Ryo couldn't move.
His limbs were stone. His breath, ragged. Blood streamed from his torn muscles as if his body was trying to escape itself. He'd pushed past the human limit, and now he was paying the price.
But Virex wasn't done.
The android dragged what was left of his body from the rubble. His metallic frame was twisted, burned, and broken—missing an arm, one optic offline, torso caved in—but his voice was still cold, mechanical.
> "Directive: Not fulfilled. Thanatos Heir… must die."
He raised his remaining hand.
Ryo looked up, helpless.
And then lightning split the earth.
BOOM!
The blast struck Virex directly, sending him flying into a cracked statue of the death god Thanatos, which shattered on impact.
Lysa stood at the entrance of the shrine, thunder crackling at her fingertips. Her usually sultry smile was gone—her eyes burned with fury.
> "You ever lay a hand on Ryo again… and I'll melt you into a toaster."
Ryo tried to speak—tried to warn her.
> "He's… always locked-on. You can't… dodge him…"
But she already knew.
> "Aim Assist, right? I know. That's why I'm not dodging."
She walked forward, electricity dancing off her skin. She flicked her wrist, and a Thanatos sigil—circular, arcane, sparking—flared in the air.
> "You're not the only one with a trump card, bolt-head."
Virex stood again, staggering. Half of his face was gone. Sparks flicked from his jaw.
> "Unregistered combat pattern detected… Electric-type Thanatos… variation Omega-Null."
Lysa smirked.
> "Yeah, I made it myself."
> "Irrelevant. Counter-strike initiated. Calculating trajectory…"
Virex leapt.
Too fast. Too precise.
He couldn't miss.
He launched a jab—targeted at Lysa's neck. Her body was already moving to avoid it, but the algorithm adjusted mid-flight.
The strike veered like a missile.
But it still missed.
Virex's optic flickered. His processors screamed errors.
> "Correction invalid. Contact negated by electromagnetic shift… Error. Error…"
Lysa smiled, tapping her temple.
> "Electro-scramble field. It warps spatial trajectory around me. Makes your targeting glitch."
She raised her hands. Thunder exploded from her palms in jagged arcs of violet lightning.
> "Now it's my turn."
She shot forward.
The first strike hit Virex like a train, sending a bolt of lightning through his spine. The second came from behind—teleportation via lightning arc.
A blinding slap of electricity burst from her elbow as it caved in Virex's skull.
> "Voltage Style: Storm Fang!"
She danced between attacks, warping and weaving like a living thunderstorm.
Virex tried to respond, but his perfect accuracy kept misfiring—her field scrambled every trajectory.
> "Aim Assist is nice… but you're still a machine, Virex. And you can't predict chaos."
Virex lunged with a blade-arm swipe—
She ducked, leaving an arc of lightning in her wake.
> "Lightning Lash!"
Her whip of voltage cracked across his face and spun him mid-air.
Ryo, still kneeling, watched in awe.
He'd always thought power was brute force—But Lysa was grace and wrath entwined.
> "Come on, Ryo!" she shouted. "You've got five hours before you can use Aim Assist again, right?"
He nodded weakly.
> "Then we improvise."
She raised a hand—and with a flash, threw her lightning at him.
It wasn't an attack. It was a jumpstart.
Ryo's body spasmed. His muscles, nerves, bones—all screamed as they were hit with raw voltage.
He screamed—
But then he stood.
Smoke rose from his arms. His legs bled. But he moved.
Kineta surged through him again.
> "Can you move?" she asked.
> "I can't stop moving."
He cracked his neck.
> "Let's take him down."
Virex recalibrated. His broken systems fused with emergency subroutines. One arm morphed into a plasma cannon.
> "Combat rating… 87%. Threat: Acceptable."
Ryo rushed in low, fists flashing.
Lysa zipped in from above, crackling with power.
Together, they began to overwhelm him.
Ryo's strikes pushed Virex backward—punches landing in blurred succession, each blow forcing the android further into retreat. Kineta made him a whirlwind of force—momentum incarnate.
Lysa weaved between arcs of plasma, slipping through space on lightning currents. Her fingers danced, casting sigils mid-air.
> "Thunder Core… Detonation Pattern: Nine!"
She unleashed a circle of violet bolts that trapped Virex in a storm cage.
> "Now, Ryo!"
He spun, kicked off a pillar, and dropped into the cage like a comet.
Fist met metal.
Explosion.
Silence.
The smoke cleared.
Virex was embedded in the earth. His systems sparking, core exposed, movement halted.
Ryo landed beside Lysa, panting. His entire body was torn. His arm was possibly broken in five places. She leaned on him, equally drained.
But they smiled.
Then—
Virex's voice whispered:
> "Directive… incomplete. Processing…"
A self-destruct warning began to pulse from his chest.
> "Damn it," Lysa gasped. "He's gonna blow!"
Ryo's mind raced.
There was only one way.
He limped forward and plunged his hand into the core of Virex's chest—fingers wrapping around the unstable orb of compressed energy.
> "What the hell are you doing?!" Lysa shouted.
Ryo didn't look back.
> "Redirecting it."
Using every bit of Kineta he had left, he spun—rotating the energy within the core like a cyclone, forcing it outward instead of in.
A stream of searing light blasted upward from Virex's body—spiraling into the sky like a burning pillar.
And then—silence.
The light faded.
Virex's body collapsed, motionless.
Dead.
The directive: terminated.