The floor shuddered violently. Air pressure dropped in sudden waves.
Darkford Helios entered—not through a door, but from above, dropping onto the reactor floor in his Prometheus Battle-Suit. Sleek black kinetic armor covered his entire frame, amplifying his strength and speed tenfold.
"You always were reckless, Rena," Darkford's voice boomed, distorted by the suit's speakers, metallic and devoid of human warmth. "I gave you a clean cell. You chose the path of a martyr."
He raised a plasma-charged weapon integrated into his gauntlet. "This does not need to be a battle. I only need your key for the final lock."
Rena stood her ground beside the console. "You won't get it. I know your plan now. The Ark isn't about saving humanity—it's about preserving the idea of NuCore above the chaos you created."
Darkford advanced, each step making the floor tremble. "It is a separation, Rena. A necessary divorce from the cancerous mass of the species. I am creating a clean slate, free from inefficiency and morality. Why do you cling to the mediocrity of the past?"
The Climax Dialogue:
> Rena: "Mediocrity? We risked our lives to find clean energy for the many. You only saw energy as a tool for control. You are so terrified of chaos that you became the ultimate destroyer."
Darkford: "I am the only one capable of order! Look at the Undercity! They are animals! They turned on you for a sip of water! You see suffering; I see predictable entropy. I am stopping the decay. I am creating a perfect, self-sustaining society. I am stabilizing the future!"
Rena: "By becoming a god demanding human sacrifice! You murdered twelve million on paper, Darkford. I will not let you murder the rest!"
Darkford charged. The Prometheus suit moved with terrifying speed. Rena barely evaded the first strike, rolling and activating a low-power magnetic field beneath the suit's massive feet.
The suit stumbled. Darkford roared in mechanical frustration.
"I will not let a sentimental fool ruin my design!"
He fired. A kinetic pulse slammed into Rena's side, throwing her against the reactor console. Vision blurred, she found the Mass Frequency Overdrive button she had programmed.
She slammed it.
A catastrophic wave of pure, uncontained electromagnetic energy surged from the reactor core.
"I won't let you seal it!" Darkford screamed, assuming she was shutting down the Rift.
"I'm not sealing the Rift, Darkford," Rena choked, face inches from the console. "I'm disabling your eyes!"
The pulse struck the global grid. All NuCore technology reliant on high-frequency control—the Vipers, Arbiter Droids, and orbital surveillance—went instantly dead. The Spire went dark, save for the furious violet glow of contained Rift energy.
Darkford's Prometheus suit staggered, internal systems failing. He was blind. His control evaporated.
He raised his armored fist for a crushing blow at Rena. "You chose chaos! You condemned them all!"
But the core, unstable from the surge, began feeding back violently, screaming in alarms. The suit's systems alerted Darkford to a critical breach in the containment vessel. He had to choose: vengeance, or saving the system that powered his reality.
He chose the system. With a frustrated, mechanical roar, he plunged the suit's stabilizers and emergency suppressors into the failing conduit, battling desperately to contain the Zero-Point energy and prevent the Spire from collapsing.
Rena fell to the floor, vision fading, watching the Architect scramble to save the machine that had been his true master.