The North Tower didn't just stand; it groaned.
Under the relentless assault of the Ascension Cult, the building's structural integrity was failing. Mercury Rain had seeped into the foundation, turning the concrete into a brittle, metallic foam. Alaric Vance stood at the base of the tower, his eyes fixed on the flickering thermal signatures above. Behind him, the screams from the refugee plaza—the ones he had chosen to ignore—were beginning to fade, replaced by the terrifying, rhythmic clanging of bodies turning into solid metal.
"The breach is complete," Garrick (Anvil) reported, his voice strained as he blocked a volley of liquid-metal spikes with his shield. "Boss, if we don't move in the next sixty seconds, there won't be an informant left to rescue."
"Mercury, suppress the entrance," Alaric commanded.
Elara (Mercury) didn't answer immediately. Her hands were trembling so violently that her orbiting spheres were clashing against each other, creating a discordant chime. Her eyes were fixed on a child in the plaza, now a silver statue reaching out for a mother who had already become a pillar of lead.
"Elara!" Alaric's voice was a whip.
"I... I hear them, Master," she whispered, her voice breaking. "The weight... it's not just the rain. It's their souls. They're getting so heavy."
"Focus on the mission, or we all become statues," Alaric snapped, but as he spoke, a sharp, searing pain erupted in his chest.
"Such a cold heart, Alaric," the ghost-voice of Selene hummed in his mind, sounding almost amused. "You're becoming the man you used to be. I missed him."
Before Alaric could retort to the voice, the fog ahead of them didn't just part—it exploded.
The Spark Returns
A series of high-frequency detonations ripped through the air, but these weren't standard explosives. They were Cinder-Disks—explosives designed to ignite the mercury in the air, creating a momentary vacuum of heat.
From the searing orange glow emerged a figure that made Alaric's blood run cold with a familiarity he couldn't name.
She was lean, covered in tattered black tactical gear, her face partially obscured by a silver combat bandage over her left eye. She moved with a jagged, predatory grace that contrasted sharply with Elara's fluid movements. In her hands, she twirled a detonator like a toy.
"Well, well," she said, her voice a sultry rasp that cut through the thunder. "If it isn't the Great Architect of Our Ruin. You're late for the funeral, Alaric."
"Who are you?" Alaric asked, his hand instinctively reaching for his stabilizer, his heart hammering against his ribs in a rhythm he didn't recognize.
The woman laughed, a sound like broken glass. She stepped closer, ignoring the weapons Garrick aimed at her. She stopped just inches from Alaric, the scent of gunpowder and ozone—and a faint, haunting trace of expensive perfume from a world that no longer existed—filling his senses.
"That's the most insulting thing you've ever said to me," she whispered, reaching out with a gloved hand to trace the line of his jaw. "And you once told me my life was worth less than a localized gravity shift."
"She's a mercenary from the Old Guard," Garrick grumbled, though he didn't lower his shield. "Code name: The Spark. Her real name is Lyra Thorne."
"Thorne?" Alaric glanced back. "Isadora's...?"
"The sister who actually has a soul," Lyra finished, her gaze shifting to the burning plaza behind them. She looked at the dying refugees, then back at Alaric. "I saw what you did, Alaric. You let them turn. For a scrap of paper in a tower. You haven't changed a bit. Even with your brain wiped clean, you're still the same monster who burned the Garden Sect because they were 'inefficient'."
"I did what was necessary for the Magnet," Alaric said, though his voice wavered.
"Necessity," Lyra spat the word. "The coward's excuse for cruelty."
Suddenly, she lunged. It wasn't an attack to kill, but a movement to dominate. She grabbed Alaric by the collar, pulling him close until their foreheads touched. For a second, the battlefield vanished. There was only the heat of her anger and the terrifyingly familiar depth in her gaze.
"I should blow this tower and you with it," she hissed. "But Fosil sent me to make sure you didn't screw this up. The informant is on the 14th floor. And Alaric? If you look at me with those blank, empty eyes one more time, I'll give you a scar to match mine."
The Ascent
The climb up the tower was a nightmare of shifting physics. With Lyra leading the way, the team breached the 14th floor. The Ascension Cultists were everywhere, their bodies reinforced with jagged metal plates that made them immune to standard ballistics.
"Anvil, hold the corridor!" Alaric shouted. "Mercury, lift them!"
Elara let out a scream of frustration and grief, channelling her emotions into her spheres. The gravity in the hallway inverted. Cultists were slammed into the ceiling, their heavy augmentations becoming their tomb as they crushed their own skulls against the concrete.
In the center of the chaos, Lyra was a blur of motion. She danced between the cultists, slapping Cinder-Disks onto their metallic joints. Snap. Flash. Boom. She didn't just fight; she choreographed destruction.
"Still got the rhythm, don't you?" she shouted over the explosions, glancing at Alaric. "Remember the dance in the Great Hall? Before the sky fell?"
Alaric felt a flash of an image—a golden hall, music, the feeling of a waist beneath his hand, and the same one-eyed woman smiling at him with a look of pure, unadulterated love. The image shattered as a liquid-metal spike whistled past his ear.
"I remember... nothing!" Alaric roared, thrusting his silver hand forward.
He didn't just use gravity; he used the Void. He pulled the mercury out of the air and condensed it into a single, microscopic point of infinite density. The resulting implosion swallowed three cultists whole, leaving nothing but a vacuum.
Lyra stopped, her eyes wide. "That... that's new. You never could do that before the accident."
"Because I wasn't helping him back then," Selene's voice hissed in Alaric's ear, dripping with jealousy. "Don't listen to her, Alaric. She is a relic of your flesh. I am the future of your spirit."
The Informant's Secret
They reached the final room. The informant, a man trembling in a Gök Kubbe uniform, was clutching a briefcase. But as Alaric approached, the man didn't look relieved. He looked terrified.
"You..." the informant gasped, looking at Alaric. "You're the one... from the laboratory. You're Project Zenith."
"Give me the blueprints," Alaric demanded.
"The blueprints?" The man laughed hysterically. "There are no blueprints for an anchor! The Magnet isn't a shelter, Alaric! It's an engine! It's designed to pull the Sky Source down to earth! You're not saving the world... you're the fuse!"
Alaric froze. He looked at the briefcase. He looked at Lyra, whose expression had gone deathly pale.
"Isadora... she knew?" Lyra whispered, her hand hovering over a detonator.
Outside, the storm reached its zenith. A massive bolt of silver lightning struck the tower, and for a split second, the veil between Alaric's mind and reality tore open. He saw Selene standing in the corner of the room, her translucent form glowing. She wasn't looking at the informant. She was looking at him, a predatory smile on her face.
"Choose, Alaric," Lyra said, her voice trembling. "Do we take this 'engine' back to my sister? Or do I blow this entire floor right now and end this lie?"
Alaric Vance stood between the woman who loved the man he was, and the ghost of the woman who created the monster he had become.
"The mission," Alaric said, his voice a hollow echo. "We take the briefcase."
Lyra looked at him, and for a second, the spark in her eyes died. "Then you really are dead, Alaric Vance. And I'm just talking to a ghost."