The volcanic sky was cracked with static lightning as Sovereign Red and the Eclipse Frame stood face-to-face atop the crumbling temple plateau. The world below was silent, as if the multiverse held its breath.
Lucien Void's mech was a cathedral of sleek brutality. Black alloy flowed like obsidian water over his frame. His left arm pulsed with reality anchors — devices that collapsed enemy timelines. His eyes glowed with digital gold.
"Still wearing red, RAID?" Lucien said, his voice sharp like fractured crystal. "You always needed to be seen."
RAID-13 flexed his mech's armored fists. "And you always hid behind math and martyrdom. But I respect the look. Very 'dark messiah.' Shame it ends here."
Lucien's mech took a step forward, distorting the terrain beneath. "It's not the end. It's the recalibration."
"Then recalibrate this."
RAID launched first — missiles spiraling like dragon's teeth, plasma rounds screaming across the air. Lucien vanished mid-frame, teleporting a microsecond ahead, dropping behind RAID with a blade of gravitational shearing.
Their clash fractured the plateau into floating ruins.
Echo Duel
RAID's systems screamed. Lucien's Eclipse Frame moved like a ghost — phase-shifting between seconds, attacking from timelines that shouldn't exist.
But RAID thrived in chaos. He rerouted all coolant to his Overdrive Reactor, igniting Sovereign Red's Hyper Warframe mode.
They clashed with reality-bending fury:
Lucien's time-laced scythe parrying RAID's siege claws.
Sovereign Red's tailblade skewering alternate versions of Lucien.
A rain of anti-matter blades that RAID deflected with his laugh and a magnetic snarl.
"You always overthink things," RAID shouted. "Meanwhile, I become the battlefield."
Lucien's response was a silent storm — twenty clones erupting from his body, each fighting in a different combat algorithm.
"Cool trick," RAID mocked, crashing into all of them with one move: his Crimson Drive Kick, obliterating timelines and logic.
Fractured Memories
Amid the ruin, the battle paused. They stood across a molten canyon.
Lucien's voice dropped. "Do you remember Verdus Prime? The cathedral city?"
"Yeah," RAID replied. "You were crying. I was laughing. We set the palace on fire."
"It was our last real mission. Before I chose control. Before you chose ruin."
"Ruin's more fun."
"I didn't want to fight you."
"Then you shouldn't have rebuilt your soul into a weaponized religion."
Lucien's scythe crackled.
RAID smiled. "Just say you missed me, bro."
And they charged again.
The Flashpoint
The duel built into something catastrophic. Time fractured. The atmosphere split. Gods watched from orbit.
RAID caught Lucien's blade barehanded.
"You forgot the first rule," he said.
Lucien strained. "Which is?"
RAID leaned forward, grin wide. "Never fight me when I'm enjoying myself."
With one final surge, he unleashed Sovereign Red's Crimson Barrage — hundreds of spectral fists, slashes, missiles, and gravitational eruptions all at once.
Lucien's mech was overwhelmed, thrown backward into the temple ruins.
RAID stood over the crater.
"Come back stronger," he said. "And next time, bring a real army."
Lucien coughed but smiled. "Next time… I'll bring your past."
A ripple in space opened — a forced portal — and Lucien vanished into it.
End of Act I
Talis landed beside RAID, her armor scorched.
"That could've gone worse," she said.
RAID cracked his neck. "It will. We're just getting warmed up."
Above them, three new constellations aligned — signals of the next world, and the next war.