The Stormlands are vast corridors of wind. The mountains capture and channel the storms into narrow passageways, and the wreckage of divine technology in the sea and skies lashes them onwards. Once those who lived here dreamed of chaining the weather, now the land breaks beneath its liberation. The howling wind can grind down mountains as surely as the rushing ocean.

She moves across the plains and visualizes herself as part of an army.

As the Hunter, she fought alone at the vanguard. First in to each new system, fighting maidens alone and in packs, a specter in the void. But what if there were a dozen like her? What if there were ten thousand? What if the Aeteline was but one of a line and the combined legion stood here together? What if the Crystal Fire Drive's contentious spirit was quelled and the demanding minds of the Gods were quieted around a single purpose?

She raises her rifle. One shot cracks a mountain. Ten thousand might clear it. Ten thousand might carve this land apart. Ten thousand might break the sky again and bring the sky fortress of the North Wind crashing down in flames. Ten thousand gods. The ultimate triumph over nature.

With ten thousand gods they could plough a continent and seed the ocean. With ten thousand gods they could break the moon and tame the tides. With ten thousand gods they could build an Evercity every day. With ten thousand gods they could build a world and populate it with...

... With ten thousand gods.

She looked at the distant silhouettes of the wild gods of the plains. Despite their physicality they were immortal. Over time the nanites would reconstruct them from first principles. Over time the nanites would repair and upgrade them in accordance with new experience and desire. Over time ten thousand Aetelines had become ten thousand gods. They had outlasted their pilots and their pilots' war. The triumph over uncaring natural forces had enshrined new ones in their place. They had evolved from a legion into... 

Devolved. They had devolved. They were rogue military units, overspecialized to local conditions rather than working with the unity required to alter those conditions. The forges of the Evercity had built the ten thousand and first god of Zaldar. Once again this world would be shaped by ten thousand gods in the shapes of mortals. Ten thousand gods, young and strong, and their empire would never fall.

There would be no more room for huntresses. The world would be ruled by legions. She was the first legionnaire of the new order. And she was...

Flawed. Already she had been forced to adapt to this feral world. Her design was off balance. She would not fit in the phalanx like this.

Worst of all it felt like her new limb was the more powerful.