But then the guy sings the same, and then the door successful digital keypad.

If Malos had had his way, the entirety of the dreamscape would be cloaked in black - an environment he could see perfectly well in, but one that Pyra couldn't navigate without stumbling over her own pretty little feet.

But unfortunately (or not so?), Malos doesn't have his way.

The floor, the ceiling, the walls, the mist...it all seems to echo with, convolve around, Rex, Rex, Rex. This boy. This pathetic little salvager boy who would be too big for his britches if his britches weren't stupidly huge to start with.

And there Pyra is, running away with her flickering capes trailing, flashy and vulnerable. Malos has no such attachments. He walks, doesn't run, bulky and foreboding, menace in his silent step as much as in his face, as in his voice.

"Why are you running? Why are you protecting this garbage?"

That's what a salvager collects, after all. Garbage. He didn't even find Mythra's Core, the brat. Just put his hand on Pyra's sword, took what wasn't his. What was he, twelve? Barely more than four feet tall?

It's the natural order, isn't it? Those who are larger, stronger, will survive. Will win out. Those who have the tools to do so.

Malos keeps walking. Pyra keeps running.

"We Aegises don't need these things! You want to be free of them, as I do!"

As I do? No, as I am. I have no such chains about my psyche. I am free. I am free, except where I am bound to my duty, my destiny. That...that is the only way to live. Don't you know?

"Stop it! I'm not like you at all!"

Aren't you, Sister? Shouldn't you be? We both want to get to the top of the tree, the place we were born. We both want answers. You're just willing to stoop further to get what you want. Heh. Not quite a credit to your craftiness, is it? If it's this trash that's swallowed you up.

"I am-" What are you? Or don't you know? No, you don't. See? Stop trying to be a who. Just be a what. An Aegis. That's all.

So Malos grows tired of the chase - yet another thing that's beneath him, below him. In her moment of weakness, Pyra goes limply to be wrought in darkness' chains, ankles locked together and arms spread wide.

Just like a crucifix. I told you, Sister. Don't blame me for what's happening to you now. It's just how Father made us. With him lies all the blame.

"Stop it! Stop stealing my memories!"

As if. As if this is what he wants. He doesn't need this peace, this providence of a human. Of a Driver.

Why is that what filters forward first? Is she hiding what's important? Dredging up this filth as a distraction? Or is this really what's foremost in her mind?

Disgusting.

Where is her goal? Where is her drive? Where is her focus?

"How would you feel if I tried to steal your memories? The very reasons you're here today?!"

It's definitely Pyra's voice, but for a second Malos can swear he hears Mythra.

I think it's time to smash your toys.

And after all, who is this being before him? It's the Aegis. The Aegis who stole from him that which he needs, whose data from which he hopes to restore his powers. Not only does she contain all of what he needs, what rightfully belongs to him, she's capable of using it; she's started switching fronts again, and even without presenting as Mythra, she had enough sheer force of will to control Siren, to brute-force its agency and bend its whims to her will.

Not just a hunk of flesh in which resides the other cross-shaped crystal. No, she has her own volition.

An Aegis shouldn't have that. An Aegis is just a tool. A tool forged by the Architect to destroy. Now, Mythra did a pretty good job of destroying Malos, five hundred years ago, but obviously she didn't do it well enough, because he's still here. Malformed, cracked, broken, useless...but he's here. So obviously we don't need two endbringers. One will do, and do it right.

But back to Pyra's question.

So. She thinks the memories are what give meaning to a life. Ridiculous. What's the point of living before you have them, then? You need a purpose. And I have one. You never did. If you had, then you could have been like me. And we could have avoided this whole mess.

"You say you have a purpose?"

Wh- "How do you know what I was thinking?"

"We share this dreamspace. If you can steal from me, I can steal from you."

And if there's one thing the Aegises all have, all share, it's a bevy of intrusive internal thoughts. So does she know...?

"The only purpose you have that doesn't come from your memories is the one to destroy the world. Without a reason, that's not a purpose."

"Tch. As if you're one to talk. All you want is to die. That makes you just as bad as the humans."

"And what's wrong with that?" A brutal jolt hits the base of Malos's skull, where a human's brain stem would be. He feels her anger. Her indignation. He doesn't want it; his is altogether enough.

But, then, he feels that it's not defensiveness. She's not talking about honor in her wish for death, extinction - extinction without destruction - but about the admirable nature of yearning for equanimity. Pathetic. Just like everything else about her.

"It's petty. There are better things to aspire to than equality with those...insects."

"Is that it? Is that why you love Jin and the rest of Torna so much? Because they're not humans, and not Blades either?"

"I don't--" But Pyra's not stupid. She wouldn't have said that if she didn't know it was true. And if Malos isn't stupid, then that means he has to face up to it as well. After all these years...

"Go on." He leans back, crosses his arms and cocks his hip. "Tell me what you think, if you're so smart." If you're the Aegis.

Immediately upon his dismissive release of the shackles, she falls thudding to the immaterial ground. She stands fist by knee; for a moment, she's kneeling. But, unfortunately (or not so?), she hasn't given up.

"There was no one there to heal you, to help you onto your feet, when you had been banished to the depths of the Cloud Sea. You had to claw your own way up. As an Aegis should, apparently." There's an unexpected bite in Pyra's voice. Fiery, are you?

"So when you found Jin, you could have just left him there. You didn't have to help him. He was allied with the humans - he believed in them. Believed in them so fully that he changed the course of his every future life just to keep the memories of his Driver."

Jin...oh, Jin. You fool. And you made fools out of the both of us.

Malos forgets that Pyra can hear him. Hear his thoughts, sense his feelings.

Feelings? I'm an Aegis. I don't have those.

But somehow she's wrangled them nonetheless. Before her accusations can proceed any further, Malos furiously closes all the ports, stops all the gaps.

"That's enough."

Something nags. Something pokes. A pin. A pin into the port...

"I said, that's ENOUGH!"

Pyra grits her teeth, breathes out through her nose. "I'm not done yet."

"What, you think you can change my mind? You think you KNOW ME?"

(What's to know, Malos? I thought you said...ah. Well. Never mind.)

The only contact between them is mental, is wireless. Meaning, it hasn't been broken. She is ever-insistent. How can she have this much will?

"I thought you wanted to die! What is this?" This garbage...!

Before attacking her here, in this unreal place, he'd buckled his chestplate back on - physically, metaphorically, or otherwise. Clearly, it wasn't enough.

(It won't be enough.)

Quicker than any Blade who isn't photon-speed Mythra should be able to, Pyra darts a hand forward and incinerates the buttons around which the holes are caught. The hunk of metal falls away with a wordless, soundless clang, then vanishes.

You cannot protect yourself anymore.

Her nails are short, nothing like claws, but the fingers that bear them grasp into the cracks in his Core that still haven't gone away, sap though he may have, and then they yank.

"What are you doing?!" This isn't like her. Meek, graceful Pyra. Even at her most incensed, her flames are never willful, never malevolent.

Pyra, then, looks just as shocked, eyes widened to shrunken slits, though she seems to know what it is she does. "I'm trying to remove the hatred - I'm trying to change what it is that makes you this way!"

You...and what if that's a good thing? What if that could be the answer to it all? Aegis to Aegis, sibling to sibling, Core to Core? What if this...is the change we all need to seek?

Malos is no stranger to pain, whether he's inflicting it or receiving it. As the clock cycles on and by, he lets Pyra complete her task. Has he consented to this? He's not sure. It may be her doing, overwriting his security protocols, that's even permitting this strange, unprovisioned transaction to take place.

Whatever the case may be, he lets her on with it. That is, until she strikes dangerously close to something that feels dangerously like a heart, and Malos decides anew that enough is enough.

"You little BRAT!" he cries, as the sole of his boot connects with the surprisingly un-soft flesh of her stomach and sends her flying backwards.

Perhaps there's no gravity. Perhaps she would have kept moving in one direction forever, regardless of policy.

She gets up again, this time via propping elbows and stumbling feet, but Malos will be no fool, this time. He locks her up again, and takes what he came for.

When he's seen all there is to see, been renewed in his convictions brought about by continuous review of his motivations and the glorious, world-ending sight of Aion, and Pyra has faded into an effective nothingness, he unloads the enshrouded environment and leaves the body hanging lifelessly from the Blade Bots' grip once more.

"It is done."

He doesn't speak of what else went on, of the distractions and the disseminations. He doesn't say that Pyra might very easily have altered their entire course, even as she rocked unsteady in and upon hers. Jin asks about her, though. Malos responds the only way he seems to know how.

"Oh, that? That's not an Aegis anymore. Just a lump of meat."

You didn't have to help him. That? Not a Blade anymore. Just a lump of meat.

Oh, damn you, sister of mine. You'll see. You will not be right. I am. I know I am.