As they breached the atmosphere in their distinct ships, the view was beautiful and terrifying: 8 stages of hand-painted chaos. Glowing projectiles weaved patterns like lethal lace across the stars. Aya gripped her flight stick, her heart hammering against her ribs as she dodged through the gaps.

"Then give them something they can’t calculate," Zarak replied. He dove into the fray, his weapons upgrading mid-flight, a blue streak of vengeance against the machine god.

In the end, the truth of the Bluestar wasn't found in a data bank, but in the fire of the final stage. As Aya looked at her hand-painted world through the cracked glass of her canopy, she realized that whether they won or lost, the "Wings of Bluestar" would never fly in a peaceful sky again.