Back in the present—
Buzz and Pax continue their brutal clash. Sparks explode from every collision of their weapons as Pax's blade finally snaps in half. He ducks under a swing, rolls, and darts backward while Buzz keeps slashing, each strike carving deep scars through the crumbling walls. Shards of metal and dust rain down as the ceiling collapses above them.
Buzz thrusts his bone sword forward, striking Pax square in the chest. The impact sends him flying back as he crashes onto a pillar, tearing through his vest and shirt—but instead of flesh, Buzz sees a glint of metal plating beneath.
Etched on the armor is the fierce face of a tiger.
Buzz freezes for a second, recognizing it—the same tiger he slaughtered in the colosseum years ago. Somehow, Pax has salvaged its remains from Parkay's fallen body.
Pax grins through the pain. "I came well prepared for this!"
The tiger emblem flashes with energy, unleashing a violent surge of lightning that shocks Buzz head-on. But his digital beacon activates on instinct, projecting a shimmering field that shields the beacon from the worst of the blast.
Pax flips forward midair, channeling momentum into a downward kick that smashes into Buzz's head, sending him crashing through the floors below. As Buzz then notices each floor that he crashes through has rows of explosives planted in the walls.
Pax leaps out of the collapsing tower, activating a compact device that unfolds into a glider. The wind whips against his face as he lands on the rooftop of a neighboring tower. Behind him, the tower Buzz fell through erupts in a chain of explosions, fire swallowing the skyline.
Across the city, Ethan and Dion stand on another rooftop. They finish linking conduits to a glowing digital beacon, which activates with a blinding pulse.
Ethan nods. "All preparations are ready!"
Dion slams his fist down. "Then it's time to end this!"
Below them, soldiers feed lots of ores and other resources into an energy converter that leads up to the top. The beacon roars to life, expanding a digital field across the tower's peak. Debris from all over the city begins to lift and swirl into the sky, drawn toward the energy storm.
Then, Buzz's haunting hum bursts through the chaos.
He launches out of the inferno, soaring straight toward Pax like a meteor.
Pax's metal chest plate disassembles into shimmering fragments, reshaping into a tiger-shaped gauntlet around his arm. Lightning crackles as he thrusts upward, meeting Buzz's descending blade. Their clash releases a shockwave that rattles every tower in sight.
Dion swings his wrist device, sending a chunk of floating debris crashing into Buzz. The impact smashes him through another skyscraper.
Pax staggers back, his gauntlet trembling with unstable energy. "So much power…" he mutters, watching cracks appearing across the surface of his gauntlet.
He leaps into the digital field above, landing atop a drifting slab of concrete. As he steadies himself, the energy from the digital field begins mending his damaged gauntlet, preparing him for the next, decisive strike.
Suddenly, the haunting hum shifts into a roar. All across the ruined city, beams of digital light shoot upward one after another, forming a vast lattice that stretches through the city and sky.
Dion freezes. "What is this?!"
Ethan's eyes widen. "No way… he planned this! I told you, he's not just an animal!"
Pax clenches his fists. "So he already had other digital beacons planted across the city… just in case. Damn it. We're in too deep now, let's see this through to the end!"
Dion steadies his breathing. "Stay strong, everyone!"
He raises his device arm as his own digital field expands, wrapping their entire tower in a shimmering barrier. Buzz's digital field forms around the city, sealing Pax and the others inside a massive digital box.
Chunks of debris rise into the air, caught in a violent current of energy.
"Shit, he's copying us!" Dion shouts.
"We have to boost the shields!" Ethan replies, as Dion slams his fingers across the control panel.
The digital field thickens, layers of hexagonal light reinforcing their defense as debris collides against it, exploding on impact. Pax narrows his eyes, scanning the chaos for any sign of Buzz.
Suddenly, dozens of digital shards slam into their barrier, drilling furiously. Sparks scatter as they break through the outer shell. Pax dodges, leaping from one floating piece of debris to another.
Ethan shouts, "No! We have to retreat!" He fires a flare upward, but a digital drill intercepts it midair, shredding it to pieces.
"It's useless," Dion mutters. "We're trapped."
Ethan sweeps his scope across the digital walls, searching for a weakness. "Wait… there!" He spots a section of the field glitching, light flickering erratically.
Before he can act, Buzz tears straight through their digital field defenses, his sword flashing like lightning. In one strike, he severs Pax's gauntlet arm.
Pax screams, eyes wide with shock. Buzz raises his blade again, but the detached gauntlet detonates in a violent burst of lightning, hurling Buzz out of the digital field. Pax collapses, clutching the stump of his arm as purple blood spills down his side.
The fragments of his destroyed gauntlet swarm toward his other arm, re-forming into a new tiger-shaped gauntlet. Pax grits his teeth and looks up. Buzz hangs in the sky above, diving straight down with his sword aimed to kill.
Pax roars, channeling every ounce of energy into his gauntlet. Electricity builds until it hums with thunder.
Dion's voice trembles. "I never imagined it would be this impossible to kill Khaos… Ethan, go! Get out of here!"
Below, soldiers on floating debris rise toward Pax, carrying ores and energy orbs. One by one, they attach them to his gauntlet, amplifying its size and power until the air itself vibrates with lightning.
Dion shouts again, "Go, now!"
Ethan dives from the tower, gliding through the storm of debris, exiting their digital field into Buzz's digital field, dodging explosions and crashing metal as he nears the flickering wall. He fires a sniper round at the weak point, cracking it slightly.
Buzz dives, slamming his sword through Dion's digital field. The shield shatters as he drops into the field.
Pax roars, "I'm going to bring order to your chaos!!"
He unleashes a colossal lightning blast that collides with Buzz's descending strike. The two forces grind against each other, energy shrieking as the city trembles beneath them.
Dion looks up, his expression calm. "We all knew the risk of this mission… we're ready to die for it."
He channels his last strength into his digital field, lifting the entire tower into the air. With a final swing of both arms, he hurls the tower into the collision point.
The impact triggers a cataclysmic explosion that obliterates both digital fields.
Ethan is thrown backward through the cracked wall, tumbling across debris. When he wakes, everything is silent but the distant echo of fire. He staggers forward through the smoke, tears falling. "Pax… Dion… everyone…"
Light pierces the haze. In the middle of the wreckage, he finds Pax lying on a pile of fallen soldiers.
"Pax!" he cries, rushing over. Both of Pax's arms are gone, his body barely moving. Ethan notices the flickering remains of the tiger armor. As he picks up a broken fragment, the other pieces drift toward it, merging into a small glowing cube. He pockets it, then checks Pax's pulse—faint, but alive.
Lifting him onto his shoulder, Ethan runs from the ruins.
Meanwhile, deep in the rubble, a low humming begins again.
A bloody arm breaks through the debris, Buzz, crawling out, his body shredded and his beacon shattered. The device falls from his back in pieces, parts of his hardened blood armor breaking away.
He stumbles forward and spots Dion, barely alive, laughing weakly.
"After all," Dion rasps, "you're only mortal… you'll die for everything you've done."
Buzz silences him with a single thrust of his bone sword. He breathes heavily, blood dripping from his eyes. His vision sharpens, his skull glowing as white energy pulses through his expanding brain.
"Hurt…" he mutters.
He staggers across the ruins, scavenging fragments of broken beacons. With trembling hands, he begins piecing them together. Sparks flicker as he slashes a live power line, pressing the cords into the prototype beacon. Electricity arcs violently, but the beacon glows faintly.
Buzz's breathing slows. He picks up Dion's shattered wrist device, studies its inner workings in seconds, and installs its components into his beacon.
Each spark of energy restores his clarity—and with it, he becomes more aware of what he is and what he is doing.
Ethan carries Pax through the dead lands, his arms trembling from exhaustion. In the distance, a vehicle speeds toward him, kicking up clouds of dust. The car skids to a stop, and Brad leaps out.
"Ethan!" Brad shouts, rushing over. Together, they lift Pax into the back seat and drive off through the desolate plains.
Moments later, they arrive at the farmlands. Pax is immediately carried inside, laid on a cot, and surrounded by healers and engineers. His body is weak but still alive.
Brad turns to Ethan, fury in his voice.
"What have you done?! You went against the orders of all the groups! You rushed the plan and look what happened!"
Ethan lowers his head, saying nothing as the other groups gather around, demanding answers.
One of the leaders steps forward.
"Where's Brad's tiger piece?"
Ethan reaches into his pocket and pulls out the cube-shaped fragment. Brad snatches it from his hand.
"It'll take time to repair," Brad mutters. "But Ethan, you're going to explain everything that happened."
Ethan recounts the entire battle—every explosion, every scream, every loss. The room falls silent when he finishes.
A month passes. The survivors work tirelessly to build new plans, fortify defenses, and prepare for what comes next. One afternoon, a scout team bursts into the meeting camp.
"Khaos is still alive!" the lead scout reports, breathless. "He's… he's building something."
Brad clenches his fist.
"So, he's growing smarter than before."
Another leader stands.
"Then we know what comes next, he'll eventually come for us. We need to retreat. Together. We've already begun constructing a massive underground community. If we unite all groups under one roof, we can survive this. Together, we're stronger."
The room erupts in murmurs of agreement. Brad nods firmly.
"I agree. It's time. Khaos won't stop until he finds us. We've provoked him too many times already. Let's move out."
Over the following days, the survivors migrate underground. Convoys of vehicles vanish into hidden tunnels, leaving the surface behind.
Meanwhile, in Scarlet City.
Buzz Khaos stands over a colossal digital beacon he has just completed. It hums with violent energy as it activates, projecting a vast cube-shaped digital field around the ruins of the city. The coding across his back ignites, forming a new digital beacon that fuses into his body. His wounds seal slowly, his strength returning.
He crouches, dragging his finger through the dirt, drawing the face of Pax. His distorted voice growls,
"Filthy mortals… must die…"
He hums as he vanishes in a burst of speed, tearing across the wasteland. He crashes into the old Colosseum, shattering it into rubble. Staring at the place that started it all.
He turns toward the distant hills, toward the old farmhouse. When he arrives, there is nothing left but silence and dust. Rage floods him. He swings his sword, destroying everything in sight as he remembers his old life as a slave.
His digital beacon blinks and releases a pulse that sweeps over the land. The wave collects fragments—DNA, hair, dried blood, shattered tech. Holographic faces appear before him, flickering one after another. Then Pax's face and name appears
Buzz whispers,
"Pax… Orda…"
He crushes the projections with his hand, reducing them to static. His eyes glow brighter as he begins to track the trails of survivors. He storms through abandoned settlements, erasing the remnants of humanity wherever he finds them.
Twelve years later.
Most of the world's population now lives underground, hidden within a single vast community. While those that are still above ground are mostly destroyed by Khaos through out the years.
After years of slaughter and distractions, Khaos finally picks up a trail that leads to the hidden underground community. He finds a forgotten access tunnel and slips inside. Camp after camp falls beneath his blade; he tears through barricades and crushing supply caches, leaving a trail of ruined encampments as he pushes deeper he is intercepted by armies of robots.
Underground, the community hums with controlled panic. In the massive council chamber, all the leaders gather around a long table lit by hissing lamps. Maps, schematics, and power-readouts flicker across the wall.
Brad stands and addresses the room, voice steady and iron-hard. "We've prepared for this for more than a decade. We won't rush again like we did twelve years ago. The underground community is vast. Khaos has only appeared on the eastern outer sector, he's also distracted by our army of robots. The civilians there will fall back to the western side. Base on his behavior, he's planning to destroy everything over there and that will take a year, that buys us time to finish our grand plan. Remember together, we are stronger."
Ethan—older now, scarred but sharp, leans forward. "At the same time, we've dispatch strike teams above to hunt down every one of Khaos's hidden beacons worldwide. Another group will be send to recon his base. If they can penetrate it and destroy his central massive beacon, we'll collapse his main network. When his beacons die and he reaches the west, we'll be the ones in the advantage."
The room erupts in determined murmurs and then applause. Hope threads through the crowd like a new pulse.
Farther down the corridor, in a dim training hall, Pax hangs from the pull-up bar. Two metal arms glint at his shoulders, polished, functional prostheses wired into his torso. He drops, breath controlled, and begins another set. Each rep is a promise: a vow to finish what was started.