The wind howled across the broken skyline, thick with ash and memory.
Where Helix Point once stood, where the earth was scorched, where glass and metal had fused into a jagged skeleton of the past, there was nothing but ruins now. Time hadn't healed the wound. It had deepened it.
On top of what was once a surveillance tower, now nothing but exposed beams and rusted panels, Bob stood alone.
The skies above were bruised with the coming storm, thunder growling low like the echo of a beast's hunger. Clouds boiled, heavy and dark, casting shadows over the land like curtains drawn over the past.
His coat fluttered in the wind, long and black, tattered at the edges. His eyes, those glowing crimson eyes, were fixed upward, unmoving.
The air here reeked of ghosts.
Seven years ago, this place had been his prison.
The place he was made.
The place he broke.
Bob exhaled slowly, and shadows spiraled from his shoulders like smoke, curling and coiling around his body in slow, reverent waves. The power was alive today. Restless. Angry.
"You're coming, aren't you?" he muttered to the sky. His voice was low. Cold. Carved from stone.
He could feel it.
Lucien would bring him here.
He had to.
Alex was the bait, but this place… this place was the altar.
It was only fitting that the final battle be staged here, in the ruins of where everything had begun.
His fists clenched as flashes of memory rippled through him, needles, fire, metal arms pinning him down, machines slamming into his teenage body as he screamed into steel. The weight of blood on his hands. The weight of Hope's hands pulling him back.
"Let them come," he whispered.
From beneath his feet, a ripple of darkness unfurled across the rooftop. Silent. Patient. Like wolves waiting for the moon to rise.
One by one, twenty clones stepped out from the black, silent as the grave. All of them, his own image. His shadows given form. Weapons honed with a single shared purpose.
He didn't look at them.
Didn't need to.
They were ready.
And so was he.
He raised his eyes to the sky again, the storm now building, a single bolt of lightning slicing through the heavens in the distance.
"Bring him, Lucien," Bob said, voice low like thunder in a dying world. "Bring the boy. I finally understand, what you actually want."
The darkness around him pulsed.
And the God of Wrath waited for the end.
The wind suddenly stilled.
A pulse of light, violet and blinding, split the air like a scar. Space tore open in a silent scream—reality bending to the will of something unnatural.
A portal bloomed above the cracked foundation of Helix Point's central spire, spiraling open like an eye.
And from it stepped Lucien.
Tall. Composed. Cruel.
His black coat billowed around him like the wings of a fallen angel. But what drew Bob's eyes wasn't Lucien's calm gait or the smirk on his face—it was the armor he wore.
Hope's armor.
Pristine white and gold, the chestplate still bearing the emblem of the National Hero Bureau. Lucien wore it like a mockery, like a trophy.
And beside him—
Alex.
His wrists were bound in thick, glowing cuffs, cancelers that shimmered faintly with anti-meta technology. His hair was tousled, clothes dusty and torn from weeks of captivity. But when he stepped through that portal, blinking against the light—
He smiled.
A crooked, exhausted grin. Like someone who'd been holding their breath for days and finally found air.
"You're late," Alex called out, voice strained but bright. "Took you long enough, old man."
Bob didn't smile.
But his eyes softened.
For just a second.
Then they locked on Lucien.
Lucien extended his arms in mock welcome, his grin widening with every step onto the ruined soil.
"Rafael," he said, like it was a sacred word. "You really did come back. After all this time, you're finally back."
The twenty clones behind Bob moved subtly, shifting formation, surrounding the broken ground like phantoms cloaked in shadow.
Bob stepped forward.
"Let him go."
Lucien chuckled. "No. No, no. Not yet. He's my guest, after all. And we've come a long way, but i see it, i still have to push you a little bit. You wouldn't want to cut this short, would you?"
Alex looked up at Bob. The smile faded, just a little. But his eyes told him what he needed to know.
He wasn't broken.
Not yet.
Bob's voice was cold. Steel wrapped in shadow.
"You still wear his armor."
Lucien smirked, tapping a gloved hand against the gold chest plate. "A gift. Or a prize, depending on how you look at it. Hope had such fine taste in martyrdom, don't you think?"
The air began to hum, faintly, then violently. Bob's shadows twisted and stretched, climbing up his arms, his shoulders. The clones all began to pulse with the same stormy rhythm. Darkness licked the edges of the broken world beneath their feet.
"You're going to regret this," Bob said, eyes glowing red. "All of it."
Lucien only smiled wider, pulling Alex slightly closer, as if taunting him.
"Then show me."
Time didn't slow.
Bob just moved faster.
One instant, he stood on the edge of the broken foundation where Helix Point once towered. The next, he was gone.
A black streak through the air, shadows curling behind him like smoke. The clones reacted, split second, but even they couldn't match the original.
Lucien's eyes widened.
"Wait—"
CRACK.
Bob's fist collided with Lucien's face in a perfect arc, enhanced with every ounce of velocity and fury he could muster. The sound was thunder in a bottle, Lucien's neck twisted with the blow, his feet lifting off the ground, the white-and-gold armor denting beneath the pressure.
Alex stumbled back from the force, the handcuffs glowing erratically.
And then—
"NOW!"
A flash of blue light erupted next to them.
Lena.
She grabbed Alex's arm without hesitation, her eyes meeting Bob's for a single, loaded second and then she slammed her hand down on the crystal embedded in her belt.
The world folded.
A flicker of sigil-light, blue rings circling around them and then they vanished in an instant.
Lucien hit the ground, sliding back through the dust, jaw bruised and lips bloodied. He snarled, eyes flaring with golden rage.
They'd gotten Alex out.
…
The room they reappeared in was quiet, sterile, and humming with soft fluorescent lights. Reinforced walls. Medical gear. Surveillance silence.
Alex staggered, catching his breath. His arms free. His powers… still numbed, but slowly returning.
Then—
Ryan slammed into him first, hugging so tightly Alex wheezed.
Selena joined a second later, her eyes burning with tears.
And Beth, quiet and always composed, wrapped her arms around them both, whispering,
"You idiot… you're alive…"
Laughter. Tears. Too much. But it was real.
Then Bob stepped forward.
And gently took Alex by the shoulder.
He pulled him aside away from the others. Quiet. Still.
Bob didn't speak at first.
He just hugged him. Tightly. One arm around the back of Alex's head, the other gripping his shoulder. No words. Just the sound of breath and the beat of something fragile still beating.
Then Bob whispered into Alex's ear:
"Remember, I'm proud of you."
Alex's eyes stung.
But Bob pulled back.
And now… his eyes were different.
Not warm.
Not gentle.
But… resigned.
"I'm going back."
Alex's throat tightened. "What?"
"It's not you that Lucien wants, it's me. And he won't stop. Not until it ends."
"Then let us help—"
"No," Bob interrupted, shaking his head. "If I want to keep you safe… I'll have to do it on his terms."
"What does that mean?"
Bob looked at him, gaze steady. Shadows already whispering at the edges of his form, climbing again, hungry and alive.
"It means I'll have to let go. Of control. Of rules. Of… sanity. The only way to kill him… is to become what I was made to be. The man he wants me to be."
Alex stepped forward, grabbing his wrist.
"Then don't go alone."
Bob's hand rested on Alex's. Tightened once.
But he didn't let go yet.
His voice dropped low, quieter than before. Like he needed to make sure no one else would hear.
"Listen to me."
Alex looked up, the shadows already beginning to curl along Bob's shoulders like smoke.
"If I lose…" Bob said, eyes burning with something more than just power, "You'll have to finish what i started."
The air thickened.
"And if I win," he continued, "if I beat Lucien… it won't end there."
Bob exhaled slowly.
"Because to beat him… I'll have to become something worse."
Alex shook his head. "No, we'll stop you. We'll—"
"We?" Bob interrupted, the faintest flicker of a smile playing across his face. "No. You will."
"You're the only one who can, Alex. If I fall too far, if I lose control, if I forget who I am, you end it."
"You're the only one I trust to do it."
Alex's hands curled into fists. His throat burned. "You can't ask me that. You just can't."
"I have to," Bob said. "Because no one else will. Because I've seen what I become when the chains break."
Bob stepped back now, the darkness gathering at his feet like a storm cloud. His voice steady, but laced with finality.
"If this goes the way i think it will go, i won't stop. I've seen what I can do, Alex."
His red eyes locked onto Alex's. No madness. No rage.
Just truth.
"So promise me. Please..."
Alex didn't speak.
Couldn't.
Bob waited, shadows rising.
And finally, with a broken whisper, Alex said:
"I promise."
Bob gave him a nod.
The last one.
Then the darkness swallowed him whole, and he was gone.