearly as if they were back on Six. The invisible blue energy connecting them allowed her to feel his utter confusion and skull-splitting headache, and the paralysis that had taken hold of him. Through his eyes, she could see Yaremova charge at him with madness in her eyes.

Nova had come to save them – again – despite the pain he suffered, and she wouldn't let anything happen to him. Null screamed Nova's name inside their mind, and reached out across the connection. The blue band seemed to quiver and tense up, he snapped out of his confusion and jumped to the side in a fluid motion. Yaremova brushed closely past him, and ended up barging through the doorway until she came to a staggered halt at the top of the stairs.

Null could feel that Nova was on the brink of passing out now from his pain as she rushed past him and after the woman.

Stay put, she ordered him, and cut herself off from the connection again as much as she could.

Yaremova turned around a split second before the impact, wearing an irritated look on her face. That very moment, Null slammed their body against the tall woman, causing her to stumble and lose balance, and both of them tumbled down the flight of stairs.

~ ~ ~

Nova was on all fours, blood dripping from his face on the metal floor below him. The last moment of their connection had been so powerful that he was still trembling from its impact. It was as if a strange force had taken over his body completely for a moment. He wouldn't have been able to dodge like that. That had been her. Or them. Or whatever. He preferred not give that too much thought right now.

The headache had gotten worse, if that was even possible, but he had to do something. He could hear muffled noises from the bottom of the stairs, where they were still fighting, but they grew more and more distant. With the distance between them growing, his mind began to clear sufficiently to process what had just happened. That tank of a woman had just brushed off a headshot as if it was nothing but a mosquito bite. The scanner data still lingered in the back of his mind, and he could barely make sense of all the things that had been put into her body, but he knew that Amy was in for a lot of trouble if she wanted to take her on in one on one combat.

Taking another deep breath, Nova reached for his gun and forced himself up to his feet again.

Surely, Amy had ordered him to stay put, but half of the fun in taking orders from her came from her priceless reactions when he completely ignored them.

~ ~ ~

A ripple ran across their arm from their shoulder toward their hand, and turned the fabric of the suit pitch black and matte as she blocked Yaremova's punch with one forearm. The defense pattern absorbed most of the shock of the impact, but the powerful blow caused them to stagger back. The tall woman took another swing at them. This time Null dodged by ducking down.

The suit shifted again, and white claws grew from their knuckles. As Null shot back up from her crouched position, she landed a punch to the woman's face that grazed her left cheek all the way down to the cheek bone.

Yaremova didn't even flinch. She snatched their wrist out of the air and tightened her grip around it, ready to break the bones in their arm as if they were twigs. But under her touch, the white spikes shot up from the nanomaterial of the suit and pierced her palms. She flinched and it startled her just enough so that Null could land a forceful kick to her stomach, that caused her to let go.

Null jumped back to get some distance between herself and the woman, but Yaremova was ready to take the offensive again immediately.

"Vermin!" she growled as she charged at them, "You have made a mess of everything! You disgusting abomination!"

She was tall and strong, and Null and Lars knew that they couldn't win this fight by relying purely on their own strength. She was also terrifyingly fast for someone her size, and kept them busy dodging her attacks without giving them any opportunity to counterattack. While Lars took care of processing the flood predictive data from their combat augments and heightening their reflexes to a maximum, Null backed away along the corridor between the overgrown racks, evading Yaremova's furious blows.

"You're a real piece of shit, Xenia," Null snapped at her, "Your hypocrisy is even worse than your stupidity. You're a moron and a morally bankrupt asshole. How can you even live with yourself?"

"Shut up, vermin!" Yaremova screeched, "You will come to witness organic superiority firsthand! I will end you!"

Organic superiority? Null thought. What the fuck is she talking about?

Momentarily distracted by her thought, Lars took over control and crouched down to evade another blow that would have shattered the part of their skull that was not covered by titanium-thallium alloy. Yaremova's fist made contact with the metal bars of the hydroponic rack behind them instead, causing them to bend with a nasty screeching sound.

"How is this organic superiority?" Null yelled, as they moved to the side to get some distance between themselves and the mad woman, "You're about as much organic as me!"

Yaremova laughed, as if she had heard a hilarious joke. She whirled around and took another swing at them. They blocked with raised forearms, but even through the black defense pattern of the suit they felt the force of the impact spread through her bones. The second swing followed soon thereafter, and they ducked low to evade once more.

From their crouched position, they delivered a forceful kick to the woman's legs, causing her to stumble. In a split second, they shot up again and drove their fist against her stomach, but she barely even winced.

Fuck. That's not just muscle underneath her skin, is it? Null noted.

Yaremova regained her balance and threw another punch. This time, they were too close to evade and too slow to block. Her fist hit their stomach with such force that they were thrown back across the corridor and hit the rack at the other side hard enough to push the air from their lungs.

Null's vision went black for a moment, and when she came to again, Lars was in full control of the body and had gotten them back on their feet. The suit had buffered some of the force of that punch, but even with their combat armor that kind of blow would have not left them unscathed. They both knew that the only reason they could still move was that their combat augments were working at maximum capacity to dull the pain in their body right now.

I don't know how long we can keep this up, Lars remarked.

He stretched their bruised fingers and formed a fist again, and the suit turned pitch black as the material took on its armor pattern all over now.

"Oh, I am so much better than you," Yaremova sneered.

She had stopped her assault for a second and straightened her shoulders to stand before them at her full height. She stared down at them from the other side of the corridor with a look of absolute contempt in her eyes.

"I am pure!" she continued, "And you, you'll be stomped out like the vermin that you are."

She doesn't know, Lars suddenly realized. I don't know how this is possible, but she genuinely does not know what she is!

What? Null replied in disbelief. How can she not know? She's a freaking beast! Does she think she was just born amazing like that?

It seems like it, Lars stated.

Wow. How full of yourself can you even be?

Null met the woman's fevered stare and she realized now that Lars was right. He was good at reading people, but aside from that, it would certainly explain her crazy talk, and how she could stand looking at herself in the mirror every morning. Still, that realization had even more disturbing implications. Yaremova seemed completely unaware of what Blake had done to her, so Null suspected that she had not agreed to it willingly.

Without warning, Yaremova charged at them again, ready to deal an undamped blow to their head. But Lars and Null were in symbiosis now, and their small stature gave them a slight edge over the tall woman. Their movements were faster and more fluid than those of the enraged hunter. They continued to evade through a series of quick side steps, and Yaremova groaned with increasing frustration as her fists didn't make contact with her intended target. She was getting slower, they realized. Her anger made her weak.

We need to end this, Lars and Null thought at the same time.

They dodged another blow, and then, without losing momentum, they moved to attack with full force. The fabric of the suit shifted, and in a split second, four large white spikes grew from their knuckles like claws. Ducking down underneath her next blow, they moved forward and delivered a powerful upper cut to Yaremova's chin that tore gaping holes into the soft flesh between the chin and neck. A second punch against her exposed throat followed, leaving four more marks where the claws ripped her skin open. The impact sent the woman staggering back, choking.

Yaremova moved her hand to her neck and cleared her throat with a gurgling sound. For a split second, her eyes appeared hazy and her look was distant, but she snapped out of it quickly. She straightened her posture and raised her head again with an uncanny smile on her lips. Blood trickled down along her right cheek from the gash their claws had torn earlier, and streamed from her injured left eye that still had the piece of the seed pod stuck in it. But the graze at her temple from the bullet had stopped bleeding.

Nanobots, Lars realized. They're healing the damage to her tissue... I don't think we can take her down without a weapon. We need to shut her off, there is no way we can beat her as long as she is enraged like that.

Yeah, we could really use an EMP right now, Null agreed.

Their fight had taken them back to the outer areas of the cave by now, where the corridors of hydroponic racks ended and gave way to fields of Starseed. A quick scan told them that they were far from any of the hunters they had taken out before. They could make a run for it and try to grab one of their discarded EMP guns, but there was another problem.

If we fire an EMP out here, there's no telling what will happen to the Starseed, Null remarked.

She glanced at the plants at their feet. They were in full bloom around here, the black seed pods glistening at the center of each silver blossom.

In the best case, it's gonna blow up all around us. In the worst case, the effect of the EM discharge will spread and... wait a second. I have an idea.

Her planning was interrupted as Yaremova moved again. There was something odd about her gait. She was more stumbling than walking towards them, and her head seemed cocked to the side as if something was wrong with her neck. Suddenly, she dropped down on all fours. A harrowing, gurgling sound escaped her, probably the closest thing to a scream her damaged throat could produce, and along her spine, movement was visible underneath her uniform. Then, the fabric began to tear as metal spikes broke through her skin at the position of each vertebra. The protrusions grew in size and then split, wrapping themselves around her back and coming to meet at the front of her rib cage and neck.

"What the..."

Frozen in horror, she watched as the woman twitched and winced, while more spikes began to force their way out of the back of her hands. Some of them began to expand and wrap around her hands and forearms. As Yaremova raised her head to look at them again, the icy blue in her eyes had given way to a glowing red.

She slowly got up to her feet and raised herself to her full height. Her clothes were mostly torn, and she shed the rest of her uniform like an old skin. Underneath, she was covered from her thighs all the way up to her chin in an exoskeleton of metal plates and spikes that were still covered in smears of her own blood.

"Oh fuck, that's disgusting," Null remarked, "Hey Xenia, you're sure you don't realize what's going on with your body right now? I mean... it's getting a little bit hard to miss now."

"I will teach you," the woman croaked through her torn larynx, ignoring the question completely, "I will tear you to pieces!You are unworthy to exist on the same planet as the purest of all life forms! "

She has absolutely no idea... Null thought, clenching her teeth in anger, That bastard Blake turned her into this... monstrosity, and she doesn't even realize...

"You are unworthy," Yaremova repeated in a disdainful voice, "You are vermin. But Xenia is a good girl. Xenia will take care of the vermin."

She wore an uncanny, devious smile, but underneath it, Null could see her pain now. Yaremova might not have felt it the way a human body was supposed to, but she certainly felt something. It distorted the smile on her bloodied face into a caricature of a human expression that looked like it was held in place by invisible staples. She was suffering, and Null could imagine that somewhere deep inside, she was in fact fully aware of what was happening to her, and that it was just wrong.

Yaremova charged at them, and Null dodged to the side, rolling into the field of Starseed next to the path. She jumped back to their feet and barely had enough time to evade the studded, metal-covered fist that was coming at them. Evading Yaremova's blows between the plants that grew in a dense carpet on the ground was a challenge, but it was still easier for them than the tall woman. She already seemed to struggle to maintain control of all of her limbs, and the thick network of vines at her feet slowed her down additionally.

We have to get her to snap out of it, Null thought. We have to make her realize what they did to her.

You want to save her? Lars asked, unable to hide the disbelief in his voice. I don't know if you've heard the approximate twenty times she mentioned it, but you're aware that she believes we're vermin and deserve to die, right?

It's not her fault that she's been turned into this, Null insisted, I bet once she understands what has been done to her, we can turn her around. Like Meyer and Park.

Lars seemed hesitant to accept her idea for a moment.

Lars, she is no different from me, Null reminded him. She didn't chose this. Blake did this to her. Despite all of her crazy propaganda talk, I don't believe she's evil. She's just... broken. We need to... get her to snap out of it.

Lars heaved a heavy sigh inside their mind.

Alright, but how?

She's an augment, just like us, Null answered. We interface.

Sure. She totally looks like the type who's into holding hands, Lars commented drily.

Cut the snark, Mister Rational, she retorted, I have a plan.

~ ~ ~

Nova made his way along the corridors of hydroponic racks at a slow pace. His head was still pounding, but it was much better now that Amy had cut the connection. Nonetheless, the fact that he had no idea where she was and what was going on worried him, and that gave him a different kind of headache on top. As he followed the trail of blood on the white floor panels, he could only hope that it was Yaremova's and not Amy's.

He could hear their struggle before he saw them, and he tightened his grip on his two guns – his own weapon, and an EMP gun he had snatched from one of the Saiph. He wouldn't make the mistake of shooting that woman with a regular old bullet again. When he passed the last line of racks, the fields of Starseed came into view, and farther ahead, under the harsh light of the solar sheets, two silver flashes seemed to dance across the dark green ground. It took him a few seconds until his eyes could focus on them, and another few seconds to process what was going on. But even once he did, he did not actually understand .

"What the actual fuck?" he exclaimed.

He was so distracted that he didn't hear the footsteps, and only realized that somebody had snuck up behind him when he felt the cold muzzle of a gun pressed against the back of his neck.

"Excellent question, you filthy rat," the female Saiph snarled, "I don't know what you did to the others, but I promise you, once the Major General gets here, she won't tolerate-"

"Your Major General is here already, you idiot," Nova cut her off drily and pointed at the two figures up ahead.

"What? What are you talking about..."

Her voice trailed off as she moved to look past him. He could hear her gasp in surprise and lower her weapon.

"What the..."

"...actual fuck," he completed her sentence. "My thoughts exactly."

Using her momentary surprise, he whirled around and smashed his elbow against her temple forcefully. With a grunt of pain, she dropped her weapon and sank to her knees. But at the other end of the corridor behind her, another female Saiph appeared now.

"You! Drop your weapons!" she shouted and raised her own gun to take aim at him.

He realized that the best thing he could do to help Amy was to keep these lunatics from knocking her out with another EMP.

"Okay, but only because you asked so nicely," he answered with a grin.

His combat augments flared back to life in a split second. He dropped the EMP gun, and brought up his own regular weapon to open fire at the Saiph.

~ ~ ~

Shots were ringing out nearby, but they couldn't afford to let Yaremova out of their sight to look in the direction the sound was coming from. They had reached a part of the cave where the Starseed was not in bloom, so the ground was mostly covered in thick, dark vines that threatened to entangle their feet at every move. It took both Lars' and Null's undivided attention to process the data from their combat augments that warned them of their opponent's movements, and steer the body safely across the treacherous ground. From afar, their movements probably looked like an intricate dance.

Nova... please don't do anything stupid now, Null begged.

She didn't dare opening the com channel, as much as she wanted to warn him about what she was about to do. But he was engaged in his own skirmish now, and calling out to him would not do any good whatsoever.

She focused her attention back on her opponent. With half of her body covered by metal now, Yaremova's attacks had become more relentless, but also less precise. She was growing more and more furious. It made her reckless, and it had become easier to evade her movements, even on the uneven terrain.

Are you certain your plan will work? Lars asked worriedly.

No, she admitted, but unless you have any better ideas, I'll give it a shot.

As she side-stepped out of the fields and onto the nearest path, an old memory crept up in the back of their mind, and an echo of Evelyn's voice resounded through their head.

The leaves of Glandora stellata get their dark green color from cupric oxide, a byproduct of the plant's metabolism. Similar to the iron cofactor in hemoglobin of terran vetebrates, copper is used as a cofactor in an enzymatic reaction and converted back and forth between its oxidized and non-oxidized form, Evelyn explained.

"Hey Xenia," Null snickered at the thought, "Fun fact about stellata. It stores copper in its vines in specialized compartments that run all the way along its vines!"

"Don't talk to me about stellata, vermin!" the woman growled. "You're not worthy to speak its name!"

She jumped out of the field, her movement aided by the reduced gravity of the surrounding area, and onto the path, ramming her metal-reinforced fist down right where Null and Lars had been just a split second before. The white floor panel cracked and shattered underneath her punch. Yaremova growled in frustration and looked up at them with glowing red eyes.

Perfect, Null remarked, We're almost set up. Are you ready? You'll have to be fast.

It will hurt, Lars remarked with a worried tone to his voice.

Not as much as it will hurt her.

"Fun fact number two. Back in the day at uni, there was this running gag among the xenobotanists, how stellata is about as close to being a cyborg as a plant can probably get," Null continued to goad her.

"WHAT?"

Her words didn't miss their effect. This time, Yaremova's furious kick missed them by nothing more than an inch. Null jumped back into the fields, and the woman followed suit. But in her anger, she missed a particularly bulky vine, and her foot got caught in the plants. With a frustrated groan, she tried to pull out her foot, but only got herself tangled up more in the process. Even with her augmented strength, she had a hard time to tear herself free from the thick vines.

"Listen up, Xenia. Here comes fun fact number three," Null said.

Yaremova looked up and her glowing red gaze met Null's as they crouched down next to the broken floor panel. They had pulled out some of the vines from the thicket surrounding them, and led it across the exposed wiring of the artificial gravity system that lay exposed underneath the shattered panel.

Null cracked a devious grin as she placed their hands firmly against the wires.

"Copper is an excellent conductor of electricity."

___________
Author's Note

Dedicated to @Red_Leasia who has been waiting for this for... I don't even know how long XD

Wow...I honestly didn't intend to write 4.4k words for this scene...  but I wanted to make it dynamical and believable. An additional challenge came from writing a one-on-one fight from Null's POV, since I was constantly asking myself what Lars might be doing/thinking. I also wanted to make it clear that time has of course not stopped during their fight, so I felt compelled to tell you what happens to Nova and the female Saiph Guards (since they're not knocked out by the poison) in the meantime. Well, I just hope it's not too long-winded to read ^^"