The tower was gone.
Smoke poured from the ruins, carried off by desert wind. Letze crawled out from a mound of collapsed concrete, her armor cracked, her breathing ragged. Her visor flickered static — her squad was gone, her link to Krankl's command dead. The air was heavy with burning fuel and the stench of scorched metal.
She dragged herself upright and looked back toward what was once the main research hub. Now, it was nothing but wreckage. She wiped blood from her face and limped forward, stepping over shattered glass and twisted rebar.
"Doctor…" she muttered through the static of her comm, "…you better be alive."
No response. Just interference. She kept walking.
Every hallway was crushed inward, twisted by the explosion. She passed corpses — her own troops, crushed or vaporized. A few Decapitators twitched weakly, their systems rebooting. She raised her pistol and shot each one through the core without hesitation.
Then, a low hum.
It came from below, beneath the rubble. She followed the noise until she reached a half-collapsed stairwell leading to the lower sector. Her shoulder lights flickered on, revealing concrete dust and faint traces of crimson light bleeding from a steel hatch.
Letze forced it open. Beneath it was a narrow descent — the Cylinder Room.
Massive metal pillars surrounded a containment capsule, still intact despite the destruction. Inside, Krankl was visible — half-buried in a translucent red fluid, wires trailing from his arms into the core systems. He was alive, but immobilized.
"Doctor!" she called, stepping closer. "Can you hear me?"
His head twitched weakly, and his voice came through the chamber's speakers, distorted.
"You… survived… good… I needed a contingency."
Letze frowned.
"You were trapped here?. Why didn't you—"
"Containment seal activated before detonation due to Vermissen Netoshka's arrogance. You weren't supposed to see this."
She pressed a hand against the glass.
"You planned to detonate the tower."
"Not the tower. The experiment. You were simply… collateral control."
Letze froze. Her chest tightened.
"Collateral?"
"The Decapitators follow my command. They required a final signal. I needed them purged from external interference. You were… efficient in drawing them in."
Her hand trembled slightly on the glass.
"You used me."
"You were a perfect prototype, Letze. My apprentice… my weapon."
Silence stretched for several seconds. Then she drew her sidearm, staring at her reflection in the containment glass — half her face human, half burned circuitry.
"Then you're no better than the enemies you claim to fight."
"You misunderstand. The natural law of Chaos is order. Chaos refines us. The cost of evolution—"
She fired a single round into the glass. It cracked but didn't break. The chamber lights dimmed, alarms flickering weakly. Krankl's distorted laughter filled the room.
"Defiance… a predictable flaw."
Letze stepped back. The concrete ceiling above rumbled, threatening to collapse entirely. She holstered the gun and glared up at the blinking control lights. "Enjoy your tomb, old man, i could kill you if i could, but i think i'm gonna let you rot alone."
She climbed back to the surface, coughing as the smoke thickened. DomiTech dropships passed in the distant sky, bombing the far sectors. She could already hear the Decapitators regrouping in the distance.
Her comm finally reconnected — faint voices of DomiTech Infantry, confirming search operations across the facility perimeter.
She keyed her mic.
"Kersnik, This is Letze. Zone Delta is compromised. Tower is gone. Doctor Krankl is presumed dead."
Static answered her.
She looked back once more toward the ruin, her expression unreadable. Then she turned toward the horizon, walking into the sandstorm, whispering to herself:
"False will or not… I'll finish this my way without you Doctor, our ties are over, but even then, i would've liked to have joined your group if it weren't a paid contract."