The Alpha's core expanded like a blooming black sun, pulling the chamber's light toward it in long ribbons. Metal groaned. Platforms warped. The entire command core trembled as though caught between existence and erasure.
Seren clung to a railing, screaming over the rising howl of gravitational distortion:
"ROURKE! DO SOMETHING!"
The guide's glow flickered violently, barely maintaining form.
"This attack will breach the sphere's shell!
If the shell fractures—void collapse will follow!"
Rourke didn't need the warning.
He felt the danger in his bones.
Gravity twisted inside his lungs, making each breath sharp and cold.
The Alpha stepped forward, its massive arm raised, the dangerous core in its chest spinning faster with each second.
"END."
The single word struck like a command to the universe.
Rourke steadied his stance on the floating platform that now warped beneath him. His heartbeat synced to the Heart's deep pulse—slow, steady, powerful.
He called to it.
Not with words.
With need.
The Heart answered.
A surge of blue-white fire ignited inside Rourke's chest, radiating outward in spiraling arcs. The chamber's swirling gravitational chaos reacted to him—bowing, bending, reshaping.
He launched himself at the Alpha.
Two Forces Meet
Rourke hit the Alpha before the creature could release its catastrophic attack.
The impact wasn't physical—it was gravitational.
The collision sent a pulse across the room that rippled through every suspended platform.
The Alpha staggered back.
Not far.
But enough.
Its chest-core flared, resisting the disruption.
Rourke felt the incoming shockwave from the Alpha's attack—
the raw field ready to collapse space itself.
He gritted his teeth and pulled from deep inside.
He didn't create a barrier.
His power, born of the Solarii,
and tempered by humanity,
was not meant to shield.
It was meant to reshape.
He spun gravity around himself and the Alpha, bending the unstable field into a coil—an eddy—forcing the destructive force inward, tightening it, twisting it.
Seren watched with wide eyes. "He's… folding it!"
The guide gasped.
"He is reversing the flow—redirecting collapse into stabilization!"
The Alpha roared, its armor cracking.
"UNACCEPTABLE."
It tried to break the coil—
but the coil held.
Rourke shouted, voice raw:
"YOU AREN'T DESTROYING ANYTHING TODAY!"
With one final twist of his palms—
he inverted the destructive field.
The gravitational collapse snapped inward like a star imploding—
then vanished in a silent flash.
No explosion.
No shockwave.
Just… nothing.
The Alpha froze.
Seren whispered in awe: "He didn't block it. He unwound it."
Rourke Gains Ground
Rourke staggered from the effort but didn't fall.
The Heart flowed through him, steadying his breath.
The Alpha lowered its head.
Its voice no longer booming, but quiet—dangerously quiet:
"You have learned much.
Too quickly."
Rourke lifted his hands. "Want to see what else I've learned?"
He stepped forward.
Gravity thickened beneath his feet like solid ground, and he sprinted across the air itself, weaving between floating debris.
The Alpha charged.
They collided again—this time in a blur of motion that shattered the surrounding platforms. The chamber became a storm of gravitic currents. Metal beams twisted like vines. Lights fractured into shards of luminescent data.
Seren ducked as a chunk of broken platform soared over her head. "Okay! That one was close!"
The guide hovered protectively at her side.
"The Alpha grows desperate.
Its core is unstable.
It will fight with increasing recklessness."
Seren yelled back, "I'm more worried about Rourke getting flattened!"
The Alpha Adjusts
The Alpha vanished, flickering out of existence—
Then reappeared behind Rourke.
A crushing blow slammed into Rourke's back. Pain exploded through his spine as he was hurled across the chamber, smashing into a spiraling conduit.
Rourke fell to one knee, breath ripped out of him.
The Alpha approached, distortions boiling around its claws.
"Your body is fragile.
You cannot contain what you wield."
Rourke spat blood and stood again.
"Watch me."
The Alpha lunged—
Rourke sidestepped, twisting the gravity around himself.
The Alpha's strike missed—
Rourke grabbed its arm.
Not with muscles.
With gravity.
He bent its momentum sideways—
and slammed the giant Hunter into the chamber wall.
Cracks spiderwebbed out from the impact.
Seren shouted, "Yes! HIT HIM AGAIN!"
Rourke did.
He slammed the Alpha into the floor—
into a floating platform—
into the ceiling—
Each strike accompanied by a flash of blue energy.
The Alpha's armor shattered in pieces.
But then—
The Alpha's core pulsed again.
Bright.
Violent.
Wild.
The guide's glow dimmed with dread.
"It is preparing a self-destruct collapse!"
Seren's eyes widened. "Meaning what?!"
"Meaning the Alpha will sacrifice itself to take the sphere—and Rourke—with it!"
Rourke felt the buildup.
A trembling in the chamber.
A distortion in his chest.
"No…" he whispered.
"Not happening."
The Bond's True Power
The Alpha released a deafening metallic roar as its chest split open fully, its core a spinning vortex of dark gravity pulling everything in the room toward it.
Platforms tore free.
Shattered beams spiraled.
Seren lost her footing—
Rourke caught her with a gravitational tether, anchoring her to a stable node.
She clung to the air and shouted, "I refuse to die by spinning into a robot's chest vortex!"
Rourke didn't answer.
He was sinking deeper—
into the Heart's pulse.
Into the Solarii essence.
Into the human determination inside him.
A quiet voice formed inside his mind.
Rourke… let us help you.
The Heart.
He spread his arms wide.
Gravity responded.
Not wild.
Not dangerous.
Harmonized.
A brilliant wave of silver-blue radiated from Rourke's body—
not as a blast,
but as a gentle pulse.
Every piece of debris slowed.
Every warped beam straightened.
The entire sphere exhaled.
The Alpha's destructive core flickered.
Rourke stepped forward, walking through the collapsing currents as though stepping through a river's gentle flow.
He placed his hand on the Alpha's chest.
The creature trembled.
"Impossible…
the Heart's resonance belongs only to—"
Rourke whispered:
"Both."
He reached into the core—
not physically,
but gravitationally—
and unwound it.
Slowly.
Deliberately.
Elegantly.
The Alpha's core dimmed.
Cracked.
Collapsed inward.
And finally…
went dark.
The massive Hunter sagged, its arms falling limply to its sides, before crashing to the ground with a shudder that echoed through the chamber.
Silence.
Real silence.
Rourke stepped back, chest rising and falling with exhaustion.
Seren ran towards him, nearly tripping on a floating tile. "Holy—Rourke! Are you—are you alive?"
He nodded slowly.
"Barely."
The guide approached, glowing brighter than ever.
"The Alpha is neutralized.
The command core is safe…
for now."
Rourke's eyes lifted toward the upper levels of the chamber.
He felt something.
A new presence.
Many of them.
Hunters.
Hundreds.
Descending.
Seren followed his gaze and blanched. "Please tell me that's just the lights flickering."
Rourke shook his head.
"No."
The guide trembled.
"The Hunters have deployed their full force."
Rourke clenched his fists.
The next battle would make everything so far look like a warm-up.