The Gugwe-mok dragged itself upright from the wreckage two blocks away, bark cracked and smoking along its ruined chest, and for a long moment it simply stared across the distance at the towering, red veined shape that had thrown it there. Dust still hung thick in the air between them, catching the first pale hints of dawn beginning to bleed along the horizon.
"You," it rasped, voice carrying thin and furious across the ruined street. "I thought your kind stayed buried in stone."
Aestros didn't answer right away. He stood motionless, a statue built from broken foundation and burning will, the red lines pulsing slow along his arms and chest, the firehouse crowning his shoulders like something that had simply always belonged there.
"I have watched long enough," he said finally, voice low, carrying through the ground itself rather than the air.
