On the ground lay the fragments that had once been the body of the metazoi, or whatever a metal membrane surrounding the golden crystal core was called. Silence fell over the cave, broken only by Igneous's heavy breathing.
'Did we make it?' the boy wondered. Then, he looked at his companions. "Are you OK?"
They all nodded.
"We must collect these pieces," Igneous pointed to the metal shards that littered the cold ground. The gold glass was dull, lifeless, gray. 'I think that thing was alive and we killed it.'
The boy saw the sword that he held in his hands and only until that moment did he understand what had just happened. "Did we just kill this thing without our armor?"
Alya looked at him. "Yeah... we just did that."
Igneous smiled maniacally. "We did it… without armor…"
"Fighting this was different than fighting the captains," Elian opined.
