//------------------------------//
// Chapter 73: The Mission 
// Story: The Life of Penumbra Heartbreak 
// by Unwhole Hole 
//------------------------------//

From the distance, Nekro watched her construct fall. As it did, she collapsed. 
“I’m sorry,” she gasped. “I couldn’t stop him.”
“Stop who?” asked Crozea. “And what was he to do?”
“Luciferian. Luciferian created me...I can’t resist him.” Her foggy eyes met Crozea’s. “But for a moment, I could see into his mind. My piece of it is insulated, but the rest is rotting. He’s become obsessed with the princess. He will stop at nothing to have her. Please, we have to protect her!”	
“If you believe you have done your best, then allow us to handle the rest.”	
Nekro smiled, glad that in her current state she still had friends.
“She is behind the shield dome,” said Emeth, walking up beside them and staring out at the distance to where the remains of the dragon construct were still smoldering. “Our first and greatest threat is Daybreaker. It is not likely that Luciferian has the capacity to break the shield, or he would have done it already.” 
“What can we do?”
“My plan has finished being formulated. It actually did some time ago, but I was hesitant to use it.”
“If it offers even a little time to buy, we can at least do our best to try.”
Emeth looked at Crozea, his mechanical pupils narrowing. “You will do nothing. There is nothing you can do. This task falls to me.”
Nekro stood, being partially supported by Crozea. “What do you mean?”
“My heart is a synthetic neutron star. It was a failed attempt to recreate the Astral Hammer. If I detonate it in proximity to Daybreaker, there is a chance that our combined power will result in full intrinsic field subtraction.”
“And if that is something you choose to do, what in the end will become of you?”
“I will cease to exist. As will Daybreaker. Probably. But the statistics are long and boring, so I will not bother to demonstrate them.”
“We cannot allow you to do that,” said Nekro. “Emeth, death is not something to be taken lightly- -”
“I am only a machine. I cannot be killed. Nor can any of you stop me. I have made my decision. I think this might be what I was created before.” He started walking. “Perhaps this will redeem me for having destroyed the race that created me. If a machine even requires redemption.” 
He looked up and suddenly stopped. Thirteen was standing in his way.
“As I have already stated, Thirteen. There is nothing you can do to stop- -”
Thirteen flashed forward, immediately flipping over Emeth and slashing through his forehead plate with her magic, ablating the first letter of his name. Emeth staggered forward. 
“Shutdown engaged,” he said, taking one more step before his body completely disintegrated, the inert metal parts falling away and his neutron star core instantly and anticlimactically compressing itself into oblivion. 
Crozea stood, backing away. “Thirteen, what have you- -”
Thirteen leveled her horn at Crozea and fired. Crozea vanished in a plume of light, having been teleported to the other side of the planet. 
A beam of green magic nearly struck her, but Thirteen rolled to one side, barely avoiding it.”
“Traitor!” screamed Nekro. “You have betrayed us!”
Thirteen teleported suddenly to a position behind Nekro, and she summoned a spell. Nekro tried to raise a shield, but the blast aced around it, overwhelming her in an instant.
Somewhere across the Crystal Empire, Twilight Luciferian screamed in agony as a part of his soul was permanently severed. 
Nekro dropped to the ground, her green eyes wide as she was overwhelmed with a fit of coughing. Formaldehyde spewed from her mouth as she gasped for air. Something was terribly wrong. She felt profoundly and terribly cold, and something was thundering in her ears. Something pulsing- -or beating.
“What have- -what have you done to me?!” she cried, clawing her way forward through the snow. She put one hoof over her chest and she gasped, realizing what the sound was. “My...my heart...” She looked up at Thirteen. “But that spell- -it doesn’t exist!”
“Not yet, no.” 
Nekro collapsed into convulsions, her body badly afflicted by resurrection sickness as she lay in the snow, alone and alive. Thirteen turned away from her, tracing the magical vectors that ran through the kingdom. Luciferian had become a threat to her mission. Therefore, the time had come to eliminate him.