The room felt colder after he vanished.
Not because of the shadows, or the wind brushing against the walls of the Bureau's hidden safe house.
But because hope had gone with him.
Alex stood still, gaze fixed on the empty space where Bob had disappeared. The weight of his promise sat like iron in his chest.
Ryan was the first to move.
He clenched his fists, fire flickering along his knuckles. "We should go after him. We can flank Lucien. Hit him from behind."
Selena stepped up beside him, lips pursed. "If we wait too long, it might be too late. He can't fight Lucien and his clones alone."
Beth shook her head, already calculating. "Bob said if he wins, he might not come back… as himself. That means this isn't just about Lucien."
"Which is why we have to go," Ryan snapped, turning to Lena. "You can teleport us, do it. Now."
Lena's face was still.
But her eyes… they had seen too much. Too many wars. Too many funerals.
"No."
The word cut through the room like a blade.
Selena blinked. "What?"
"I said no," Lena repeated. "He chose this. He's doing what only he can do alone."
"He asked Alex to stop him," she added, glancing at the boy. "Because he knows the rest of us can't."
Ryan flared. "So we're just supposed to sit here?! Let him basically kill himself alive and do nothing?!"
"If we go now," Lena said, stepping forward, "We won't be helping. We'll be in his way."
Beth looked from Lena to Alex. "Then what do we do?"
Lena exhaled.
"We prepare."
"Because when Bob falls… if he falls… the world won't be the same."
"And Alex might not have to stop just one monster."
The silence returned.
And this time, it didn't feel like peace.
It felt like a storm on the horizon.
….
Ash floated lazily through the air. The bones of the facility where it all began lay broken beneath Bob's boots. The twisted steel, the charred concrete, it was all familiar. Too familiar.
He stood alone at the edge of the rooftop, overlooking the cratered heart of Helix Point.
Silent.
Not just the kind of silence that meant calm. The kind that waited. That held its breath.
Then the wind shifted.
Footsteps echoed across the broken rooftop behind him.
One of the clones stepped into view. Dressed in a tactical version of his old black combat suit. Same face. Same height. Same scowl.
It stopped just short of striking distance, then cocked its head, analyzing him. There was no hesitation in its movement, no fear. Just cold precision.
The clone raised an arm, preparing to attack.
That's when Bob lifted his head.
Slowly.
Deliberately.
His face no longer wore the mask of humanity. His eyes were pure black, as if shadow itself lived within them.
And at the center of each… a single glowing red pupil, pulsing like a dying star.
His smile was slight.
Crooked.
Unhinged.
Predatory.
The clone hesitated.
And that's when Bob spoke, voice smooth and sharp like broken glass in oil.
"You were made in my image…"
He took one slow step forward, the shadows around his feet coiling like serpents.
"…but you were never me."
Then the world shook.
Darkness bloomed behind him like wings, pouring from his body in twisting streams—alive, sentient, hungry.
The clone lunged—
But Bob was already moving.
The first clone exploded in a mist of shadow and bone.
Bob was laughing.
Not forced. Not empty. Genuine. Wild. Terrifying.
His fists were drenched in blood, his own and not. Cuts lined his face but he didn't flinch. Shadows pulsed like veins from his skin, ripping through the ground like cracks in reality itself.
Another clone charged.
Bob ducked low, grinning.
"You're slower than I was at fourteen."
He brought his hand up like a hammer, shattering the clone's ribcage with a sickening crack, then grabbed its throat and ripped the shadow straight from its spine.
The darkness twisted into his body as the clone disintegrated.
Three more came at once. Synchronized. Calculated.
Bob didn't move.
The moment they were within arm's reach—
BOOM.
A wave of darkness erupted from him, shredding the air, flattening debris in all directions. The clones staggered.
Bob appeared behind one of them.
"You think because you look like me, you understand me?"
He grabbed its head and snapped it in two directions at once, letting the lifeless corpse slump to the floor. His laughter turned manic, echoing off broken steel beams and collapsed towers.
Two clones left.
They hesitated.
"Ah… now you remember fear," Bob whispered, eyes burning, voice dripping with mockery.
He charged, so fast he bent space around him. Slid under a strike, elbowed one clone into the other, then grabbed their heads and slammed them together with bone-splitting force.
Silence again.
The dust hadn't even settled when—
CLAP. CLAP. CLAP.
Slow. Mocking.
From the air, a portal shimmered open like torn glass. Golden light spilled from its center. And stepping out of it, wearing a cracked and twisted version of Hope's armor, was Lucien.
His face calm.
Eyes cold.
The armor once meant to represent protection now gleamed with cruel design, reworked into a weapon of domination.
Lucien smiled.
"Bravo, Rafael. Truly… a masterful tantrum."
Bob's smile didn't falter. The shadows curled up his arms, dancing like smoke.
"I was wondering when the puppet master would show his ugly face."
Lucien stepped closer, boots crunching over clone remains.
"You want to fight me, then let go."
Bob's grin turned wicked.
"Oh, I'm not here to fight you."
He took a step forward.
"I'm here to kill you."
The sky roared as Bob vanished from where he stood, a streak of living shadow hurtling straight toward Lucien like a cannonball.
Lucien's grin sharpened. He flicked two fingers forward.
A dozen clones burst from the crumbling earth, each of them identical to Bob, twisted, corrupted versions of him, their eyes glowing violet, their hands wreathed in dark fire.
But Bob didn't slow down.
The first clone raised a blade, and Bob ripped its arm off mid-sprint, spinning it into the second's skull with such force it caved in like paper. He leapt into the air, twisting between three more, his hands blurring into a storm of fists and knives of shadow.
Black blood sprayed like rain.
A clone tried to grab him from behind.
Bob exploded into pure darkness, reappearing just above it.
"You call this a challenge, Lucien?! These are just failures!"
He drove his heel into its skull, breaking its spine in half.
Lucien moved.
A beam of pure light tore through the field like a lance, searing the ground, carving a trench fifty meters long.
Bob flipped midair, dodging it by centimeters.
Lucien followed, flying upward with inhuman speed, golden flames forming swords in his hands. He slashed. One blade met shadow, the other Bob's side, slicing deep.
Bob hissed through his teeth but smiled. He grabbed Lucien's arm, forcing them into a brutal spiral, and dragged him straight into the ground.
BOOM.
The impact ruptured the crater. Ash and smoke swallowed them both.
Lucien launched out first, coughing, cape torn.
"You're slower than you used to be, Rafael."
Bob emerged next, limping, bleeding, laughing.
"Is that so?"
Then snap, his fingers twitched, and shadows beneath the battlefield howled.
Spears erupted from the ground, black tendrils of living fear, impaling another set of clones crawling from the rubble.
One survived long enough to speak.
"You… can't win…"
Bob didn't answer. He crushed its skull underfoot without a glance.
Lucien hovered above, aura blazing.
"You're unraveling, Rafael. I can feel it. That madness… it's swallowing you."
Bob wiped blood from his mouth. Smiled wider.
"That was the point."
His eyes flared, pure red in black.
"I only need to stay sane enough to rip your heart out."
And then he charged again.
Lucien's golden aura flared, rays of light forming blades at every angle. He hovered in the sky like a deity carved from sunlight.
"You're finished, Rafael. You've lost everything. You're just a broken man clawing at—"
CRACK.
A black spear of shadow pierced Lucien's shoulder, cutting off his sentence mid-boast. He gasped, blood spilled like molten gold.
Then Bob appeared.
Not teleporting. Not flying. Just moving, faster than anything human, faster than anything divine.
His body hit Lucien like a missile. One punch to the ribs. Crack. Another to the jaw. Crunch. A third slammed him into the earth below. The ground shattered like glass beneath the impact, a shockwave flattening trees hundreds of meters away.
Lucien rolled to his feet, staggered face smeared with blood, armor dented.
"You think rage makes you strong?!"
Bob landed across from him, shadows twisting around his limbs like serpents.
He was no longer smiling. He was grinning. Wild. Unhinged. Ferocious.
"Nah. I make rage strong."
He rushed again.
And this time he didn't stop.
He slammed Lucien with both fists, one after another, hitting so hard it echoed like thunder.
A rib broke. A wrist snapped. The golden armor cracked. Light flared in desperation, but Bob kept coming, kept laughing, kept swinging.
Lucien raised his hand for a counter-blast of light—
Bob tore it off at the elbow.
Lucien screamed, but Bob just threw the severed arm aside and headbutted him, cracking both their skulls.
Blood poured. Lucien's wings of light appeared once again. He tried to fly.
Bob grabbed him by the throat mid-air and slammed him through three walls of broken Helix Point, dragging his body like a meteor.
"YOU KILLED HIM!"
SLAM.
"THEN WHEN I WAS FINALLY HAPPY, YOU TOOK THE KID FROM ME!"
SLAM.
"YOU THOUGHT YOU COULD WIN?!"
SLAM.
"WHY!?"
He pinned Lucien's crushed body into the wreckage, snarling down like a rabid beast.
"I would rip your heart out! But you didn't have one to begin with. "
Lucien coughed, face bloodied and unrecognizable, gasping—
"Everything I did was for you. I never wanted that brat, or his power… it was a decoy for them to bring you back. All I ever wanted was you, my muse. You always were my idol, ever since I saw you that day. You became my only purpose"
Bob leaned in, voice whispering like a storm inside a coffin:
"I don't care. Die."
Then his hand lit with pure shadow, not just darkness, but oblivion, and he raised it high, ready to end everything.
But just as he struck down—
A voice cut through the rage.