#biometric face detection

[systellartechnologies]

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[bioqube-inc]

Why Should IITs Implement Face Recognition Technology?

Our latest blog post explores the transformative power of face recognition technology! Discover why IITs should embrace Face Recognition Technology innovation and how it can significantly enhance their educational institutions.

From improving attendance and video surveillance to object detection, activity monitoring, and identification, face recognition technology offers comprehensive benefits for campus safety and efficiency.

[natalievoncatte]

The palm-print panel was cool under Lena’s touch. She pressed her hand to the rectangular plate next to her front door and waited for the brief moment it needed to scan her skin. The door unlocked with a meaty thump and she pushed it open with her other hand, absently checking her phone as she stepped inside. As the system scanned her biometrics, it detected stress and dimmed the lights, automatically turned on the television to an abstract screen saver with cool tones, and began to play an arrangement for a violins to soothe her nerves.

She kicked off her heels and walked barefoot into the kitchen, where she skipped the countertop wine cellar and pulled out the half-empty box of Trader Joe’s vintage that she’d taken a liking to thanks to Kara. She pours herself half a tumbler full as a silent fuck you to her mother and took a swig, then walked out into her living room to sit down in the gloom for a few minutes and think.

Supergirl was sitting on her couch, head flopped back over the back so that her hair fanned out across the white leather. She sat splayed with her knees apart and legs out, arms resting on her thighs. Lena wasn’t sure if she was awake.

As she drew closer, she caught a small gasp. Supergirl had a black eye, and there were scrapes on her cheeks and the backs of her hands, the blood barely crusted. Both her hands and her face were bruised and she had a tiny split in her lip.

Lena placed the wine on the table, nerves jangling when the bottom rattled against the pale marble from the shaking of her hand. Her heart raced as she drew closer. Supergirl had taken off her cape and draped it over the couch. It was none the worse for wear but was covered in scorch marks.

Suoergirl’s broad chest heaved once and she let out a long, pained sigh.

“Hi.”

“Hello, Supergirl.”

She let out a little laugh, wincing. “Do we need be so formal?”

“I don’t have anything else to call you,” Lena said, coolly. “Mind if I ask why you’re in my apartment?”

“You don’t lock the balcony doors. You should.”

Lena sighed and folded her arms. “I said why, not how.”

Supergirl didn’t look at her.

“I just got the snot beaten out of me. Everything hurts.”

“I didn’t think that was possible.”

How was it possible? Curiosity tugged at her, but concern shot through it, making her fidget with her hands. Lena hated fidgeting. It made her look weak, and she could still remember the pain when Lillian cracked the ruler across her knuckles to break the habit.

“Can I have some wine?”

Lena swallowed hard.

“Sure,” she said.

She went to the kitchen and poured. When she returned to the living room, Supergirl was sitting up, hunched forward and leaning on he knees. Lena started a little at the sight. Sitting that way displayed the wide, muscular set of her shoulders and arms, especially her meaty biceps. Her back was a rare sight -she wore a cape, after all- and just as exquisitely muscled.

She was looking at her hands, at the damage to her muscles. Lena offered the glass and she took it. Her fingers were warm when they brushed against Lena’s, strangely soft.

Supergirl took a long pull of wine and smacked her lips, then winced.

“It’s times like this I wish I could get drunk.”

“You can’t?”

“Not on wine and not for very long.”

“Interesting.”

“So I have a problem,” Supergirl said. She was still looking at her hands.

“And that is?”

“I have to call off work tomorrow. These will heal, and I’ll look exactly the same. I don’t get scars anymore. But they’ll be visible for a day or so.”

“I see.”

“But I have to get brunch with someone, and they’ll be able to tell. Concealer won’t do much for this.” She touched her eye, wincing.

“Wait here,” said Lena.

She came back a moment later with some wash clothes soaked in cold water on a tray. Hands still shaking a little as she placed it on the table. Tenderly, she took one of the washcloths and dabbed the back of Supergirl’s hands, cleaning away the grime and dried blood from the abrasions.

Supergirl sighed. “That feels good. Thank you.”

“May I?” said Lena.

Supergirl hesitated, doubt flashing deep within the endless depths of her blue eyes, but she turned to Lena and tilted up her chin. With shaking fingers, Lena cupped Supergirl’s face gently and used a fresh cloth to clean and cool the cut on her lip. Supergirl closed her eyes and sighed.

Lena’s eyes wandered up, to the small mark above her eye.

“You don’t scar. Did you get that on Krypton?”

“Yes. I slipped and fell when I was a little girl. You should have seen me. I bled all over.”

“Must be nice, not getting hurt anymore. Not feeling pain.”

“I still feel it.”

Lena paused.

“I feel every bullet and blow and bomb blast just like anyone would,” said Supergirl. Just because it doesn’t harm me doesn’t mean it doesn’t hurt me.”

“I’m sorry. I had no idea.”

“It’s okay,” said Supergirl.

She opened her eyes -eye- and looked at Lena reverently, one pretty blue eye glittering while the other remained bruised shut. She smiled a lopsided, honest smile, looked at Lena in a dreamy, almost adoring way that-

Wait.

“Oh my God,” Lena breathed.

“Hi,” said Kara.

“Oh my God. Oh my God,” Lena whispered. “Oh my God, what happened, how did this happen to you? You’re hurt!”

“I had a tough time with a very determined alien and had to worry about civilians,” said Kara. “It happens.”

Lena’s pulse raced and her breath quickened. Her gaze darted, searching and noticing every detail. She was so beautiful, and she was so Kara.

“Why now?” said Lena. “Why this time?”

“I don’t know.”

Lena bit her lip, and the tiny gesture had a noticeable impact on Kara. Her eyes widened and her gaze fell to Lena’s bottom lip, then flicked back up.

“So your brunch,” said Lena. “That was with me.”

“Yeah. I thought about cancelling but I can’t. I needed to see you now.”

Lena shifted closer on the couch, until they were hip to hip.

“Why?”

“Because I just got punched in the head by an alien with big stupid bone spurs coming out of his fist and I need to see you. I won, by the way. It was really cool. I ripped a fire hydrant out of the ground and hit him with it.”

Lena looked her up and down. Her jaw began to quiver.

“Oh God. Is it worse than it looks? Are you hurt worse than you look, Kara? Are you…”

Kara shook her head, then winced. “No. Not that bad, promise. I just…” she sighed. “I’m tired of going to lay on a sunbed and going back to my empty apartment and spend a sick day napping on the couch.”

Lena let out a slow breath. “So you came to see me.”

“Yuuup,” Kara said, slowly.

Lena shifted awkwardly in her seat. Kara slowly reached over with her now clean hand and curled her fingers around Lena’s chin.

“Lena?” she whispered. “Is this okay?”

“Yes.”

Kara turned and leaned into her, pressing the slightest, lightest kiss to Lena’s lips, not a quick peck but something slow and soft, warm and inviting.

“Ow,” Kara muttered.

“Kara,” Lena whispered.

“I have any idea. Since I can’t make brunch… how about breakfast?”

Lena leaned against her, gently draping her arms around her as they fell back into the soft cushions together.

“Okay.”

[lieutenantbatshit]

01 - no good deed | just another player. (hwang in-ho x reader)

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----

The room was dark. Not the artificial, humming darkness of the dormitories. No flickering overhead lights, no sound of desperate breathing in the shadows. 

This darkness was deeper, becoming quieter, then still.

Hwang In-ho bolts upright in his bed, breath caught in his throat, chest heaving beneath the black robe of the Front Man. Sweat clung to his skin like blood once did. The black mask sits abandoned on the table beside him, and for a moment, he remembers who he is. 

Not Hwang In-ho.

The Front Man.

But the dream, kind of a memory, doesn’t let him go. He can still feel it — the warm pool of his blood beneath him, the shouts, the silence, and the pain.

And then, there was you.

Your gloved hands pressing down his wound with a whisper against the chaos, “If you live, don’t forget who you were.”

In-ho’s hands tremble as he reached for a glass of water beside him. He had forgotten, hadn’t he? Bit by bit, piece by piece, until all that remained was the mask, the control, the machine. 

But that voice —  your voice — it never left.

He brushes his hand through his damp hair, eyes burning as they stare at nothing. You were just a shadow then, a mask among other masks. A rule-breaker in a place where mercy was punishable by death.

He doesn’t even know your face or your name. Yet your presence lives in the cracks of his memory, in the fractured quiet of his mind that he never allowed himself to touch.

Except in his dreams.

Or nightmares.

He rose slowly, each movement deliberate. There’s something cold and restrained about him now, but the weight behind his eyes was unmistakable. He walked to the system terminal as the soft glow of the screens hummed to life, illuminating the sharp edges of his face, the shadow of grief still etched across his expression.

His fingers tapped on the keyboard as the screen flickered.

Pink Guard Personnel Records: 28th Squid Game

He shouldn’t do this.

He knew he shouldn’t. Everything about the games was built on anonymity, everything encrypted as if you were expected to forget, bury the past six feet beneath protocol and power.

But he couldn’t forget you. 

His voice was low, hoarse, as he spoke into the silence. “Who were you?”

The system begins its search as the man behind the mask isn’t the Front Man tonight. Tonight, he’s a survivor… still trying to find the one person who made him feel human again. 

Lines of data flicker across the screen — guard IDs, biometric logs, movement patterns, shift schedules. Thousands of entries. Most were clean, categorized, and controlled.

But one file stalls.

ID: P-132-20152745

In-ho narrowed his eyes as he noticed the file. He hovered his hand on his mouse as he clicked, only for the screen to shudder.

ERROR. FILE CORRUPTED. ACCESS DENIED.

He leaned closer as he squinted at the file number. He doesn’t recognize the number, but something about it pulls at him. The timestamp matches the night he was injured. That narrow window between the second and third round.

His fingers fly over the keys as he bypasses standard security. Firewalls resist him, but he wrote the protocols himself. He cracks through the surface code, digging deeper.

REDACTED ENTRY: UNAUTHORIZED INTERVENTION DETECTED.

P-132-20152745: Disciplinary Report - MISSING

Security Footage - DELETED

Status: UNKNOWN

He sits back slowly, the air tight in his lungs, realizing that someone had scrubbed the record. 

Not just a name or a face. Just plain everything.

As if that guard never existed. 

As if the system had tried to erase the very moment he clung to all these years.

His jaw tightened, rage pulsing beneath the surface. Not just for the system, but for himself for forgetting, surviving, and becoming the very thing he once feared. 

Still, there’s a silver of data remaining. A slashed fragment of a voice file that was compressed and corrupted.

Yet, it was still playable.

The static nearly swallows the sound, but in the middle of the distortion, something cuts through.

“—wasn’t supposed to do this…”

“…remember who you are…” “—forgive me.”

In-ho’s eyes closed, his heart pulsing through his chest. Though it was comforting to feel that you were real, he couldn’t help but wonder what had happened to you. 

As his thoughts almost swayed him, he immediately snapped out of his thoughts as he heard a heavy thud. Not from the room, but from the recording.

He sat up as a sharp intake of breath was heard, then another sound that seemed like a hit. Then, another sound that pierces through even the most distorted noise.

A soft, broken whimper. A woman’s voice.

“Please…” A muffled cry as another strike seemed to be done, and then, there was silence.

In-ho froze as his jaw clenched while the recording looped, replaying that single moment of helplessness. Something cold grips his chest, curling around his ribs like barbed wire. 

Someone definitely made sure he wouldn’t remember it. 

The file ends with one last, choked breath — one that doesn’t quite sound like fear, but grief.

“He wasn’t supposed to see me.”

The silence after felt suffocating. In-ho’s fingers curled into fists as the final realization sank in. This wasn’t just a disappearing act.

Someone silenced you, covered you up, and buried your existence under codes and protocols. In-ho scoffed, a smirk forming as if an idea shone all over his face.

They didn’t bury you well enough.

His eyes hardened as he locked the terminal.

You saved him once, now it was his turn.

——

The incinerator hisses as the body bag disappears into flame.

It was either buried or harvested for organs — you couldn’t care at all. In fact, you don’t flinch anymore. You haven’t, in a long time. 

The stench of burnt cloth and blood clings to your mask, thick and stubborn, as if even the scent refuses to die here. You stand still, posture straight, hands clasped behind you just as protocol demands.

You were only a pink circle guard. Just another pair of obedient boots, another ghost in the machine.

Your boots echo softly down the corridor. Rhythm is everything here—footsteps measured, spine straight, eyes forward behind a mask that tells the world nothing. Now, you’re Guard 427.

You swipe your card at the checkpoint and enter the security control wing. The guards here don’t speak unless ordered. The walls hum with surveillance feeds, and one screen, larger than the rest, projects the black mask of the Front Man. You’ve worked hard to become invisible. You are precise in your tasks, silent in your duties, unremarkable in your movements. You erase yourself every day, bit by bit, in service of survival.

Still, you remember him. Not as the Front Man. But as Player 132.

He was bleeding when you found him, struggling beneath the weight of survival. You should’ve walked away. Left him to die like all the others. But something in his eyes that night — numb but furious, cracked but not yet broken made you stop.

You knelt. Whispered. Touched his bloodied chest with trembling fingers.

“If you live, don’t forget who you were before they made you fight.”

And now, he sits behind the glass of power, voice modulated, mask unshifting, his judgment absolute. You wondered if he dreams of you, if your voice ever slips into his nightmares. You wondered if, when he stares too long at the monitors, he's chasing something his mind won’t give him.

You kept your head down and your steps even. You cleaned blood off the walls. You followed orders. You pretend you’re not the one he’s unknowingly searching for.

Because if he ever does remember… If he ever sees through the perfect circle painted across your mask, what then?

Would he thank you? Punish you? Undo you?

You weren’t sure. In a place where mercy was a foreign concept, such a situation of his finding you would cause more complications.

The alarm blared. A low tone thrums through the walls, and every Circle in the hallway stops in unison.

“VIP arrival. Level Six. Escort detail.”

Your fellow pink guards peel off wordlessly, boots pivoting toward the service lift that leads to the opulent corridors you’re never meant to see. The ones draped in gold and smoke, the ones that reek of indulgence and blood.

But not you.

Your earpiece buzzes with a separate frequency.

“P-427, Report to Sub-Level Three. Clearance Sigma Red.”

Sigma Red.

You hesitate for half a breath before responding.

“Confirmed. On route.”

It wasn’t your first time.

You walked alone now, past the steel hallways, the flickering fluorescents, the guards who pretended not to see. You made your way towards the door marked only by a red triangle and the faint scent of disinfectant beneath it.

Inside the room was quiet, warmer, and cleaner. There was no briefing. No other guards. Just a room with a solitary mirror and a rack of clean clothing with soft fabric, unlike your uniform.

“Change. Protocol 09 is in effect,” the voice over the intercom says.

You obeyed, not needing to be told why. 

You’ve done this before. You remember the way the Front Man had just taken the mask then. How his presence had loomed even before you could name it. The first time, you’d done what you were told because not doing so meant punishment. 

You were a standard circle guard who was quiet, efficient, and obedient. Not until that night during the 28th Season where you chose mercy. 

He was bleeding out during lights out where his eyes had pulled you in — the hollow ache of someone who wanted to die but was too proud to beg for it. You broke the rules, yet they let you live.

Only so they could strip you down slowly — the escort class.

The lowest, most degrading designation in the hierarchy of this twisted system. You are masked, dressed in thin civilian mimicry, and handed over to the VIPs—not for pleasure, necessarily. Sometimes just for company. Sometimes for cruelty. Always for obedience.

“Escort detail begins in thirty minutes. Await further instruction.”

The door clicks shut behind you. You sat and waited, listening to the hum of the walls as you wondered, what if this is the time he speaks to you? What if he looks at you a second too long? What if he asks your name? And what if you're too afraid to give it?

The walls here were too quiet. No screams, gunfire, and barking orders. Only silence — deliberate, echoing, and unnerving.

The mask stays on. It always stays on. It's the only part of yourself you're allowed to keep. As you sat, the intercom crackled again. A different voice this time. One you know. One you’ve heard before during your disciplinary hearing. 

“Protocol 09 in effect,” the speaker hisses.

No acknowledgment required. They know you understand.

“You aided a player in the 28th Season. Unforgivable.”

A pause, long enough to let the weight settle. “You will not speak of it. Not to him. Not to anyone. The Front Man does not know. He must never know. Do you understand?”

You nod silently, because that’s all you're allowed to do now.

“VIPs arrive in thirty. Escort mode active.”

You fixed the mask over your face as you changed layer by layer, its garments feel like silk-wrapped shame. 

You remember how, once, your hands shook as they held a bleeding man. The one who now runs the games, one who sits behind a mask of black steel, haunted by something he can’t quite name.

He lives because of you and now you serve because of him.

He must never know.

But you remember.

Every time.

——

The scent of cologne, alcohol, and smoke clung to the velvet of the VIP lounge. The lighting was warm, golden, and suffocating — designed to flatter the depraved. Laughter cuts the air like broken glass. Masks of beasts and emperors lounge across gilded sofas, their voices slurred, their gaze predatory.

One of the VIPs snaps his fingers lazily. You pour his drink, bow just enough, and say nothing — as trained. You don’t speak. You don’t blink too long. You don’t feel.

“You’re quiet,” the VIP, masked as a Minotaur, slurred, brushing his fingers against your mask. “That’s good. Quiet girls know their place.”

You don’t flinch. At least, not visibly.

He grabbed your wrist, pulling you slightly closer, examining you like a possession. “You’re prettier than the last one. I like the silent ones.”

You remain still and silent. Fighting the urge to pull away because if you did, they win. And if you speak, you lose more. Your hands rest on your knees as you lowered your gaze.

“You’re not new, are you?”

The question stung, but you didn’t flinch. You were burning inside, but you stayed silent. 

“That means you know not to fight.”

A murmur of laughter from the others. One of them raises a toast. Another gestures toward you and makes a cruel joke about how easily the silent ones break.

But something shifts in the room. The air tightens. The laughter dulls into murmurs. 

The door opened, revealing the Front Man.

Black mask. Black coat. His movements sharp and deliberate. Authority trails behind him like a shadow.

Your body reacts before your mind can catch up. You straightened your back, holding your breath as you felt your pulse surge. You kept your head bowed. 

He shouldn't be here. Not during the lounge sessions. Not unless something’s wrong. Yet here he is.

He walked slowly through the room silently as if he were observing and calculating something. His presence stills the most obnoxious of the guests. Even the ones who believe they own this place lower their voices when he moves near.

From across the room, the Front Man’s visor tilts toward you. He seemed to see your… situation. But, he doesn’t stop it. He doesn’t speak.

He simply watches.

You don’t know what’s worse. The VIP’s hand curling around your waist…

…or the silence from the one man who might have stopped it.

The VIP’s hand had finally left your side—only because another escort had arrived, younger and easier to control. You’d bowed out with the grace expected of you, even though your fingers trembled behind your back.

“Go help the servers,” one of the Square guards said. 

You obeyed.

It was almost a relief to stand by the bar cart again, serving champagne, bourbon, whiskey, gin. Anything they asked for. Anything to stop being seen.

“You,” the Square guard pointed at you. “Pour for the Front Man.”

The air around you dropped ten degrees, but your hands moved on instinct. The Front Man stood near the edge of the lounge, silent and still as the walls themselves. You could feel the room shift around him. 

You approached with measured steps, a crystal decanter in hand.

He didn’t look at you when you poured, though you could smell his cologne even beneath your mask. As you were about to finish filling up the glass, he suddenly spoke.

“Stay.”

You froze. You expected to be dismissed. But instead, he stood there, drink in hand, and allowed you to remain beside him. One step behind. Within reach. Claimed without announcement.

“Careful with that one, Front Man!” a portly VIP calls out with a laugh, drink sloshing in his hand. “Keep her too close, and you might find yourself using her for more than just drinks!”

Laughter erupted from his circle as your breath hitched a bit. You didn’t move, and the Front Man didn’t say anything. You weren’t sure if he reacted beneath his mask, but he stayed still. There was no reaction and defense.

He sipped his drink slowly, his gaze never leaving the room. Not even a glance toward the man who joked. Not toward you. But then, you felt a sting inside you.

It wasn’t because of the VIP’s words — you’ve heard worse.

But because he didn’t stop it.

You stood at his side obediently, and he let the insult hang there, untouched. You forced the pain down like glass, straightening your spine. Somehow, his silence hurts more than the joke ever could.

By day, you sweep floors, distribute rations, check that the cameras are functioning. Your circle mask stares back at you from polished metal when you pass the infirmary door. You speak to no one. You salute when required. You blend in easily and invisibly. 

You are not meant to be remembered. That, too, is part of the punishment.

At night, it changes. The suit comes off. The silk goes on. You trade your mask for another kind — faceless still, but far more exposed. An escort — a role no one envies.

No one asks how you ended up there. They already know. 

It’s all because you interfered and saved someone you weren’t meant to. You’re not even sure he remembers. Or if he ever knew. Or if he’s simply chosen to forget because acknowledging what you did would mean acknowledging that even he was once weak enough to bleed.

And weakness isn’t allowed here.

Sometimes, when you stand beside his chair in the VIP lounge and pour his drink, you think about that moment in the dark, years ago. When he was gasping, wounded, barely clinging to life behind a player’s uniform soaked in blood. And you chose to help.

That was the night your position was stripped from you.

Because you weren’t always a circle.

Your hands remember how to hold a gun with authority. Your voice remembers how to give orders.

You were a square.

You remember the weight of command.

But mercy is a betrayal in this place, and your punishment is to be seen and not recognized. It is for you to serve quietly the man you once saved and to suffer silently each time he looks right past you. 

----

A/N: We're back! This time, it's more of a slow burn type of fanfic so please bear with the story. What did you think of how you're a Pink Guard saving the Front Man back when he was still a player and him trying to find you in the crowd? This whole fic will be based on the events of Squid Game Season 1, as it would be like one of the first years of In-ho as the Front Man. :D

Don't forget to leave a comment in this chapter to be tagged on to the next chapter. :)

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taglist: @roachco-k @goingmerry69

[604to647]

Into the Night (Drabble)

0.46K / Detective Tim Rockford x fem!reader

Summary: You wake to Tim leaving for work.

Warnings: 18+ Content (MDNI please), a little less fluffy than the other one-shots but no less loving, established relationship, reference to smut and somno, dirty talk, nicknames (Shutterbug, baby).

A/N: Two Tim stories in 24 hrs, who am I? 😂 This one appeared out of nowhere and was written on my phone 🫣 Part of The Rockford Portfolio series, but can be read alone.

Dividers by @saradika-graphics as always 😘 Followed by At First Light

It’s still dark outside when you wake to the electronic beeping of the gun lock box in your closet opening.

It’s biometric, opening only to Tim’s fingers, so when you roll over to find his side of bed empty and cold, your sleep-addled brain catches up to what you already know.

“Tim?”

He appears like a dream in the closet doorframe, hard lines illuminated by soft lighting - already dressed, gun holster straps hugging his weary shoulders and tight muscles.

Securing his firearm in its place beneath his arm, Tim comes to kneel by your side of the bed, face apologetic and voice gentle, “Didn’t mean to wake you, Shutterbug. Just have go in to work for a bit, okay?”

“Is it dangerous?” your voice small and sleepy, eyes still half closed but full of worry.

“Night shift just needs a little back up is all,” the detective says reassuringly, cradling your head in his warm paw, soothing your temple with his thumb.

He knows you know that he’s purposefully not answering, unwilling to lie; you both know that it’s always dangerous. Your body starts to stir, waking to the realities of the type of things that have the power to pull your loving boyfriend from your warm bed.  Tim knows that you’ll always worry for him, but he won’t steal any more peaceful sleep from you than he already has, so he tries another tactic.

“You remember what you said when we went to sleep last night?”

“What did I say?” You remember perfectly.

“You said not to clean you up because you wanted to feel me dripping out between your legs.  And that in the morning, you would wake me with your mouth, make me hard and throbbing so I could fuck my cum back into your pretty hole.”

“Oh, right.  I said, that,” you grin at the memory.

“Yes, that,” smiles Tim wickedly, “now go back to sleep.  The sooner you’re asleep, the sooner I’ll be fucking you awake, baby.”

A fresh wave of arousal mixed with his spend leaks out of your pussy at Tim’s words, the damp feeling against your inner thigh an assurance that there’s truth in his promise.  Placated, you yawn a contented yawn at the thought.

“Come back to me safe, Detective Rockford,” you murmur, eyes already closing.

“Nothing could keep me from you, Shutterbug,” Tim promises, as he always does, adding, “I love you.”

Your quiet but heartfelt recitation of the same sentiment is the last thing you remember before you drift off into a peaceful slumber.  Detective Rockford presses a soft kiss to your hair and takes one last look at the angelic serenity of your beautiful face - arming himself with the image as he heads out to face the night.

Followed by At First Light

[httpvomitello]

In the Glow of the Lab Light *⁠.⁠✧

donnie x male!reader

The lair was quiet, save for the soft hum of Donnie’s lab equipment. Earlier, it had been alive with energy, laughter bouncing off the walls as you, April, Casey, and the turtles played games and ate way too much pizza. But now, everyone had retreated to their respective corners to sleep.

Everyone except you.

The fire was everywhere, roaring and relentless. You could feel its heat, hear its crackle as it devoured everything in its path. The smoke burned your lungs, making it impossible to breathe. Voices screamed your name, but you couldn’t reach them—couldn’t save them.

You woke up with a sharp gasp, sitting bolt upright. The air in the lair was cool, but it felt suffocating against the sheen of sweat on your skin. Your heart raced, pounding so loudly in your ears you barely noticed the tears streaming down your face.

You rubbed your hands over your face, fingers brushing against the scars that marked your skin. The burns—visible reminders of a night you could never forget. A night that had taken everything from you.

You didn’t notice the soft footsteps approaching until a voice, gentle and laced with concern, broke through the silence.

“Y/N?”

You turned to see Donnie standing in the doorway, his bo staff in one hand and a frown creasing his brow.

“I heard you,” he said, stepping closer. “Are you… alright?”

“I’m fine,” you said quickly, your voice shaky and unconvincing. “Just a bad dream. Go back to bed, Donnie.”

But he didn’t move. Instead, he set his bo staff aside and crouched down next to your bed. “That didn’t sound like just a bad dream,” he said, his voice quieter now. “Do you… want to talk about it?”

You hesitated, your hands clenching the blanket tightly. You’d never told him the full story. You’d never told anyone, really. The scars on your body were explanation enough for most people. But Donnie wasn’t most people. Or turtle...

“It’s just… memories,” you finally admitted. “Of the fire.”

His eyes flickered to your scars for just a moment before meeting yours again. “The fire that…?”

You nodded. “That took my family. I couldn’t save them.”

Donnie’s gaze softened further, and he sat down beside you. “Y/N, it wasn’t your fault.”

“I know,” you said quickly, though the words felt hollow. “It’s just… it always feels so real. Like I’m back there again.”

He was quiet for a moment, and then, without a word, he reached out and placed a hand on your shoulder. The gesture was small, but it grounded you.

“I can’t pretend to understand what you went through,” Donnie said, his voice steady. “But I can promise you this: you’re not alone now. If you ever feel like the memories are too much, I’m here. You're my boyfriend, and I don't want to see you suffering because of this, thinking you can't tell me anything. I'm here for you.”

You looked at him, the glow from his lab casting soft purple light across his face. “Thanks, babe.”

A small smile tugged at the corners of his lips. “It’s what I do. Emotional support genius, at your service.”

Despite everything, you chuckled. “Is that an official title?”

“It is now,” he said, standing up. “Come on. Let’s go to the lab. I have some projects I could use your input on. Distractions are an underrated coping mechanism, you know.”

You followed him, grateful for the excuse to leave your nightmare behind.

You followed him to his workstation, where he rummaged through a drawer before pulling out a sleek, circular device. “This,” he began, holding it up, “is a prototype I’ve been working on. It’s designed to help regulate stress responses.”

“How does it work?” you asked, curiosity momentarily overriding your anxiety.

He smiled faintly, the excitement of explaining his invention clear in his tone. “It uses biometric feedback to monitor your heart rate and breathing patterns. When it detects elevated levels of stress, it emits a calming frequency.”

You raised an eyebrow. “So, it’s a stress-busting gadget?”

“Essentially,” he said, handing it to you. “I haven’t tested it much yet, but… I thought it might help you. Especially on nights like this.”

Your chest tightened, but this time, it wasn’t from panic. “You made this for me?”

“Well, I made it for anyone who might need it,” he said, his voice dropping into his usual awkward ramble. “But yes, I had you in mind specifically. Your well-being is—uh—important to me. Very important.”

The corners of your mouth lifted into a small smile after kissing his cheek “Thank you, Donnie. Really.”

He cleared his throat, clearly flustered. “It’s what I do. Genius inventor and, apparently, boyfriend extraordinaire.”

You chuckled softly, reaching out to take his hand. “You’re definitely both.”

Donnie squeezed your hand gently, his thumb brushing over your scarred skin without hesitation. “Y/N, I can’t erase what happened, but I’ll do whatever I can to make things easier for you.”

“I know,” you said, the weight on your chest lifting just a little. “And i love you for that.”

The two of you stayed like that for a while, the steady hum of the lab filling the silence.

[pancaketax]

What Remains | Chapter 18 The Hunt (Tony Stark x M! Reader)

TW : Detailed depictions of injuries and abuse. Mentions of past abuse Summary : Tony Stark becomes something beyond human , a machine driven by icy rage, relentless focus, and a singular goal: to find you. After receiving a horrifying call laced with sadistic cruelty and a scream he instantly recognizes as yours, Stark enters a sleepless, foodless, voiceless trance, transforming his office into a war room. Every screen, every algorithm, every ounce of technology is bent to his will in a digital manhunt for your location. When Jarvis finally locates a faint signal in an abandoned warehouse, Stark launches without hesitation, donning a specialized combat suit built for one purpose: ending this.

word count: 16.1k

Previous Chapter - Next Chapter Stark hasn’t closed his eyes. Not for a second. He hasn’t swallowed a bite, hasn’t taken a sip of water. He hasn’t moved from his desk since the exact moment that voice slithered into his ear, slick and jagged like a rusted blade. Since that obscene breath passed through the line, that whisper soaked in menace and sadistic delight. Since that scream that raw, flayed scream, human, far too human ripped from a throat he knows too well, just before silence fell, sharp as a guillotine. Something broke then. Not in him. No. Something froze.

He’s no longer a man, not really. Not in this suspended moment, where even time seems too afraid to move forward. He’s become engine. Mechanism. Open-heart alert system. His blood doesn’t circulate it pulses, furious, carried by a cold, methodical, almost clinical rage. He is anger, but an anger without shouting. An anger that thinks, that calculates, that watches, that waits. A storm contained in a steel cylinder, ready to explode, but for now channeling all its violence into the glacial logic of action.

In the office, the tension is almost tangible. The air feels charged, saturated with something indefinable a blend of ozone, electricity, and pure stress. Every surface vibrates slightly, as if the metal itself shared the heartbeat of its occupant. The silence isn’t soothing. It’s oppressive, built on thick layers of concentration, anticipation, restrained fury. Only mechanical sounds mark the space: the faint crackle of a screen refreshing, the nervous clicks of his fingers on holographic interfaces, the low vibrations of the servers in the adjoining room, humming at full capacity. Around him, a dozen screens stream data without pause. Some display ultra-precise satellite maps, sweeping over New York rooftops for any suspicious movement. Others track mobile signals, tracing the latest paths of every device even remotely connected to the target. Still others comb through databases, merge biometric information, detect faces, match voice prints. A thermal image of a building overlays a 3D city map. An audio feed scrolls at high speed, saturated with static. Nothing escapes analysis. Nothing is left to chance.

Stark is motionless, but every muscle in his body is tense. His back is hunched, elbows braced on the desk edge, fingers clenched around the projected interface hovering above the glass. His bloodshot eyes lock onto the central screen without blinking. His eyelids are heavy, but he doesn’t close them. He can’t. Not until the target is found. Not until the one he’s searching for is no longer missing. He won’t allow himself the luxury of weakness. He swore he’d never let anyone be hurt again. And he holds to his vows the way others hold to weapons. The blue glow of the monitors cuts across his face with surgical cruelty. Every shadow on his skin is a confession: fatigue, deep dark circles, drawn features, hollow cheekbones. But these marks don’t diminish him. They add a near-inhuman intensity to his gaze, a ruthless clarity. A will that, for now, eclipses even the most basic biological needs. He hasn’t slept, because he doesn’t have the right. He hasn’t eaten, because the thought hasn’t even occurred to him. His body is secondary. It’s nothing but a vessel for the mission.

He murmurs sometimes. Commands, codes, equations. He speaks to no one, but the AI responds instantly. Every word he utters is sharp, precise, guided by a logic untouched by panic. One name comes back again and again. A biometric file. A GPS identifier. Trackers. Coordinates. He’s no longer looking for a person — he’s hunting a fixed point in the storm. The center of a search and rescue system. And Stark is ready to flatten entire city blocks to bring that point back to him. When the internal alerts go off soft, discreet, almost polite signaling a drop in blood pressure, critical dehydration, or prolonged hypervigilance, he silences them with a flick of the hand. He shuts them off. Nothing exists outside this room, outside this moment. Outside this mission. The rage is there, but tamed, carved into a weapon.

Somewhere, he knows he’s crossing the line. That he’s nearing an invisible boundary. But he doesn’t care. He’s seen too many people die, too many names fade into archives. This time, he won’t be too late. So he keeps going. Relentlessly. He cross-references data, filters messages, follows leads. He digs, over and over, down to the bone. And behind him, the world can tremble all it wants. He’ll hold. Because he made a promise. Because this time, no one will disappear into the shadows without him tearing them out of the night.

His eyes never leave the screens. They’re locked in, anchored, consumed to the point of obsession. They devour every bit of information, every image, every pixel variation, as if he might uncover a hidden confession. Nothing escapes him. No movement, no data, no anomaly in the flow. His pupils, dilated from exhaustion, cling to the smallest detail, hunting a trace, a footprint, a breath left behind by the one he’s chasing without pause. He’s isolated search zones. Redrawn entire sections of the city. Compared every map of New York with thermal readings, overlaying layers like a surgeon operating through urban tissue. He’s overridden protections on multiple private networks without hesitation. Intercepted anonymous communications, analyzed movement patterns, recalibrated his internal software to tailor the algorithms to a single, solitary target. The tools he designed for international diplomacy, for global crisis response — he’s repurposed them now for a personal hunt. A cold war fought in the digital guts of the city.

And always, he comes back to that name. That shadow. That absence. Matthew. A ghost with no fingerprint, no signal, no flaw to exploit. But Stark refuses that idea. No. That kind of man doesn’t vanish. That kind of man always leaves traces — out of pride. Out of carelessness. Out of vanity. And if it means turning the city inside out, if it means digging down to reinforced concrete, to buried cables and the forgotten strata of the network — then so be it. He’s ready to search through the world’s marrow to find what remains. Cables snake across the floor, twisted like raw nerves, connected to makeshift terminals. Holograms hover in the air, pulsing with spectral, slow, almost organic light. The room, once functional and sterile, has lost its ordinary shape. This is no longer an office. It’s a clandestine command post. A digital war cell born out of urgency, powered by fear and brute will. On one wall, an unstable projection flickers: a gridded map of New York, each red zone corresponding to growing probabilities, invisible tension. Alternating, a partially reconstructed file plays pulled from a burner phone. The lines of code shimmer as if still resisting comprehension.

And at the center of it all, him. Motionless. A sculptor of chaos. He doesn’t move an inch, but his mind roars. He calculates, projects, anticipates at a speed even his most advanced AIs couldn’t match. He’s faster than the machines, because this time, it’s not for a global mission. It’s not to protect a council or a treaty. It’s not for peace. It’s personal. And nothing is more dangerous than a man like him when he’s acting for himself. His face is frozen. Carved from stone. No expression filters through. No emotion leaks out. He hasn’t spoken in hours. Not a word. His jaw is locked, clenched. His chin trembles sometimes under the pressure, but he doesn’t give in. His eyelids, heavy with fatigue, blink on autopilot but his gaze stays sharp, cutting. That look… it belongs to a man who’s already made up his mind. It’s no longer a question of if. It’s a matter of when, how, and how much time is left. And above all, of what will be left of the other man once he finds him. He is cold. Precise. Fatally focused. Each beat of his heart seems to align with the hum of the machines. He’s perfectly synchronized with his environment. A machine among machines. He’s become the system’s core. The cold, methodical intelligence of a silent hunt — carried out without rest, without sleep, without mercy.

The door slides open with a discreet, almost timid sigh. As if it, too, understood that this moment must not be disturbed. No sound dares to break the fragile balance of the room. Not here. Not now. Even the walls seem to hold their breath, petrified by the intensity that fills the space. The bluish light of the screens slices through the artificial darkness in shifting shards, casting sharp, vibrating shadows across Stark’s features — like carvings made by a blade. He doesn’t turn his head. He doesn’t need to look. He already knows. Nothing escapes him. His silence is a barrier, a verdict. He’s there. Frozen. Silent. Unshakable. And around him, the universe seems to understand that something has been set in motion. Something that can no longer be stopped.

Pepper enters without a word. The silence wraps around her instantly, like a heavy veil she doesn’t dare pierce. She says nothing — not yet. Everything about her is more subdued than usual, as if her body has attuned itself to the electric tension of the room. Her usual heels have been traded for flat shoes, chosen mechanically, without real thought. She knew when she got up this morning. No need to read the reports or check the alerts. She felt it, in every fiber of her being — this day would be different. Draining. Slow. Hard. And Tony, on days like this, is not a man to reason with. He becomes a wall. Steel. An unbreachable frontier. This isn’t a state crisis, not one of those media storms they’ve learned to face together, side by side, dressed to perfection with rehearsed smiles. No. This is something else. A silent war. Private. Intimate. And in that kind of war, Tony lets no one in. Almost no one.

In her hands, she holds two mugs. One is for her — a reflex gesture, more for the weight than the content, because she’ll set it down somewhere and forget it immediately. The other is for him. Strong coffee, black, unsweetened, scorching. Just how he likes it. She didn’t ask, didn’t guess. She knows. Because for years, she’s known his silences, his mood swings, his automatic habits. She knows the rare things that bring him a sliver of stability when everything is falling apart. She walks slowly. With that quiet elegance that is uniquely hers. Each step is precise, measured. She avoids the cables snaking across the floor like exposed veins. Dodges the hastily pushed chairs, the luminous angles of suspended holograms hanging in the air, slow and unstable like open wounds. Everything around her pulses, breathes, crackles. The smell of steaming coffee mixes with metallic fumes, with the warm emissions of overheating machines. A fleeting human note in this lair transformed into a war organ.

She approaches. Just a few feet from him now. The blue halo of the screens washes over her, casting cold, almost supernatural shards onto her skin. She still doesn’t say a word. Because she, too, senses what’s happening here. She reads silence like an ancient language. She knows that if she speaks too soon, too quickly, she could shatter everything — the balance, the tension, the fierce concentration holding him upright. Tony doesn’t even turn his head. He doesn’t need to. He knows it’s her. He saw, without really looking, her silhouette trembling on the standby screen, like a spectral apparition. He recognized her breath — controlled, steady, modulated by habit not to disrupt critical moments. He felt her presence the way you feel a warm current crossing a frozen room: discreet, but undeniable. She’s here.

But he doesn’t move. Not an inch. His fingers keep dancing over the interfaces, his eyes fixed on the data. His jaw remains locked, his posture rigid, unyielding. He doesn’t reject her presence. He accepts it without acknowledging it. She’s part of the setting, part of the very structure of this ongoing war. She is the silent anchor he’ll never ask for, but needs all the same. And she knows it. So she stays. Present. Still. Mug in hand. Waiting for him to speak — or to break. His fingers glide over the holographic interface with almost surgical precision. They graze the projected data blocks in the air, moving them, reorganizing, dissecting them as if trying to carve raw truths buried under layers of code, pixels, and silence. A building on 43rd Street. An unusual thermal signature spotted at 3:12 a.m. A encrypted phone line briefly located in South Brooklyn, before vanishing into a labyrinth of anonymous relays. He isolates. He cross-references. He sorts. He discards. He starts again. Every manipulation is an act of war. He develops a thousand hypotheses per minute, evaluates them, abandons them, replaces them. A thousand leads, a thousand fleeting micro-truths, vanishing as soon as he tries to fix them. And always, that voice in his head. That twisted, wet breath haunting him since the call. That scream — shrill, inhuman. That panic. And the silence that followed. The kind of silence only blood knows how to echo.

Pepper, still silent, watches. She hasn’t moved since entering. Her eyes shift from the screen to Tony’s face, then to his hands. She sees what he refuses to admit: his movements are less precise. They tremble sometimes. Nervous flickers, involuntary, imperceptible to others — but not to her. There’s that tiny jolt in his palm when two images overlap without matching. That subtle twitch of his fingers when the algorithm returns an empty result. That tension in his joints with every failure, every dead end. She takes a step forward. Slowly, silently. She places the mug at the edge of the desk, just within his field of vision. Not too close, not too far. She sets it where he could reach for it without thinking, by reflex, if some part of him still remembered how to drink something. If his lips still knew how to welcome anything other than orders. But deep down, she knows he probably won’t. Not now. Maybe not at all. She doesn’t touch him. Doesn’t interrupt. But her eyes never leave him. They linger on his neck, that taut, rigid line, almost painful. On his shoulders, hunched forward, drawn tight like bows ready to snap. She reads the exhaustion in the way his muscles clench, in how he holds his breath when results elude him, in that violent stubbornness that keeps him from stepping back — even for a second.

Then she speaks. Barely. Her voice is a whisper. A caress in a space saturated with tension. A suspended breath, respectful. As if she were speaking to a wounded animal, to a raw heart that a single harsh word might cause to shatter.

— "You should drink something."

No reproach. No judgment. Not even any real expectation. Just an invitation, soft, almost unreal in this room ruled by the cold light of screens and the hum of machines. A reminder, simple and human, that he still has a body. That he’s still a man. Not just an overheated mind, a burning brain, dissociated from everything else. She doesn’t expect a response. She doesn’t even want one. What she’s offering isn’t a solution. It’s a breath. An interlude. A hand offered at a distance, without conditions, in the eye of a cyclone she can’t stop — but refuses to abandon. Stark doesn’t answer. The silence remains, impenetrable. But she sees it. That blink. Singular. Slow. Almost lagging. Like a discreet malfunction in an otherwise perfect line of code. A micro-event, almost invisible but for her, it means everything. He heard her. He understood. Somewhere beneath the layers of adrenaline and frozen focus, her words registered. But he can’t stop. Not yet. Not while what he’s searching for remains out of reach.

She moves a little closer. Her steps are slow, calculated. The slightest movement could shatter the fragile equilibrium he maintains between lucidity and overload. She skirts the screens projecting a relentless flow of data, passes through the light beams of overlapping maps, walks through the holograms dissecting New York in real time: facades, sewer lines, rooftops, drone paths, shifting heat points. A fractured digital world, reconstructed for a single mission. And she, the only organic presence in this sanctuary of glass and light, walks forward until she’s beside him. Upright. Calm. Unshakable. She stands there, just a meter away. A silhouette in the bluish light. A presence. An anchor. Non-intrusive, but constant. And in that data-saturated silence, she looks at the screen in front of him. Blurry images flash by. Figures captured by an old security camera. Red dots blink in the darkness of a poorly mapped basement. Nothing conclusive. Nothing obvious. But she sees beyond that. She’s not looking at the screen. She’s looking at him.

She sees what he doesn’t show. What he himself struggles to ignore. That back, a bit more hunched than before. That hand clenched around the desk edge, knuckles white with tension. That breath, irregular, barely perceptible — but betraying an inner fight. That exhaustion, layered in invisible strata, like ash over an ember that refuses to die. He’ll never admit it. That’s not an option. But she knows. He’s burning out. Eroding. Slowly bleeding out everything that keeps him human. So she acts. Gently, but without hesitation. She reaches out. Picks up the mug left on the edge of the desk, still faintly steaming. And she moves it. Places it right in front of him. Where his gaze can’t avoid it. Where his fingers could reach it without thinking. A mundane gesture, almost insignificant. But heavy with meaning.

— "You need to stay sharp." Her voice is soft, but firm. It cuts through the thickness of the moment. "If he’s counting on you, he needs you at your best. Not collapsing."

He stays still for another second. Then, slowly, his gaze lifts. Like he’s returning from a far-off place, from a tension zone where the real world no longer reaches. He looks at her. Directly in the eyes. And she sees. She sees everything. The fatigue eating away at the edges. The redness at the corners of his eyes, signs of brutal sleeplessness. But most of all, that clarity. That burning precision still intact in the depths of his pupils. It’s a gaze that doesn’t waver. The gaze of a man broken a thousand times — but still standing. And in that gaze, she reads three things.

Fear. Raw. Visceral. The fear of not making it in time. Rage. Pure. Mechanical. The kind he holds back to avoid destroying everything.

And the promise. Absolute. Irrevocable.

— "I’m going to get him out."

No conditional. No wiggle room. He doesn’t say he’ll try. He doesn’t say if he’s still alive. He refuses to let those phrases exist. He leaves no space for doubt. Because doubt would be a crack. And if he cracks now, he collapses. She nods. Once. That’s all it takes. A silent agreement. A trust she offers him, without questions. Then she places a hand on his shoulder. Right there. A simple contact, but real. Solid. A light, firm pressure. Just enough for him to know he’s not alone. That she’s here. That she will remain here. Even if there’s nothing more she can do. An anchor in the chaos.

— "Then drink."

She adds nothing else. No need. Not now. And then she turns on her heel, leaving behind that room saturated with tension and blue light, walking away in silence, her steps barely audible on the hard floor. She slips away as she came — discreetly, with that silent dignity that’s hers alone. No unnecessary gesture. No look back. Just the quiet certainty that he heard her. That he understood. And that he’ll do what he must. A breath. A second. Then another. Stark remains still. His eyes still locked on the numbers, on the blurry images, on the shattered map of New York pulsing slowly before him. A suspended moment, almost frozen in code and light projections. And then, slowly, as if his body weighed a ton, his fingers stretch out. Slow. Almost hesitant. They brush the mug, grasp it. Raise it to his lips.

One sip. Scalding. Bitter. Perfect.

The taste, too strong, seizes his tongue, his throat, then burns its way down like a reminder. He closes his eyes for a second. Not out of pleasure. Out of necessity. Because that simple contact — the liquid, the heat, the sensation — reminds him that he still exists outside the war machine he’s become. And then, almost immediately, his eyes open again. Latch onto the screen. The map. The hunt. The engine restarts. But behind the invisible armor, behind the hard gaze and automated gestures, the man is still there. Just enough. For now. The mug, barely set down on the desk, hits the surface with a muffled clack. The sound, though minimal, seems to shake the atmosphere. Stark exhales. One of those irritated sighs that vibrate between clenched teeth, that fatigue turns into frustration, and frustration reshapes into buried anger. His fingers snap against the desk, nervously. Not a blow. Just a dry, rhythmic sound. Accumulated tension seeking an outlet, a culprit, a breaking point. Something to strike — or someone. But no one here is responsible. No one except him.

And then, it bursts out.

— "Fuck… why didn’t he activate it?"

The voice is low. But it slices the air like a blade. Sharp. Brittle. It doesn’t need to be loud to carry. It’s so charged with tension that it seems to vibrate in the walls. No explosive rage. No yelling. Just that clean line, that icy edge that says it all. It’s not a question. It’s an unbearable fact. A flaw in the plan. A betrayal of logic. He doesn’t need to clarify. The device, the gesture, the fear behind it all of it is obvious. In the hallway, Pepper has stopped. Without realizing it. As if her muscles responded to that voice before her mind did. She’s frozen. And she understands. She knows too. He’s talking about the device. That small, discreet piece, barely bigger than a coin, that he slipped into an anodized case with a falsely detached air. That neutral tone he adopts when the stakes are too high to admit. He presented it like a gadget. Just another safety.

A thing for emergencies. "Press and hold for three seconds" he said. Simple. Effective. And his location would be transmitted to the Tower in real time, with immediate triangulation and constant tracking. He insisted, without seeming to. Like a father too proud of a dangerous toy. Like a man who’s already lost everything once and won’t let chance roll the dice again. The kind of thing he doesn’t give to everyone. The kind of thing he only entrusts once. And even then. Under the pretense of humor. Veiled in sarcasm. And yet, you didn’t activate it. That thought gnaws at him. Consumes him. Because if it wasn’t forgetfulness, then it’s worse. Then maybe there wasn’t time. Or maybe he was afraid. Or maybe you thought it wouldn’t make a difference. And that Tony can’t accept.

Because the alternative… he can’t even imagine it. He built it in just a few hours. One sleepless night, a few curses, two black coffees, and a diagram sketched on a crumpled napkin. Because he was tired. Tired of not knowing. Tired of not being able to protect. Tired of seeing him wander through New York like a ghost without an anchor, sleeping in sketchy squats, living on the generosity of people as reliable as March weather. He was done with uncertainty, with instability. So he made something simple, small, efficient. A distress beacon. A miniature safeguard. Mostly to protect him from himself. He even tucked a secondary mic inside. Discreet, compressed in anodized metal layers. Inaudible to the human ear. Just a sensor, a passive ear, in case something went wrong. Because he knew it could go wrong. Because deep down, he felt that danger was never far. And now? Nothing. No signal. No vibration. No blinking light. No trace. The void. Nothingness. The shadow of a silence that screams. Abruptly, Stark spins in his chair. The movement is sharp, abrupt. His fingers slam down on the projected keyboard in the air, striking commands, executing code, calling internal logs. He pulls up the history. Checks for connection attempts. Scans the security logs, network access, secondary frequencies. No recording. No triggered signal. No distress call. The device was never activated.

— "It was right there." His voice is hoarse. Slow. Painfully contained. "Within reach. Three fucking seconds. And I could’ve…"

He cuts himself off. Right there. The breath caught. No anger. Not yet. It’s not rage. It’s vertigo. An inner fall. He sees the scene again. Precisely. In the hall, just days ago. He was holding the little device between his fingers, between two sarcastic lines. A detached, mocking tone, as always. Trying not to push too hard. Not to seem worried. He said it with a smirk, hands in his pockets: "Just in case. It beeps, it blinks, I show up. Easy."

And he remembers. That hesitation. The lowered gaze. That muttered thank you, without real conviction. As if it didn’t really concern him. As if he didn’t believe it. As if he was afraid to disturb and didn’t think he was worth coming for. Stark clenches his teeth. Bitterness sticks in his throat.

— "He didn’t get it, did he?"

The question escapes. Not aimed at anyone. Not really. He’s speaking to the void, the desk, the walls. To himself. To the echo in his head.

— "He thinks it only works for others." His voice tightens. Fractures. "That no one comes for him. That he has to wait for it to get worse. That he has to nearly die to justify help."

His fingers slap a screen with the back of his hand. A furious swipe. The images vanish in a spray of light.

— "Shit. Shit."

He gets up. Too abruptly. His chair rolls back. He paces, circles, like a caged beast. A shadow of armor without the armor. He runs a hand through his hair, ruffling it without thinking. His gestures are nervous, disordered. He teeters between genius logic and raw emotion.

— "I had him in my pocket," he breathes. "I could’ve found him in under two minutes."

His fist hits the back of the chair. A dry strike. Not brutal. But deep. A dull echo that lingers in the air.

— "But no. He keeps it on him like a fucking keychain. A symbolic thing. A gadget he doesn’t want to use. Because he doesn’t want to be a bother. Because he doesn’t want to raise the alarm."

He suddenly freezes. His breath halts. He stares at the floor as if seeking an answer no data can provide. The silence stretches. Then, in an almost inaudible murmur, rougher, more bitter:

— "He’s convinced no one’s coming."

And that thought. That simple idea. It destroys him from the inside. He closes his eyes. Clenches his fists so tightly his knuckles turn white. He fights. To hold back what rises. He won’t say he’s afraid. He won’t say he’s in pain. That he blames himself until it eats him alive. No. He won’t say it. So he turns back. Resumes his place. His fingers return to the controls. His gaze locks onto the screens. The maps. The fragmented data. What he still has. What he can still control. Because if he can’t turn back time… then he’ll find a way to catch up. No matter the cost. And he mutters under his breath:

— "I’m going to find him. Device or not."

Then he types. Not to write. Not to command. He types like someone striking. As if his fingers could punch through matter, bend the universe, shatter the whole world through the silent keys of a holographic keyboard. Every keystroke is a discharge. A sharp hit. A blow aimed at that invisible wall he can’t break through. A fight of data against the void, of will against absence. He types with an urgency that allows no delay, no hesitation. As if life, somewhere, depended on it.

Because it is.

And in the meantime, silence remains. Insidious. Heavy. The tenacious shadow of the action that never happened. The one that would have been enough. Three seconds. A press of the thumb. And he would have known. He would have moved. He would have run. He would have acted. He would have been there. But no. That absence, Stark feels it lodged in his throat, like acid he can’t swallow. It rises, clings, radiates. It stays, constant, until he brings him back. Until he has proof tangible, irrefutable that it’s still possible. That he’s still alive. The minutes pass. Like blades. Sharp. Precise. Unforgiving.

They cut into his focus, erode his patience, chip away at his certainty. Every second is a brutal reminder that time is passing. And this time, time isn’t an ally. He feels it slipping over his skin like a cold blade that can’t be stopped. But he doesn’t stop. He doesn’t blink. The office is bathed in semi-darkness. The blinds are down, the outside light filtered, as if daylight itself no longer had the right to enter. Only the screens cast their bluish glow on the walls, on the cables, on the opaque glass. And on him. That cold, spectral light slices across his closed-off face in sharp angles. Hollowed cheekbones. Brow etched with tension lines. Lips tight. He looks carved from quartz. Cold. Hard. Unyielding.

His eyes, fixed, barely blink. They follow lines of code, coordinates, overlaid maps, signal analyses, with inhuman precision. His stare is locked. Obsessed. He doesn’t falter. He scans. He waits. His fingers still move. Barely. With mechanical regularity. An almost hypnotic rhythm. They glide over holographic interfaces, brush through data windows, launch diagnostics, cross-reference streams. There’s no hesitation anymore, no improvisation. Only a logical sequence. An algorithm embodied in a man who refuses to give up. He doesn’t speak. Hasn’t for a while. He doesn’t even think — not in the usual sense. Human thoughts, full of doubts, memories, emotions, have been pushed to the background. He leaves space only for function. He calculates. He maps. He eliminates. He acts. Because that’s all he can do. And because as long as he acts, as long as he moves, as long as he searches, he’s not imagining the worst. And the countdown continues — silent, relentless. Invisible but omnipresent, it eats at his nerves like a tourniquet pulled too tight. A constant, dull pressure. There’s no number on the screen, no red blinking timer, but he feels it. In every heartbeat. In every passing minute, every interface click, every breath that’s too short, too sharp. He feels it under his skin like slow-diffusing poison.

Twenty-four hours.

That was the deadline. The ultimatum. Spat in his face with disgusting insolence, with the kind of sneering arrogance Stark knows too well. A provocation. A signature. A trap — not even hidden. A price laid out in black and white. The kind of message sent when you’re sure you have the upper hand. But it wasn’t the money that kept him awake all night. Not the numbered threat. Not the offshore account, not the conditions. That, he could have handled. Bought peace. Hacked the system. Turned the trap back on its maker. That’s not what stopped him from blinking, that jammed his throat, that retracted his muscles like a shock. It’s something else. It’s the image. Frozen. Unstable. Blurry. But recognizable. It’s the sound. That breath. That scream. Distorted by distance. By network static. But raw. Human. Ripped out. So real that even now, he still hears it. He could replay it in his head a hundred times, a thousand. He knows it by heart. The tone, the break in the voice, the burst of brutal panic just before everything was swallowed by silence.

That fucking silence. That’s what’s destroying him. What eats at him. What stops him from breathing normally. The silence afterward. The absolute nothing. That break that said everything, summed everything up. That screamed at him what he failed to hear in time. What he should have seen coming. That silence — Stark will never forgive it. Not the other. Not himself. Then suddenly, a voice slices through the air. Soft. Controlled. Synthetic. Like a strand of silk stretched to the limit, about to snap — but still holding.

— “Mr. Stark.”

He doesn’t even turn his head. He’d recognize that voice among a thousand. It’s been there forever — in his ear, in his walls, in his head. An extension of himself.

— “I’m listening, Jarvis.”

— “I believe I’ve found something.”

A shiver. Cold. Brutal. It shoots up his spine like an electric surge. For one heartbeat, his heart forgets to beat. Then everything reactivates all at once. Adrenaline. Tension. Hypervigilance.

— “Talk.”

Instantly, one of the main screens expands. The map of the city appears — familiar and vast — then begins a slow zoom. Details sharpen. Colors darken. The center pulls back. The frame shifts. Outskirts. Sparse buildings. Wasteland. Finally, a precise point. An abandoned industrial zone. Gray. Timeworn. Forgotten by the world. Drowned in abandonment fog. Where no one looks anymore. Where things are hidden when no one wants them found. Coordinates blink at the bottom of the screen. Precise. Cold. Real.

— “A minimal network activity was detected,” Jarvis continues. “Almost nothing. A very weak signal — just a few microseconds of connection — but enough to leave a trace. It was a disposable phone.”

Stark steps forward. He’s drawn to the map like it’s magnetic. His eyes latch onto the screen, fix on it, hold. He sees beyond the image. Through the ruined facades, under the layers of metal and dust. He wants to believe he can see what’s hidden there. That something is waiting.

— “Can you confirm?”

— “The model’s signature matches what we detected during the call. It briefly connected to a secondary relay antenna nearby. It might’ve gone unnoticed, but—”

He’s no longer listening. Or rather, he hears everything. He registers it all, but his mind is already elsewhere. Locked in. Compressed around a single fact. A single certainty. His thoughts tighten, converge on a single point. A red dot. Blinking. Clear. An abandoned warehouse. No activity for over ten years. No cameras. No patrols. No recorded movement. Nothing. The kind of place you choose when you don’t want to be found. The kind of place where secrets are buried. Or people. And then, a single thought imposes itself. Emerges from the chaos like a brutal flash of truth. A certainty branded into his mind like a red-hot iron.

You’re there.

Not maybe. Not probably. Not possibly. You’re there. His fist clenches. Slowly. Each finger curling until the knuckles turn white. He closes his eyes. One second. One breath. One anchor. Then opens them again. And in his gaze, there’s no more doubt. No more fear. No more wandering emotion. Just steel. Just fire. Just the mission.

— “Prepare everything. Now.”

And in that exact moment, the whole world narrows. There’s no more sound. No more fatigue. No more failure. Only this. A straight line. A single target. A burning urgency. To get you out. Pepper is there. Just behind him. Motionless. Straight as a blade. Her arms crossed tightly against her, in a posture that might seem cold to someone who doesn’t know her. But it’s not distance. It’s a barrier. A dam. A desperate attempt to hold back what she feels rising.

The pale glow of the screens casts his shadow on the floor, long and sharp, like a silent specter frozen in anticipation. Around them, the room is bathed in incomplete darkness, pierced only by the soft flickering blue halos on the glass surfaces — witnesses to this sleepless night that stretches on and on.

His face, usually so mobile, so expressive — the face that knows how to smile even during the worst press conferences, that can reassure with a single look — is now closed. Frozen. Like carved in marble. His jaw slightly clenched. His brows drawn in a barely perceptible but unyielding tension. But what betrays it all are his eyes. A gleam, contained. A discreet fire. Both anxious and annoyed. A light that flickers between anguish and a barely concealed anger.

She watches him. In silence. Lips tight. Shoulders tense. And she knows. She knows exactly what’s going on in his head. She knows the gears, the silences, the calculated movements. She recognizes this posture. This calm. This false calm. This almost elegant stillness that always comes just before impact. She’s seen it once. Maybe twice, in her entire life. And each time, something broke afterward. A wall. A promise. Someone. So she speaks. Not to convince him. But to try and hold him back for just one more moment at the edge of the abyss.

— “You should wait for the police, Tony.”

Her voice is calm. Measured. Perfectly composed. But it cuts through the air like a blade honed too well. It slices without shouting, without striking. It hits the mark. He doesn’t respond. Not right away. He moves. Slowly at first, then with dreadful precision. He reaches for the back of his chair, pulls his leather jacket from it — the one he wears when everything becomes too real, too dangerous, too personal. He puts it on in one sharp, fast motion. Automatic. Without even thinking. Everything is rehearsed. His movements are crisp, stripped of any hesitation. He’s no longer reflecting. He’s in motion.

One hand slides into the side drawer of his desk. The metal barely creaks. He pulls out a small object, barely bigger than a watch case. Smooth. Chrome. Discreet. He inspects it for a fraction of a second, spins it between his fingers, gauges it. His gaze clings to it, focused, as if making sure it’s the right one. Then he slips it into the inner pocket of his jacket. A tracker. A prototype. Maybe both. Maybe something else. When Tony Stark leaves like this, he never leaves empty-handed. And in the suspended tension of the room, in that moment when every gesture weighs like a decision, Pepper feels her heart pound harder. Because she knows, once again, he won’t change his mind. Not this time.

Without a word. He crosses the room like someone going to war. No haste, no visible tension. Just a methodical, silent advance, heavy with intention. Each step echoes faintly on the floor, absorbed by the cold light of the still-lit screens, by the walls saturated with nervous electricity. He heads toward the elevator, straight, relentless, like a guided missile.

— “Tony.”

This time, her voice cuts through the space. Louder. Sharper. She’s dropped the polite calm. There’s urgency in that word, a crack, something tense, fragile. Pepper steps forward, rounds the table. It’s not a command. It’s not a plea either. It’s a disguised entreaty, cloaked in reason, offered as a last attempt to connect. She’s searching for a crack. A hold. Any one. Not to stop him — she’s never held that illusion — but to slow the momentum. To crack the armor. To make him think. Just one more second.

— “This is exactly what he wants. For you to charge in headfirst. For him to have control.”

He stops. His body freezes all at once, mid-distance from the elevator whose open doors wait, patient, like the jaws of a steel beast. Slowly, he turns toward her. Not violently. Not with irritation. But with that icy precision that, in him, equals all the angers in the world. He looks at her. And his gaze is black. Not empty. Not crazed. No. It’s a sharp gaze. Cutting. Shaped like a glass blade, able to slice cleanly without ever shaking. He stares at her, without flinching, without softening the impact. His shoulders slightly raised, chin lowered, neck taut. A compact, tense posture. Not defensive. Not exactly. More like a predator’s. The eyes of a man who sees no alternate paths. Only the target.

— “You think he has control?”

His voice is low. Deep. Vibrating with that particular intensity he only uses in very rare moments — when everything tips, when what remains inside compresses until it becomes unstoppable. Every word is controlled. Measured. Almost calmly delivered. But in their precision, there’s something unsettling. A promise. A fracture forming. Silence falls behind that phrase. Suddenly. A thick silence. Charged. Almost unbreathable. It lasts only a few seconds, but they seem to stretch time. The elevator still waits behind him. The slightly open doors pulse softly, as if they sensed the suspended moment. Then he adds, without raising his voice, without looking away:

— “He made the biggest mistake of his life taking him.”

And it’s not a threat. It’s not provocation. It’s a verdict. A raw, cold truth carved in marble. It’s a fact. And it’s far worse than a scream. Then he turns away. One last time. And he steps into the elevator. He doesn’t look back. Doesn’t leave a phrase hanging. Doesn’t try to reassure. He disappears into the steel maw, and the doors close on him with a quiet hiss. Pepper remains there. Upright. Frozen. Her arms cross a little tighter, as if to hold back something threatening to collapse. The screen lights continue to flicker over her unmoving features, but they’re not what illuminates her. It’s intuition. Instinct. The one that whispers what she already knows deep down, what she’s felt from the beginning. Something is going to explode. And this time, she’s not sure anyone will come out unscathed.

The metallic floor barely vibrates beneath his steps. Just a discreet, restrained resonance, almost respectful. But in the frozen silence of the hangar, each echo seems to strike the air like a muffled detonation. Every step is a warning. A countdown. A declaration of war. The space is vast. Immense. A cathedral of technology bathed in cold, clinical, almost surgical light. The walls, made of reinforced glass and brushed steel, reflect sharp, precise flashes, slicing his shadow with every movement. Nothing here is decorative. Everything is functional. Calibrated. Optimized. Ready to serve. Ready to open, to strike, to launch. Ready to close behind him, too.

Tony moves with slow, controlled steps. Nothing rushed. He’s not running. He’s not hurrying. He knows exactly where he’s going. Every stride is calculated. Controlled. His gaze is fixed straight ahead, unwavering. No detours. No curiosity. His body is tense, but steady. Focused. There is no room left for doubt. At the center of the hangar, the launch platform awaits him. A circle of polished steel, inlaid with white LEDs pulsing gently, slowly, like a heart in standby. The light follows a steady, hypnotic rhythm, as if the structure itself were breathing. It sleeps. But it's ready to awaken at the slightest command. Around him, holographic showcases come to life at his approach. Sensors recognize his presence. Interfaces open by themselves. Images appear, fluid, clear. Silhouettes rise in bluish light, floating like specters of war.

His suits. The most recent. The strongest. The fastest. Masterpieces of power and precision, lined up in military silence. No words. No announcements. They stand there, frozen, waiting, like a metallic honor guard ready to activate at the slightest signal. Majestic. Relentless. Inhuman. They are beautiful in their coldness. Intimidating. Perfect. But he doesn't look at any of them. Not a single glance. Not a hint of hesitation. He passes through them like one walks through a memory too familiar to still fascinate. The suit doesn’t matter. Not this time. He isn’t here for spectacle, or showy power. He doesn’t want to impress, or buy time. He wants only one thing.

Efficiency. Extraction. The end.

His steps remain steady. His silhouette moves alone among the giants of metal. And in his wake, the air seems to vibrate with low tension, restrained anger, pain too vast to be named. The soldier is on the move. And what he’s about to do now… he’ll do it without flinching. His gaze is fixed. Frozen. With an almost inhuman intensity. He doesn’t blink. He doesn’t deviate. He aims. His attention is a taut line between two points: himself, and the target. It’s not anger you see in his eyes. That would be too simple. Too mundane. No — it’s worse. It’s frozen resolve. A sharp calm like a scalpel's edge. Clinical determination, purged of raw emotion, as if every feeling had been distilled, compressed into a single objective: locate, neutralize, retrieve. At all costs.

The suit he’s come for… it’s not the one from interviews. Not the one for demos. Not the one that dazzles crowds or makes headlines. This one, he only brings out when someone has to fall. No flash. No light. No declaration. With a sharp gesture, he activates the control interface embedded in the platform. The floor lights intensify, blink once, then a metal ring slowly rises from the ground, encircling him with solemn gravity. Everything remains silent. Nothing overreacts. Everything is perfectly calibrated. Robotic arms unfold around him, in a mechanical choreography of military precision. They don’t tremble. They don’t hesitate. They take position, ready to interlock, to serve, to build the weapon.

— "Omega configuration."

His voice snaps. Dry. Dense. Like a hammer strike on glass. And instantly, the machines comply. Without delay. Without flaw. The first pieces of the suit lock around his legs, securing his joints, enclosing his muscles in layers of reinforced alloy. The boots anchor to his feet with a soft hiss, each plate sliding into place with a perfectly tuned metallic click. Then the chest modules rise, locking over his ribcage. The red and gold lines slowly take shape, forming a symmetrical, ruthless architecture. Nothing is superfluous. Everything is there to protect, to absorb, to strike. The metal climbs along his arms, embeds into his shoulders, clamps onto his back. A vengeful exoskeleton. A body of war. Every movement is fluid, exact. The machine knows his rhythm. It knows his silence. It recognizes this moment when Tony Stark is no longer joking. He lowers his head slightly. The helmet drops with a magnetic hiss. It seals with a muffled chhhk. Instantly, his vision turns red. The interface lights up. Sensors activate. Data streams appear. Code scrolls. Maps. Thermal signals. Local comms networks. Building schematics. Ballistic paths.

He’s inside. He’s ready.

— "J.A.R.V.I.S., send the flight plan."

— "Coordinates locked. Route optimized. Risks assessed."

A moment. Just one. A tenuous silence. Like a held breath. Then Jarvis’s voice, lower, almost hesitant. A soft note. A nearly human tone, as if trying to reach through the metal to something deeper.

— "Tony… you don’t have to do this alone."

Not a tactical suggestion. Not a precaution. An offering. An outstretched hand. But Tony doesn’t respond. Not yet. One beat. Just a suspended moment between question and answer. But it won’t come. Because he’s not. Not alone. Not really. It’s not solitude that lives inside him. It’s worse. It’s that weight, hanging on his chest like an anvil: responsibility. He feels responsible. And that kind of responsibility can’t be delegated. Can’t be shared. It must be borne. Endured. To the end. He’s not doing this because he’s alone. He’s doing it because he’s the one who must. Because he was there when it happened. Because he should have seen, understood, foreseen. And because he will never forgive himself if he arrives too late.

A metallic breath escapes his shoulders. Light, but precise. The thrusters arm with a restrained growl. Internal turbines hum softly, like a beast holding back its power before leaping. The entire platform tenses. A low vibration rises under his feet, echoing the energy condensed beneath his heels. The lights turn orange. The floor opens. Slowly. In segments. Like a mechanical wound revealing the hangar’s nuclear heart. The air grows denser. Warmer. Electrified. Stark bends his knees. His muscles instinctively adjust for the imminent thrust. And then, without hesitation, without countdown, without another word…

He lifts off the ground.

With a piercing roar, the suit tears through the air. Flames burst from his heels, searing the platform, and Tony’s body becomes a comet of metal and fire shooting through the open ceiling, soaring at blinding speed into the already paling night. The hunt has begun.

The sky races around him. A continuous stream, distorted by speed, slashed by incandescent trails. Every inch of the armor vibrates under the strain, every thruster hums with surgical precision. The wind slams into him, compressed, transformed into pure force that only the flight algorithms manage to contain. The city stretches out below. Gigantic. Vast. Insignificant. Skyscrapers blur past like mirages. Rooftops, streets, glowing points of light — all turn into abstraction. But he sees nothing. Not the glowing windows, not the crowded avenues, not the numbers blinking across his heads-up display. Not even the overlaid messages, trajectory readings, or secondary alerts. He sees only one red dot. One destination. One objective. And nothing else exists.

He thinks only of you.

Of your body, twisted under the blows. Of your features, contorted by pain. Of your breath, ragged, torn, like each inhale is a battle against agony. Of your face, bruised, sullied, pressed against a floor too cold, too dirty, too real. He sees the blood, the unnatural angle of your shoulder, the fear diluted in your half-closed eyes. He sees everything. Even what you tried to hide. He still hears that fucking scream. The one he never should’ve heard. The one he should’ve prevented, before it ever existed. A scream you can’t fake. A scream torn from you, raw, visceral. He heard it through the phone, compressed, muffled by your breath, crushed by the violence of the moment. But despite the static, despite the distance, he felt it. Like a blade to the heart. Like a shockwave that didn’t just hit him. It went straight through him.

And in his mind, that sound loops. Again. And again. And again. Louder than any explosion. More violent than a collapsing building. It’s not a memory. It’s a living burn. An active wound. He sees it all again. Every second. Every word. Every tone. That bastard’s voice.

Matthew.

Every syllable spat like poison. Every word sculpted to wound. To provoke. To leave a mark. Not on you — on him. It was all planned. Orchestrated. A performance. A slow, cold, painfully precise execution. Meant for one person: Tony Stark. To hit him. To show him how badly he failed. To push where it hurts most.

And it worked. Fuck, it worked.

He still feels how his throat closed. The exact moment his heart skipped a beat. The absolute void that swallowed him when he realized he was too late to stop it but maybe not too late to save you. That instant shift, when all logic shattered, replaced by one certainty. He will pay. Not for the humiliation. Not for the provocation. But for putting you in that state. For daring to lay a hand on you. And Stark, now, isn’t flying toward a hideout. He’s flying toward an execution. His heart is pounding too hard. It no longer syncs with the armor’s rhythm. It hammers against his ribcage like a primal reminder that, beneath all the metal, despite all the tech, he is still a body. A man. And that body is boiling. His fingers tighten inside the gauntlets. The joints, calibrated down to the micrometer, creak under the pressure. He clenches. Too hard. Pointlessly. As if the pain might return control to him. As if he’s clinging to the sensation of something real. The internal temperature climbs a notch. A brief alert flashes, notified by a beep that Jarvis cancels instantly. He knows. Even the tech feels that something is cracking. That the tension line has reached a critical threshold. The tactile sync grows more nervous, less fluid. Not from failure — from resonance. As if the suit itself were reacting to the rage boiling beneath the metal. As if it knew he’s on the verge of detonating.

But he doesn’t scream. He doesn’t speak. He breathes. And he moves forward. Because rage — real rage the kind that doesn’t erupt but eats you alive, the kind that carves deep and anchors in silence, isn’t fire. It’s ice. A blade. A metallic tension that sharpens second by second. This is no longer about ransom. This is no longer an intervention. It’s not even a mission anymore. It’s personal. Because you… you’re not just some kid he hired. You’re not an intern, not a checkbox on some HR dashboard. You’re not a casting mistake he corrected in passing. You’re not one more name on a list of talent. You’re not a recruit. You’re that lost kid who showed up one morning with bags heavier than your shoulders, a voice too quiet, gestures too small. The one who looked at screens like they mattered more than the world. The one who barely spoke, but worked until you shook. Until you collapsed. Without ever complaining. Without ever asking for help. The one who clung to the work like it was the surface of a frozen lake. Just to keep from drowning. And that’s where it started.

Tony doesn’t know exactly when. When it slipped. When he stopped seeing you as an employee and started caring differently. Started checking if you’d eaten. Turning concern into jokes — but counting the times you said "not hungry." Setting rules. Break times. Making sure you got home. That you slept. That you didn’t vanish into the blind spots. Getting used to hearing you mutter when he worked too late. Paying attention. And now, he realizes it too late. This thing, this invisible thread, clumsy, imperfect, but real… it’s there. Damn it, it’s there. And now, you’re gone. And he’s going to cross fire, smash through every wall, burn everything down to find you. Because nothing else matters now. And that’s what’s eating him alive. Not guilt. Not passing doubt. No a slow burn, rooted deep in his chest. A slow poison, distilled with every heartbeat. Because that little idiot… you had a device. A fucking distress device. Not just any gadget. Not a toy.

A device he designed. Refined. Gave to you. Built in haste, but with care. Meant for this. To stop this. To block the worst. So he’d never have to hear screams like that. So he could get there before the blood spilled. And you didn’t even use it. Not a press. Not a signal. Nothing. You took it all. To the end. In silence. Like always. And that’s what drives him mad. The silence. That fucking habit of suffering quietly. As if it doesn’t count. As if your pain isn’t valid. As if your life isn’t worth protecting. As if pressing a button to ask for help… was already asking too much. As if he wouldn’t have come.

And now? Now you’re in the hands of a madman. A psycho acting out of vengeance, control, power hunger. A man with no limits, no brakes, who already crossed every line. Tony saw it. Heard it. He knows. Tortured. Broken. Gasping. The images come uninvited. Your face. Your features twisted in pain. That ragged breath, barely audible. The weight of your body giving out. The hard floor under your cheek. Blood seeping from a wound he can only imagine. And that look, more felt than seen, somewhere between fear and resignation.

Tony clenches his jaw. So hard his teeth slam together inside the helmet. The sound is dull, amplified by the metal echo. It vibrates through his temples. A muffled detonation ringing through his skull. He wants to scream. To hit something. To do anything. But he stays focused. Rage can’t come out. It’s compact. Controlled. Targeted.

The worst part? He still hears you. That murmur. Between gasps. That muffled breath, fragile, but so distinct. That tone. That voice he knows now. He recognized it instantly. There was no doubt. No room for illusion. He could’ve denied it. Lied to himself. Said it was a mistake. A coincidence. But no. He knew. He knew immediately. And from that moment, something inside him snapped. Not dramatically. No collapse. A clean fracture. Like an overtightened mechanism breaking in silence. Because now, it’s too late to argue. Too late to reason. Too late to call the cops. Too late for rules, procedures, delays.

Matthew is already dead. He doesn’t know it yet. He still breathes. Still thinks he’s in control. Thinks he’s running the show. But he’s not. He’s already finished. Erased. Condemned. Because Tony Stark heard that scream. And that scream changed everything. That scream signed Matthew’s death warrant. And he’s going to make him pay. Inch by inch. Breath by breath. Until he gets you back. Or burns the world down to drag you out of the dark.

When the Iron Man suit finally lands, it’s as if the whole world holds its breath.

A metallic breath explodes beneath the impact, followed by a dull rumble that cracks the already fractured concrete of the ground. The shock ripples through the foundations of the old industrial district, awakening the ghosts of rusted machines, worn-out beams, and gutted walls. Dust immediately rises in thick, greasy, lazy swirls, dancing around him for a moment before slowly settling, as if even it knows not to linger here. The air is saturated. Heavy. It reeks of rust, moldy wood, and decay embedded in the walls. It reeks of abandonment. And worse: expectation. The congealed oil on obsolete pipes reflects faint black gleams, almost organic, like fossilized blood. The ground creaks under his boots. All around him, the environment seems frozen. Trapped in a time that forgot how to die.

Icy wind rushes between the metal structures, howling through broken beams, whistling past shattered windows. It carries the cold of a soulless place — emptied, but not deserted. Not entirely. Around him is nothingness. A heavy, oppressive void. No sound, no light. Nothing lives here. Nothing breathes. Not even a rat. Not even a shadow. As if the rest of the world had the decency to look away. As if even the city itself knew that what was going to happen here… should not be seen. And in that thick silence, saturated with contained electricity, Tony remains still. His body in the suit doesn’t tremble. But everything in him is ready to strike. The HUD displays thermal readings, sound scans, parasitic electromagnetic signatures. Traces. Remnants. Leads.

He ignores them. He doesn’t need confirmation. He looks up. There. Right in front of him. The building. A block of blackened concrete, eaten away by time. It rises before him like a vertical coffin, planted in the ground. Its windows are empty sockets. Its crumbling walls seep with moisture and menace. It’s a carcass. A gaping maw. A lair. The kind of place where people are held. Erased. Buried. And deep inside, somewhere in there, he knows. You’re there. And Tony Stark came to get you.

The windows are shattered, slashed like screaming mouths frozen mid-silent howl. Shards of glass still dangle from some frames, claws of dead light ready to cut. The gutted openings let in a freezing wind that rustles the remains of forgotten curtains, faded, trembling like surrender flags. The concrete holds together only by habit. Cracked, eroded by seasons, cold, rain, and grime. By time. By indifference. Parts of the facade have collapsed in whole sheets, revealing the interior like a raw wound. Rusted beams jut from the gaping holes, still supporting broken, twisted staircases whose steps are gnawed by corrosion. A withered metal skeleton groaning under its own weight.

The scene is saturated with signs of dead life. Hastily scrawled graffiti, some grotesque, some terrifying, scream from the walls like echoes left by shadows. Split-open bags. Scattered trash. Abandoned syringes. A broken stroller, overturned. An old moldy couch under a porch. Traces of human passage, old, sad. But nothing lives here anymore. Everything reeks of neglect. Of misery. And something worse still: violence. That scent doesn’t lie. It seeps everywhere, even into the walls. A stagnant, invisible tension, but palpable. As if the very air had absorbed a memory too painful to vanish. An echo of blows. Of screams. Of fear.

Inside, it’s swallowed in thick, grimy darkness. No light. Just the blackness, mingled with dust, rot, and silence. But he doesn’t need light. Doesn’t need to see. His scanner activates instantly. The interface opens in a silent click, layering across his HUD. Schematics align, partial blueprints of the building take shape in 3D. Partial plans, modeled reconstructions from thermal scans, wave sweeps, mass detection. Heat sources appear. Faint. Distant. Unstable. And then, deep in that rusted steel maze, cracked concrete, and rotten silence… a thermal signature. Human. Residual. Nearly gone. A blurred point, nestled in a windowless room, behind thick walls. A trace. A breath.

Tony clenches his fists.

The sound is minimal. A quiet metallic creak, but full of tension. The gauntlets respond to the pressure, contouring his restrained rage, absorbing the shock. He doesn’t need confirmation. Doesn’t need to see more. Doesn’t need to wait. He knows. His instinct — that damn sixth sense he spent years mocking — screams through his body. It’s here. This rat hole he chose. This rotten theater for a filthy ransom. This stage for torture. A place not built to hold… but to break. To terrify. To harm. A bad choice. Tony approaches.

One step. Slow. Calculated. Methodical. Every movement is measured. The suit follows without fail, amplifies his stride, makes the ground tremble with each impact. Metal boots pound cracked concrete like war drums. A warning. A sentence. He doesn’t run. He doesn’t need to. Matthew’s time is already counted. His sensors scan blind spots. He identifies exits, access points, high ground. He’s already plotting firing lines, breach paths, fallback routes. He thinks like a weapon. Like a strike. Because he’s no longer just an angry man. He’s become a projectile. A terminal solution. A promise kept too late. And inside… someone is about to learn what it costs. To lay a hand on you.

He pushes the door with a sharp, decisive gesture. The metallic impact creates a brutal clang, and the battered frame wails in a piercing screech. The sound is long, grotesque, almost human. It slices the air like a cry ripped from a bottomless throat, the shriek of a grave forced open, or a coffin pried too late. The metal scrapes, shrieks, protests — but obeys. Before him, the hallway stretches. Long. Narrow. Strangled between two walls dripping with damp. The air is dense, fetid, soaked with stagnant water and ancient mold. A cold breath seeps from the walls, icy and clinging, sneaking into the suit’s seams as if to slow him, to warn him.

The walls are alive. Not with organisms, but rot. Dark mold clings to them, spreading in irregular patterns like necrotic veins. It crawls across the concrete, invades corners, slips into cracks. In places, the plaster has given way, reduced to gray dust. Beneath, twisted, rusted rebar protrudes — like broken bones, as if the building itself had been tortured, split open. A single bulb hangs from the ceiling, bare. Dirty. Its globe yellowed by time, its sickly light flickers intermittently. Suspended from a wire too long, too thin, it dances with every draft like a rope ready to snap. It blinks. Once. Twice. The yellow halo it casts wavers, bleeding against the walls. The shadows it throws stretch, distort, crawl along the ground. Shapes too long, too fluid, as if the walls themselves breathed beneath the dying light.

Tony doesn’t slow.

He doesn’t hesitate. His stride remains straight, steady, heavy. Each step echoes off the floor, amplified by the armor’s metal. Debris cracks underfoot: broken glass, plaster fragments, splinters of forgotten furniture. Every sound ricochets in the narrow hallway, trapped between the walls like a muffled volley of gunfire. But he doesn’t flinch. He doesn’t look around. He advances. Like a metronome. His eyes never leave the end of the hall, even as everything around seems to want to swallow him, smother him. He sees the corners, the ajar doors, the stains on the floor, but he doesn’t stop. He doesn’t deviate. He walks this hall like a trial. A purgatory. He knows hell waits ahead. He feels it.

And he’s ready to tear it open with his bare hands. Each step is a countdown. Each breath, a burning fuse. Each heartbeat in his chest, a war drum. He knows what he’ll find. Maybe not the details. Maybe not the form. But the essence. He knows the scent of blood is there, somewhere. That fear has left its trace. That pain has seeped into the walls. And he knows that you… you’re at the end. You’re there, in the dark, at the end of this sick corridor. Maybe unconscious. Maybe barely alive. But you’re there. And that’s enough. Because even if the entire world has to burn for him to find you,

Stark walks down that hall like a blade sliding into a wound. Slowly. Silently. Without flash, without unnecessary sound. He doesn’t strike. He infiltrates. He dissects. Every step is measured, controlled, charged with clinical precision. The weight of his body, perfectly distributed, flows with the suit’s supports. His boots barely graze the floor, but even that friction seems to vibrate through the air, taut with tension. Tension is everywhere. In his muscles, locked beneath the metal. In his jaw, clenched to the point of pain. In his nerves, on maximum alert. He’s taut as a bowstring. Like a weapon whose safety was disengaged long ago. Even his breathing is suspended. He hardly breathes. He’s sunk into a slowed rhythm, between apnea and absolute focus.

Then the smell hits him. Not softly. Not in waves. Brutally. A wall. An invisible punch to the chest. Heavy. Thick. A metallic stench clings to his throat, invades his nostrils like a warning. Blood. Not fresh. Dried. Hours old, maybe. Mixed with damp, with the building’s mold, with dust saturated with dead micro-organisms, with the stagnant rot that infests places where nothing lives anymore. The smell of a trap. The smell of pain. His stomach tightens. Not from fear. From rage. His heart doesn’t race. It slows. As if syncing to the place. He shifts into a deeper, duller, more dangerous frequency. His pulse beats like a drum ready to strike.

Above him, the bulb still swings — a pathetic relic of a once-functioning past. It crackles, flickers, sputters to life at intervals. Each pulse casts sickly light across cracked tiles, warped walls, and scattered remnants of a forgotten world. The shadows stretch, shrink, crawl along the walls like filthy hands. Even the walls seem to hold their breath. He steps forward again. One step. Then another. Every movement is fluid, silent, nearly unreal. His visor scans relentlessly. It overlays stacked data layers, displays thermal signatures, rough volume outlines, hidden masses behind walls. He examines blind spots. Gaps. Floor markings. Broken hinges, scuff marks on wood.

He doesn’t see Matthew yet. But he feels it.

Like a presence. A greasy vibration in the air. A low tension running beneath the walls like a rogue current. A sensation that cuts through him, visceral. It’s not intuition. It’s certainty.

He’s here. Somewhere.

And then he sees you.

You.

There’s no sound. No warning. No orchestral swell. Just that brutal, abrupt moment when the image slaps him in the face like a blow that nothing can soften. You're there. Not standing. Not sitting. Collapsed. Against the wall. No — not against. You’re melded into it. As if your body were trying to dissolve, to disappear. A trembling mass, dirty, slack with pain. No longer a person. No longer a boy. Just a heap of living, broken flesh. A dislocated silhouette in the dark. His brain takes a moment to understand what he’s seeing. This isn’t you. Not the you he knows. It’s something else. A ruined version. And the violence here isn’t hypothetical. It’s tattooed on you. Your arm is twisted.

Not bent. Twisted. At a monstrous, impossible angle. The elbow joint reversed. Bones displaced under stretched skin. Something that should only appear in accident reports. Not here. Not like this. Your shoulder has collapsed. Your hand, almost detached from the rest, barely trembles.

And your face... It takes Tony a second. Just one. But it lasts an eternity.

He doesn’t understand right away. He recognizes nothing. No features. No familiar contours. Just damage. Open wounds, horrible swelling, bruises stacked upon bruises. Your eyes — if they’re still there — are buried under hematomas. Your lips are split. Your right cheek is so swollen it distorts the entire shape of your skull. It’s a mosaic. A work of pure cruelty. And the blood… It’s still flowing. Not much. Not in spurts. In seepage. Slow trickles, like a steady leak. It slides down your temple. Your mouth. Your neck. It’s sticky. Matte. It ran, dried, and ran again. It’s on your throat. Your collarbone. Your chest. You’re soaked.

Not with sweat. With blood. With fear. With the filth of the floor. Your clothes are just rags now. Torn down to the skin. Deep tears are visible, laceration marks, fingerprints, nails, blows. Your hands are open. Literally. Cut. Your palms are cracked, marked by a desperate attempt to defend yourself. Your fingers are splayed as if caught in a frozen spasm. Your knees are red, shredded. Raw flesh peeks through peeled skin. And your back... He doesn’t even want to look. He can guess. He knows what he’ll find there. Marks. Burns. Blows. Traces of what no one should ever do to another human being. But he doesn’t look. Not yet. Because then... he sees it. Your chest.

It moves. Barely. But it moves. A breath. Weak. Jagged. Rough. A struggle with every motion. A breath that doesn’t really come out. A choked wheeze. But alive. You’re breathing. You’re there. Still there. And Tony stops cold.His entire body freezes. The armor locks with him, as if the machine itself understood. As if every fiber, every metal plate had turned to stone. Time collapses on him. A crushing weight. A shroud. His heart? It stops. It no longer beats. Just a void. An absence. A pulse. Heavy. Dry. In his temples. His throat. His stomach. What he feels has no name. It’s not fear. It’s no longer even anger. It’s a breaking point. A place in the soul where everything stops. Where everything is too much. Too much pain. Too much hate. Too much regret. Too late. Too far. He’s here. In front of you. And he can’t go back.

It’s a fracture. A rupture in everything he thought he could control. You’re alive. But at what cost? And somewhere, just a few meters away... Matthew is still breathing. But not for long. A cold shiver, sharp as a steel blade, climbs Stark’s spine. He doesn’t push it away. He lets it slide between his shoulder blades, slip under the metal like a warning that what he’s seeing isn’t an illusion, but raw, naked, implacable truth. Yet nothing on his face betrays this vertigo. Not a twitch, not a flinch, not even a blink. His rage, once explosive, has retracted into a clean, focused line. It’s no longer a storm. It’s a blade. Smooth, cold, sharp. A perfectly honed weapon, ready to strike the moment it’s needed. Not before.

His eyes stay locked on you, unblinking, unwavering. Every detail imprints itself in his mind like a photograph branded with hot iron: the grotesque position of your broken arms, the dark brown blood dried in rivulets on your chin, your neck, your chest; your skin, so pale beneath layers of grime and pain it looks almost like that of a corpse; the faint flutter of your chest, a fragile reminder that you haven’t crossed over yet. He sees it all. He doesn’t look away. And he will remember it. Until his last day. And yet, he doesn’t move right away. Everything in him is screaming. Every fiber, every muscle, every electrical impulse of the armor and his own body calls him to you, to rush, to drop to his knees, to check your pulse, your breath, to place his glove at your neck, to say your name. But he doesn’t give in. He is Tony Stark, yes. But here, now, he is also Iron Man. And Iron Man knows how to recognize a trap. Instinct needs no explanation. He feels that grimy vibration in the air, that invisible weight that warps the atmosphere around you, that intent still lingering, ready to pounce. He knows he’s not alone.

So he advances, but his way. Not slowly out of hesitation, but with control. One step. Then another. Controlled. Silent. The floor crunches beneath his boots, and even though the armor absorbs most sound, here, in this room saturated with shadows and stench, every movement rings out like a barely contained threat. The air is still. The walls seem to listen. The silence, tense, fills with static. He stops a few steps from you. Just close enough to see you breathe, to catch that tiny tremor in your ribcage, that breath that fights, clings, refuses to yield. Just far enough to strike, to raise his arm, to hit in half a second if something emerges. Because he knows: this is the moment Matthew is waiting for. The moment he thinks he can finish what he started. But he’s about to learn that this time, he’s not facing a wounded child. He’s facing Iron Man.

His eyes scan the room relentlessly. Every detail is absorbed, analyzed, memorized. The walls, covered in peeling paint, reveal patches of bare stone, gnawed away by damp. Mold streaks stretch up to the ceiling, which has collapsed in places, letting frayed wires dangle alongside crumbling fragments of plaster. Rusted pipes run along the walls like dead veins, slowly bleeding black water into the corners of the room. A distant drip echoes, irregular, distorted by reverb, like the heartbeat of a body already emptied of everything. The air is thick. Stagnant. It smells of oil, blood, mold, and abandonment. This isn’t really a place anymore. Not a living space, not a shelter. A dead place. Forgotten. A pocket outside of time, perfect for monsters to hide in.

And Stark knows it. It’s too quiet. The space is frozen in a dull anticipation. The smell is too sharp. The scene, too carefully placed. Nothing here suggests an accident. Everything has been calculated. And he hasn’t come to negotiate. He’s not here to understand. He’s not here to reach out. He’s here to end it.

So he speaks. Not loudly. Not shouting. His voice slices through the silence like a blade drawn slowly from its sheath. Low. Slow. Sharp. It doesn’t tremble. It doesn’t seek to impress. It states. It targets. It’s the voice of someone who’s gone beyond fear. Who knows the war is no longer a risk. It’s happening. It’s here. Present. Inevitable.

— "That’s your big plan, Matthew?"

The words hang in the air. Clear. Sharp. And they cut. The silence that follows is even sharper. It relieves nothing. It stretches. It weighs. It presses on the nerves like a finger on an open wound. A silence with a taste. That of blood just before the blow. That of a held breath, of the instant suspended between lightning and thunder. A silence ready to rupture. And Stark is ready to tear through it. He kneels.

The suit exhales softly, like a restrained sigh, when Tony bends a knee to the ground. Metal meets filth, dust, and the invisible fragments of an abandoned world in an almost solemn hiss. It’s not a brusque gesture, nor heroic. It’s a humble movement. Precise. One knee placed in the grime of a ravaged sanctuary, a cathedral of pain frozen in time, where the slightest sound feels blasphemous. He places himself near you. Within reach of your voice. Within reach of your breath.

Above you, the light flickers. It trembles at irregular intervals, swaying like a sick pendulum. It doesn’t truly illuminate. It hesitates. As if it, too, refused to fully expose what it reveals. The scene seems unreal. Suspended. Out of the world.

Stark only sees you now. His eyes are on you. At last. Truly. He no longer sees you through the lens of worry or authority. He doesn’t see an employee in distress, nor that lost kid he tried to protect from afar without ever really getting involved. He doesn’t see a responsibility. He sees you. The body you’ve become. This collapsed, mutilated body, barely breathing. That breath, ragged, whistling, clinging to life like a flame battered by wind. The position in which you’ve fallen, curled in on yourself, speaks of an instinct stronger than thought: to hide, to disappear, to avoid another blow.

Tony doesn’t move. Not yet. A long moment suspended in a bubble of silence. He doesn’t speak. He doesn’t move. Only his fist, slowly, curls. A controlled movement, silent, without tremor. A gloved hand, silently absorbing the rising tension, the seething rage, the refusal to accept what he sees. He observes you. He scans every visible patch of skin, every line of your battered face, every gap between the tatters of your torn clothing. He doesn’t want to miss anything. He wants to know. To understand. To see what you’ve endured. He’s ready for everything — except looking away. And what he discovers freezes him.

The recent wounds, he expected. He had imagined them, feared them. The swollen bruises, the black and violet hematomas covering your ribs, your stomach, your face. The clean or jagged cuts, open or dried. The blood clotted at the corner of your mouth. The split lip. The torn brow. Skin ruptured in places, stretched by swelling. All of that, he had seen coming. He had already heard the echo of the blows. Guessed the brutality.

But what he hadn’t expected… were the other marks.

The ones left by someone other than Matthew. The ones no sudden rage could justify. Scars. Fine. Old. Some nearly faded, white, invisible to the untrained eye. These delicate lines, precise, snake along your forearm, disappear under the fabric, reappear on your side. He recognizes some of them. He knows those clumsy cuts, those poorly closed edges. He’s seen them before. On other bodies. In other contexts. He passes a hand — slow, without touching — over your chest. A gesture both useless and necessary. An attempt to understand without harming, to see without interfering. Your top is torn. Not by accident. Deliberately. As if someone wanted to expose your fragility. As if your skin had become a trophy. A message. Your ribs are streaked with deep bruises, a blue so dark it looks black. These were blows delivered methodically. Not to kill. To mark. To leave a print. And beneath that recent violence, other, paler shadows appear. Older bruises, half-faded. Hidden scars. Belt marks. Traces of falls, perhaps. Of repeated gestures. Systematic ones. Not wild brutality.

Habit. Not battle scars. Survival marks. And Tony feels something fold inside him. Slowly. Painfully. As if the steel of his suit tightened, turned inward, crushing his bones, compressing his breath. He inhales, despite everything, but the air is too heavy, too foul. He feels cold sweat on his neck. The taste of metal on his tongue. This didn’t start yesterday. Not even this week. Not even this year. And the hatred rising now is no longer a fire. It’s a collapsed star. A core of pure fury. A point of no return.

— "Fuck..." he breathes.

The word slips from his lips in a hoarse whisper, no louder than a murmur. It doesn’t snap. It doesn’t strike. It falls. Heavy. Exhausted. It’s not an insult. It’s a prayer. An apology. A confession. A verdict. He could have said your name. He could have screamed. But he no longer has the strength to hide the collapse eating away at his gut. That single word carries it all: the guilt, the shame, the shock, the poorly disguised love, and that powerlessness he hates more than anything in the world. His eyes rise slowly to your face. He studies you, searches, hoping for a sign, a crack in that absence. You’re still unconscious. Or maybe just trapped in your own body. Your eyelids, heavy with pain, barely twitch. As if you’re fighting inside a nightmare too real. Your lips, cracked and swollen, part in an almost imperceptible motion. Sounds escape. Weak. Shapeless. Phantom syllables, swallowed by your raw throat, crushed by the shallow breath of survival.

You’re fighting.

Even now, half-dead, on your knees in the mud, in the blood, in the fear — you're still fighting. And Tony, he doesn’t understand how he missed it. How he could’ve overlooked it. He thought you were folding because you were fragile. That you were falling because you were weak. He discovers now that you never stopped getting back up. Again. And again. And again. And that by climbing back up alone, without help, without a hand to reach for, you broke. Slowly. Silently. From the inside out. Another anger rises in him. It doesn’t explode. It doesn’t burst like an uncontrollable flame. It’s slow. Deep. A fury that doesn’t make noise as it climbs but anchors in his gut, between his ribs, in every fiber of his being. It doesn’t burn. It freezes. A precise, surgical anger. Against Matthew, of course. Against the monster who did this to you, who turned your body into a map of pain. But not only.

Against himself. For not seeing it. For not wanting to see. For believing his rules, his demands, were enough. For forcing you to maintain an image when you were already falling apart. Against the system that let you slip through. Against the entire universe that abandoned you without so much as a flinch. Against the silence. Against the averted gazes. Against the excuses. Against everything that brought you here, barely breathing, bleeding in a place no one should know. And this anger — he keeps it. Not for the night. Not for the moment. He keeps it for what comes next. Because this isn’t a mission anymore. It’s not even vengeance. It’s an answer. A cold, precise, implacable answer.

His fingers spread. Slowly. As if releasing something too heavy to contain any longer. Then, just as slowly, his hand closes. Not in rage. Not to strike, nor to threaten. But as one seals a vow. As one locks a promise in the palm, sheltered from the world, where it can never fade. A discreet gesture, small, but charged with immense weight. He leans forward. Just a little. Just enough for his face to draw closer to yours, his features blending into the trembling light, his breath almost brushing your skin. He doesn’t try to wake you. He doesn’t disturb the fragile silence. Only to be closer. To speak for you, and only you. And in a breath that belongs only to him — hoarse, broken, dragged up from deep within — he whispers:

— "I’m sorry..."

It’s not a phrase said lightly. Not a line of circumstance. The words struggle to come out, each one bearing the weight of a collapsed world. They don’t shake. They crash. Heavy. Dense. Inevitable. And it’s not for the blows. Not for the broken bones, the bruises, the wounds, the blood. Not for the absence of rescue, the nights you waited without response, without a call, without presence. Not even for the hesitation or delays. Not for the wavering between compassion and distance. No. That’s not what he regrets. It’s something else. Deeper. More insidious.

He apologizes for what he didn’t see. For everything right in front of him that he ignored. For all the times he looked at you without really seeing you. For all the moments he should’ve understood, read between the silences, the tight gestures, the small changes in your voice, the blankness in your eyes. He’s sorry because he should’ve been the one to know. The one who reached out without being asked. He didn’t. And he knows it. You never told him. Not clearly. Not with words. But he doesn’t blame you. He blames himself. His inattention. His blindness. His comfort. Because he should have known. He should’ve seen past the surface, not settled for what you showed. He’s a genius, after all. He cracked codes, AI, government secrets. But he didn’t read you. You.

And now he sees you. Really sees you. You're here, lying down, broken, beaten, emptied to the bone. You carry the recent scars — but also all the old ones. The ones that tell something else. Another story. A life that didn’t begin tonight. Pain accumulated like strata in rock pressed too long. Blows someone made you believe were normal. Silences you were taught to keep. Constant adaptation, until survival became a reflex. Each scar is a sentence. Each bruise, a word from the story you carried alone, your throat tight, your body tense. And Tony is only just beginning to understand. Not everything. Never everything. But enough for the void to open beneath his feet. Enough for something to snap. For guilt to root itself where it will never leave. It’s not just Matthew. It’s not just this night. It’s everything that came before. This whole life you lived in the shadows, moving through with false smiles and stiff gestures. And he didn’t see. He didn’t know. He didn’t reach out.

He feels that truth in his fingers, in his tight throat, in the strange way his vision blurs without fully knowing why. And the anger returns. Deeper. Colder. But this time, aimed only at himself. Because he should’ve been there. But now that he is — now that he sees you — he swears, without even needing to say it, that it will never be too late again. Not a second time. Never. Stark doesn’t turn his head. Not right away. He stays still, locked in a perfectly controlled posture, his chest still bent over you, his body still tensed above yours like a shield of steel. But his eyes narrow, just slightly. An imperceptible detail to anyone else. An almost microscopic change, but revealing. He saw it. Or rather, he sensed it. Not a clear movement. Not a sharp sound. Just a shift. A faint vibration in the air. A thermal fluctuation, too precise to be natural. A flicker in the visual field, where there was nothing seconds ago.

The suit confirms it silently. A variation in air pressure. A subtle thermal footprint. A disturbance in the suspended particles. Something moved. Someone. In the shadows. He already knows. He doesn’t need confirmation. No detailed analysis. His instinct and the machine speak with the same voice. Matthew is here. He never left. He never fled. He waited. Coiled in the darkness like a knot of hate, hidden behind the ruined structures of the warehouse. A corner too dark for ordinary eyes. But Stark isn’t ordinary. His gaze adjusts. The armor’s sensors recalibrate instantly. Every shadow pixel becomes a map, a data set analyzed in real time. Shapes emerge, unfold, reveal themselves under thermal filters. He sees the silhouette. Humanoid. Crouched. Twisted in animal tension. Almost glued to the damp wall. Motionless — but falsely so. Ready. Ready to strike.

A predator. Or so he thinks. But to Tony, he’s not a beast. Not an opponent. He’s a parasite. A pest. A residue of misdirected hate. A mass of cowardice wrapped in a semblance of human flesh. Nothing more. And he waits. Stark sees it. He waits for the right moment. The right angle. He still hopes. One wrong step. One lapse. One second of distraction. He still thinks he can win. He thinks he can strike from behind. Finish what he started. Reduce further. Humiliate again. He believes this stage is his, that the dark protects him, that fear is on his side. But it’s not the same game anymore. And Stark is no longer the same man.

His fists clench. Slowly. Not in rage. In certainty. A cold pulse runs through the armor, from his shoulders to the thrusters in his forearms. Internal systems activate in silence. Energy builds. Not for show. Not to intimidate. But to strike. Coldly. Deliberately. And yet, he still doesn’t move. He doesn’t break the silence. He remains there, by your side, his body lowered like a barrier. You're still beneath him, fragile, barely breathing. And he stands, in that false calm, as the last thing between you and the one who still thinks he can reach you. But this time, there will be no negotiation. No ultimatum. No speech. This won’t be a warning. A chuckle. At first almost imperceptible. Just a scrape, a discordant note in the tense silence of the warehouse. Then it swells. Gains volume. Becomes a clearer sound — thick, mocking, like a bubble of bile rising to the surface. It comes from the shadows. From that cursed corner of the room that even the light avoids, as if refusing to reveal the truth. A place too dark for nothing to be there.

Stark doesn’t move. He doesn’t look up. Not yet. He stays crouched beside you, his body interposed between you and the thing that finally creeps out of its lair. A sentinel. A wall. A blade ready to cut. But his shoulders stiffen. His breath halts. His fingers stop trembling. He listens.

— “You really came in the suit, huh…”

The voice pierces the darkness like a carefully distilled poison. It has that dragging tone, unbearable, dripping with sarcastic self-confidence. It oozes obscene pleasure, filthy arrogance, sick amusement. The kind of voice that wounds before it strikes. It seeps into the air, hungry to exist, to dominate, to stain.

Matthew steps out of hiding—or what’s left of it. A shadow barely separated from the dark. Just enough for part of his face to appear under the sickly glow of a dangling bulb. Half a face. Half a smile. Wide. Frozen. Too tight. And his eyes… wild. Shining. Flickering with an unstable light, unable to fix on a single point for more than a few seconds.

— “For him? Seriously?”

He gestures vaguely toward your body on the floor, careless, almost lazy. As if pointing at a gutted trash bag. A carcass of no worth. His grimy fingers tremble slightly, but not from fear. From excitement.

— “The little favorite. The loser. The kid who can’t even breathe without collapsing.”

He takes a step. Slow. Pretentious. Nonchalant. His chest slightly puffed, arms wide, almost cruciform. A show-off stance. A provocation. As if offering himself for judgment, convinced he’ll walk away untouched. As if he’s challenging God himself amid the ruins of a world he helped destroy.

— “You sure brought a lot of gadgets to save a half-broken body, Stark.”

A higher, more nervous laugh escapes him. He doesn’t have full control. He thinks he does, but his words are speeding up. His breath quickens just a bit. A trace of madness laces every syllable.

— “You think all that’ll be enough? The thrusters, the scanners, the AI?”

He stops a few meters away. Far, but visible. Too visible. Grime clings to his clothes, his skin, his hyena grin. His face is gaunt, cheeks sunken, hands filthy. He looks like someone who lives in filth. And carries the arrogance of someone who thinks he’s untouchable. He believes he’s won. That he still holds the cards. That he has the upper hand.

— “You showed up like a superhero. Big savior. Like you actually care whether he’s still breathing.”

He tilts his head. A tiny movement. Almost childlike. Almost mocking. The gesture of a brat waiting for the adult to raise a hand just so he can laugh louder afterward.

Then, in a whisper, lower, crueler, slid in like a needle through skin:

— “Sad. To see you stoop to this.”

That’s when Stark moves. Not a sharp gesture. Not a threat. Just… he rises. Slowly. Very slowly. Each vertebra seems to align with inhuman precision. His back straightens. His shoulders lift. His gloved hands open slightly, fingers spreading, joints clicking faintly. A stance. A charge. But he doesn’t speak. Not yet.

Because Matthew goes on. Because he doesn’t understand. Because he still believes words protect. That taunts disarm. He still thinks Stark is here to play. That this restrained rage is only for show.

— “I mean, come on… look at him.”

He points again. His filthy index finger extended, trembling slightly. Not from fear. From ecstasy.

— “Take a good look at what he’s become. What I made him. And ask yourself what you were doing all that time.”

And that silence after — that void between two breaths… it’s the most dangerous moment. Because right now, Stark doesn’t see a man in front of him. He sees the outcome. The cause. The shadow behind the screams. And this time, he won’t look away. Matthew moves. It’s not hesitation. It’s a reflex. A sharp jolt of intention, of venom, of premeditation. His arm snaps in a motion too quick, too precise to be theatrical. He’s not trying to intimidate. He’s trying to end it. His hand plunges into his jacket with mechanical brutality, the rustle of fabric too sharp, a sound that splits the silence like a silent detonation. A glint of metal slides between his fingers. The black barrel of a gun emerges like a verdict. Cold. Final. He lifts his arm. But not toward Stark. Not at the looming figure of steel, red-lit, poised to strike. Not at the obvious threat, the armored man, the living weapon who could incinerate him with a single gesture.

No. He points it at you. You, still on the floor. You, vulnerable. Shattered. Barely breathing. You’re lying there, more ghost than flesh, your chest struggling to rise, your face drenched in blood—and that’s exactly why he aims at you. Because you can’t fight back. Because you can’t even look away.

The barrel aligns with clinical slowness. A descending trajectory, methodical, unbearable. A deliberate motion, thick with silence, cracking the air like an invisible slap. There’s no tremble of doubt, no hesitation. The quiver in his wrist isn’t fear—it’s anticipation. A sick pulse shooting through his arm, twitching his fingers on the trigger. Obscene pleasure in this total domination. His breath quickens. His eyes gleam. He savors. He knows exactly what he’s doing. Where he’s aiming. How he wants this to end. It’s no longer a threat. It’s an execution. A scene he’s imagined, rehearsed, craved. A twisted revenge. A show where he’s both executioner and audience. And in this suspended second, this instant where everything can tip, he becomes something worse than an attacker.

He becomes a man convinced he’s about to kill. Because he wants to. Because he can.

— “You got the money, then?”

The words fall like a dull-edged blade. No hesitation. No dramatic delivery. Just a string of words spat low, almost casual. Like a logistical question. His voice is dry, flat, stripped of emotion. Verbal mechanics, a routine, a question tossed out like checking an order. But the poison—it's in the posture. The gaze. The barely-contained tension in his outstretched arm.

The gun’s barrel stays still. Perfectly aligned. No longer shaking. Calm. Cold. A disturbing steadiness, almost clinical, like a surgeon ready to cut — except he’s not seeking to heal. He’s aiming to rupture. To erase.

He’s not really talking to Stark. Not really to you either. He’s speaking to himself, to feed the illusion of control he’s desperate to maintain even as he feels the ground slipping. He keeps playing, just long enough to delay the inevitable. To fabricate a role. The one who asks. The one who decides. The one who ends things. But there’s that barrel. Black. Smooth. A heavy promise stretched from his arm. He doesn’t move. He waits for an answer he knows is pointless. He knows there’ll be no deal. No negotiation. But he asks anyway. As if asking is enough to pretend he still owns the scene. As if it can mask the obvious rising in the air like an imminent detonation.

He’s ready to shoot. And it’s not the money he wants. It’s what comes next.

taglist🥂 @9thmystery @defronix @lailac13 @the-ultimate-librarian @ihatepaperwork if you want to be part of it here

[c0l0rgraph1c]

Cyclone grumbled to himself.

“Weirdo… if she has that much awareness it can’t be that bad. Only the ones fully green seem to be reanimated corpses.”

He clung to the shadows, keeping himself out of sight. Whenever he could he tried to get into some rafter like parts of the tunnels. Just as he was about to turn a corner, he saw a couple of Octolings, including one wearing a big helmet? Mask? He seemed oddly familiar.

Cyclone ducked back behind the corner, getting his splatana in his hand just in case. He crouched down, leaning his ear in to eavesdrop.

( @anintrovertedocto )

"... Now, I trust that you'll perform well in this task, but this device will ensure that whatever defects you may have acquired outside the facility are purged just in case," the elite Octoling explained to the one in the mask, spinning a dial on the side of the helmet with her finger. "You may experience mild dizziness and discomfort for a few moments while the reprogramming takes effect."

Nobody could see it, but Void's eyes rolled sky high. "Yeah right, I haven't felt pain in—"

>INITIATING PURIFICATION PROCESS.

"GYAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH— FUCK!"

Void clutched his helmet and doubled over, staying there for a second or two before slowly standing upright again.

>PSYCHOMETRIC CONDITIONS: SATISFACTORY. WELCOME HOME, KAMABO CO. UNIT #9120.

"So," the lady asked, tilting her head. "How are you feeling?"

The masked Octoling held out their hands, staring at them as they closed and opened them before answering with a "Never better."

"You remember your objective, correct?"

"Represent the commander and acquire new test subjects for PROJECT XA3."

"Good."

A ringing sound escaped the telephone-like attachments on Void's new mask. "My biometric sensors are detecting signs of life just a few meters from here. Must be my lucky day~! How about I give them a warm welcome?"

"I'll leave you to it, then. Should the upgrade work right, you're all but guaranteed success. It is the only option." With that, the elite Octoling about-faced and made her exit.

Void watched her leave, slumping his shoulders and sighing from exasperation. Cod, he hated talking to—BZZT! He was zapped right out of the slouch.

>PRO TIP: Bad posture makes you look unapproachable. That would be counterintuitive to your goals, 9120.

They didn't need to be told that, but okay. Void turned toward the corner that Cyclone was hiding behind. He put his hands behind his back and leaned forward with an air of curiosity, making deliberate, robotic strides toward the Octoling who had been listening in on them.

"Heyooo, what's the [ERROR], my tubular dude-ular?!" Void made playful finger guns as he put on this bizarre "friendly" demeanor. "No need to be coy, bro-cha-cho! I know you're there; your thermal ink signature does not lie. Come on out and lemme get a look at that [SLANG_NOT_FOUND] face of yours!"

[the-sky-queen]

Hey! I really admired your idea for the Phantom Rider! I was wondering if you were able to explain a little more about how you've done your AU on it, if you're able to

Aw, thanks! I'm glad you like it! it's a really cool idea and if IDW doesn't go that route, then I definitely will! I haven't gotten very far yet in terms of ideas for this AU, but I've got a few and I'd be more than happy to share them!

My main idea is for how the mind control devices get activated in the first place. Following Surge's confrontation with Phantom Rider, Sonic flies off somewhere to be alone and calm down. You see after Issue 56 where Surge electrocuted him, Sonic gained a pretty big fear of lightning. So right now, he's basically having a mini panic attack since Surge had her electricity powers all up in his face. Sonic ends up in some back alley not too far away from the race. He tries to take deep breaths and calm down, but it doesn't really work and his panic only continues to increase. His heart pounds in his chest. He's hyperventilating.

Then all of the sudden, Eggman is there. (He put trackers in Sonic's suit and came to find him when it detected Sonic's panic attack. Yeah, the suit's got it's own biometric readers as well. Eggman's no amateur.) "Foolish Hedgehog. At least take off your helmet before you hyperventilate." Eggman reaches out and retracts the helmet for Sonic. At the same time, unbeknownst to Sonic, Eggman activates the mind control devices. Though they're not 100% active yet.

Eggman offers Sonic a water bottle and he takes it. Over the next few minutes, he manages to calm himself down. "Heh. Didn't think you cared, Eggy."

"I don't. I just didn't want you overloading my suit with all the distress it was picking up."

Sonic shrugs. The two of them converse for a few more minutes, going over what just happened at the race and what their plan is going forward. With one last snarky remark, Sonic puts his helmet back on and flies off. He plans to lay low until he hears from Amy and Tails and then meet back up with them.

I'm thinking that over the next few days leading up to the next race, Eggman starts to slowly exert more of his will over Sonic's mind. It starts with little urges to do things - things not too out of the ordinary. Sonic 'gets the idea' to grab a quick chilidog when he wasn't planning to. Before long he finds himself reluctant to take off the Phantom Rider suit - he doesn't want to run the risk of someone seeing him and blowing his cover . . . better safe than sorry. Then he stops meeting up with Amy and Tails, only talking with them when they contact him first. And when they do talk, he's only interested in talking about their mission. That's normal, right? They need to get this taken care of as quickly as possible. Then they can go back to their lives.

It all culminates at the next race. Phantom Rider makes his next appearance, but something's off this time. Jet immediately goes for him, but instead of taunting him like last time, this time Phantom Rider is dead silent. Nothing Jet or Suge do gets a reaction out of him. He stays completely focused on racing. Then when security shows up, Phantom Rider out maneuvers them without breaking a sweat. Once he's done disrupting the race, he leaves, again without a word.

Sonic gets a hold of himself right as Eggman finds him again. He seems shaken and the doctor asks smugly what's wrong. Sonic says he's been feeling . . . off lately, then angrily asks what Eggman's done to him.

But it's too late.

Eggman finally turns the mind control device up to full power. Sonic feels it immediately. He tries to fight back. He tries to resist. He tries to call his friends for help. But he can't. Sonic struggles, slowly get weaker and weaker as Eggman watches, a wicked smile on his face. Until finally, Sonic becomes still. His face becomes blank.

Eggman is in control.

[tarithenurse]

Inhuman

Fandom: MCU Pairing: Bucky x fem!reader, eventually Loki x fem!reader, Stucky, more (some canon, some not). Word count: 2525 Contents: Reunion! A/N: Any questions are welcome. Please comment and like and reblog. Let me know if you want a tag.

Chapter 28

... Reader’s PoV ...

Despite the jet-lag, you still sleep horribly in the new bed. Always have. It’s not a matter of the quality of the bed or anything in the environment, it’s simply the fact that it’s a new place and you feel somewhat unsafe…even with a guard standing outside to watch over you. Though, that’s probably not for my benefit but for theirs.

Because of this, you’ve already done some training, although constrained because of the lack of space, and another shower by the time the girl brings the breakfast.

“Thank you very much.”

Maybe the Wakandan doesn’t understand English, because she looks startled and hurriedly exits the room again without answering, leaving you alone until when Ayo finally arrives to fetch you.

You don’t head for the same room as yesterday, rather you go to an inward facing room that seems to function as a sort of hub for any digital investigations that being king and superhero might require. It’s busy here, but apart from a few people looking up as you enter, no one stops working.

T’Challa himself is bend over some papers with one of the men from the meeting. And indeed, he does look very kingly, emanating decisiveness and authority.

Ayo hasn’t said anything until now and she chooses the words from absolute necessity. “Don’t move.”

You can’t hear what she tells him, their heads close together, but you see him nod as he answers. A moment later Ayo has taken his spot allowing him to walk past you, prompting you to follow.

“As you see, the news you brought us have sparked quite some activity. We will help if possible.”

“Anything would be appreciated, I’m sure.” So many allies.

“None of the Dora Milaje agree with me on this but I would be offended if left out…from anything.” There is no reason to ask what exactly he might be referring to.

“They want to keep your safe. It’s her job.” Maybe it’s more than that?

A side glance reveals that he, despite being burdened with the responsibilities of leading a country, is aware of the possibility. Or at least it reveals a soft twinkle in his eyes that you haven’t seen before.

You’ve taken the elevator quite a few floors down and are following a narrow passage further into the mountainside. New people are showing up on the radar, one of which is extremely faint but recognizable as Bucky.

Aiming as directly as possible towards the weak lights, you arrive at a door near the end of the corridor. There are no handles, just a biometric lock-screen next to the door frame. Without a word, T’Challa reaches past you, pressing his hand onto the smooth black surface, causing parts of it to light up yellow and orange and the door itself to slide open and reveal a scenery fit for sci-fi movie.

Everything is clinically white only interspersed by the gleam of surgical steal. Despite the environment, this is very different from any hospital room or surgical theatre you’ve seen before. The operations table is replaced by a large cylinder that’s tilted partially, facing away from the door so all that you can see is the white and steel top and side.

Hurrying around it, almost ignorant of the two lab-coat clad people, the front side of the cylinder is see-through, allowing an unobstructed view to Bucky. His face is pale, but peaceful. It’s almost impossible to see if he’s sleeping or dead and you thank the Inhuman genes for the skill of detecting life…even if faint. His metal-arm is gone, ending the metallic shoulder abruptly. They’ve covered the machinery with a little black rubber ‘hat’.

“I am afraid the doctors would insist that you are not present for the first part of the process.” Cupping your elbow in his hand, T’Challa leads you away, kindly but insistent. “My sister, Shuri, has worked hard to undo the damage done by Hydra to him.” The brotherly pride is glowing off of him like a beacon. “She has worked wonders but it has had to be completed in several steps, each time demanding the use of cryostasis to…stabilize him.”

He has led you back the way you came from to a room that could have been taken from any hospital. It’s barren without a bed in it and upon further inspection it becomes evident that the emptiness might be strategic: the few things that are left, a blue chair in the right corner and a small bed side table, which would have been on the other side of the bed if there had been one, are both bolted onto the floor. There are no decorations or lose objects at all, making it resemble the rooms for psychiatric patients that are a step away from a padded cell.

“And now…?”

“Now,” T’Challa regards you intently, “it is complete. No more cryostasis and no more triggers.”

Without further ado, he leaves you, the only consolation is that the door remains unlocked and unguarded as the king returns to the cryo-room.

It’s eerie to accept, that this is what has been facing Bucky each time he’s been waking up, but sadly it does make sense to have such a controlled environment as patients waking from comas and such things often are confused, and sometimes (though thankfully rarely) that leads to violence or self harm because of the rollercoaster of emotions that can overwhelm the patient. If you then take into account that this patient is incredibly strong and previously has been able to kill off people without breaking a sweat, then it makes sense to leave as little as possible to chance. As if to verify your theory, a small red dot lights up in one of the corners of the ceiling. Camera. Of course.

Back in the cryo-room there is renewed activity surrounding Bucky. You know nothing about cryostasis and how to reverse it, but it seems they’re rapidly defrosting the human popsicle and lifting him from the chamber and onto a flat surface. It takes four grown men to make the move. Soon, you can see the glittering, one-armed figure hover towards you propelled forward by two men.

When they enter the room, you see they are doctors. Without a word, they park the bed and head back for the door.

“Wait! What now?”

Maybe it’s an odd question to them, at least the only answer you get is a grunt from one and a “he wakes at some point” from the other.

As they close the door, you hear the click of the lock indicating the level of security that applies to this patient. It’s impressive really, that they have allowed him to have a duvet and a pillow…but then, they aren’t fearing for his safety.

He doesn’t look like a threat as he lies there breathing shallowly and with just one arm. All of his body is functioning in slow motion, trying to get back to working order as the temperature rises slowly. There’s nothing for you to do but wait. You should have had a book with you, but at least the signal is good enough to provide entertainment by phone.

...

The last few hours, his vitals have been nearing normal levels and his organs are fully functioning. Still, it’s a relief when Bucky finally stirs, making you sit up straight in the chair where you have been daydreaming.

“Steve?” His voice is hoarse and barely louder than a whisper.

“He couldn’t make it this time. Sorry.”

Struggling to sit up, he looks in your direction with blurry eyes. “Is he okay?”

“He is fine. He is trying to get politicians to do the right things.”

“Then he’s not happy.” Resignation makes Bucky fall back on the pillow. “He hates politics.”

That does sound a lot like Steven Rogers. Even though he prefers diplomacy over violence, he hates the idea of a few people making choices for the rest of the world.

“Don’t worry, he can handle it. Get some rest.”

Judging from the state he is in, it’s probably not your words that send him back to dreamland. Though most of the body seems to function, there is very little movement in the glitter that makes up his brain. Perhaps that is the last part to wake?

Getting up, you tug the duvet back down around him again. A lose strand of hair has fallen down into his face. It’s really getting long…long enough to braid. A silly thought flashes across your mind, forcing you to stifle a giggle. Carefully, you pull apart a strand as thick as a thumb and start to braid it.

Then another.

And then more.

It’s slow work as every change in breathing makes you freeze mid motion, but at least it’s entertaining…and maybe the people watching the feed from the surveillance camera are amused for once too.

Eventually, you have to shift to the other side of the bed to reach the hair on the right side of his head.

You’re halfway through a new braid when two things happen simultaneously: one is that you notice the breathing has changed and that the muscles are contracting in most of his body, the other is that he kicks down the duvet to free his right arm so he can grab your wrist. In a flurry of movements, he’s jumped out of bed and pushed you face first up against a wall, the arm twisted behind your back.

It’s pure instinct that makes you push away with the free left hand, so you can get the feet on the wall too and kick off, flipping yourself backwards over his shoulder as you twist, freeing yourself from the hold.

You land awkwardly, one knee on the floor the other nearly hitting your own chin, but there is no time to think: Bucky has turned, slightly wobbly from the sudden movement. With a whoosh, your leg, almost on its own, glides above the floor, knocking the feet away from under him and granting you momentum to pull both his arm and left leg towards the small of his back where you have planted a knee.

“Buck, stop it! I’m a friend!”

Something seems to click for him, because he relaxes slowly, trying to control his breathing. “What the hell are you doing here?” It’s hard to tell what emotions are running through him.

“Steve couldn’t come so I’m here instead.” You don’t dare to let go. Not yet.

“They shouldn’t have let you in here with me...” Sighing deeply, before he tries to turn his head to look at you. “You…you can let go now.”

“Are you sure?” It’s hard to see his eyes from this position, but as far as you can tell he is genuinely in control of himself again.

“I won’t hurt you.”

“There was once a master assassin who told me that that’s exactly what a master assassin would say to make a target feel safe.” Even so, you let go, stepping backwards to let him back onto his feet.

“Somehow, I don’t think that’s the only thing she taught you.”

Bucky is swaying quite dangerously, so you order him back in bed where he almost falls asleep before he lies down. The surge of adrenaline is already spent. Same goes for you, but you have a sprained shoulder to attend to.

Steve is happy to hear that Bucky is waking up, when you text him. Back in DC, he, Natasha, and Coulson have been attending one meeting after the other to get the right politicians, agencies and bureaus to understand that they need the green light for an unspecified mission. Next stop is the UN it seems. It’s hard to keep track of everyone when they are all travelling everywhere at the moment.

…

The sound of silence is what makes you stop humming to yourself. Bucky’s eyes are still closed, but his breathing is not that of a sleeping man.

“Good morning. Again.”

“What morning?” This time it’s pure logical thinking that’s at the top of his head which seems to be fully powered up as he swings his legs over the edge of the bed.

“Second of April. It’s a Sunday.”

The answer is not what he expected. “That’s too early. What’s going on?” He’s pacing around the room, stopping sometimes to either stretch or bend various joints.

“We have a situation…”

As if caught in a loop, you find yourself explaining again what is going on, only this time the interrupting questions are much more tactical of nature. There are better heads planning things, so most of the inquiries are not answered to his satisfaction. He has finally come to a halt again, sitting on the bed with one leg swinging off the edge. Most of the braids are still in his hair, but he seems oblivious to it as he listens carefully.

“What do they expect from me? Do you know?” He is a soldier now, waiting for his mission.

“As I said…we are preparing and setting up all our chess pieces, but we don’t know who we are facing.”

The uncertainty is horrible, because the two of you can’t make any proper plans, but Bucky seems to understand and eventually you are talking about general events in the world since he was put on ice.

The interruption comes in the shape of young and round-faced woman. Her hair is gathered in small knots that have been dyed slightly red. She introduces herself as Nakia and explains that she’ll escort you back to your rooms.

You recognize the route as it is the same you took this morning, and soon you are at the first stop where you have to enter. You stay in the doorway while the one-armed sergeant is shown to his place, officially making him a neighbour for the rest of the stay.

You’re just about to close the door, when Nakia comes half running back. “I am sorry. I have to inform you that you are expected to dine with his majesty this evening. I hope you have something more appropriate to wear.”

Looking down, you suddenly feel extremely self-conscious even though the black jeans and tank top is harmless. Maybe it’s the shoes. Sneakers are not always a crowd-winner. You’ve got a dress and a pair of heels with you (Natasha’s definition of standard equipment on any trip…and now it makes sense), so you nod and the woman leaves, whispering a few instructions to the young guard from yesterday.

In the room next to yours, Bucky has gotten started on a training regiment that would leave most people breathless simply from watching.

Placing the phone to charge next to the little bauble on a chain that you had left on the bedside table this morning, you join in on this side of the wall, trying to keep up with him. It’s hard work and you have to do push-ups with both arms instead of just one. By the time he finally stops, you’re sweating like a horse and gasping for air. It makes the shower feel like a proper prize.

[zhaliacain]

Huntikmas day 13- What jellycats I'd give to the team.

Zhalia:

Little sage dragon. You will prise the head canon that Zhalia was gifted this by someone probably Dante out of my cold. dead. hands. Even then its password and biometric protected and believe me you cannot get Face ID working unless I look a certain way, nothing will take this away from me.

Anyways, she doesn't want it obviously but she's getting it end of.

Den:

Timmy Turtle- if grumpy, why friend shaped? If I had a titan that turned the team into jellycats then this is what Den would be, plus its a good shape to punch when he's stressed and an ideal throwing size.

Harrison:

Ricky Rain frog Vampire. Like Den he's grumpy but he's vampire themed because Antedeluvian. Once again built like a canon ball for throwing wars.

Lok and Sophie:

You cannot convince me that they aren't that couple with the matching. I think the classic bunny works well for them individually and together and this way they're their own colours but with the matching blossom theme just to tie it all together.

Cherit:

Cherit needed to have an amusables and since there isn't a proper pie one, he gets pastries instead. Out of all of them I've gone for the croissant for Cherit because he's kind of like a friend of mine who also gives off croissant vibes.

Dante:

Dante gets two because he's lived twice. Yellow sausage dog is obviously a reference to him permanently wearing a yellow coat. The other is Freddie Fox because he looks like a detective with that hat and the colour of foxes reminds me of Dante's hair.

[nareshkumartech]

How Canadian Licensing Systems Protect Against Identity Fraud

Identity fraud is a growing concern worldwide, and Canada is no exception. As licenses increasingly serve as key forms of identification for banking, travel, and government services, Canadian licensing systems have had to evolve with robust security measures to protect against identity fraud. Whether you are applying for your first license or renewing an existing one, it’s important to understand how these systems work to safeguard your personal information.

1. Advanced Physical Security Features

Modern Canadian driver’s licenses are embedded with multiple physical security features designed to make them extremely difficult to forge or tamper with. These include:

Holographic overlays: Special images that appear when the license is tilted, making duplication extremely difficult.

Microprinting: Very tiny text that is not visible to the naked eye but detectable under magnification, preventing easy reproduction.

Ghost images: A faint second image of the license holder that helps prevent photo swapping.

Raised lettering: Some jurisdictions use raised text that you can feel, adding another layer of protection against fakes.

These built-in technologies make it easy for authorities and businesses to quickly spot a fraudulent license during routine checks.

2. Digital Data Encryption

Canadian licensing systems now store driver data in encrypted databases, making unauthorized access to personal information extremely difficult. When information is transferred — such as when police scan your license or when you renew online — the data is encrypted both in transit and at rest. This ensures that even if someone intercepts the data, it remains useless without the decryption keys.

3. Stringent Identity Verification at Issuance

Before issuing a license, provincial and territorial licensing authorities conduct rigorous identity verification checks. Applicants must present multiple pieces of identification, including:

Proof of legal status in Canada (passport, PR card, visa).

Proof of residency within the province.

Secondary documents such as a birth certificate, citizenship card, or utility bill.

In many cases, cross-checks with federal databases (like immigration records or citizenship status) ensure that the applicant is who they claim to be. Newcomers may also face additional document checks to confirm their eligibility before a license is issued.

4. Real-Time Photo Comparison and Biometrics

When you renew your license or apply for a new one, your photograph is compared with existing photos on record using facial recognition software. This system helps detect cases where someone might be trying to fraudulently assume another person’s identity. In the future, more provinces are planning to expand the use of biometrics, such as fingerprints or iris scans, to further strengthen identification measures.

5. Ongoing Monitoring and Alerts

Canadian licensing systems do not just verify identities at the point of issuance — they continue monitoring afterward. If a license is reported stolen, lost, or involved in suspicious activity, it can be flagged in the system. Law enforcement agencies and border officials have real-time access to these databases, making it harder for stolen or fraudulent licenses to be used undetected.

Additionally, provinces encourage drivers to immediately report lost or stolen licenses to prevent identity theft and ensure the system remains secure.

Canadian licensing authorities are committed to staying ahead of fraudsters by continually updating security features and identity verification processes. Thanks to multi-layered protection — from physical security measures to real-time monitoring — Canadians can trust that their licenses remain a strong line of defense against identity fraud.

For step-by-step guidance on obtaining your driver’s license safely and staying informed about new ID requirements, visit LicensePrep.ca. Their resources make navigating the licensing process simple and secure!

[endlessly-searching-for-you]

There's Always Another Summer, bonus chapter 1 1/2: The Architect

I thought I was done with my Endless Summer sequel, well it turns out I lied and I’m adding bonus halftime chapters :D

« Chapter 1  / Chapter 2 » 

Somewhere beyond time

The program completed with a soft chime. Rourke leaned over his holographic desk and examined the report.

Perfect.

The timeline drift was negligible, and the anomaly readings were within acceptable bounds.  He allowed the corner of his mouth to twitch. Of course it worked. Project Janus was now complete.

With one stubborn exception.

He slid his hand over the panel and zoomed in on a defiant dot. La Huerta. His jaw tightened slightly. The rewrite should have erased the island. In every simulation, it vanished as soon as the machine was activated. But when he ran the actual program, not the simulation, it didn’t. He stared at the small stubborn dot on the ocean. His nostrils flared slightly.

After exactly four seconds, he leaned back in his chair, spine perfectly straight, and made a decision to give up.

No, not exactly that. Everett Rourke did not give up. He adjusted.

Instead of fighting to remove the island, he mentally reassigned its status from bug to a feature, and decided to put a research institute right where the Celestial had been. He’d never visit the site, of course. The world had been rewritten. His machine had already done its job. There was nothing of interest left on the island anymore. But he wanted to keep an eye on it, just in case.

Eight months ago

Another ping echoed across the room, and Rourke glanced at the report on his screen.

REF42 detected Confidence match: 99,9% Biometric signature: inconsistent Flagged for review

He scoffed and flicked the alert off-screen. Olivia’s favorite anomaly, clogging his perfect system with her nonsense again.

The simulation started as a way to predict loyalty issues—his idea, not hers. And it worked wonderfully, flagging dissidents before they even began to consider betrayal. It wasn’t foolproof, of course. But even if a few innocent people were eliminated—well, it was a sacrifice he was ready to make. Useful tool. Brutal, yes, but so was medicine. You cut to remove the rot.

But then she began to embellish it. Added new instances and new variables, and started calling it a multiverse simulator, even claiming she’s been able to prove the theory with it. All based on a single subject she called “REF42” appearing in all of her simulations regardless of any other variables. They had different faces, different names, different genders even. But she claimed the “psychological core of their choices” stayed the same. A true singleton, the only constant among the sea of variables.

He dismissed that psychobabble and told her to work on her confirmation bias. But he allowed her to keep the simulator running—the data was too valuable to shut it down, even if the price was an occasional false report.

Let her believe in other worlds. This one—the one he wrote—was perfect. Any data that said otherwise was just a glitch unworthy of his time.

« Chapter 1  / Chapter 2 » 

[kiti-kiwi]

Frost and Static

Chapter 1 Zayne x MC Fanfic

Ascending the concrete stairs to the penthouse, I was acutely aware of the delicate scrape of my So Kates against each step. Tomorrow, my muscles would protest this impromptu climb, but the indignation coursing through my veins overshadowed any concern for physical discomfort. Behind me, Zayne's measured footsteps maintained their usual rhythm, no labored breathing, no hint of exertion. Just that steady, composed presence I had grown accustomed to over the past months.

He was meant to have the evening off. I had imagined him reading in some minimalist apartment, or practicing kendo, whatever stoic bodyguards did in their leisure time. Yet there he'd been at the charity gala, appearing at my elbow just as I'd lifted my strawberry daiquiri for a sip. The premium rum I'd anticipated never touched my lips; instead, my nose met a frozen slush.

The transformation had been seamless, invisible. One moment, liquid elegance; the next, a frozen confection. When I'd glanced up over the crystal rim, those hazel eyes held mine with just the faintest suggestion of amusement playing at the corners of his mouth.

His silence was perhaps the most vexing aspect of having Zayne as protection. He never raised his voice, never resorted to physical intervention, never reported my activities to Grandmother. He simply remained, an immutable presence in my orbit, redirecting my intentions with the precision of a chess grandmaster and the emotional transparency of marble.

"These stairs are interminable," I observed, gripping the brushed steel railing as we approached the final landing. The Louboutin’s that had complemented my black silk gown so perfectly now felt distinctly impractical. I paused to remove one shoe, but the combination of righteous irritation, champagne, and precarious balance sent me tilting backward.

The sensation of falling lasted mere milliseconds before I was enveloped in cherry wood and vanilla, an unexpectedly warm fragrance for such a reserved man. His arms secured me against a chest that might have been sculpted by Michelangelo himself.

"Careful," Zayne murmured, and I detected the smile threading through his words. He was finding this amusing, clearly.

I attempted to extract myself from his hold, but his grip remained firm yet gentle. In one fluid motion, he retrieved my abandoned shoe, then removed its partner, securing both as he lifted me effortlessly and continued our ascent.

"You're displeased with me," he observed, his tone conversational, as though we were discussing the evening's musical selection rather than my obvious frustration.

I maintained my silence. At my apartment door, I noticed him press his thumb to the biometric scanner, a recent addition I hadn't authorized. My eyebrows lifted, but before I could voice my surprise, the lock disengaged. He set me down with care, then moved to the entryway closet, placing my shoes in their designated space with characteristic meticulousness.

His methodical handling of my belongings, my life, finally exceeded my tolerance. I closed the door with more force than strictly necessary, causing the Rothko on the adjacent wall to shift slightly. Zayne, naturally, remained unperturbed. He simply adjusted the frame with a single, precise movement.

That was the final straw. I grab my Hermès Kelly, a bespoke piece from their atelier, and launched it in his direction. Part of me was grateful when he caught it smoothly; Grandmother would have killed over if I'd damaged it. My irritation only intensified when Zayne calmly placed it on its designated hook, as though airborne handbags were routine.

"Why are you here, Zayne?" The question emerged as more of an exhalation than an inquiry. I smoothed my carefully arranged hair, attempting to dispel the static that always accompanied emotional upheaval.

Zayne turned to face me, assuming a relaxed stance against the wall, arms crossed. The posture emphasized the impeccable tailoring of his dinner jacket. Everything about him radiated control, precision, maddening composure. Arguing with him was like debating a particularly handsome sculpture.

"I asked you a question," I continued, matching his stance. "You're meant to be off duty. Don't you have a meditation retreat on a glacier awaiting your presence?"

That subtle twitch of his lips appeared again, the near smile that made me contemplate launching additional accessories. "Your grandmother requested I maintain surveillance this evening. There's been concerning intelligence."

I couldn't suppress an eye roll. "Concerning intelligence? How delightfully vague. Did someone fail to observe proper etiquette at the auction? Perhaps their donation was insufficiently generous?"

Zayne remained unbaited, as always. Instead, he stepped away from the wall, his presence somehow commanding the expansive living space. "It means," he said, his voice dropping to that low register that had an unfortunate effect on my composure, "that I'm here to ensure your safety. Regardless of your preferences."

I turned away, pouring a measure of Bordeaux from the Baccarat decanter. The 2015 vintage was exceptional, but it provided little comfort. "Well, you've succeeded admirably in disrupting my evening. Mission accomplished."

I need to call Tara and apologize for leaving  her celebration prematurely. Again.

Zayne remained silent, though I could sense his attention following my movements. The wine was exquisite, complex, perfectly balanced, yet it failed to ease the tension building in my chest. When I finally met his gaze, he was observing me with that penetrating look that made me feel utterly transparent.

"What?" I set the crystal down with deliberate force. It sang a crystalline note. "Why are you studying me like that?"

"You're distressed," he noted, as though making a scientific observation.

"How perceptive," I murmured, beginning to pace. The movement helped channel the restless energy accumulating within me. Throughout the apartment, lights flickered subtly, an unfortunate manifestation of my resonance Evol when emotions ran high. "Of course I'm distressed. You materialized like some oversized specter and sabotaged my cocktail. Now you're here, in my private space, behaving as though you have carte blanche." I gestured toward the door. "When precisely did you program your biometric data into my security system? What's next, monitoring devices in my jewelry collection?"

For the first time, something shifted in his expression. Not quite a smile, but something that made my breath catch. "I'm here for your protection," he said, his voice gentler now. "That's my responsibility."

"Your responsibility," I echoed, allowing each word to drip with elegant disdain. Electric interference intensified, causing the television to flicker. "Naturally. Because that's all this represents to you, isn't it? Simply another assignment."

For an instant, his composure fractured. Something raw and unguarded flickered across his features before disappearing behind his usual reserve. But it was sufficient to constrict my chest, enough to make me question my assumptions about him.

He closed the distance between us until I could distinguish the emerald flecks in his hazel eyes. "What would you have me say?" His voice was barely audible now, roughened with unnamed emotion.

As he spoke, frost began to manifest along his forearms, delicate crystalline patterns that caught the apartment's fluctuating illumination. His ice Evol was responding to something, though whether anger or another emotion entirely remained unclear.

"That I find your temperamental exits in designer heels entertaining? That watching you weaponize luxury handbags provides endless amusement?" The frost spread further, reaching his elbows. "Or perhaps you'd prefer I confess that the thought of anything happening to you is intolerable, even if it means enduring your displeasure daily?"

I stared at him, rendered speechlessly. This wasn't the Zayne I knew, the controlled, emotionless guardian who approached everything with tactical precision. This was someone else entirely, someone vulnerable and genuine and so close I could feel the chill emanating from his skin.

Before I could formulate a response, he turned away, the frost receding as he reasserted control. He adjusted his cuffs with sharp, practiced movements. "Forget I said anything," he murmured, moving toward the door. "I'll be stationed outside if you require assistance."

"Zayne, please," The words escaped before I could reconsider. He paused, hand on the handle, shoulders tense, but didn't turn. "I didn't intend to,"

"It's quite alright," he interrupted, his voice returning to its customary professional tone. "Rest well. I'll see you in the morning."

Then he was gone, leaving me alone in my living room with countless questions and an unexpected ache in my chest that I preferred not to examine too closely. For the first time since Grandmother had assigned him to my protection, I wondered if I’d completely misjudged Zayne.

My contemplation was interrupted by my phone's insistent vibration. Tara's name illuminated the screen, accompanied by a wave of guilt. I'd abandoned her celebration because of my own pique.

"Tara, I'm sorry for leaving early, Za,"

"It's fine, MC," she interrupted, though tension colored her voice. "I saw your handsome shadow escort you out. Honestly? Fortuitous timing. A wanderer crashed the party."

I nearly aspirated my wine, the Bordeaux burning my throat. "What? Are you ok?"

My fingers found the remote, and indeed, the news was already covering the incident. Aerial drones circled Tara's family estate while Hunter Association teams secured what appeared to be a massive, crystalline entity. The creature was being loaded onto a specialized containment vehicle, residual energy still crackling across its form.

"I'm perfectly fine," Tara assured me, though I detected the tremor she was attempting to mask. "Benefits of Father's defense contracts, half the Hunter Association materialized within minutes. They're transporting that thing to the UNI Group laboratories, so I imagine your grandmother will be occupied soon enough."

My stomach tightened. The UNI Group's facilities handled only the most dangerous wanderer specimens, and their involvement suggested this was far from a random occurrence.

"Tara, you're certain you're alright?" I pressed, watching the footage with mounting concern. "That creature could have been lethal."

"I'm fine, truly. Though I'm more concerned about you. You departed just before it appeared. If Zayne hadn't been there to ensure your exit..." She let the implication linger.

I glanced toward the door where Zayne had disappeared, my chest constricting with gratitude and something more complex. "Yes," I murmured. "I suppose my debt to him is greater than I realized."

"You owe him everything, darling," Tara stated plainly. "Regardless, I should go. Father's convening an emergency family meeting regarding 'security protocols’. Her impression of her father's military bearing was flawless. " We’ll chat tomorrow, ok?"

"Of course. Please be careful, Tara."

After disconnecting, I studied the news coverage, my thoughts racing. The wanderer appeared unlike any I'd previously encountered, larger, more aggressive, with those peculiar crystalline formations covering its body. And if the UNI Group was involved, it connected directly to Grandmother's work.

The door opened without ceremony, and Zayne re-entered. He'd removed his dinner jacket, leaving him in his pristine white shirt and black trousers. Even slightly disheveled, he maintained an editorial quality.

"Were you aware?" I asked without preamble, my tone sharper than intended. "About the wanderer?"

His jaw tightened almost imperceptibly. "I was briefed on a potential threat. Hence my presence at the gala."

"And you didn't consider informing me?" I rose, wine forgotten. Around us, lights flickered more dramatically as my emotions escalated. "I could have been injured, Zayne. Tara could have been killed."

Finally, he met my gaze directly, those hazel eyes unyielding. "You weren't," he emphasized the word deliberately. "That's what matters."

"What matters," I echoed, gesturing in frustration. The television dissolved into static, and I could hear electronics throughout the apartment beginning to resonate as my Evol responded to my emotional state. "But what if something happens to you? What if you're not always available to intervene?"

We regarded each other across my living room, the air charged with more than just my unstable power. Frost was manifesting on Zayne's arms again, delicate crystals forming in response to my electrical field. Our Evols were interacting, feeding off the tension between us in a way that was simultaneously exhilarating and alarming.

Then, unexpectedly, he stepped closer. "Then I'll ensure you're prepared."

"Prepared for what?" I whispered.

"To protect yourself." His voice remained steady, resolute. "Beginning tomorrow."

I parted my lips to protest, but the look in his eyes silenced me. There was something there, fierce, and protective and absolutely uncompromising, that caused my heart to skip.

"Rest well," he said, already moving toward the door once more. "Tomorrow will be challenging."

As the door closed behind him, I remained alone with the flickering lights and the growing certainty that my life was about to transform in ways I couldn't yet grasped.

[basic204]

HELLDIVERS OPERATIONAL MISSION LOG - FROZEN RAGE

CLASSIFIED TRANSMISSION: SUPER EARTH COMMAND

OPERATIVE: Master Sergeant Dr. Praxis RANK: Level 25 Specialist Combat Scientist DATE: 15.05.2185 LOCATION: PILEN V - Liberty's Promise City MISSION: Illuminate Mind Control Pylon Neutralization

[Begin Video Feed Transcript – Helmet Cam ID: DP-25-59-MKIV]

[T-00:00:15] Recording begins aboard "Our Lady of Midnight" – Bridge Hellpod Bay

[NEURAL INTERFACE ONLINE] [SUIT SYSTEMS: OPERATIONAL] [BIOMONITOR: HR 87 BPM | BP 124/78 | RESP 14 | O₂SAT 99%] [EXTERNAL TEMP: -85.4°F | WIND: 38 MPH NNE | VISIBILITY: 27%]

Emergency SOS signal penetrates my neural interface like an ice pick driven through the prefrontal cortex. Priority markers flash crimson across my optical field:

[PRIORITY LEVEL: CRITICAL] [LOCATION: PILEN V - LIBERTY'S PROMISE CITY] [DISTRESS CLASS: MIND CONTROL EVENT] [PROJECTED SURVIVAL RATE: 12%] [OPERATION STATUS: TWO TEAMS LOST]

Commander Vega's face materializes on my HUD, lines of exhaustion etched around her eyes: "Praxis, situation is FUBAR. Two teams gone dark. Liberty's Promise is completely compromised – 23,000 colonists converted. Fleet's positioning but most ships are reporting navigation systems affected by Illuminate interference. We're the only vessel maintaining stable orbit."

Multiple SEAF vessels hover in tactical formation, their IFF signatures pulsing steadily on my tactical overlay: "Righteous Thunder," "Liberty's Fist," "Democratic Resolve," "Eternal Vigilance." Comms chatter indicates disagreement among captains about mission viability.

Lieutenant Kim appears at my six, his neurological readout showing elevated stress markers: "Other ships reporting widespread system failures, sir. Our Lady of Midnight is maintaining integrity, but we're down to three functional Hellpods. Radiation from the singularity has compromised our cloning bay – we can't risk any more drops after you."

The AR-23 Liberator locks into my chest mount with a satisfying magnetic snap, weapon systems immediately syncing with neural interface.

[WEAPON LINKED: AR-23 LIBERATOR] [AMMUNITION: 360/405] [FIRING MODE: 3-ROUND BURST] [CHAMBER TEMP: NOMINAL] [BARREL INTEGRITY: 100%]

The P-19 Redeemer settles into my palm, biometric sensors confirming user identity as holster seals engage.

[SIDEARM LINKED: P-19 REDEEMER] [AMMUNITION: 31/124] [FIRING MODE: FULL AUTO] [CYCLIC RATE: 1100 RPM] [TRIGGER PRESSURE: 1.3KG]

Suit diagnostics cascade across my peripheral vision:

[EXOSKELETAL ASSIST: CALIBRATED] [THERMAL REGULATION: ARCTIC PROTOCOLS ACTIVE] [NEURAL SHIELDING: PRIMARY/SECONDARY/TERTIARY] [MEDICAL SYSTEMS: COMBAT-READY] [STIM RESERVES: 100%] [PAIN MANAGEMENT: AUTO-ADJUSTING]

[T-00:00:35] Hellpod seals with pneumatic hiss. Interior lights bleed into combat red

Commander Vega's voice cuts through pre-launch static: "Operation feed will remain open, Praxis. Other ships are falling back – radiation interference from the Meridian Singularity is affecting their targeting systems. We're getting conflicting orders from Command, but Our Lady won't abandon you."

My biomonitor spikes as catecholamine levels flood my system:

[ADRENALINE SPIKE DETECTED] [HEARTRATE: 142 BPM] [BLOOD PRESSURE: 157/92] [CORTISOL LEVELS: ELEVATED] [COGNITIVE ENHANCEMENT: ENGAGED]

The countdown sequence burns across my retinas as the Hellpod's launch capacitors charge: 5…4…3…2…1…

[T-00:01:10] Violent acceleration forces. G-meter redlines at 9.7 before compensators engage

[G-FORCE: 9.7] [INTERNAL ORGAN DISPLACEMENT: WITHIN PARAMETERS] [SUIT COMPENSATORS: ACTIVE] [DESCENT TRAJECTORY: OPTIMAL] [IMPACT VECTOR: LIBERTY'S PROMISE ADMINISTRATIVE DISTRICT]

External cameras penetrate the atmospheric haze, transmitting real-time tactical overlay of Liberty's Promise City:

[POPULATION REGISTRY: 23,467] [CURRENT HUMAN LIFESIGNS: 0] [Voteless SIGNATURES: 21,893] [ILLUMINATE PRESENCE: CONFIRMED] [MIND CONTROL RADIUS: 1.7KM]

The former pride of Super Earth's colonial achievement stretches below – a sprawling metropolitan grid now transformed into a geometric pattern of death. Infrared scanning reveals thousands of Voteless moving through streets in organized formations. Their body temperatures register 12°F below normal human baseline.

Through the static, Commander Vega's voice fragments: "Be advised—Liberty's Promise c-central pylon—coordinates uploading—other ships breaking formation—attempting to maintain—Meridian Singularity radiation—communications compromised—God help us all—"

[T-00:02:47] Impact imminent. Retro-thrusters engage with deafening roar. Descent stabilizers deploy

[IMPACT COUNTDOWN: 3…2…1…] [TERRAIN ASSESSMENT: URBAN RUINS] [STRUCTURAL INTEGRITY: COMPROMISED] [IMMEDIATE THREATS: MULTIPLE] [FRIENDLIES: ZERO]

My vocal subprocessors activate automatically: "STAND BACK FOR DEMOCRACY!"

[T-00:03:01] Hellpod impacts with 2.1 metric tons of force. Surrounding terrain assessment: urban ruins, structural integrity compromised

[IMPACT FORCE: 2.1 METRIC TONS] [SUIT COMPRESSION: 27%] [VERTEBRAL STACK PRESSURE: 8.9 KPA] [TOOTH ENAMEL MICROFRACTURES: DETECTED]

The Hellpod door explodes outward in a choreographed pyrotechnic sequence, exposing Liberty's Promise's frozen hell. Environmental analyzer immediately catalogs survival metrics:

[EXTERNAL TEMPERATURE: -85.4°F] [WIND CHILL: -112.7°F] [EXPOSURE SURVIVAL: 27 SECONDS UNPROTECTED] [ATMOSPHERIC COMPOSITION: O₂ 19.2%, N₂ 78.8%, CONTAMINANTS 2.0%] [UNKNOWN PARTICULATE: PRESENT – PRELIMINARY ANALYSIS SUGGESTS PSYCHOACTIVE PROPERTIES]

Suit compensators whine as thermal regulation systems engage emergency protocols:

[THERMAL REGULATION: MAXIMUM OUTPUT] [POWER DIVERSION: HEATING ELEMENTS +47%] [SUIT INTEGRITY: MAINTAINING] [ESTIMATED OPERATIONAL WINDOW: 4.7 HOURS]

Through swirling ice crystals, optical enhancement reveals Liberty's Promise's true state – a necropolis of twisted infrastructure. Municipal building spires half-collapsed into skeletal remains. Street-level retail corridors choked with abandoned vehicles, many containing flash-frozen former occupants, their faces contorted in expressions of ultimate horror.

The tactical frequency erupts with fragmented transmissions from previous teams, their neural patterns showing clear signs of Illuminate corruption:

"—DP-17 to Midnight, something's crawling inside my thoughts—" "—Major Danvers has turned, REPEAT, Danvers is compromised, he's shooting at—" "—GET OUT GET OUT GET OUT they're in my eyes I can see them moving—"

[T-00:03:15] First visual of compromised Helldivers. Identifying markers confirmed: SEAF uniforms with altered behavior patterns

[TACTICAL ASSESSMENT: HELLDIVERS COMPROMISED] [IFF TRANSPONDERS: ACTIVE BUT CORRUPTED] [NEURAL PATTERNS: ILLUMINATE INFILTRATION] [THREAT ASSESSMENT: LETHAL] [RULES OF ENGAGEMENT: ADJUSTED – TARGETING FRIENDLY FORCES AUTHORIZED]

Through Liberty's Promise's main thoroughfare, optical enhancement identifies three Helldivers from second deployment – their movements displaying the jerky, asynchronous patterns characteristic of neural hijacking. Biometric scan shows impossible ocular dilation, cerebral activity concentrated in non-human patterns.

Private First Class Williams, 31st Battalion, fires his Liberator in rhythmic three-round bursts at hallucinated targets. Sergeant Cooper claws frantically at his helmet, fingernails leaving bloody furrows across reinforced plexiglass as he attempts to physically extract the psychic intrusion. Lieutenant Davis lies face-down in crimson-stained snow, precise triangular exit wound pattern indicating execution-style termination by friendly fire.

Neural defense systems activate automatically:

[PSYCHIC INTERFERENCE DETECTED] [CEREBRAL SHIELDING: ENGAGED] [COGNITIVE PROTECTION PROTOCOLS: ACTIVE] [MEMORY SECTOR LOCKDOWN: INITIATED] [PERSONALITY CORE: ISOLATED]

"This is Praxis to all operational units. Switch to tertiary neural buffers, authorization code echo-nine-seven-tango."

Only tortured screaming answers.

[T-00:04:42] Orbital scan shows multiple nearby Hellpods changing trajectory mid-descent

[ORBITAL ASSESSMENT: CRITICAL] [REINFORCEMENTS: ABORTED] [HELLPOD TRAJECTORY CHANGES: MULTIPLE] [FLEET STATUS: WITHDRAWING] [OUR LADY OF MIDNIGHT: MAINTAINING POSITION]

The tactical overlay paints a picture more chilling than PILEN V's atmosphere – SEAF vessels are aborting deployments in real-time. Hull signatures for "Righteous Thunder" and "Liberty's Fist" already fading as they accelerate beyond optimal support range.

Commander Vega's transmission cuts through momentarily: "—other vessels reporting Illuminate psychic penetration of navigation systems—singularity radiation amplifying effect—we're the only ship with functioning shielding—Praxis, you're on your own—we'll monitor but cannot—repeat CANNOT—send additional personnel—"

"This is Master Sergeant Praxis to all Helldiver ships! Maintain deployment schedule! Liberty's Promise requires immediate reinforcement!"

The tactical display continues its merciless assessment as ship after ship terminates transmission. Only Our Lady of Midnight maintains signal integrity, her Captain refusing orders to withdraw despite tactical disadvantage.

[MISSION STATUS: UNSUPPORTED] [ALLIED FORCES: ZERO] [EXTRACTION PROBABILITY: 23%] [COMMAND RECOMMENDATION: ABORT] [MANUAL OVERRIDE: ENGAGED – CONTINUING MISSION]

[T-00:05:30] First Voteless contact. Initial wave: 27 signatures detected moving at 6.7m/s

[THREAT ASSESSMENT: Voteless] [QUANTITY: 27] [MOVEMENT SPEED: 6.7M/S] [FORMATION: COORDINATED ASSAULT PATTERN] [TARGETING: CONFIRMED – THEY'VE IDENTIFIED YOU]

Through Liberty's Promise's frozen canyon of abandoned buildings, optical enhancement reveals them in nightmarish clarity – former colonists transformed into biological weapons. Facial recognition matches against colonial databases:

Dr. Elena Sorokin, Liberty's Promise Chief Medical Officer Daniel Wu, Colonial Infrastructure Engineer Amara Okafor, Primary Education Specialist Twenty-four others – transformed beyond recognition yet database confirms identity

Their skin bleached corpse-white from both environmental conditions and physiological transformation. Movement analysis indicates complete reconfiguration of musculoskeletal structure – joints rotating beyond human anatomical limitations. Ocular scan reveals complete replacement of eyes with Illuminate sensory organs.

Weapon systems activate simultaneously with neural targeting:

[WEAPON ACTIVE: AR-23 LIBERATOR] [TARGET ACQUISITION: NEURAL CLUSTER] [WIND COMPENSATION: 13 MOA RIGHT] [TEMPERATURE EFFECT: -2.7MM VERTICAL] [OPTIMAL FIRING SOLUTION: CALCULATED]

[T-00:05:43] Three-round burst executed. Three kills. Cranial penetration confirmed.

[RECOIL MEASURED: 2.7MM] [MUZZLE VELOCITY: 983 M/S] [TARGET EFFECT: CATASTROPHIC NEURAL DISRUPTION] [AMMUNITION REMAINING: 357/405] [CHAMBER TEMPERATURE: NOMINAL]

The Liberator barks three times in rapid succession, the titanium-ceramic suppressor keeping sound signature below 137 decibels. Three 5.56mm depleted uranium/tungsten composite rounds punch through cranial cases with surgical precision. Black ichor – a mixture of cerebrospinal fluid and Illuminate biotech – erupts in high-velocity sprays.

Ballistic trajectory analysis estimates penetration depth at 12.7cm – sufficient to completely destroy Illuminate control implants located at the base of the occipital lobe.

[T-00:08:39] Large-scale Voteless reinforcements detected. Thermal sensors identify mass movement throughout Liberty's Promise City

[Voteless SIGNATURES: MULTIPLYING] [THREAT ASSESSMENT: SEVERE] [THERMAL SIGNATURES: 1,000+ AND INCREASING] [MOVEMENT PATTERN: COORDINATED PINCER] [ILLUMINATE CONTROLLER SIGNALS: DETECTED AT MULTIPLE ELEVATIONS]

"This is Praxis to any operational Helldivers! Form defensive perimeter at Liberty's Promise Administrative Center!"

Only the keening arctic wind responds. The storm intensity increases according to meteorological sensors:

[WIND VELOCITY: 47 MPH] [TEMPERATURE DROPPING: NOW -87.1°F] [VISIBILITY: 19% AND DECREASING] [ICE CRYSTAL DENSITY: 317 PARTICLES PER CUBIC CM] [SUIT THERMAL REGULATION: COMPENSATING]

Our Lady of Midnight transmits fragmentary data through atmospheric interference:

[TRANSMISSION RECEIVED] [SOURCE: CDR. VEGA, OUR LADY OF MIDNIGHT] [SIGNAL INTEGRITY: 31%] [DECRYPTION: AUTOMATIC]

"—situation deteriorating—fleet withdrawing beyond psychic range—singularity radiation affecting all systems—cloning bay radiation damage complete—medical reporting unusual neural patterns in surviving personnel—attempting to maintain position but—Meridian Singularity growing—"

[T-00:10:15] Last SEAF vessel signatures apart from Our Lady of Midnight leave orbital range

[FLEET STATUS: WITHDRAWN] [ORBITAL SUPPORT: MINIMAL] [OUR LADY OF MIDNIGHT: MAINTAINING POSITION] [SHIP SYSTEMS: DEGRADING – RADIATION EFFECTS] [EXTRACTION WINDOW: NARROWING]

The tactical display confirms complete mission abandonment. All ships except Our Lady of Midnight have broken formation, retreating beyond operational range.

Commander Vega's voice, strained with competing pressures: "Praxis, Command has ordered full withdrawal. The Meridian Singularity's radiation is amplifying the Illuminate psychic field. I've refused extraction order – we won't abandon you – but our radiation shielding is failing. Engine systems at 43%. Weapons systems compromised. We'll maintain position as long as possible, but the ship is dying."

[BIOMONITOR: STRESS INDICATORS RISING] [HEART RATE: 103 BPM] [ADRENALINE: ELEVATED] [CORTISOL: PEAKING] [COGNITIVE FUNCTION: OPTIMAL DESPITE PHYSIOLOGICAL STRESS]

The reality crystallizes with perfect clarity: Ten minutes on-planet. Seven confirmed KIA Helldivers. Two entire deployment waves eliminated. Complete fleet abandonment.

[T-00:12:18] Movement detected on multiple vertical planes. Illuminate controllers identified on rooftops throughout Liberty's Promise City

[THREAT IDENTIFICATION: ILLUMINATE CONTROLLERS] [QUANTITY: 17] [POSITION: ELEVATED – ROOFTOP DEPLOYMENT] [ARMAMENT: ENERGY WEAPONS] [DEFENSE CAPABILITY: GRAVITATIONAL DISTORTION FIELDS] [PSYCHIC OUTPUT: EXTREME – AMPLIFIED BY SINGULARITY RADIATION]

Optical enhancement identifies them through thermal differentials – their elongated forms silhouetted against Liberty's Promise's frozen skyline. Movement analysis confirms non-human musculature and joint configuration. Anti-gravity systems generate visible distortion fields, allowing effortless hovering in direct contradiction to physical laws.

Neural interface warning flashes across my consciousness:

[PSYCHIC INTRUSION ATTEMPT DETECTED] [CEREBRAL SHIELD INTEGRITY: 83%] [COUNTERMEASURES: ENGAGED] [PAIN SUPPRESSION: AUTOMATIC] [COGNITIVE PROTECTION: LEVEL 3]

The psychic assault feels like liquid nitrogen injected directly into my frontal lobe – a cold so absolute it transcends conventional pain thresholds. Memory fragments shatter and recombine incorrectly. Weapons testing procedures intermingled with childhood recollections. Advanced mathematics spontaneously inserting themselves into combat algorithms.

[T-00:13:45] Incoming fire from Illuminate position. Multiple impacts registered.

[INCOMING FIRE: DIRECTED ENERGY WEAPONS] [PROJECTILE VELOCITY: NEAR-LIGHT] [COMPOSITION: FOCUSED PLASMA] [EVASIVE MANEUVERS: INITIATED]

Their energy weapons materialize through the blizzard as coherent light beams, momentarily transforming snowflakes along their trajectory into superheated plasma. Two rounds punch through my left thigh armor with surgical precision:

[IMPACT DETECTED: LEFT THIGH] [SUIT INTEGRITY: 93%] [TISSUE DAMAGE: MODERATE] [PENETRATION DEPTH: 2.7CM] [CAUTERIZATION: IMMEDIATE] [PAIN LEVEL: SEVERE – SUPPRESSING]

Another grazes my helmet, molecular ablation leaving a molten furrow across reinforced ceramite:

[HELMET INTEGRITY: 94%] [STRUCTURAL DAMAGE: SUPERFICIAL] [SYSTEM EFFECT: MINIMAL] [WARNING: REPEATED IMPACTS WILL COMPROMISE PROTECTION]

Medical subsystems activate without conscious command:

[MEDICAL PROTOCOLS: ENGAGED] [SYNTHETIC COAGULANTS: ADMINISTERED] [ANALGESICS: LOCALIZED DELIVERY] [TISSUE REGENERATION: INITIATED] [MOBILITY IMPACT: 7% REDUCTION]

I execute a tactical repositioning behind the frozen chassis of an abandoned colonial transport vehicle, materials analysis calculating its defensive properties:

[COVER ASSESSMENT: COLONIAL TRANSPORT VEHICLE] [MATERIAL: REINFORCED TITANIUM-ALUMINUM COMPOSITE] [BALLISTIC PROTECTION: 87% AGAINST ENERGY WEAPONS] [STRUCTURAL INTEGRITY: COMPROMISED BUT FUNCTIONAL] [RECOMMENDED POSITION: REAR QUARTER PANEL]

[T-00:15:40] SOS signal transmitted on all SEAF emergency frequencies. No response detected

[EMERGENCY TRANSMISSION INITIATED] [CHANNELS: ALL FREQUENCIES] [ENCRYPTION: DISABLED – MAXIMUM PROPAGATION] [POWER: MAXIMUM] [RESPONSE: NEGATIVE]

"This is Master Sergeant Praxis to any SEAF vessels in range. Liberty's Promise City is completely overrun. All deployed Helldivers except myself have been neutralized or compromised. Requesting immediate reinforcement and extraction."

The transmission disappears into the void. Our Lady of Midnight responds, signal degraded by increasing singularity radiation:

"—reading you Praxis—radiation levels climbing—systems failing—maintaining position but—no reinforcements possible—cloning bay destroyed—radiation poisoning spreading through crew—Lieutenant Reeves still operational—prepping extraction craft—"

Lieutenant Kim's voice cuts through momentarily: "Radiation's fried our Hellpod launch systems, Praxis. We have one atmospheric craft remaining. Lieutenant Reeves can pilot it, but the radiation is affecting her too. We'll get you out, but every minute we maintain position is killing this ship."

[T-00:19:22] Fallen Helldiver detected in Liberty's Promise Central Plaza. Equipment scan: AC-8 Autocannon

[FRIENDLY KIA DETECTED] [IDENTITY: LT. JAMES DAVIS, 31ST BATTALION] [CAUSE OF DEATH: CATASTROPHIC NEURAL DISRUPTION] [TIME SINCE DEATH: 27 MINUTES] [EQUIPMENT: AC-8 AUTOCANNON – FUNCTIONAL]

Through swirling snow, visual enhancement identifies him beside Liberty's Promise's ceremonial fountain – now a grotesque ice sculpture depicting colonial triumph. His suit's thermal regulators continue drawing power, creating a small circle of melted snow around his position.

Equipment scan reveals intact AC-8 Autocannon still attached to hardpoint mount:

[WEAPON ASSESSMENT: AC-8 AUTOCANNON] [AMMUNITION: 100/100] [CONDITION: OPTIMAL] [AUTHORIZATION TRANSFER: AUTOMATIC] [WEIGHT: 24.3KG – MOBILITY IMPACT CALCULATED]

I kneel beside the fallen soldier, biometric scanner confirming complete neural cessation. My hand rests briefly on his shoulder plate, the gesture recorded by multiple cameras for posthumous honor transmission.

"Liberty remembers its defenders, Lieutenant."

The weapon disengages with a mechanical click, ownership protocols transferring to my combat profile:

[WEAPON ACQUIRED: AC-8 AUTOCANNON] [NEURAL LINK ESTABLISHED] [TARGETING CALIBRATION: AUTOMATIC] [WEIGHT COMPENSATION: SUIT HYDRAULICS ENGAGED] [MOBILITY REDUCTION: 18%]

[T-00:21:01] Illuminate Interloper fighter craft detected above Liberty's Promise financial district. AC-8 discharged.

[AERIAL THREAT DETECTED] [CLASSIFICATION: ILLUMINATE INTERLOPER] [ARMAMENT: ENERGY CANNONS CHARGING] [TARGETING STATUS: ACQUIRING YOU] [EVASIVE OPTIONS: LIMITED] [RECOMMENDED ACTION: PREEMPTIVE STRIKE]

The alien craft materializes through Liberty's Promise's snowstorm, its outline distorting visible light through gravitational manipulation. Targeting systems identify critical vulnerabilities despite atmospheric interference:

[TARGET ACQUISITION: INTERLOPER] [WEAK POINTS IDENTIFIED: PROPULSION MANIFOLD] [FIRING SOLUTION: CALCULATED] [WIND COMPENSATION: 27 KNOTS NNE] [VISIBILITY ADJUSTMENT: -63%] [MUSCLE EFFICIENCY: -34% LEFT ARM]

I brace the Autocannon against colonial infrastructure – once a public transportation shelter, now a firing position. Weapon stabilization systems engage automatically:

[WEAPON BRACED] [RECOIL COMPENSATION: ACTIVE] [SUIT ASSISTANCE: MAXIMUM] [NEURAL FIRING CONTROL: ENGAGED]

Fifteen hyperdense tungsten-alloy rounds tear through the craft's hull plating:

[ROUNDS EXPENDED: 15] [IMPACT ASSESSMENT: CRITICAL SYSTEMS DAMAGE] [PROPULSION CORE: COMPROMISED] [ENERGY BUILDUP: CATASTROPHIC] [TRAJECTORY: BALLISTIC – IMPACT IMMINENT]

The Interloper spirals downward, black smoke contrasting against white snow as it impacts Liberty's Promise's central administrative complex. Environmental sensors register the detonation metrics:

[EXPLOSION FORCE: 237 KG TNT EQUIVALENT] [FIREBALL RADIUS: 44M] [PRESSURE WAVE: 31 KPA AT CURRENT POSITION] [TEMPERATURE SPIKE: 1,432°F AT EPICENTER] [SNOW VAPORIZATION: 30M RADIUS]

[T-00:22:15] Multiple impacts from Illuminate weapons. Suit integrity: 81%

[INCOMING FIRE: MULTIPLE VECTORS] [EVASIVE ACTION: INEFFECTIVE] [IMPACT DETECTED: CHEST PLATE] [IMPACT DETECTED: RIGHT INTERCOSTAL] [IMPACT DETECTED: RIGHT ARM ACTUATOR]

Retaliatory fire arrives with mathematical predictability. Three energy weapon hits penetrate defensive perimeter:

[CHEST PLATE DAMAGE: SUPERFICIAL] [ARMOR ABLATION: 17%] [ENERGY DISSIPATION: SUCCESSFUL]

[INTERCOSTAL PENETRATION: 4.7CM] [TISSUE DAMAGE: MODERATE] [CAUTERIZATION: IMMEDIATE] [LUNG FUNCTION: 94%] [BLEEDING: MINIMAL – CONTAINED]

[RIGHT ARM IMPACT: SEVERE] [NEURAL CONNECTIONS: COMPROMISED] [MOTOR FUNCTION: REDUCED 38%] [PAIN LEVEL: EXTREME – SUPPRESSING]

Medical systems transition to emergency protocols:

[TRAUMA RESPONSE: INITIATED] [SYNTHETIC HEALING COMPOUNDS: INJECTED] [NEURAL DAMPENERS: ISOLATING DAMAGED PATHWAYS] [PAIN SUPPRESSION: MAXIMUM] [COMBAT STIMULANT: ADMINISTERED]

The familiar cold fire of battlefield medicine spreads through my system as pharmacological enhancement takes effect:

[COMBAT STIMULANT ACTIVE] [REACTION TIME: -23%] [VISUAL PROCESSING: +31%] [PAIN THRESHOLD: +287%] [COGNITIVE FUNCTION: ENHANCED] [DURATION: 17 MINUTES REMAINING]

Four distinct wounds cataloged and compartmentalized by the suit's diagnostic systems. Mobility reduced but combat effectiveness maintained through pharmaceutical intervention.

[T-00:25:37] Mind control pylon located in Liberty's Promise primary education center. Distance: 142 meters. Interference: Maximum

[PRIMARY OBJECTIVE LOCATED] [CLASSIFICATION: ILLUMINATE MIND CONTROL PYLON] [DISTANCE: 142M] [PSYCHIC FIELD STRENGTH: MAXIMUM] [ARCHITECTURAL ASSESSMENT: NON-EUCLIDEAN GEOMETRY] [LOCATION SIGNIFICANCE: FORMER CHILDREN'S EDUCATION CENTER]

Optical enhancement pierces the blizzard, revealing the primary objective – an abomination against physical reality itself. The Illuminate have transformed Liberty's Promise's primary school into a psychic broadcaster, its once-nurturing architecture now supporting a towering spire of impossible angles and non-Euclidean geometry.

Energy waves emanate in visible distortion patterns, each pulse correlating precisely with increased neural pain. Atmospheric sensors detect unusual properties:

[ATMOSPHERIC ANALYSIS: ABNORMAL] [LIGHT REFRACTION: NON-STANDARD ANGLES] [GRAVITY FLUCTUATIONS: MEASURABLE] [TEMPERATURE GRADIENT: INVERTED] [QUANTUM PARTICLE BEHAVIOR: ALTERED]

HUD systems fracture into incomprehensible patterns:

[SYSTEM ERROR: CATASTROPHIC] [VISUAL DISPLAY: COMPROMISED] [NEURAL INTERFACE: UNSTABLE] [SUIT FUNCTIONS: CASCADING FAILURE] [REBOOT ATTEMPTS: UNSUCCESSFUL]

Neural defense warnings bypass visual processing entirely, writing themselves directly into consciousness:

[EXTERNAL PSYCHIC PENETRATION: 74% STRENGTH] [COGNITIVE SHIELD FAILURE: IMMINENT] [MEMORY CORRUPTION: ACCELERATING] [PERSONALITY DISSOLUTION: T-MINUS 197 SECONDS] [COUNTERMEASURES: INSUFFICIENT]

A voice materializes within my mind, its alien cadence recognizable as Illuminate communication: "Your defensive algorithms contain fundamental errors, Dr. Praxis. We have identified precisely seventeen vulnerabilities in your neural architecture. Resistance promotes unnecessary suffering. The children of Liberty's Promise learned this lesson quickly."

[T-00:29:15] Visual distortions increasing exponentially. Heart rate: 188 BPM. Perspiration elevated 215%

[BIOLOGICAL SYSTEMS: EXTREME STRESS] [HEART RATE: 188 BPM] [BLOOD PRESSURE: 177/112] [PERSPIRATION: +215% BASELINE] [PUPIL DILATION: MAXIMUM] [TREMORS: DETECTABLE]

I force myself through Liberty's Promise's snow-choked streets, each step requiring conscious neural override of both environmental resistance and intensifying psychic influence. The suit's movement assistance system compensates for physiological deterioration:

[MUSCULAR EFFICIENCY: 63%] [HYDRAULIC ASSIST: MAXIMUM] [POWER CONSUMPTION: CRITICAL] [ESTIMATED OPERATIONAL WINDOW: REDUCED TO 2.3 HOURS]

Memory fragments detach and recombine with increasing frequency. Weapons calibration protocols interrupted by sensory hallucinations. Engineering formulas dissolve mid-calculation, replaced by alien mathematical concepts that simultaneously make perfect sense and no sense at all.

Another coordinated barrage from Illuminate positions positioned throughout Liberty's Promise:

[INCOMING FIRE: DETECTED] [EVASIVE MANEUVERS: INITIATED] [WARNING: REACTION TIME DEGRADED] [IMPACT PROBABILITY: 87%]

Three more impacts register with brutal efficiency:

[LEFT SHOULDER: GLANCING IMPACT] [TISSUE DAMAGE: MINOR] [ARMOR INTEGRITY: 92%]

[LOWER BACK: PENETRATING IMPACT] [SPINAL SUPPORT SYSTEMS: COMPROMISED] [TISSUE DAMAGE: MODERATE] [MOBILITY IMPACT: +12%]

[RIGHT THIGH: CRITICAL IMPACT] [FEMORAL PLATE: SEVERELY DAMAGED] [NEAR MISS: FEMORAL ARTERY] [TISSUE DAMAGE: SEVERE] [MOBILITY IMPACT: +25%]

Medical systems calculate insufficient resources for standard protocol:

[MEDICAL SUPPLIES: 37%] [STANDARD PROTOCOLS: INSUFFICIENT] [EMERGENCY TRIAGE: ENGAGED] [COMBAT STIMULANT: MAXIMUM DOSE AUTHORIZED]

The military-grade performance enhancers flood my system – a complex mixture of synthetic adrenaline analogs, cognitive enhancers, and pain suppressants specifically designed for catastrophic battlefield conditions:

[COMBAT STIMULANT ADMINISTERED] [DOSE: MAXIMUM SAFE THRESHOLD] [CARDIOVASCULAR BOOST: INITIATED] [NEURAL ACCELERATION: MAXIMUM] [PAIN SUPPRESSION: TOTAL] [WARNING: PHYSIOLOGICAL DAMAGE CONTINUING DESPITE SUBJECTIVE RELIEF]

Seven distinct wounds now accumulated. System functionality reduced to 59%. Mission continuity maintained solely through chemical intervention against biological imperatives.

[T-00:32:44] Direct engagement with pylon control systems. Engineering analysis initiated despite sustained psychic assault

[PROXIMITY ALERT: PYLON CENTER] [PSYCHIC FIELD: MAXIMUM INTENSITY] [NEURAL DISRUPTION: SEVERE] [SYSTEM FAILURES: MULTIPLE] [COGNITIVE FUNCTION: MAINTAINED THROUGH CHEMICAL OVERRIDE]

I stand beneath the pylon's central spire, its configuration violating physical laws I once considered immutable. The structure penetrates Liberty's Promise's school at precise intervals, targeting locations where developing minds once gathered.

Engineering analysis subroutines activate despite psychic interference:

[STRUCTURAL ANALYSIS: INITIATED] [POWER COUPLING NODES: 7 IDENTIFIED] [ARRANGEMENT: HEPTAGONAL PATTERN] [SECURITY SYSTEMS: BIOELECTRIC FIELD GENERATORS] [POWER SOURCE: CENTRAL CORE] [REDUNDANT CIRCUITS: TRIPLE-LAYERED] [BACKUP GENERATION: PRESENT BUT VULNERABLE] [WEAKNESS IDENTIFIED: CONCURRENT DISRUPTION REQUIRED]

I prime three fragmentation grenades, weapon systems automatically calculating optimal placement:

[GRENADES PRIMED: 3] [EXPLOSIVE YIELD: 187G RDX EQUIVALENT EACH] [PLACEMENT CALCULATION: TRIANGULATION PATTERN] [OPTIMAL SPACING: 4.7M BETWEEN DEVICES] [TIMING SEQUENCE: SYNCHRONIZED]

The Illuminate presence redoubles its assault on my neural architecture, recognizing the imminent threat. Psychic tendrils attempt to access motor control centers:

[WARNING: MOTOR CONTROL INTRUSION ATTEMPT] [CEREBELLUM PROTECTION: ENGAGED] [VOLUNTARY MOVEMENT: RESISTING OVERRIDE] [COUNTERMEASURES: DEGRADING] [NEURAL ISOLATION PROTOCOLS: FAILING]

[T-00:33:01] Multiple explosives deployed at structural weak points. Countdown initiated: 5 seconds

[GRENADES DEPLOYED: SUCCESSFUL] [POSITIONING: OPTIMAL] [COUNTDOWN: SYNCHRONIZED] [DETONATION: T-MINUS 5] [RECOMMENDED ACTION: WITHDRAW IMMEDIATELY]

I stagger away through Liberty's Promise's frozen pathways, biomonitor recording severe physiological stress:

[HEMOGLOBIN SATURATION: 84%] [BLOOD PRESSURE: 181/110] [RESPIRATORY RATE: 32 PER MINUTE] [CORE TEMPERATURE: 101.7°F DESPITE EXTERNAL COLD] [MUSCLE TREMORS: INCREASING]

The psychic presence tears free with almost physical sensation – like barbed neural hooks being forcibly extracted from gray matter. Blood vessels rupture in both eyes, crimson clouds obscuring 23% of visual field.

[T-00:33:06] Detonation confirmed. Pylon structural integrity: 0%. Mind control field: Dissipating

[DETONATION REGISTERED] [EXPLOSIVE FORCE: SYNCHRONIZED] [BLAST RADIUS: 27M] [STRUCTURAL DAMAGE: CRITICAL] [PYLON INTEGRITY: CATASTROPHIC FAILURE] [PSYCHIC FIELD: COLLAPSING]

The explosions transform Liberty's Promise's skyline, primary blast waves converting accumulated snow to superheated steam. Visibility temporarily improves across a 70-meter radius as precipitation molecules undergo flash vaporization.

Secondary fragmentation patterns spread in calculated vectors, maximum dispersal achieving 87% coverage of target area. Several shards penetrate my already compromised armor:

[IMPACT DETECTED: LOWER BACK] [PENETRATION: 3.7CM] [SPINAL PROXIMITY: 0.8CM] [BLEEDING: MODERATE] [PAIN SIGNALS: BLOCKED BY STIMULANTS]

Eight distinct wounds now cataloged. System functionality reduced to 51%. Combat effectiveness maintained solely through pharmaceutical override of natural biological limitations.

The sudden absence of psychic pressure creates disorienting cognitive vacuum – neural pathways accustomed to resisting suddenly encountering no opposition. The mental equivalent of pushing against a door that unexpectedly opens.

HUD systems reboot sequentially:

[SYSTEM REBOOT: INITIATED] [DIAGNOSTIC PROCESSING…] [PRIMARY SYSTEMS: RESTORED] [SECONDARY SYSTEMS: 73% FUNCTIONALITY] [TERTIARY SYSTEMS: 41% FUNCTIONALITY] [SUIT POWER: 61% REMAINING]

Liberty's Promise City resolves into its actual state – a frozen necropolis momentarily illuminated by the pylon's catastrophic failure, shadows dancing across buildings as alien technology collapses.

[T-00:35:22] HUD objective update: [PRIMARY: COMPLETE] [SECONDARY: FAILED] [TERTIARY: INCOMPLETE]

[MISSION UPDATE] [PRIMARY OBJECTIVE: COMPLETED – PYLON DESTROYED] [SECONDARY OBJECTIVE: FAILED – ALL HELLDIVERS KIA] [TERTIARY OBJECTIVE: INCOMPLETE – FLAG NOT DEPLOYED] [RECOMMENDED ACTION: PROCEED WITH TERTIARY]

Tactical assessment confirms total loss of allied forces. Seven Helldivers confirmed KIA within visual range of current position. Four eliminated by friendly fire during mind control episodes, neural structures unable to withstand Illuminate manipulation. Three by direct enemy action. All abandoned by command vessels that chose withdrawal over engagement.

Liberty's Promise requires symbolic reclamation. Democracy must be physically manifested despite tactical disadvantage.

[T-00:37:50] Super Earth flag located in Liberty's Promise municipal building debris. Flag integrity: Functional

[OBJECT LOCATED: SUPER EARTH FLAG] [POSITION: MUNICIPAL BUILDING RUINS] [CONDITION: FUNCTIONAL] [SYMBOLIC VALUE: MAXIMUM] [TACTICAL VALUE: TERRITORIAL CLAIM]

I recover the standard from the frozen grip of Communications Specialist Rivera, her facial features preserved in crystalline detail by flash-freezing. Biometric confirmation:

[DECEASED HELLDIVER IDENTIFIED] [NAME: SPECIALIST ELENA RIVERA] [UNIT: 31ST BATTALION, COMMUNICATIONS DIVISION] [TIME OF DEATH: APPROXIMATELY 47 MINUTES AGO] [CAUSE: EXTREME CEREBRAL HEMORRHAGING CONSISTENT WITH PSYCHIC ASSAULT]

Her fingers maintain death-grip on the chrome pole, requiring careful separation. Rigor mortis enhanced by flash-freezing of biological tissues.

Every movement sends fresh waves of agony through my eight wound channels, registered by the suit but suppressed from conscious awareness:

[PAIN LEVELS: EXTREME – SUPPRESSED] [MOBILITY: 47% OF BASELINE] [BLOOD LOSS: MODERATE – CONTAINED] [STIMULANT LEVELS: DECREASING] [ESTIMATED COMBAT EFFECTIVENESS: 53%]

Medical systems issue comprehensive diagnostic warning:

[PHYSIOLOGICAL ASSESSMENT] [RIB FRACTURES: 3 (7-9, RIGHT SIDE)] [CONCUSSION: MILD (OCCIPITAL IMPACT, 11G FORCE)] [PSYCHIC TRAUMA: SIGNIFICANT (FRONTAL LOBE, HIPPOCAMPUS, AMYGDALA)] [HEMORRHAGE: CLASS II] [CORE TEMPERATURE: 96.1°F – HYPOTHERMIA RISK]

Commander Vega's voice materializes through static: "—reading you Praxis—pylon destruction confirmed—radiation exposure critical—ship systems failing—Lieutenant Reeves prepping extraction craft—Lieutenant Kim mapping safe approach vector—"

I prepare the flag assembly at Liberty's Promise's central plaza – once the vibrant heart of colonial life, now a frozen battlefield. The servo-assisted deployment mechanism functions despite extreme conditions:

[FLAG DEPLOYMENT SYSTEM: OPERATIONAL] [SERVO MOTORS: FUNCTIONAL DESPITE COLD] [POWER CELLS: 82%] [EXPECTED DEPLOYMENT TIME: 60 SECONDS] [SYMBOLIC IMPORTANCE: MAXIMUM]

[T-00:41:15] Flag deployment zone reached. Liberty's Promise city center coordinates optimal for territorial claim

[DEPLOYMENT ZONE REACHED] [POSITIONING: OPTIMAL] [VISIBILITY: MAXIMUM DESPITE ENVIRONMENTAL CONDITIONS] [TERRITORIAL SIGNIFICANCE: HIGH] [DEPLOYMENT SEQUENCE: INITIATED]

As deployment sequence initializes, sensor array detects massive convergence patterns:

[PROXIMITY ALERT: MULTIPLE VECTORS] [Voteless SIGNATURES: HUNDREDS] [APPROACH SPEED: 8.3 M/S – EXCEEDS HUMAN CAPABILITY] [FORMATION: COORDINATED ASSAULT] [ILLUMINATE CONTROLLERS: DETECTED ON ELEVATED POSITIONS] [ESTIMATED TIME TO CONTACT: 37 SECONDS]

Thermal imaging reveals hundreds of heat signatures approaching simultaneously through Liberty's Promise's radial street pattern:

[THERMAL SIGNATURES: 300+] [TEMPERATURE DIFFERENTIAL: MINIMAL (+4°F ABOVE AMBIENT)] [MOVEMENT PATTERN: UNNATURAL FLUIDITY] [COORDINATION: INHUMAN PRECISION] [TACTICAL ASSESSMENT: OVERWHELMING FORCE]

The loss of the control pylon has transitioned Illuminate strategy from mental domination to physical elimination through overwhelming numbers.

[T-00:42:01] Flag deployment begins automatically. 60-second sequence initiated

[FLAG DEPLOYMENT: INITIATED] [PROGRESS: 1%] [TIME REMAINING: 59 SECONDS] [DEFENSE REQUIRED: IMMEDIATE] [WEAPON SELECTION: AR-23 LIBERATOR]

They emerge from Liberty's Promise's snow-clouded avenues as the flag begins its ascent—former citizens converging with single-minded purpose:

[Voteless IDENTIFIED: FORMER COLONISTS] [AGE RANGE: 7-93 YEARS] [FORMER PROFESSIONS: VARIED – COMPLETE SOCIETAL CROSS-SECTION] [MOVEMENT PATTERN: SYNCHRONIZED] [CONTROL SOURCE: ILLUMINATE CONTROLLERS POSITIONED ON ROOFTOPS]

Behind them, Illuminate controllers direct the assault with mathematical precision from elevated positions throughout Liberty's Promise, compensating for the loss of direct mental control with coordinated tactical deployment.

The Liberator responds with disciplined three-round bursts:

[WEAPON FIRING: AR-23 LIBERATOR] [MODE: 3-ROUND BURST] [TARGETING: NEURAL CLUSTERS] [AMMUNITION CONSERVATION: PRIORITY] [ROUNDS REMAINING: 273/405]

Each trigger activation results in precise neural disruption of Voteless targets:

[TARGET NEUTRALIZED: FORMER COLONIAL ADMINISTRATOR] [TARGET NEUTRALIZED: FORMER MAINTENANCE TECHNICIAN] [TARGET NEUTRALIZED: FORMER CHILD – AGE ESTIMATE 9]

The ethical subroutine registers momentary conflict before tactical override engages. These are no longer human. They are weapons aimed at Liberty's Promise's reclamation.

[T-00:42:37] Liberator ammunition depleted. Switching to AC-8 Autocannon

[MAGAZINE EMPTY: AR-23 LIBERATOR] [RELOAD TIME: NOT VIABLE] [SWITCHING WEAPONS: AC-8 AUTOCANNON] [WEIGHT TRANSFER: COMPENSATING] [MOBILITY IMPACT: SIGNIFICANT]

The Autocannon's substantial mass strains compromised musculature, each movement sending fresh pain signals that medical systems struggle to suppress:

[PAIN SUPPRESSION: 87% EFFECTIVE] [MUSCLE EFFICIENCY: 41% OF BASELINE] [HYDRAULIC ASSIST: MAXIMUM] [POWER CONSUMPTION: ACCELERATED] [ESTIMATED OPERATIONAL WINDOW: DECREASED TO 1.8 HOURS]

I establish defensible position beneath the rising flag, using Liberty's Promise's urban infrastructure for cover:

[POSITION ESTABLISHED: MUNICIPAL PLAZA FOUNTAIN] [COVER QUALITY: MODERATE] [FIELDS OF FIRE: 270°] [MOBILITY: LIMITED] [DEFENSIBILITY: 63%]

Firing solution algorithms optimize ammunition expenditure against target density:

[FIRING SOLUTION: CALCULATED] [TARGET DENSITY: EXTREME] [AMMUNITION CONSERVATION: MINIMAL CONCERN] [RECOMMENDED PATTERN: SWEEPING FIRE] [ACCEPTABLE COLLATERAL DAMAGE: 100%]

The AC-8 roars to life, its recoil managed by suit hydraulics:

[AC-8 AUTOCANNON: FIRING] [RECOIL FORCE: 24.7KG PER ROUND] [SUIT COMPENSATION: 73% EFFECTIVE] [SKELETAL STRESS: MODERATE] [MUSCLE STRAIN: SEVERE – CHEMICAL SUPPRESSION ACTIVE]

The Voteless fall in geometrically precise rows around Liberty's Promise's central plaza, their bodies creating concentric circles of the dead.

[FLAG DEPLOYMENT PROGRESS: 43%] [TIME REMAINING: 34 SECONDS] [THREAT DENSITY: STILL INCREASING] [AMMUNITION: AC-8 DEPLETING] [ROUNDS REMAINING: 64/100]

[T-00:43:12] Second Illuminate Interloper fighter detected above Liberty's Promise commercial district. Range: 63 meters. Descent trajectory: Attack pattern

[AERIAL THREAT DETECTED] [CLASSIFICATION: ILLUMINATE INTERLOPER] [RANGE: 63M AND CLOSING] [WEAPONS: CHARGING] [TARGETING: CONFIRMED – YOUR POSITION] [DEFENSIVE OPTIONS: LIMITED]

Another fighter craft materializes through Liberty's Promise's snowstorm, energy signatures indicating weapons cycling to critical charge. Targeting systems locked on my position with inhuman precision.

Ammunition status critical:

[AC-8 AUTOCANNON: DEPLETED] [AR-23 LIBERATOR: EMPTY] [AVAILABLE WEAPON: P-19 REDEEMER] [TACTICAL ASSESSMENT: INADEQUATE] [SURVIVAL PROBABILITY: 17%]

I draw the P-19 Redeemer—a pragmatic acknowledgment of tactical desperation:

[WEAPON READY: P-19 REDEEMER] [AMMUNITION: 31/124] [EFFECTIVE RANGE: 37M] [TARGET RANGE: 63M] [PROBABILITY OF EFFECT: 12%]

Knowledge of propulsion system vulnerabilities guides targeting solution toward theoretical weakness identified during weapons development:

[TARGETING: GRAVITATIONAL STABILIZER] [LOCATION: VENTRAL PORT NACELLE] [VULNERABLE COMPONENT: COOLING SYSTEM] [REQUIRED PRECISION: EXTREME] [ASSISTANCE: SUIT TARGETING ENHANCEMENT ENGAGED]

[T-00:43:20] P-19 Redeemer discharged. Three consecutive bursts at maximum effective range. Impact confirmed: Minimal effect

[ROUNDS FIRED: 9] [IMPACTS: 7] [DAMAGE ASSESSMENT: MINIMAL] [PENETRATION: INSUFFICIENT] [CRAFT STATUS: UNDETERRED]

The Interloper continues its attack vector through Liberty's Promise's urban canyon, weapons systems charging to lethal capacity:

[FLAG DEPLOYMENT PROGRESS: 83%] [TIME REMAINING: 10 SECONDS] [INCOMING ATTACK: IMMINENT] [DEFENSIVE OPTIONS: EXHAUSTED] [SURVIVAL PROBABILITY: DECREASING]

[T-00:43:42] Stratagem beacon activated. Request: Gatling emplacement

[STRATAGEM SELECTED: GATLING EMPLACEMENT] [CODE SEQUENCE: DOWN-UP-RIGHT-RIGHT-UP] [NEURAL TRANSMISSION: ENGAGED] [TARGETING COORDINATES: TRANSMITTED] [REQUEST STATUS: ACCEPTED]

My fingers execute the stratagem code with autonomic precision despite neural damage. The beacon launches skyward from Liberty's Promise's central plaza, target coordinates locked to optimal defensive position.

Commander Vega confirms: "Stratagem authorized—Liberty's Promise coordinates confirmed—Gatling deployment in 3…2…1—"

[T-00:43:57] Hellpod impact in Liberty's Promise central plaza. Gatling emplacement deployed

[HELLPOD IMPACT: CONFIRMED] [DEPLOYMENT: SUCCESSFUL] [SYSTEM INITIALIZATION: AUTOMATIC] [TARGETING: ACQUISITION IN PROGRESS] [PRIORITY TARGET: ILLUMINATE INTERLOPER]

The automated weapon system initializes with mechanical efficiency, its deployment temporarily clearing the immediate area of Voteless through kinetic impact alone:

[GATLING OPERATIONAL] [RATE OF FIRE: 6,000 RPM] [AMMUNITION: 12,000 ROUNDS] [BARREL ROTATION: OPTIMAL] [TARGETING: ACQUIRED]

Armor-piercing rounds tear through the Interloper's hull with systematic precision:

[IMPACTS REGISTERED: MULTIPLE] [PENETRATION: SUCCESSFUL] [CRITICAL SYSTEMS: COMPROMISED] [ENERGY CONTAINMENT: FAILING] [DETONATION: IMMINENT]

The craft shudders under the assault before primary power containment fails catastrophically. Sensors register the explosion parameters:

[DETONATION ENERGY: 312KG TNT EQUIVALENT] [BLAST RADIUS: 73M] [FIREBALL TEMPERATURE: 2,700°F] [STRUCTURAL DAMAGE: SIGNIFICANT TO SURROUNDING BUILDINGS] [Voteless CASUALTIES: 47 TERMINATED IN BLAST]

Flag deployment reaches completion:

[FLAG DEPLOYMENT: 100% COMPLETE] [SUPER EARTH BANNER: FULLY EXTENDED] [TERRITORIAL CLAIM: ESTABLISHED] [SYMBOLIC OBJECTIVE: ACHIEVED] [DEMOCRACY: MANIFESTED]

The standard stands fully extended above Liberty's Promise City, reclaiming the colony symbolically if not practically.

[T-00:44:15] Coordinated Illuminate counterattack. Multiple weapons converge on position. Suit integrity: 43%

[INCOMING FIRE: MULTIPLE SOURCES] [EVASIVE ACTION: NOT POSSIBLE] [DEFENSIVE POSITION: COMPROMISED] [IMPACT IMMINENT: CALCULATING VECTORS]

Three more energy weapon impacts converge simultaneously from different positions throughout Liberty's Promise:

[IMPACT: LEFT ARM] [PENETRATION: COMPLETE] [NEURAL CONNECTIONS: SEVERED] [FUNCTIONALITY: 0%] [ARM STATUS: INERT]

Suit seals breaches automatically, but damage assessment is terminal for the limb:

[SUIT INTEGRITY: 43%] [AUTOMATIC SEALING: ENGAGED] [MEDICAL INTERVENTION: INSUFFICIENT] [REGENERATION PROTOCOLS: EXCEEDED] [FUNCTIONALITY LOSS: PERMANENT WITHOUT SURGICAL INTERVENTION]

Eleven distinct wound channels now documented in the suit's medical log. Blood loss reaching critical thresholds:

[BLOOD VOLUME: 73% OF NORMAL] [PRESSURE: 97/64 – STABILIZING THROUGH CHEMICAL INTERVENTION] [TRANSFUSION RECOMMENDED: NOT AVAILABLE] [SYNTHETIC BLOOD SUBSTITUTE: DEPLETED] [STIMULANT COMPENSATION: MAXIMUM]

Core temperature continues declining despite thermal regulatory systems:

[CORE TEMPERATURE: 95.3°F] [HYPOTHERMIA: EARLY STAGE] [THERMAL REGULATION: MAXIMUM OUTPUT] [POWER CONSUMPTION: CRITICAL] [ESTIMATED SYSTEM FAILURE: 74 MINUTES]

The Voteless advance continues unabated throughout Liberty's Promise, their numbers seemingly infinite. The entire former population mobilized against a single defender.

[T-00:45:01] Stratagem beacon activated. Request: 500 Kiloton Bomb

[STRATAGEM SELECTED: 500 KILOTON BOMB] [YIELD: 500KT CONVENTIONAL EXPLOSIVE] [CODE SEQUENCE: UP-RIGHT-DOWN-DOWN-DOWN] [NEURAL TRANSMISSION: ENGAGED] [TARGETING COORDINATES: CURRENT POSITION] [WARNING: MINIMUM SAFE DISTANCE REQUIRED]

My functioning arm executes the stratagem sequence with practiced efficiency despite degraded neural transmission. The beacon launches skyward from Liberty's Promise's central plaza, penetrating the snowstorm toward Our Lady of Midnight.

Lieutenant Kim's voice cuts through interference: "500 kiloton deployment confirmed—Liberty's Promise target locked—detonation in 15 seconds—RUN, Praxis!"

[T-00:45:08] Stratagem accepted. Orbital bombardment inbound. Detonation in: 15 seconds

[ORBITAL BOMBARDMENT: INBOUND] [TARGET: LIBERTY'S PROMISE CENTRAL PLAZA] [DETONATION: T-MINUS 15 SECONDS] [MINIMUM SAFE DISTANCE: 800M] [CURRENT DISTANCE: 0M] [SURVIVAL PROBABILITY: 0% WITHOUT IMMEDIATE EVACUATION]

I force my body through Liberty's Promise's snow-choked streets, each step requiring neural override of multiple system failure warnings:

[MOBILITY: 31% OF BASELINE] [SPEED: 3.7 M/S – WELL BELOW OPTIMAL] [DISTANCE COVERED: CALCULATING…] [SAFE RADIUS PROBABILITY: CALCULATING…] [FATALITY RISK: EXTREME]

Suit administers final reserves of performance enhancers:

[EMERGENCY RESERVES: ACCESSED] [STIMULANT COCKTAIL: DEPLOYED] [CONCENTRATION: BEYOND SAFE PARAMETERS] [CARDIOVASCULAR RISK: SEVERE] [NEUROLOGICAL RISK: SEVERE] [JUSTIFICATION: SURVIVAL PRIORITY EXCEEDS MEDICAL SAFETY PROTOCOLS]

The chemical flood creates momentary superhuman capability:

[STIMULANT EFFECT: IMMEDIATE] [STRENGTH BOOST: +73% BASELINE] [SPEED BOOST: +81% BASELINE] [PAIN SUPPRESSION: TOTAL] [COGNITIVE ENHANCEMENT: MAXIMUM] [DURATION: LIMITED – PHYSIOLOGICAL BURNOUT IMMINENT]

[T-00:45:23] Minimum safe distance achieved: 1.2 seconds before detonation

[DISTANCE FROM EPICENTER: 803M] [MINIMUM SAFE DISTANCE: 800M] [MARGIN OF SAFETY: MINIMAL] [DEFENSIVE POSITION: INADEQUATE] [RECOMMENDATION: PRONE POSITION, HEAD COVERED]

The detonation wave lifts me bodily from Liberty's Promise's snow-covered streets, hurling me against reinforced infrastructure with physics-defying force:

[G-FORCE EXPERIENCED: 7.3G] [ACCELERATION: NON-SURVIVABLE WITHOUT SUIT PROTECTION] [IMPACT ENERGY: EXCEEDS SUIT ABSORPTION CAPACITY] [SKELETAL STRESS: EXTREME] [INTERNAL ORGAN DISPLACEMENT: SIGNIFICANT]

Suit sensors record the detonation metrics with scientific precision:

[DETONATION YIELD: 500KT] [FIREBALL RADIUS: 0.67KM] [BLAST WAVE VELOCITY: 2,400 M/S] [TEMPERATURE AT EPICENTER: 2,700°F] [INFRASTRUCTURE DESTRUCTION: TOTAL WITHIN 0.5KM] [Voteless TERMINATED: ESTIMATED 3,000+]

The conventional explosive's mushroom cloud rises through Liberty's Promise's skyline—momentarily clearing a perfect circle of visibility. The snow around the blast zone vaporizes instantly, revealing frozen permafrost beneath.

Internal sensors record additional trauma:

[IMPACT DAMAGE: MULTIPLE] [RIB FRACTURES: 2 ADDITIONAL] [SHOULDER DISLOCATION: RIGHT] [SPINAL COMPRESSION: MODERATE] [CEREBRAL ACCELERATION: SUB-CONCUSSIVE] [MEDICAL ALERT: INJURIES NON-CRITICAL BUT ACCUMULATING]

[T-00:46:40] Visual confirmation: Flag remains standing despite blast

[VISUAL ACQUISITION: SUPER EARTH FLAG] [STATUS: INTACT DESPITE BLAST WAVE] [MATERIAL INTEGRITY: MAINTAINED] [POSITION: UPRIGHT] [SYMBOLIC SIGNIFICANCE: MAXIMUM]

The standard endures above Liberty's Promise—fabricated from materials I personally helped engineer during my time in weapons development:

[FLAG MATERIAL SPECIFICATIONS] [COMPOSITION: REINFORCED CARBON-TITANIUM WEAVE] [HEAT RESISTANCE: 3,000°F] [TENSILE STRENGTH: 7,200 PSI] [RADIATION SHIELDING: BUILT-IN] [SYMBOLIC REINFORCEMENT: DEMOCRACY ENDURES]

[T-00:49:15] Movement detected throughout Liberty's Promise's remaining structures. Pursuit force. Voteless reinforcements: 300+ signatures

[PROXIMITY ALERT: MULTIPLE VECTORS] [SIGNATURES DETECTED: 300+] [CLASSIFICATION: Voteless] [DISTANCE: VARIED – NEAREST 147M] [APPROACH SPEED: 8.7 M/S] [BEHAVIORAL ASSESSMENT: INCREASED AGGRESSION]

They emerge from Liberty's Promise's white void once more. Illuminate controllers having withdrawn to safe operational distance, still directing their biological weapons with inhuman precision from surviving high-rise structures.

Physiological systems approach terminal failure parameters:

[PHYSIOLOGICAL STATUS: CRITICAL] [WOUNDS: 11 DISTINCT TRAUMA SITES] [BLOOD VOLUME: 68% OF BASELINE] [OXYGEN SATURATION: 91%] [CORE TEMPERATURE: 94.7°F] [STIMULANT LEVELS: TOXIC BUT NECESSARY]

Cognitive processes maintained solely through pharmaceutical override of biological limitations:

[COGNITIVE FUNCTION: MAINTAINED] [DECISION-MAKING: INTACT] [TACTICAL AWARENESS: FUNCTIONAL] [PAIN PERCEPTION: CHEMICALLY SUPPRESSED] [SURVIVAL INSTINCT: DOMINANT]

P-19 Redeemer clutched in functioning hand:

[WEAPON STATUS: P-19 REDEEMER] [AMMUNITION: 22/124] [EFFECTIVE RANGE: 37M] [FIRING MODE: SEMI-AUTOMATIC FOR CONSERVATION] [TARGETING: MAXIMUM PRECISION REQUIRED]

[T-00:53:22] Incoming transmission detected. Source: "Our Lady of Midnight"

[TRANSMISSION DETECTED] [SOURCE: OUR LADY OF MIDNIGHT] [SIGNAL INTEGRITY: 27%] [RADIATION INTERFERENCE: SEVERE] [DECRYPTION: AUTOMATIC]

Commander Vega's voice materializes through static storms: "Praxis—ship status critical—radiation levels beyond survivable parameters—Lieutenant Reeves prepping final extraction—northeastern evacuation zone—coordinates uploading—emergency package deployed—this is our last shot—"

Lieutenant Kim adds: "Half the crew showing radiation sickness already—Reeves is symptomatic but still operational—we're deploying everything we have left—get to those coordinates—"

[T-00:54:01] Stratagem impact at Liberty's Promise northeastern evacuation zone: Resupply package. Contents: AMMUNITION + MEDICAL

[STRATAGEM IMPACT DETECTED] [LOCATION: NORTHEASTERN EVACUATION ZONE] [CLASSIFICATION: RESUPPLY PACKAGE] [CONTENTS: AMMUNITION + ADVANCED MEDICAL] [DISTANCE: 173M] [ROUTE: CALCULATING OPTIMAL PATH]

The Hellpod impacts near Liberty's Promise's designated evacuation point, its contents representing potential survival:

[SURVIVAL PROBABILITY: INCREASED TO 37%] [OBJECTIVE: REACH PACKAGE] [OBSTACLES: Voteless CONCENTRATION] [MOBILITY: SEVERELY COMPROMISED] [AMMUNITION: CRITICALLY LOW]

Tactical movement algorithms calculate optimal route through Liberty's Promise's urban battleground:

[ROUTE CALCULATED] [DISTANCE: 173M] [ESTIMATED TIME: 46 SECONDS AT CURRENT MOBILITY] [COVER POINTS: IDENTIFIED] [CHOKE POINTS: FLAGGED] [Voteless DENSITY: HIGHEST ALONG CENTRAL AVENUE]

I execute precision movement through snow-choked terrain, each step precisely calculated despite physiological deterioration:

[MOVEMENT MODE: TACTICAL ADVANCE] [COVER UTILIZATION: MAXIMUM] [NOISE DISCIPLINE: OPTIMAL] [VISIBILITY: MINIMIZED] [ENERGY EXPENDITURE: PRECISELY MANAGED]

Three Voteless intercept path. The Redeemer responds with mathematical precision:

[TARGETS ACQUIRED: 3] [DISTANCE: 23M] [FIRING SOLUTION: CALCULATED] [ROUNDS EXPENDED: 3] [NEURAL DISRUPTION: CONFIRMED] [AMMUNITION REMAINING: 19/124]

I reach the resupply package, medical systems immediately integrating with suit infrastructure:

[PACKAGE ACCESSED] [AMMUNITION TRANSFER: AUTOMATIC] [AR-23 LIBERATOR: RELOADED 405/405] [P-19 REDEEMER: RELOADED 124/124] [MEDICAL PACKAGE: IDENTIFIED]

The combat medical package connects directly to central venous access point:

[MEDICAL INJECTION: INITIATED] [CLASSIFICATION: MILITARY-GRADE BATTLE RESTORATION] [CONTENTS: NANITE HEALING SWARM + SYNTHETIC BLOOD + COMBAT STIMULANTS] [DELIVERY: INTRAVENOUS] [EFFECT: IMMEDIATE AND PROFOUND]

Effects manifest throughout physiological systems:

[TISSUE REGENERATION: ACCELERATED 400%] [PAIN SUPPRESSION: EXCEEDING NORMAL PARAMETERS BY 250%] [NEURAL FUNCTION: ENHANCED BEYOND HUMAN BASELINE BY 173%] [BLOOD VOLUME: RESTORING THROUGH SYNTHETIC REPLACEMENT] [COGNITIVE FUNCTION: HYPER-ACCELERATED]

The eleven wound channels begin reconstructive processes using military-grade medical nanotechnology:

[NANITE SWARM: DEPLOYED] [TARGETING: WOUND CHANNELS] [FUNCTION: ACCELERATED HEALING] [DEBRIS REMOVAL: ACTIVE] [INFECTION PREVENTION: 100%] [SCAR FORMATION: MINIMIZED]

[T-00:55:40] Extraction zone identified. Distance: 340 meters across Liberty's Promise's northern district. Terrain: Urban ruins covered in deep snow

[EXTRACTION ZONE IDENTIFIED] [COORDINATES: LIBERTY'S PROMISE SPACEPORT] [DISTANCE: 340M] [TERRAIN: URBAN RUINS + DEEP SNOW] [Voteless CONCENTRATION: EXTREME] [ROUTE CALCULATION: INITIATED]

Our Lady of Midnight transmits: "Extraction craft preparing—Lieutenant Reeves still conscious—ETA 9 minutes—we've lost engineering deck to radiation—life support failing—this is our final—repeat FINAL—operation—"

Each step calculated for maximum efficiency through Liberty's Promise's frozen battlefield:

[MOVEMENT EFFICIENCY: OPTIMIZED] [ENERGY CONSERVATION: PRIORITY] [COVER UTILIZATION: CONTINUOUS] [THREAT ASSESSMENT: CONSTANT] [WEAPON READY: AR-23 LIBERATOR]

The Liberator creates precision defensive patterns that exploit Liberty's Promise's urban architecture:

[FIRING SOLUTION: CALCULATED] [TARGETING: NEURAL CLUSTERS] [AMMUNITION EXPENDITURE: CONTROLLED] [KILL EFFICIENCY: 97.3%] [ROUNDS REMAINING: 378/405]

The Voteless fall in geometrically satisfying configurations, their frozen corpses forming tactical cover positions that I exploit systematically as I traverse Liberty's Promise.

The advanced battlefield pharmaceuticals create cognitive enhancement exceeding human capability:

[COGNITIVE ENHANCEMENT: EXTREME] [TIME PERCEPTION: SLOWED 40%] [VISUAL PROCESSING: HYPER-DETAILED] [ENVIRONMENTAL AWARENESS: TOTAL] [THREAT IDENTIFICATION: INSTANTANEOUS] [FIRING SOLUTION CALCULATION: ACCELERATED]

[T-01:02:14] Extraction zone reached at Liberty's Promise spaceport facility. Tactical assessment: Initially clear

[DESTINATION REACHED: LIBERTY'S PROMISE SPACEPORT] [AREA ASSESSMENT: TEMPORARILY CLEAR] [Voteless ACTIVITY: CONCENTRATED ELSEWHERE] [DEFENSIVE POTENTIAL: MODERATE] [EXTRACTION ETA: 2 MINUTES 17 SECONDS]

Tactical experience dictates caution despite apparent security. Stratagem beacons deployed in optimized defensive configuration:

[STRATAGEM DEPLOYED: GATLING EMPLACEMENT] [POSITION: MAXIMUM COVERAGE OF APPROACH VECTORS] [FIELD OF FIRE: 270°] [AMMUNITION: 12,000 ROUNDS] [TARGETING: AUTONOMOUS]

[STRATAGEM DEPLOYED: ANTI-PERSONNEL MINES] [ARRANGEMENT: OVERLAPPING DETONATION ZONES] [COVERAGE: ALL SECONDARY APPROACHES] [QUANTITY: 24 DEVICES] [TRIGGER SENSITIVITY: MAXIMUM]

[STRATAGEM DEPLOYED: STATIC FIELD] [GENERATOR POSITION: OPTIMAL] [COVERAGE RADIUS: 50M] [EFFECT: MOVEMENT REDUCTION 42%] [POWER: MAXIMUM]

From orbit, Our Lady of Midnight transmits final approach data:

[TRANSMISSION RECEIVED] [SOURCE: OUR LADY OF MIDNIGHT] [EXTRACTION CRAFT: EN ROUTE] [PILOT: LT. REEVES] [STATUS: RADIATION SICKNESS STAGE 2] [DETERMINATION: MAXIMUM] [ETA: 1 MINUTE 43 SECONDS]

Commander Vega's final transmission: "Ship breaking apart—reactor containment failing—Reeves is our last operational pilot—radiation has—everyone else—doing this on stimulants and willpower—get on that craft—complete the mission—democracy must—"

The transmission dissolves into unintelligible static. Radiation has claimed Our Lady of Midnight's communication systems.

[T-01:03:35] Multiple subterranean access points detected throughout Liberty's Promise spaceport. Voteless emerging: All sectors

[PROXIMITY ALERT: MASSIVE MOVEMENT] [SUBTERRANEAN ACCESS: MULTIPLE POINTS ACTIVATING] [Voteless EMERGENCE: SIMULTANEOUS] [QUANTITY: BEYOND COUNTING CAPACITY] [COORDINATION: PERFECT] [TACTICAL ASSESSMENT: OVERWHELMING FORCE]

They emerge simultaneously from all vectors within Liberty's Promise's spaceport facility—maintenance tunnels, collapsed infrastructure, ventilation systems. Illuminate tactical brilliance on display as they spring the perfect ambush.

Defensive systems engage automatically throughout Liberty's Promise's extraction zone:

[GATLING EMPLACEMENT: ACTIVATED] [FIRING RATE: 6,000 RPM] [TARGETING: HIGHEST CONCENTRATION AREAS] [AMMUNITION EXPENDITURE: RAPID] [EFFECTIVENESS: HIGH BUT INSUFFICIENT]

[ANTI-PERSONNEL MINES: DETONATING] [PATTERN: SEQUENTIAL AS TRIGGERED] [CASUALTIES: NUMEROUS] [EFFECT: TEMPORARY CHANNELIZATION OF ENEMY MOVEMENT] [LIMITATION: RAPIDLY DEPLETING]

[STATIC FIELD: OPERATIONAL] [EFFECT: Voteless MOVEMENT -42%] [COVERAGE: 50M RADIUS] [LIMITATION: SLOWING BUT NOT STOPPING ADVANCE] [ASSESSMENT: BUYING TIME ONLY]

Analysis confirms defensive inadequacy:

[DEFENSIVE ASSESSMENT: INSUFFICIENT] [ENEMY NUMBERS: EXCEEDING DEFENSIVE CAPACITY BY 317%] [AMMUNITION EXPENDITURE: UNSUSTAINABLE] [PERIMETER BREACH: INEVITABLE] [EXTRACTION WINDOW: NARROWING]

[T-01:04:12] Full defensive engagement. Liberator discharged continuously throughout Liberty's Promise extraction zone

[WEAPON STATUS: AR-23 LIBERATOR] [FIRING MODE: FULL AUTO] [RATE OF FIRE: MAXIMUM] [TARGETING: PRIORITY THREATS] [AMMUNITION CONSERVATION: DEPRIORITIZED]

The weapon's thermal signature exceeds design parameters:

[BARREL TEMPERATURE: 742°F] [COOLING SYSTEM: OVERWHELMED] [FEED MECHANISM: STRESS INDICATORS] [FAILURE PROBABILITY: INCREASING WITH SUSTAINED FIRE] [AMMUNITION REMAINING: 217/405]

The combat pharmaceuticals reach maximum saturation:

[STIMULANT LEVELS: MAXIMUM SATURATION] [PERCEPTION ALTERATION: EXTREME] [TIME DILATION: SUBJECTIVE 40% SLOWDOWN] [COGNITIVE PROCESSING: HYPER-ACCELERATED] [MOTOR CONTROL: ENHANCED BEYOND HUMAN CAPABILITY]

[T-01:05:01] "Our Lady of Midnight" extraction craft detected on approach to Liberty's Promise spaceport

[AERIAL CONTACT: IDENTIFIED] [CLASSIFICATION: EXTRACTION CRAFT] [IFF: OUR LADY OF MIDNIGHT] [PILOT: LT. REEVES] [APPROACH VECTOR: OPTIMAL DESPITE CONDITIONS] [ETA: 27 SECONDS]

The craft's engines cut through Liberty's Promise's storm conditions with determined precision. Lieutenant Reeves' voice materializes through static:

"This is—Reeves—one approach—no second chances—radiation levels—systems failing—hold position—coming in hot—"

Her voice reveals the strain of stage 2 radiation sickness – vocal tremors, periodic breaks, the determination of a pilot who knows this is her final flight.

Landing zone increasingly compromised by enemy concentration. Defensive perimeter contracting as Voteless numbers overwhelm established killzones:

[PERIMETER STATUS: COLLAPSING] [GATLING AMMUNITION: 27%] [MINES: DEPLETED] [STATIC FIELD: FAILING] [LIBERATOR AMMUNITION: 143/405] [TACTICAL OPTIONS: DIMINISHING]

Liberator thermal warning indicators exceed maximum threshold:

[WEAPON WARNING: CRITICAL TEMPERATURE] [BARREL INTEGRITY: COMPROMISED] [COOLING FAILURE: IMMINENT] [CONTINUED FIRING: NOT RECOMMENDED] [SWITCHING TO: P-19 REDEEMER]

The sidearm's rapid fire creates interlocking fields of terminal ballistics:

[WEAPON ACTIVE: P-19 REDEEMER] [FIRING MODE: FULL AUTO] [RATE OF FIRE: 1,100 RPM] [RECOIL MANAGEMENT: AUTOMATIC] [TARGETING: MAXIMUM DENSITY ZONES]

Voteless drop in mathematically predictable patterns, immediately replaced by identical units emerging from Liberty's Promise's urban labyrinth.

[T-01:05:27] Final defensive stand. Ammunition critically low

[DEFENSIVE POSITION: BACK TO LANDING ZONE] [MOBILITY: MINIMAL – STATIC DEFENSE] [FIELD OF FIRE: 180°] [AMMUNITION STATUS: P-19 REDEEMER 47/124] [RELOADING: NOT VIABLE]

My position established with back against extraction craft's projected landing zone. Firing solutions executed with maximum efficiency across Liberty's Promise's spaceport approach vectors:

[FIRING PATTERN: OPTIMIZED] [TARGET SELECTION: PRIORITY THREATS] [AMMUNITION EXPENDITURE: PRECISELY CALCULATED] [NEURAL TARGETING: ENHANCED BY STIMULANTS] [KILL EFFICIENCY: 100% - ZERO WASTED ROUNDS]

Double-tap technique delivering cranial impacts to each Voteless. Ammunition conservation protocols in full effect despite desperate situation.

[T-01:05:49] Extraction craft landed at Liberty's Promise spaceport. Boarding ramp deployed

[EXTRACTION CRAFT: LANDED] [POSITION: 2M BEHIND CURRENT POSITION] [BOARDING RAMP: DEPLOYED] [ENGINE STATUS: MAINTAINING POWER] [DEPARTURE WINDOW: EXTREMELY LIMITED]

Lieutenant Reeves visible through cockpit transparency, her face showing clear radiation sickness symptoms – nosebleed, facial lesions, capillary hemorrhaging in eyes. Her voice struggles through the comm system:

"Get—aboard—now—systems failing—singularity radiation—affecting stabilizers—thirty seconds—maximum—"

Three remaining rounds in the P-19 Redeemer. Three final Voteless charging position:

[TARGETS: 3 FINAL Voteless] [RANGE: 7M AND CLOSING] [AMMUNITION: 3 ROUNDS REMAINING] [TARGETING SOLUTION: CALCULATED] [PROBABILITY OF SUCCESS: 97.3%]

Three perfect shot placements. Three former colonists returned to stillness.

[T-01:06:02] Board complete. Extraction craft sealing. Altitude increasing above Liberty's Promise City

[BOARDING: COMPLETE] [RAMP STATUS: CLOSING] [SEAL INTEGRITY: COMPROMISED – Voteless INTERFERENCE] [ALTITUDE: INCREASING] [WARNING: HULL BREACH ATTEMPT IN PROGRESS]

As the craft lifts from Liberty's Promise's frozen surface, multiple Voteless attempt to climb aboard:

[HULL BREACH ATTEMPT: MULTIPLE Voteless] [QUANTITY: 7 SPECIMENS] [ATTACHMENT POINTS: BOARDING RAMP, LANDING STRUTS, SENSOR ARRAY] [THREAT LEVEL: CRITICAL] [ACTION REQUIRED: IMMEDIATE]

The P-19 Redeemer's magazine empty, I grab emergency tool from bulkhead:

[EMERGENCY TOOL: ACCESSED] [CLASSIFICATION: MAINTENANCE PRY BAR] [LENGTH: 73CM] [COMPOSITION: HARDENED STEEL] [EFFECTIVENESS AS WEAPON: LIMITED BUT VIABLE]

First Voteless breaches partially sealed boarding ramp, fingers extending through 7cm gap:

[Voteless BREACH: IN PROGRESS] [LOCATION: BOARDING RAMP] [GAP SIZE: 7CM AND WIDENING] [TIME TO FULL BREACH: 12 SECONDS] [ACTION: REQUIRED IMMEDIATELY]

I drive maintenance tool through gap with hydraulic assistance from suit, penetrating Voteless cranial cavity:

[IMPACT DELIVERED: MAXIMUM FORCE] [PENETRATION: COMPLETE] [TARGET STATUS: NEUTRALIZED] [TOOL STATUS: RETRIEVABLE] [REMAINING THREATS: 6]

Lieutenant Reeves' voice cuts through ship's internal comm: "Hold—something—emergency protocols—"

She engages emergency thruster sequence, acceleration pushing craft beyond safe atmospheric exit parameters:

[G-FORCE: 7.3G AND INCREASING] [STRUCTURAL INTEGRITY: STRESSED] [Voteless ATTACHMENT: WEAKENING] [ALTITUDE: 1,700M AND CLIMBING] [ATMOSPHERIC EXIT: IMMINENT]

External temperature sensors register dramatic increase as friction heats external hull:

[EXTERNAL TEMPERATURE: 1,473°F] [HULL MATERIAL: APPROACHING THERMAL LIMITS] [Voteless ATTACHED: COMBUSTING] [THREAT ELIMINATION: PROCEEDING] [ESTIMATED CLEARANCE: 7 SECONDS]

[T-01:06:25] Stratagem beacon activated. Request: 500 Kiloton Bomb

[FINAL STRATAGEM: ACTIVATED] [TARGET: LIBERTY'S PROMISE CENTRAL PLAZA] [AUTHORIZATION: TRANSMITTED] [BEACON DEPLOYMENT: SUCCESSFUL] [DETONATION: PENDING ORBITAL CALCULATION]

One final contribution to mission parameters. Left-Down-Right-Right-Left-Up. Beacon away, targeted at Liberty's Promise's city center.

Lieutenant Reeves acknowledges through pain-strained voice: "Final—package—away—detonation—thirty seconds—"

[T-01:06:52] From altitude: Detonation observed. Blast radius: 1.7km. Estimated casualties: TOTAL

[DETONATION OBSERVED] [YIELD: 500KT] [BLAST RADIUS: 1.7KM] [TARGET: LIBERTY'S PROMISE CITY CENTER] [Voteless CASUALTIES: ESTIMATED 9,000+] [ILLUMINATE CASUALTIES: UNKNOWN BUT SUBSTANTIAL]

Through the extraction craft viewport, Liberty's Promise's flag remains visible for 3.8 seconds before atmospheric disturbance obscures visual confirmation. Still standing. Democracy endures within Liberty's Promise despite abandonment by its designated defenders.

The craft achieves orbital insertion, violent shuddering indicating structural compromise:

[ORBITAL INSERTION: ACHIEVED] [CRAFT INTEGRITY: 73%] [RADIATION LEVELS: EXTREME] [LIFE SUPPORT: FAILING] [PILOT CONDITION: CRITICAL – RADIATION POISONING]

[T-01:09:17] Medical intervention initiated aboard extraction craft

[MEDICAL SYSTEMS: ACTIVATED] [SUIT DISENGAGEMENT: INITIATED] [TRAUMA ASSESSMENT: COMPREHENSIVE] [TREATMENT PRIORITY: STABILIZATION] [SURVIVAL PROGNOSIS: GUARDED BUT VIABLE]

Suit disengagement reveals the full extent of Liberty's Promise operation damage:

[PHYSICAL ASSESSMENT: WOUNDS CATALOGED] [ENERGY WEAPON IMPACTS: 8] [PENETRATION DEPTH: VARIED 1.7-4.7CM] [FRAGMENTATION WOUNDS: 3] [SKELETAL FRACTURES: 9] [INTERNAL HEMORRHAGING: MODERATE BUT CONTROLLED]

The ship's medical AI begins triage protocols:

[TREATMENT INITIATED: PRIMARY STABILIZATION] [SYNTHETIC BLOOD: ADMINISTERED] [NANITE HEALING SWARM: REINFORCED] [SKELETAL STABILIZERS: APPLIED] [WOUND CLOSURE: IN PROGRESS]

Combat stimulants being systematically filtered:

[STIMULANT REMOVAL: INITIATED] [DETOXIFICATION PROTOCOLS: ENGAGED] [LIVER SUPPORT: ARTIFICIAL] [KIDNEY FUNCTION: ASSISTED] [NEUROLOGICAL MONITORING: CONTINUOUS]

The pain returns in waves as suppression chemicals degrade:

[PAIN LEVELS: INCREASING] [SUPPRESSION: DECREASING] [NEURAL TRANSMISSION: RETURNING TO NORMAL] [BIOLOGICAL FEEDBACK: RESTORING] [CONSCIOUSNESS: MAINTAINED DESPITE DISCOMFORT]

I reject additional analgesic compounds offered by medical system:

[PAIN MANAGEMENT: OFFERED] [RESPONSE: REJECTED] [JUSTIFICATION: TACTICAL AWARENESS PRIORITY] [COGNITIVE FUNCTION: MAINTAINED DESPITE PAIN] [MISSION FOCUS: ABSOLUTE]

[T-01:12:40] Video feed concludes – Helmet removed

[HELMET REMOVAL: COMPLETE] [VIDEO FEED: TERMINATED] [NEURAL INTERFACE: DISENGAGED] [MISSION RECORDING: SAVED TO SECURE SERVER] [TRANSMISSION TO COMMAND: PENDING]

[End Combat Footage]

[T-01:13:22] Orbital communication established with Our Lady of Midnight

Lieutenant Kim's voice materializes through static: "Praxis—Commander Vega is gone—radiation—ship breaking apart—we have one more mission—Illuminate mothership—behind singularity—you're patched up enough—democracy needs—final strike—"

MISSION ASSESSMENT:

Illuminate mind control pylon neutralized within Liberty's Promise City with extreme prejudice

Territory secured and claimed for Super Earth

Democratic principles maintained against overwhelming odds

Casualty ratio: 1:562 (Helldiver:Enemy)

Total wounds sustained: 11

Mission abandoned by all SEAF vessels except "Our Lady of Midnight"

SOS transmitted by original Liberty's Promise team, then by surviving operative - no response received except from operative's assigned vessel

Secondary mission requirement identified: Illuminate mothership beyond singularity

INQUIRY FOR COMMAND: This operative formally requests immediate investigation into command structure decisions regarding Liberty's Promise operation on PILEN V. Specific inquiry demanded into commanding officers who withdrew support assets after deploying personnel into active combat zone. Their abandonment of deployed forces constitutes dereliction of duty, violation of Helldiver operational protocols, and direct contravention of democratic principles that our organization exists to defend.

PHYSIOLOGICAL EVALUATION:

Multiple fractures (9): Ribs (5), clavicle, radius, ulna, left orbital socket

Energy weapon penetration wounds (8): Various locations with associated tissue carbonization

Fragmentation wounds (3): Lower back, right thigh, left shoulder

Mild traumatic brain injury: Consistent with blast exposure and psychic assault

Combat stimulant toxicity: Level 4 (requiring 72-hour detoxification protocol)

Current operational capacity: 37% of baseline

Recommended recovery period: 96 hours (Rejected by operative)

Return to combat status: IMMEDIATE

PERSONAL ADDENDUM: On Earth, I designed weapons systems based on theoretical operational parameters. I calculated survival probabilities using pristine mathematical models. I developed defensive countermeasures against theoretical threats.

Liberty's Promise rendered theory obsolete. The mission failure point wasn't technological—it was psychological. The fundamental breakdown occurred not in our weapons or defenses, but in the willingness of command structure to maintain support when resistance intensified.

I survived eleven distinct wounds and completed all mission parameters throughout Liberty's Promise. Others abandoned their posts without engaging the enemy. The comparison requires no elaboration.

I will return to operational status immediately, not because physical recovery has occurred, but because Super Earth requires personnel who understand that democracy demands continuation despite resistance. Who comprehend that an SOS response creates binding obligation toward mission completion rather than justification for withdrawal.

The physical wounds will heal according to predictable biological processes. The systemic failure of command structure integrity represents damage beyond conventional repair parameters.

The Illuminate mothership awaits beyond the singularity. Our Lady of Midnight is dying. Lieutenant Reeves is dying. Every crew member sacrificed to radiation poisoning deserves completion of this final mission. Democracy will be delivered to the source of the threat, regardless of personal cost.

For Super Earth. For Democracy. For Liberty's Promise.

Dr. Praxis, Master Sergeant Weapons Systems Design Division (Formerly) 59th Helldivers Combat Battalion (Currently)

[himahrs99]

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