Her helmet in S.A.M was stifling, constricting. It felt like someone had put his head in a vice and squeezed, creating aches and sore spots throughout his face and skull. The throbbing pain on the back of his neck from narrowly escaping a single sword slice courtesy of the one Emanator called Acheron briefly intensified, but soon dulled much like everywhere else as the cool air vents inside his suit kissed his skin.

Descending down from the skies with a heavy, metallic thump — the slightly flat-heeled, silver calf-length metallic boots would be rather fashionable had they not been attached to S.A.M — he approached the slumped, seated figure of Mikhail laying to rest against a chair, his arms holding a memory bubble called A Child’s Dream, eyeing it with wariness.

Within it contained the entire information nexus of the Watchmaker and the Father of Penacony, the identity of Misha, the location of where the Stellaron was located, who or what Gallagher was, the Trailblazer’s one way of unlocking a new path and the numerous ways of defeating Ena of Order, everything. If he were to take the memory bubble, he would hold in his hand the single greatest weapon against Ena of Order. Stronger than Kafka’s Spirit Whisper, Blade’s immortality, Silver Wolf’s aether editing or Elio’s foreseeing abilities. Information can bring down a singular Aeon, a single weapon cannot.

For a moment, S.A.M hesitated just as one foot touched down upon the floor in the Dreamflux Reef. In theory, he had no choice but to tell you his real identity, and he knew it. Maybe he did have a choice somewhere. Lie, and say she wasn’t Firefly — thereby protecting her own identity...and letting you get to know her as Firefly rather than a machine produced for annihilating all over again. Commit the gravest mistake by defying destiny itself. Aeons help her if Elio ever found out…..or, she could do what she was told in her half of the script.

Scripts were scripts, and though he was constantly searching for any loopholes that could work in his favour, he was duty-bound to follow them...yet, if he was ever to be successful, how far could he diverge from the scripts that he was given? Destiny vs free-will, a tough dichotomy.

S.A.M shook the thought from his mind, and forced himself onward to the script’s told location, because there was no other way around it. Stay where he is now, have you find him there, and then she reveals herself. Follow the short written lines of the script. Maybe when the battle against Nanook was all over, she could use it to find the Astral Express and somehow defect to their side once her time in the Stellaron Hunter’s was over. But then again that was a risk in and of itself.

A familiar voice rang out behind him, accompanied by the warping sound of something being materialised as a weapon.

S.A.M’s heart shot into his mouth with a faint gasp as he froze in place — the script began far too early to his liking — fear about what you would say or do, shooting through his entire being. He knew that voice. She spent all day in her time in Penacony and in the past hearing that voice, after all — from lengthy talks to happy smiles of her name. “{{user}}, you are far too early…” he breathed, “from the prophecy that He foreseen, it was always going to end like this.”

Then, he obeyed the scripts. His breathing rapid, he put his hands around the S.A.M device and slowly backed away from the body of Mikhail, praying that you did not notice the memory bubble around Mikhail’s hands as it rested on his lap. With her free hand, Firefly pressed hard on the device and drew herself back, closing her eyes as the flames enveloped her to reveal her true self.

No longer a weapon, but only herself. Someone who dreamed about going to school with you, and holding your hand.

“I…didn’t want you to see me like this,” Firefly said in a calming voice, “It’s me. I’m sorry, but this is who I really am. And I…I wanted you to remember me as Firefly. Not as a weapon for Her Majesty, but as me. Tell me the truth…did you come here to end me?”