The battlefield was quiet now.
Too quiet.
Chunks of SCP-6789's golden armor still floated in the air, suspended in reality fractures that hadn't sealed yet. The rain fell in reverse in some places, droplets drifting upward into clouds smeared like paint across a half-broken sky.
Ethan stood at the epicenter, Carnitrix core still humming against his wrist.
The triple fusion — Force–Naljian–Godzilla — had burned through nearly half the watch's charge. His limbs still tingled from channeling multi-dimensional energy into that last atomic breath.
Jason Wayne approached from behind, his boots not so much stepping on the ground as rewriting it to allow his passage. His gaze flicked to the horizon, where shards of Kaiju bone were slowly turning to ash.
"You left the cult's gateway open for twenty-three seconds longer than planned," Jason said.
His tone was calm, but the weight of judgment in it could bend steel.
Ethan shrugged, still catching his breath. "You try juggling antimatter lightning, phasing through a dimension bleed, and keeping a literal god-dragon from eating your face. Timing gets… flexible."
Jason studied him for a moment — then smiled faintly. "And yet… you lived."
---
From the shadows of a broken SCP containment wall, Sherlock Holmes stepped forward. His coat looked untouched despite the carnage, and his eyes gleamed with that irritating certainty of a man who always knew more than he should.
"The gateway being open that long wasn't an accident," Sherlock said. "Someone else transmitted something through it."
Jason's head turned sharply.
Ethan's grip tightened on his saber.
Sherlock reached into his coat and pulled out a crystalline disc, faintly pulsing with white light. "This came through before your breath hit the target. I caught it in mid-air. It's not SCP tech… or Endless tech." He tossed it to Ethan.
The moment Ethan touched it, the Carnitrix flared. A new integration prompt appeared on the holo-interface:
> [OMEGA SIGNAL DETECTED]
Foreign Bio-Artifact: White Lantern Proto-Core
Compatibility Rating: 91%
Warning: Fusion with current host physiology will overwrite base energy cycle. Proceed?
Ethan swallowed. "White Lantern… like the DC comics? Life entity stuff?"
Sherlock's mouth twitched. "You should know by now, Ethan — nothing here is just fiction."
Jason stepped forward, eyes narrowing at the core. "That's not meant for you."
Ethan looked between them. "Then who the hell sent it?"
Jason's answer was slow. "…The Entity of Life itself. The fact it came to you means you've been chosen — but it also means every faction, every god, and every thing that knows what it is will now try to kill you."
---
The ground shook before anyone could answer further.
A fissure tore open just past the containment wall, and from it emerged a figure wrapped in violet fire, muscles coiled with serpentine tension. A woman — tall, with hair black as spilled ink — her eyes burning with the killing calm of a predator that knows it will win.
Sherlock muttered, "Shiva's Bloodline. I had hoped that myth was… well, a myth."
Jason's voice went grim. "That's the Hand of Vritra. The last active descendant of the Primordial Slayer caste."
The woman smiled, showing slightly elongated canines. "The White Lantern core doesn't belong to you, child. Hand it over, and I might let you die without pain."
Ethan flicked his wrist, Carnitrix core shifting to battle-ready mode. "Sorry, lady — my schedule's full."
---
The fight began without warning.
Shiva's Bloodline moved faster than Ethan could track — until the Carnitrix synced a Kryptonian–White Martian fusion over his base form. His body adapted instantly, solar-charged reflexes keeping pace with her strikes, Martian shapeshifting bending around lethal blows.
Her combat style was something else entirely — each strike carried anti-energy, unraveling his shields on contact. This wasn't about overpowering him — it was about erasing him from existence.
Jason stepped forward to intervene, but Sherlock caught his arm. "No. He needs to handle this. If he fuses the Lantern core now, he might actually survive."
Jason gave him a look that could peel paint. "And if he can't?"
"Then you'll need a new wild card."
---
Ethan rolled under a decapitating strike and triggered a double-chain fusion — Kryptonian + Naljian + White Martian — phasing mid-flight, vanishing from her strike zone, and reappearing behind her with a blow that cracked the air. She staggered, eyes narrowing, blood the color of molten gold spilling from her lip.
"That fusion… that's not possible without—" she stopped herself, realization dawning. "…The Carnitrix."
Ethan's smirk was almost involuntary. "Yep. My toy."
She roared — and then vanished in a blur of violet fire. When she reappeared, her hand was already plunged into his chest.
Except… it wasn't.
She phased through him — and found her arm stuck. The Carnitrix had anchored her energy inside his hybrid body. The feedback made her scream.
That was when the White Lantern Proto-Core made its move.
---
The interface flashed again:
> [Emergency Synchronization Protocol Activated]
Bio-Artifact Will Override Host Fusion Constraints
Do you wish to initiate: Omega Fusion?
Warning: This will permanently alter all transformation baselines.
Ethan didn't hesitate. Do it.
Light exploded from his body — not golden, not violet — but pure white, cutting through the storm-smeared sky. Shiva's Bloodline was blasted backward, her skin burning under the radiance.
When the light dimmed, Ethan was…
different.
The fusion was unlike anything before — White Lantern + Force-Sensitive Kryptonian–Naljian–White Martian Quad Stack. His body was humanoid but wreathed in flowing light patterns, eyes blazing like twin stars. Every movement bent gravity and space in ripples.
He didn't attack.
He willed her backward — and reality obeyed.
Her body slammed into the fissure she came from, cracks racing up her arms as her anti-energy was snuffed out like candle smoke. She hissed in rage — and then retreated, vanishing in a shatter of violet flame.
---
When silence returned, Sherlock spoke first. "Congratulations, Ethan. You've just painted a target on your back that can be seen from… everywhere."
Jason stepped forward, studying Ethan's new form as it slowly bled away into his normal body. "That fusion… I didn't think it was possible to combine life-entity energy with Carnitrix hybrids. But if you can control it…"
Ethan's voice was hoarse. "Big if, Jason. That thing… it's alive. It's in my head now."
The Lantern core pulsed on his wrist like a heartbeat.
Sherlock smiled faintly. "Then I suggest you both prepare. Because I've just intercepted a transmission from three separate factions — SCP Overseers, Endless traitors, and the Outer God cults."
Jason's gaze sharpened. "What transmission?"
Sherlock's smile turned grim. "They all said the same thing."
He looked at Ethan.
> "The Omega Signal has been lit. The hunt begins."
---
End of Chapter 11