Black lightning ripped down the street, and Evan launched himself forward before it touched the pavement. The strike detonated behind him, blasting a crater through the asphalt and sending a shockwave rolling across the block. Violet energy surged through his armor as he accelerated, the city's pulse matching his stride.
[RUNBREAKER VELOCITY — 68%][LATTICE COHERENCE — RISING][ASHCODE THREADS — TRACKING USER]
He felt the gray filaments follow—dozens of them—pulled behind him like a loose cape of glitching signal. They weren't trying to fight. They weren't trying to infest. They stayed just behind his shoulders, adjusting to his movement, mimicking his acceleration curve as if learning how to exist at speed.
Cross didn't run.He simply appeared.
One moment he was a block away.The next, he was beside Evan, keeping pace like walking through a storm he didn't feel.
A thin pulse of black lightning rolled off Cross's arm. The world around it bent, streetlights leaning toward him like metal pulled by a magnet.
"Your rhythm changed," Cross said, voice low, almost bored. "Heard it from miles away."
Evan pivoted mid-run, slammed his foot onto a rail line, and the ground lit underneath him.
[PULSE STEP — OVERDRIVE SYNC]
He shot left, carving a violet arc across the street. Cross slid after him without moving his feet, like the world itself carried him forward.
Evan hit a wall, ran straight up it, and launched onto an overpass. Cars beneath him shook from the shockwaves. Cross landed on the railing twenty meters ahead without ever touching the air between.
Evan felt the threads behind him stutter as if frightened.
[ASHCODE THREADS — DISTRESS SIGNAL DETECTED]
He didn't have time to reassure them.
Cross raised his hand, and the railing under Evan twisted into a spike. Evan vaulted over it, planting a hand on the metal mid-flip as violet light exploded from his palm. The blast shattered the spike and hurled him forward.
Aelira's voice came through the comm, frantic. "Evan, Node Eight is destabilizing. Cross isn't just amplifying his field—he's pulling at the network. He's trying to tear your sync out of the Lattice entirely."
Cairn added, "He's targeting you, not the system. He wants to isolate you from the city."
"Not happening," Evan said, skidding across the top of a moving bus before jumping off the back.
Cross appeared beside him again.
"You're carrying something new," Cross whispered. "I can feel it in the rails. Like static trying to grow a spine."
The gray filaments flared behind Evan as if offended.
Cross's smile was thin. "Ah. There."
He flicked a finger, and one filament shrieked with distortion, collapsing into a trembling line of broken particle-light.
"Stop," Evan growled, accelerating so hard the pavement cracked under his shoes.
Cross kept up easily."You don't even understand what's attached to you. They're not alive. They're debris. Remnants of a system older than this city. They follow you because you run. They would follow anyone fast enough."
Evan shot forward again, tearing through storefront reflections, violet lightning shaping a tunnel of light behind him.
"You're wrong," Evan said. "They choose."
Cross didn't laugh.He didn't need to.His silence said enough.
Evan hit a rail junction and let the Lattice bloom under his feet like a map unfolding at light-speed. Every rail, every conductor line, every metal path in the city lit at once.
He dove into the network.
[LATTICE HIGHWAY — ENTERED][SPEED LIMITER — DISENGAGED][RUNBREAKER FIELD — 83%]
Violet arcs swallowed him whole.
He ran through the heart of Lowwater, each step sending shockwaves through steel. Cross followed by tearing himself from one rail to the next, ripping holes in the network as he moved.
Each tear sent pain through Evan's suit.
[LATTICE DAMAGE — 4%][LATTICE DAMAGE — 9%][LATTICE DAMAGE — 17%]
Aelira shouted, "He's degrading the network! Evan, if he keeps doing that, the rails will collapse and you'll drop out of sync!"
Cairn snapped, "You need to get him off the highway before he destabilizes the whole city."
Evan gritted his teeth. "Working on it."
He cut hard right, ripping out of the rail line and bursting onto an abandoned sky-bridge. Cross materialized in front of him instantly.
"Running in circles," Cross said. "Just like always."
"Not this time."
Evan slammed both feet into the ground and threw his entire Overdrive field outward.
[OVERDRIVE FIELD — 122%]
The explosion lit the whole bridge in violet fire. The shockwave cracked windows in nearby towers and hurled Cross backward, ripping a long wake of black lightning behind him.
Evan didn't stop.
He pressed the attack, rushing Cross before the villain stabilized. The city's pulse beat in time with his motion. Rails and power lines sang. The gray filaments spun behind him like a swarm of tiny guardians learning the shape of aggression.
Cross recovered instantly, catching Evan by the throat with one hand. His grip wasn't tight. It didn't need to be. Evan felt the weight of a collapsing universe in that touch.
"You shouldn't have let them touch you," Cross said softly. "You don't know what they are."
"They're learning," Evan growled.
"And when they're done learning you?"
Cross leaned closer.
"They'll learn me."
Evan's vision flickered as the Lattice screamed through his armor.
[WARNING: RUNBREAKER SYNC THREATENED][ASHCODE THREADS — FULL PANIC STATE][CITY STATUS — INSTABILITY DETECTED]
The gray threads surged forward on instinct, swirling around Cross's arm like frightened sparks. Cross didn't swat them away. His field devoured them the instant they touched him, dissolving them into black static.
Evan roared, broke the grip, and blasted backward in a burst of violet fire.
He skidded across the bridge, wiped blood from his mouth, and locked eyes with Cross.
The villain stood calm in the swirling black current around him.
"Let's run, Evan," Cross said. "Let's see which of us the city follows."
Evan braced himself as the entire bridge trembled under two rising storms.