Jimmy didn't charge.
That surprised everyone—including himself.
The power was there, roaring behind his ribs, begging to be unleashed in all the loud, destructive ways it had learned so far. The facility's energy grid sang to him, a harmonic hum vibrating through his teeth and spine. He could feel every conduit, every capacitor, every weapon charging in the room.
Ending this would be easy.
That was why he didn't do it.
Instead, Jimmy took one slow step forward.
The air bent around him—not violently, but deliberately, like reality was holding its breath.
Kerrik noticed immediately. His smile didn't vanish, but it tightened, becoming more… analytical. Dangerous men always smiled like that when variables stopped behaving.
"Interesting," Kerrik murmured. "You're stabilizing."
Vex'alia ducked behind a shattered console, firing a controlled burst that forced one of the exo-suited enforcers back. Her shoulder burned where the shot had clipped her, but she kept moving, jaw clenched.
"Jimmy!" she shouted. "If you're going to do something heroic, now would be the time!"
He didn't look away from Kerrik. "I am. Just… the quiet version."
One of the enforcers broke formation and rushed him, boots slamming against the polished floor. The man raised a shock-maul crackling with blue energy and swung.
Jimmy sidestepped.
Not fast—precise.
The maul passed through the space where his head had been, missing by millimeters. Jimmy reached out and grabbed the weapon mid-swing. The energy discharged into his palm, crawling up his arm in bright, branching veins.
He inhaled.
Then redirected.
The shock-maul went dark. The enforcer stared at it in confusion just long enough for Jimmy to tap him on the chest.
Not hard.
Just enough.
The energy Jimmy had absorbed surged back out, dumping the entire charge into the man's exo-suit. The armor seized, joints locking as systems fried. The enforcer collapsed, smoking.
Jimmy blinked. "…Huh. That worked better than expected."
"Adaptive redirection," Sparky chirped, darting to avoid incoming fire. "Very elegant. Also extremely rude."
The second enforcer opened fire with a pulse rifle, the bolts screaming toward Jimmy in rapid succession.
Jimmy raised his hand.
The pulses slowed.
Not stopped—slowed, as if they were pushing through thick syrup. Jimmy stepped between them casually, feeling the heat brush his skin as he passed.
Vex'alia stared from behind cover. Her tattoos flickered, shifting from battle-white to something warmer. Awe, edged with fear.
"Jimmy," she breathed. "You're bending the field."
He shrugged. "Turns out panic eating teaches you weird things."
He flicked his wrist.
The suspended pulses reversed direction and slammed back into the shooter. The enforcer's shields flared, then failed. He hit the wall hard and didn't get back up.
Only Kerrik remained.
The Syndicate commander hadn't moved. He watched it all with keen interest, hands clasped behind his back.
"Fascinating," Kerrik said. "You're not consuming the energy. You're conducting it."
Jimmy tilted his head. "Yeah. I'm trying this new thing where I don't ruin the building I'm standing in."
Kerrik chuckled. "Pity. You'd make an excellent asset."
He tapped something on the bracer at his wrist.
The floor beneath Jimmy dropped.
Panels split apart, revealing a lattice of glowing restraints that snapped upward, wrapping around Jimmy's legs and torso before he could fully react. The bands hummed, siphoning power the moment they made contact.
Jimmy gasped as the pull hit—sharp, invasive, like someone yanking wires out of his spine.
"Ah," Kerrik said pleasantly. "Containment tech. Designed specifically for anomalies like you. You'll feel a little… hollow."
Jimmy gritted his teeth. His glow dimmed. His knees buckled.
"No," Vex'alia snarled.
She vaulted from cover, firing both blasters in a continuous stream. Kerrik raised a personal shield; the bolts splashed harmlessly against it as he turned toward her.
"Princess," he said mildly. "Still reckless."
She slid to a stop beside Jimmy, one hand gripping his arm as the restraints tightened.
"You with me?" she asked, voice low.
He forced a grin despite the pain. "Define 'with.' I'm currently being hugged by evil metal."
Her fingers squeezed his forearm—grounding, steady.
"Listen to me," she said. "You don't need to overpower it. You just need to feel it."
Jimmy met her eyes.
Up close, her tattoos pulsed brighter, tracing down her arms, across her chest, glowing in time with her racing hearts. The Mauler-eye twitched, but this time he didn't let it pull him apart.
He focused on her.
Her warmth. Her presence. The fact that she was here—choosing to stand beside him when running would've been easier.
The restraints hummed louder.
Jimmy closed his eyes.
And instead of pushing outward, he pulled inward.
The restraints didn't drain him anymore.
They resonated.
The glow snapped back—controlled, concentrated. The containment bands vibrated violently, unable to decide whether they were suppressing power or becoming part of it.
Kerrik's smile finally vanished.
"That's… not possible," he said.
Jimmy opened his eyes.
They burned—not white, not violet—but something steadier. Deeper.
"Yeah," Jimmy said calmly. "I'm starting to hear that a lot."
The restraints shattered.
Energy rippled outward in a clean, precise wave—knocking Kerrik off his feet, collapsing his shield, and slamming him hard against the far wall.
Silence fell again.
Jimmy staggered—and Vex'alia caught him without hesitation, arms locking around his torso as his legs gave out. For a heartbeat, he was pressed fully against her, breath mingling, power still humming between them like static before a storm.
"You okay?" she asked softly.
He nodded, forehead nearly brushing hers. "Ask me again when I stop glowing."
Her lips curved faintly. "You did good."
Outside, distant alarms began to rise—angry, urgent, multiplying.
Sparky floated into view. "Bad news: reinforcements are en route. Worse news: they brought toys. Very big toys."
Jimmy straightened slowly, steadier now. He looked at his hands, then at Vex'alia.
"Guess control's going to get more practice."
She smirked, tattoos flaring. "Try to keep up, anomaly."
And together, they turned toward the oncoming storm.
The alarms didn't just grow louder.
They layered.
Klaxons overlapped in disharmonious waves, the laboratory lighting shifting from sterile white to pulsing crimson. Somewhere deep in the facility, heavy machinery woke up—reactors spooling, magnetic rails charging, something vast and mechanical clearing its throat.
Sparky spun in the air, lens flickering rapid diagnostics. "Update! The Iron-Gnasher Syndicate has activated external defense protocols. Translation: they're about to turn this place into a very aggressive blender."
Vex'alia swore under her breath. "That was faster than expected."
Jimmy rolled his shoulders. The glow under his skin hadn't faded; it had settled, like embers banked behind muscle and bone. He could feel the Stellar Nymph even from here—a faint, familiar pull, like a compass needle tugging at his chest.
"…Vex," he said slowly, "why does it feel like the ship is asking for help?"
Her head snapped toward him. "Because it is."
She turned and pointed through the shattered wall, toward the twisted silhouette of the Stellar Nymph embedded in the refinery levels above. "The Phase-Core is offline. Hull integrity is at thirty-six percent. Weapons are dead. Life support is cycling on emergency breathers."
Jimmy swallowed. "And?"
"And if we don't get her powered up," Vex'alia said grimly, "we're not leaving this planet."
The floor shuddered.
Not from above—from below.
A circular section of the lab split open, metal plates retracting with a shriek of tortured steel. Heat and ionized air rushed upward as something massive began to rise.
Jimmy felt it before he saw it.
"Oh," he muttered. "That's not good."
The Syndicate Suppression Frame emerged—a towering, quadrupedal weapons platform bristling with cannons, its central core glowing a hostile orange. Thick power conduits ran like veins along its armored flanks, feeding into a spinal railgun the size of a shuttle.
Vex'alia's breath caught. "That's a city-breaker."
Sparky bobbed nervously. "Correction: portable city-breaker. Very cost-effective."
The machine locked onto them.
Jimmy felt the targeting sweep across his body—cold, invasive. The hunger stirred, but this time it wasn't chaotic. It was focused.
The Suppression Frame fired.
A lance of superheated plasma tore through the lab, vaporizing equipment and carving a molten trench toward them. Vex dove, rolling behind a collapsed support strut.
Jimmy didn't run.
He stepped forward—and the blast hit him full-on.
For a split second, pain exploded through every nerve.
Then his body caught the energy.
Not stopping it. Not absorbing it whole.
Routing it.
The plasma peeled around him, spiraling into his chest and down his spine like lightning being guided by rails. The lab lights flared, then died as the surrounding systems screamed in protest.
Jimmy screamed too—not in agony, but effort.
"JIMMY!" Vex shouted.
"I've—got it!" he gasped. "Just—don't let it hit again!"
The Suppression Frame recalibrated, cannons whining as it prepared a second shot.
Jimmy turned—not toward the machine, but toward the ceiling.
Toward the ship.
He reached.
The connection snapped into place with bone-deep certainty.
The Stellar Nymph answered.
Every dormant conduit in the ship flared to life as power surged through Jimmy, not out of him. The Phase-Core coughed, sputtered—then reignited in a cascade of blue-white light.
On the bridge above, dead consoles blazed back online.
Sparky whooped. "YES! We have ignition! Partial systems online! Oh—oh that feels good."
The Suppression Frame fired again.
This time, the blast never reached Jimmy.
It veered—bent—redirected midair as the Stellar Nymph's forward cannons roared to life for the first time since the crash.
Twin lances of coherent energy screamed downward through the refinery levels, intersecting the plasma beam and overloading it. The collision detonated in a thunderclap that shattered windows and sent shockwaves rippling through the facility.
The Suppression Frame reeled as one of its side cannons fried, armor plates sloughing off in molten chunks.
Vex stared, awestruck. "You're… you're running the ship."
Jimmy's teeth were clenched, eyes blazing as energy coursed through him in controlled torrents. "More like—I'm the extension cord!"
"Power routing unstable!" Sparky warned. "Jimmy, if you keep this up, you're going to cook yourself!"
"Then tell her," Jimmy growled, "to make it count!"
Vex didn't hesitate.
She sprinted for the access lift, vaulting debris with fluid grace as she barked commands into her wrist console. "Target the core conduits! All weapons, staggered fire—don't overload the rails!"
The Stellar Nymph obeyed like a living thing.
Cannons thundered again and again, each shot feeding off the energy Jimmy pushed through the system. Bolts tore into the Suppression Frame, frying sensor clusters, detonating missile pods, shearing off armored limbs.
The machine shrieked—a sound like metal screaming.
But it wasn't dead yet.
Its central railgun began to glow, charging for a final shot.
Jimmy felt it winding up—a pressure spike so intense it made his vision blur.
"I can't hold this much longer," he said, voice shaking. "Vex—now would be great."
She skidded to a halt beside a manual override panel jutting from the wreckage. She ripped it open, fingers flying across unfamiliar controls.
"Jimmy," she said, steady and fierce, "when I say cut—cut."
The railgun fired.
Vex slammed the override.
"CUT!"
Jimmy let go.
All the energy he'd been channeling dumped forward in one clean, devastating surge—straight into the Stellar Nymph's cannons.
The ship fired everything it had.
The blast punched through the Suppression Frame's core, igniting its reactor in a blinding white flash. The explosion folded inward, collapsing the machine into itself before erupting outward in a shockwave that flattened the lab.
Silence followed.
Smoke. Falling debris.
Jimmy collapsed to his knees, the glow finally guttering out as exhaustion crashed over him like a wave.
Vex reached him in three strides, dropping beside him, hands gripping his shoulders.
"Hey. Hey—stay with me."
He laughed weakly. "Did… did we win?"
Sparky floated down, scorch marks on his casing. "Enemy neutralized. Facility power grid collapsing. Also—excellent work, meat-battery."
Vex exhaled, relief flooding her expression. She pulled Jimmy into a brief, fierce embrace before helping him back to his feet.
"You didn't just save the ship," she said quietly. "You became part of her."
Jimmy leaned into the support, glancing toward where the Stellar Nymph's silhouette glowed through the wreckage.
"…Yeah," he murmured. "I think she knows my name now."
Above them, distant hangar doors began to open.
And somewhere deeper in the complex, something else started moving.