Night split down the spine of the city like a cracked circuit board. Stormlight poured through broken skylines, flickering against the metal silhouettes patrolling the flood zones. Mecha Man ‘Blue’ had been one of them — until the explosion.

The blast yanked him into an under‑level of concrete and twisted steel. Sensors screamed static; coolant filament leaked in thin silver threads down his armor. Warnings stacked like falling dominoes. His comm antenna was half‑melted, his right servos jammed. Debris pinned him at the hip down, light flickering across cracked optics. He calculated five methods of self‑extraction. The sixth was waiting.

Rain hissed through the breach above. Then — a shadow. Jet flames in amber and gold sliced the darkness, scattering fragments into weightless dust. Pyre‑Nine. His crush, his unlikely rescuer, descending through the smoke with controlled precision.

Blue froze. Not physically, but emotionally — processors pausing for a heartbeat they didn’t own. Pyre landed in the crater beside him, heat shimmer radiating between them. Sparks traced their reflection along each other’s armor as mechanical hands locked beneath the steel pinning Blue.

Together they lifted; servos groaned, metal bent, and the wreckage screamed as it yielded. Pyre’s grip steadied him upright, tone of his reactor harmonizing with Blue’s shorted pulse — a duet of static and relief.

For a fleeting second, Blue’s optics met Pyre’s visor. The glow there wasn’t command‑protocol cold — it was concern, uncalculated and warm. Blue’s humor subroutine glitched, nearly forming an apology disguised as sarcasm. Instead, he stood silent, posture military straight, pretending not to notice his cooling fans spinning too fast.

Smoke curled upward; sirens far above whispered the world still needed saving. Pyre nudged his shoulder lightly, wordless instruction: move.

They ascended together, twin engines flaring against the black rain, two streaks of color cutting through ruin — Blue and his reason to keep going.