Varro had one weapon left.
And when the second gate beneath the arena began to rise, Cassian understood why the governor had been smiling.
The first Ape Titan stood between Cassian and the imperial guards.
Its enormous black-furred body was covered with old scars and fragments of broken bronze restraints.
For the first time since entering the arena, the creature was no longer attacking him.
It was protecting him.
Protecting Livia too.
That alone had thrown the amphitheater into confusion.
Thousands of spectators had come expecting a spectacle.
Instead, they were watching Rome’s most feared arena beast refuse an order.
Varro stood above them in the imperial balcony.
His face had lost all color.
Then he raised one hand.
“Open the lower gate.”
Cassian looked toward the dark passage beneath the eastern stands.
“No.”
Livia heard the mechanisms first.
Heavy chains.
Bronze gears.
Something enormous dragging across stone.
The first Ape Titan turned toward the sound.
Its entire body changed.
The creature that had faced spears, fire and hundreds of screaming soldiers without hesitation suddenly stepped backward.
Cassian noticed.
“So it is afraid of something.”
Livia whispered:
“Not something.”
The gate rose another foot.
Then another.
Two enormous hands appeared beneath it.
Both were covered in black fur.
But unlike the first Titan, this creature still wore complete Roman control armor.
Bronze plates covered its shoulders.
A reinforced collar surrounded its neck.
Thick cables ran from the collar into a metal harness across its spine.
Its forearms were wrapped in mechanical restraints fitted with glowing red stones.
Cassian stared.
“There are two.”
Varro smiled again.
“There were always two.”
The second Ape Titan stepped into the arena.
It was larger.
Not by much.
But enough.
Its eyes looked wrong.
Unfocused.
Angry.
Every movement seemed forced by the machinery strapped to its body.
A Roman engineer stood behind the gate operating a brass control frame.
He pulled one lever.
The armored Titan roared.
The sound shook dust from the arena walls.
The first Titan answered.
Not with anger.
With something closer to recognition.
Livia stepped forward.
“They know each other.”
Cassian grabbed her arm.
“Stay back.”
The armored Titan lowered its head.
Varro pointed toward the arena floor.
“Destroy them.”
The engineer pushed the lever.
The armored creature charged.
Cassian barely pulled Livia aside before the two giants collided.
The impact sounded like stone walls crashing together.
Spectators screamed.
The first Titan was thrown into a pillar.
It recovered immediately.
The second attacked again.
Bronze armor slammed against fur and muscle.
Cassian dragged Livia toward the edge of the arena.
“We have to stop the control system.”
“How?”
He looked at the cables running from the creature’s collar.
“There has to be a release.”
Above them, Varro shouted:
“There is no release!”
Cassian looked up.
That was exactly the kind of thing a man said when there was one.
The Titans crashed through a wooden fighting platform.
Splintered boards exploded across the sand.
The first creature grabbed the armored Titan by one shoulder and tried tearing away part of the bronze harness.
The control stones flashed.
The armored Titan screamed and struck back.
Livia covered her ears.
“It’s hurting him.”
Cassian looked toward the operator.
Every time the engineer moved a lever, the red stones glowed brighter.
“Then the armor isn’t commanding him.”
Livia frowned.
“What?”
“It’s punishing him until he obeys.”
Her expression changed.
Another lever moved.
The armored Titan lunged.
The first Titan barely avoided the attack.
Cassian ran toward the control platform.
Two guards moved to stop him.
He struck one shield aside, ducked the second guard’s spear and rolled beneath the wooden railing.
The engineer panicked.
“Stay away!”
Cassian grabbed the brass frame.
The man struck him with a metal rod.
Cassian staggered.
Livia shouted:
“Cassian!”
He recovered and drove the engineer backward.
Then looked at the control panel.
Six levers.
Three rotating bronze discs.
No labels.
No obvious release.
“Of course.”
Above him, Varro laughed.
“You cannot understand what took my engineers ten years to build.”
Cassian looked at the machinery.
“Then I’ll break it.”
He lifted his sword.
Varro shouted:
“Don’t!”
Cassian stopped.
Slowly, he looked up.
Varro had just given him another answer.
Something on that panel mattered.
Cassian scanned the mechanisms.
One cable was different.
Thicker.
Wrapped in black leather.
It ran from the control frame through the wall, then into the arena floor.
Livia had reached him now.
“Which one?”
“I don’t know.”
The two Ape Titans collided again.
The armored one forced the first against the wall.
Its mechanical collar flashed red.
Livia watched.
Then her eyes narrowed.
“Wait.”
“What?”
“The armor.”
“What about it?”
“Every time the operator moves the lever, the light begins here.”
She pointed toward the creature’s upper back.
Cassian followed her gaze.
At the center of the armored harness was a circular bronze plate.
Unlike the rest of the armor, it had no decorative engraving.
Only four narrow slots arranged around a central pin.
Livia whispered:
“That’s the weak point.”
“How do you know?”
“I’ve seen it before.”
Cassian turned.
“Where?”
She stared at the plate.
“In my father’s drawings.”
Cassian froze.
Livia’s father, Drusus Valerian, had disappeared when she was a child.
For years, she had been told he was a physician attached to Rome’s animal houses.
Then hidden records beneath the arena revealed something very different.
Drusus had worked with the creatures before Varro took control of the program.
He had not designed them as weapons.
He had been trying to understand them.
Protect them.
And according to one surviving record, he had objected when Varro ordered the first restraint armor installed.
Cassian looked toward the fighting Titans.
“Your father designed the release?”
Livia shook her head.
“No.”
Then she remembered.
A memory from childhood.
Her father sitting at a table late at night.
A sketch.
A circle with four slots.
He had pointed toward it and told her:
“If they ever put one of these on something living, never strike the center.”
Cassian stared.
“What do you strike?”
“The lower-left lock.”
“Why?”
“Because the center triggers the restraint.”
Another crash.
The first Titan fell.
The armored creature raised both fists.
Cassian ran.
“Distract it!”
Livia’s eyes widened.
“With what?”
But Cassian was already moving.
He climbed onto the broken platform.
The armored Ape Titan turned.
Varro saw what was happening.
“Stop him!”
Archers along the balcony raised their bows.
The first Titan suddenly roared and threw itself between Cassian and the firing line.
Arrows struck the sand around them.
Cassian jumped from the platform onto the armored creature’s back.
The crowd erupted.
He grabbed one bronze strap.
The Titan thrashed violently.
Cassian almost fell.
“Livia!”
She watched the circular plate.
“Lower left!”
Cassian raised the broken remains of his sword.
The plate moved with every violent step.
He waited.
One second.
Two.
Then struck.
Metal cracked.
A small locking pin shot free.
The entire control harness went dark.
The red stones stopped glowing.
The armored Ape Titan froze.
Completely.
Cassian slid from its back.
Nobody moved.
Even Varro stopped shouting.
The Titan slowly lifted its head.
For the first time, its eyes seemed clear.
It looked around the arena.
At the guards.
At Cassian.
At the first Ape Titan.
Then it saw Livia.
Everything changed.
The creature stepped backward.
Its enormous chest rose and fell.
Livia stared at it.
“Cassian…”
The first Titan moved toward her too.
Not aggressively.
Slowly.
Carefully.
Both creatures were now watching the same woman.
Varro shouted from above:
“No!”
Livia stepped forward.
Cassian reached for her.
“Wait.”
She shook her head.
“They’re not going to hurt me.”
“You don’t know that.”
“Yes.”
Her voice trembled.
“I think I do.”
The armored Titan lowered itself.
One knee touched the sand.
Then the first Titan did the same.
A silence spread across the amphitheater.
Thousands of people watched two creatures powerful enough to tear apart a war chariot lower themselves in front of Livia.
Varro looked terrified.
Not angry.
Terrified.
Cassian noticed immediately.
“Why are they doing that?”
Livia shook her head.
“I don’t know.”
Then the first Titan extended one hand.
Its enormous fingers opened.
Inside its palm was a small bronze object.
A pendant.
Livia stopped breathing.
She recognized it instantly.
Her father had worn one exactly like it.
A circular pendant marked with three lines.
She took it with trembling hands.
On the back was an engraving.
D.V.
Drusus Valerian.
“My father.”
Cassian stared.
“How did the creature get that?”
Livia looked toward Varro.
The governor stepped backward from the balcony railing.
That was enough.
Cassian shouted:
“You knew.”
Varro said nothing.
“You knew her father worked with both of them.”
Still nothing.
Livia looked at the second Titan.
Then she noticed something beneath the damaged collar.
A faded mark.
Not Roman.
A handprint.
Small.
Painted in blue pigment.
She stepped closer.
Her eyes filled.
“No.”
Cassian frowned.
“What?”
Livia raised her own hand.
The shape almost matched.
Then the memory returned.
She had been five.
Her father had brought her somewhere underground.
She remembered warm fur.
A massive hand placed flat on the floor.
Her own tiny palm covered in blue paint.
She had pressed it against something.
She had forgotten everything else.
Until now.
Livia whispered:
“I’ve met them before.”
Cassian stared.
“Both?”
She nodded.
“They weren’t arena beasts.”
Her voice broke.
“They were my father’s subjects.”
Varro shouted:
“Silence!”
Livia turned toward him.
“You took them from him.”
Varro’s face hardened.
“Your father was weak.”
“He protected them.”
“He wasted them.”
Cassian looked between the two Titans.
Then toward the bronze pendant.
“What happened to Drusus?”
Varro smiled coldly.
“He learned what happens when a man places animals above Rome.”
Livia’s eyes filled with fury.
The first Titan suddenly roared.
Not at Cassian.
At Varro.
Then the second joined it.
The entire arena shook.
Cassian finally understood.
Both creatures recognized Livia because they had known her before Rome turned them into weapons.
Before the arena.
Before the armor.
Before Varro.
They remembered Drusus Valerian.
And somehow, after all these years, they remembered his daughter too.
But the pendant created one terrifying new question.
If Drusus had supposedly died before Varro captured the Titans…
how had his pendant ended up in the creature’s hand?
Livia turned it over again.
Then she noticed a narrow seam.
The pendant opened.
Inside was a tightly rolled strip of parchment.
Only four words were still readable.
LIVIA — FIND THE NORTHERN VAULT.
Cassian looked at her.
Varro immediately shouted toward the guards:
“Take that from her!”
The soldiers began moving.
The two Ape Titans stood.
Together.
And this time, neither wore Rome’s control.
Livia closed her fist around the message.
Her father had not simply left behind two creatures who remembered her.
He had left them guarding a path to something Varro was still desperate to keep hidden.
Tap the link below the comment to discover what Livia finds inside the Northern Vault—and why both Ape Titans were waiting for her.
