Shmuel's molten fist came down again..
Voyager's cloak spiraled upward, the cosmic half trying to negate the impact.
But Shmuel's punch passed through it like it wasn't there.
The molten impact caught Voyager across the shoulder and sent him sprawling sideways. His orbiting lenses shattered further, glass fragments dissolving into the cosmic dust of his cloak.
"I am merciful," Voyager said, pulling himself upright. "Logic dictates that individual suffering stems from fragmentation. From isolation. From the illusion that separate minds are necessary. If all consciousness merged into one unified being, there would be no more pain. No more fear. No more the cruel space between what one person understands and what another refuses to see."
"Perfection," he continued. "Complete understanding. No misunderstanding. No conflict born from the gap between worlds. Everyone would know everyone. Everyone would be everyone. The inefficiency of individual thought would dissolve. We would finally evolve past this…"
"IDIOTIC!"
Shmuel's scream cut through the battlefield.
He surged forward, his molten hands burning so bright they cast long shadows across the ground.
"That concept is dumb," Shmuel said, his voice sharp, edged. "It erases identity. It doesn't save anyone. It just makes everyone disappear into one thing that doesn't know what it's lost."
He swung again.
Voyager deflected with the edge of his cloak which should have redirected the punch harmlessly into the air.
Instead, the molten metal seared across Shmuel's cheek.
Blood ran. The wound opened clean, bright red against pale skin.
Shmuel didn't step back.
He pressed forward into the pain and grabbed Voyager's cloak with both burning hands. The cosmic fabric tried to dissipate, to become formless, but Shmuel's grip was molten and absolute. He hauled Voyager closer and pressed his forehead against his, close enough that Voyager's remaining orbiting lens traced slow circles around them both.
"You'd need a much stronger mind to fight me," Shmuel said.
Voyager's breathing quickened.
"You bested Imogen earlier," Shmuel continued. "But she was exhausted. By the time she stood against you, she was already breaking."
He didn't look away from Voyager's eyes.
"She reached for you. Her hand on your head, and all the things she couldn't say with words because there weren't enough words for it." Shmuel's grip tightened on the cloak. "But your perfect logic was louder. Your certainty was a wall too thick to hear anything on the other side."
The memory of her touch was still there in his mind, the way her fingers had pressed against his temple in that basement, the intention flowing through contact because language had failed them both. She'd been trying to give him earthly desire. And Voyager had turned away from it because it didn't fit him.
Shmuel didn't know what had happened between them before that moment.
But he didn't need to know everything.
An extreme situation required an extreme measure, and Voyager had created the extreme. Shmuel had learned long ago from Kamina.
He stepped back.
His molten mechanical hands began to burn brighter.
Combustible, unstable. The bullets in his chambers were now infinite.
"I'm going to beat the logic out of you," Shmuel said. "And if that doesn't work, I'll beat it out of you again. That's the extreme measure. That's the answer to your perfect world."
He raised his burning hands.
Shmuel moved.
His left hand came up in a straight line. The molten metal left a trail of heat that warped the air. Voyager raised his cloak to intercept.
The punch went through.
The cloak flickered, just a moment, the cosmic weave scattered, stars dimming, and then Shmuel's fist connected with Voyager's ribs. The impact sent him backward three meters, feet dragging across the scorched earth.
Voyager pushed off and pivoted.
His cloak swept wide, trying to create distance, the cosmic half rotating like a shield. Shmuel closed the gap before it finished the motion.
Right hand.
Downward angle.
Fast.
Voyager twisted sideways. The punch missed by inches. The ground where he'd been standing erupted, the molten force burning through concrete and dirt, leaving a crater that glowed orange at the edges.
Voyager's orbiting lenses traced erratic paths.
He lunged forward with his cloak leading, the edge sharpened, trying to cut. Shmuel caught it on his forearm. The fabric seared his skin beneath the groom's outfit, burning through cloth and leaving red marks, but he didn't retreat. He twisted his arm, wrapping the cloak around his limb, and pulled.
Voyager came with it.
Shmuel's knee came up. Voyager brought both hands down to block. The impact shook his arms. He backpedaled, still wrapped in the molten grip, and threw his weight backward, using the cloak to create slack.
Shmuel released.
Voyager fell away, rolling, coming up to his feet with the cloak already moving to protect him. But it was slower. The cosmic weave was fragmenting at the edges, the nebulae inside flickering, the stars dimming and brightening in irregular patterns.
Shmuel advanced.
Left hook. Voyager ducked. Right uppercut. The cloak came down, deflected it but barely. The punch still grazed his chin, singing his face with heat.
Voyager's hand came up, trying to push Shmuel away. Shmuel caught the wrist and twisted, bringing his other fist up in a rising punch aimed at Voyager's solar plexus.
Voyager spun with the momentum, using it to slip the punch, but the movement was desperate. His cloak wasn't flowing anymore, it was fighting to maintain cohesion, the cosmic fabric stuttering between existence and dissolution.
Shmuel released the wrist and threw a straight right.
Voyager raised his cloak vertically, trying to absorb the impact. The molten punch hit it and the fabric collapsed inward, the force pushing through, and Shmuel's knuckles grazed Voyager's shoulder, leaving a burn mark that darkened instantly.
The groom's outfit covering Shmuel was burning brightly now, the molten features glowing, his mechanical arms streaming heat and light. Every movement left trails of combustion in the air.
Voyager created distance.
He moved sideways, and his cloak swept again, wider, more desperate. Shmuel ducked under it. The cosmic fabric passed over his head, and he drove forward, closing the gap with three rapid steps.
Voyager brought his cloak down in a vertical cut.
Shmuel caught it with both palms. The molten heat met the cosmic edge and for a moment they pushed against each other, between fire and starlight, and then Shmuel twisted his hands and threw Voyager off-balance.
Voyager fell.
His back hit the ground. His cloak splayed outward, stars scattering like dust. The orbiting lenses spiraled wildly, their paths completely erratic now.
Shmuel stepped forward.
He raised his fist. The molten metal was incandescent now, burning so bright it cast everything in harsh shadow. Voyager's eyes reflected the fire.
Shmuel brought the fist down.
Voyager rolled sideways at the last moment. The punch cratered the earth where he'd been lying. The heat bloom expanded outward, a wave of combustion that singed everything within five meters.
Voyager pushed up to his feet.
His cloak was barely holding together. The cosmic fabric was fragmenting faster now, large sections simply ceasing to exist, the starfield inside growing dark. His half-transformation was becoming unstable, the commitment wavering, the manifestation weakening with each moment he couldn't maintain the vision.
Shmuel stopped mid-punch.
His fist hovered inches from Voyager's face. His molten hands cooled slightly, the combustion dimming.
In the distance, the horizon shifted.
Red shapes appeared. Thousands of them. The hum started low, building, a sound like the world itself was grinding its teeth. The third wave.
Shmuel lowered his fist.
"I'm sure that Kamina will deal with you," he said. "I'm busy."
He turned away from Voyager without waiting for a response.
The battlefield was fragmenting. The first row was done, barely mobile, slumped against whatever cover they could find. The second row was falling back, exhausted, their movements mechanical. The third row was holding, but barely, the gap widening with each passing second. The fourth line wasn't mostly fighters. They were the rest, civilians caught in the crossfire, pressed into service because there was no one else left.
Shmuel's eyes traced.
thirty sweepers per fighter. That was the ratio. Maybe forty if they were unlucky. The third row had maybe sixty fighters left standing. Do the math. One hundred and eighty sweepers they could handle before collapse.
The wave coming looked like thousands.
Shmuel's mind worked fast. He could hold a small area. Very small. Maybe thirty square meters if he concentrated everything there. Just enough to keep the civilians alive. Just enough to reduce the hemorrhaging.
But it wouldn't be enough.
His thoughts drifted.
He remembered the laboratory. The red light. The sensation of his body breaking apart and reforming into something that wasn't human anymore. The Distortion phase. Then the Abnormality state, RMS TITANIC, a mass of wreckage and crushing force, capable of consuming everything in its path.
That power.
He could use that again.
But the cost was corrosion. The emotion overriding the user. The voice of the equipment screaming louder than your own thoughts until you couldn't remember which voice was yours anymore.
Shmuel looked at the molten form still covering his body. The [Synchronize E.G.O :: Wedlocked]. The connection between him and Imogen and all the things they'd chosen together.
What if he deliberately let it corrode?
He gathered the emotions. Not just the rage, that was just too easy. The desperation. The exhaustion. The guilt from the emergency room, from watching people die in his hands. The memory of Bruno suspended in that machine, broken and being remade. The weight of every choice he'd made that led to this moment.
He let them all collide inside his head.
No resistance nor pushing back. Just opening every door and letting them flood through.
His body began to change.
It started with his skin. The groom's outfit melted away. His mechanical hands began to lose definition, the individual fingers dissolving into liquid form. His legs softened, the structure collapsing downward. His torso became amorphous, shapeless, a container pouring its contents onto the ground.
Within seconds, Shmuel was no longer human.
He was a massive pile of molten lava. Constantly shifting. Constantly flowing. And from the surface, dozens upon dozens of rifle barrels protruded, each one pointing outward in different directions.
[E.G.O Corrosion :: Wedlocked]
Far back in the line, Imogen saw it.
She recognized the shape. The form. The way the molten mass contained something vast and hungry at its core. She'd been that once. Before Kamina and Shmuel pulled her back.
The pile of lava fired.
CLANG.
The first shot, a combustible round that erupted on impact, spreading molten debris across a cluster of incoming Sweepers. They scattered, absorbed each other trying to escape the heat.
CLICK. BANG.
The rifle rotated. Another shot. A different angle. The Sweepers in that direction died, liquefied, dispersed.
CLANG. CLICK. BANG.
Over and over. Though it's not aimed properly, because it didn't need to be. The area of effect was too large. The combustion was too indiscriminate. The sheer volume of fire was too dense.
The sweeper numbers dropped. The overwhelming tide became manageable. The fighters in the fourth line found they weren't fighting forty enemies at once anymore. Just two. Three. Suddenly survivable.
The third row regrouped. The second row rallied, finding strength in the breathing room that Shmuel's corrosion had bought them.
Opportunity stood near Imogen, her simple sword hanging loose at her side, watching the molten pile fire its rifles in methodical, brutal succession.
"How did he do that?" Opportunity asked quietly.
Imogen didn't look away from the form that had been Shmuel.
"I don't know," she said. Her voice was steady, watching him work. "But doesn't the ambiguity of the world make it interesting?"
She paused.
"No one knows what will come next, good or bad. It's just too many things at once. Too many worlds colliding. That's why all of them should be protected."
Opportunity glanced at her.
"Even the broken ones?"
"Especially the broken ones."
The molten pile fired again.
CLANG. CLICK. BANG.
CLANG. CLICK. BANG.
The third wave kept coming.
CLANG. CLICK. BANG.
The molten pile continued its assault. Minutes stretched. The sweepers kept coming in organized clusters, and the rifles kept firing. Shmuel's consciousness was scattered across the chaos, distributed among the rifles, among the molten mass, barely coherent enough to aim anymore.
CLANG. CLICK. BANG.
The clock in the back of his dissolving mind counted. 4:10 A.M.
Not everyone made it.
A civilian caught between a Sweeper and a failing fighter. Gone. A soldato of the Thumb whose rifle jammed at the wrong moment. Consumed. Three fixers huddled together, trying to protect each other. The wave took them anyway.
But more survived than should have.
The third wave stopped at 4:34 A.M.
The Sweepers that had been incoming suddenly ceased.
Shmuel stopped firing.
The molten form began to collapse inward, the rifles sinking back into the mass as the corrosion reversed itself. It was painful like being put back together hastily, like every nerve trying to remember how to be human when it had forgotten the shape.
His body reformed.
Shmuel stood on shaking legs, still in the Synchronize E.G.O state, but his mind was barely holding on. His eyes were unfocused. His breathing ragged.
Rowbotham and Gregor walked toward him.
"Is this some kind of technology from another Corp?" Gregor asked. His tone was clinical, evaluating. "Or are you just showing off here to get a name for yourself?"
Shmuel's head turned slowly toward him.
"Neither," he said.
Rowbotham blinked. Something flickered across his face, surprise, maybe. Or recognition.
Shmuel looked at the Proxy directly.
"Kamina will be here soon," he said quietly. "Just wait here for a bit. I think I have an idea on how to make him be here." He paused. "Tell your answer to him when he arrives. If you're in for a fight with my Office representative after your answer, then get ready. Because I'm sure he'd be a lot more handful to deal with than before."
He didn't wait for a response.
Shmuel walked toward Imogen and Opportunity, each step deliberate but unstable. When he reached them, he deactivated the E.G.O.
The molten form dissolved. The groom's outfit burned away. His mechanical arms returned to their normal state, blackened and smoking.
He fell face-first onto the ground.
"I was really hoping that this stargazing project made by four orphanage children wouldn't turn out to be like this," he said into the dirt. "I mean, somehow we fell into the past and now we're fighting in the Smoke War, but still... didn't think it would turn out like this."
Imogen crossed her arms, her exhaustion suddenly giving way. Bratty. Like she'd been carrying too much weight and finally had permission to put some of it down.
"Must be because of you and Kamina," she said. "Rotten luck, I guess."
"You're also part of the rotten luck too, miss run-away-princess," Shmuel replied from the ground.
Imogen laughed. She pulled out her rifle and started poking Shmuel's face with the barrel repeatedly, the gesture absurd and childish and somehow the most honest thing that had happened all night.
"Stop," she said, but she wasn't stopping. "This is dumb. You're dumb."
Opportunity stepped between them. "That's barbaric. Please, stop that immediately."
Imogen lowered the rifle, grinning.
Opportunity looked at both of them, her researcher's mind clearly struggling with the shift in tone.
"How do we get in contact with your Office representative?" she asked.
Shmuel pushed himself up slightly, resting on his elbows.
"Well," he said slowly, "while I was in that hot pile state, I somehow saw a big pillar of light. A massive one. And I saw myself having a small line made out of light connecting to me, reaching all the way to that pillar. I also saw Imogen. She had a line too, connecting to the same pillar."
"The pillar of light is Kamina," Imogen said. Without any question.
"Same thought," Shmuel said.
Opportunity stared at both of them.
The conversation had drifted into territory that made no sense. Lines of light. Pillars. A consciousness distributed across a molten form. It sounded like madness, like the delirious rambling of people who had been awake too long.
"That's..." Opportunity started, then stopped. "That's entirely…"
"Random bullshit that comes with being near Kamina," Imogen said, waving a hand dismissively. "Just accept it. Nothing about today makes sense anyway."
Shmuel managed a weak smile from the ground.
"Fair point," he said.
Shmuel grabbed Imogen's wrist.
"Turn it on," he said. "Go into your own mind. Find that thin line of light."
Imogen hesitated for just a moment. Then her form ignited.
The flames returned. The burning dress reformed around her. Her rifle glowed molten at the edges.
She closed her eyes.
Shmuel's voice became rhythmic and meditative.
"In the cold we seek the warm. In the dark we seek the light. In the loneliness we seek companion. In the whom we might trust, may turn away."
Imogen recited it word by word, her voice overlapping his.
"In the depth of hell we seek the heaven..."
She opened her eyes.
"BE DAMNED WITH STAYING IN IT WE ARE REACHING THE HEAVEN!"
From within her body, a line of light erupted outward.
It was brilliant. It was wild.
A thread of pure connection shooting upward, outward, rushing through the smoke and chaos toward something distant.
Kamina stood over the woman in light-weight industrial armor. She was unconscious. Her armor was dented. His katana was still drawn.
"Oh come on!" he said to no one in particular. "I had just finished my fight here."
He turned toward the emergency room.
"Oi Curiosity, Pioneer! We're leaving. If you're finished, we go right away."
Curiosity stood among three more armored figures, all of them down. He nodded.
"Ready."
Pioneer moved toward them. "Yes. The others can help the patients even if we're not here."
Kamina extended his arms.
"Well then hold onto me. Because this will be a wild ride."
Pioneer grabbed his hand without hesitation. Curiosity placed a single hand on his shoulder.
Then a line of light hit Kamina like a physical force.
He grabbed it.
The three of them were yanked forward.
They crashed through walls. The concrete shattered. They smashed through a building's interior, metal and glass exploding outward. Kamina and Curiosity tanked the impacts, their bodies absorbing the force, keeping Pioneer suspended between them, untouched.
Up.
They were pulled upward, through the smoke, above the rooflines.
Down.
Gravity reversed and they plummeted, the line of light pulling them lower, toward the battlefield where the sweepers had been. Toward Shmuel and Imogen.
They hit the ground hard.
Curiosity immediately turned to Pioneer.
"That's one way to group up."
Kamina stood up in a single fluid motion.
He rushed toward Shmuel, who was still lying face-down on the ground, and Imogen, who was standing with her rifle held loose at her side. He grabbed both of them and pulled them into an embrace.
"YEAH THAT'S MY OFFICE!" he shouted.
He liked being summoned like this. It felt right. It felt like the world was finally responding properly to the absurdity he'd been feeding it.
Shmuel pointed.
One finger toward Rowbotham. Another toward Voyager.
Voyager's E.G.O form was fracturing, the cosmic cloak barely holding together, stars going dark, the orbiting lenses completely shattered. His half-human body was trembling, the manifestation became progressively unstable.
Kamina understood immediately.
He stood, rolled his shoulders, and grinned.
"Well, the star of the show is here!" he said. "So eyes up because Kamina is back in the spotlight."