The helicopter's explosion was already fading into a dull, orange glow against the sky. With fifteen minutes left until detonation, there was no time for finesse. I executed a controlled descent, my taloned fingers and toes extending to grip the sheer glass wall of CENO Tower. I became a blur of blue and black, performing a terrifying, wall slide down the exterior, the glass groaning under my speed. I slammed through an upper-level floor, shattering a security window to breach the interior. My instincts, guided by psychic pings led me straight to the source of the chaotic energy below.
Meanwhile, several floors down, Felicity and The Hand were making the most of the invasion. The Hand had carved a massive, circular hole into the reinforced wall of CENO's main data vault. Felicity, having used her psychic energy to bypass the final internal ice, was now rapidly downloading files onto her own salvaged tech. "Hurry, Felicity! The clock is ticking!" my mental voice urged, now close enough to be insistent.
Just as Felicity secured the final data burst, the wall next to them exploded inward. I smashed through the breach, trailing shattered glass and plaster, landing in a low crouch next to The Hand.
"Ash! You're whole!" Felicity cried out, relief momentarily overriding her mission focus. I nodded, " Tarq is toast, the data is toast. And Cenos is finished. My voice was cut off by the booming alert system: "Time to detonation: 14:00 minutes."
"No time," Felicity said, tucking both data drives safely away. "We need to get to the Iron Root Academy. I have a passenger to collect." With a united, ruthless purpose, I boarded the hand with Felicity. With an impulse of thought I wheeled the Hand around and began our final, frantic escape out of the self-destructing CENO Tower.
The Hand burst through the looted data vault and began its powerful descent, carving a path through the upper floors of CENO Tower. Me and Felicity sat atop the massive bio-machine, racing the 14-minute self-destruct countdown. We slammed into the ground floor lobby—or what was left of it.
Marla and Agent Koba had reappeared.
The War Beetle, battered and scorched from the warehouse explosion, was standing tall, his armor smoking and its massive pincers flexing aggressively. Marla, her face a mask of furious determination, was already airborne, her bat wings beating steadily.
"You're not getting out that easy!" Marla hissed, her crimson eyes fixed on me.
Koba slammed his enormous fist into the cracked floor, the impact shuddering through the entire lobby. "Thank you, sir, may I have another!" the borg roared, channeling his favorite twisted latch key kid movie lines of eager go getter combat enthusiasm.
I rolled my eyes, my frustration boiling over. "We don't got time for you clowns!"
There was no time for evasion or talk. The final confrontation was here.I and Felicity leapt from The Hand, separating to engage their two enraged counterparts in a desperate, final battle to escape the collapsing tower. The fight for the data was about to come to an explosive close.
The final battle exploded across the ruined CENO lobby. The plan was simple: neutralize both threats instantly.
I surged forward, ignoring Koba's massive charging pincers. I channeled all my fury into speed and precision, using my renewed body to dart inside the War Beetle's reach. Before Koba could even complete his swing, I slapped my Orgone Palm Suckers onto the core plating of his battered armor.
The contact was immediate and devastating. The brilliant blue Orgone energy pulsed, ripping through Koba's systems, draining not just his remaining battle power, but the psychic vitality that fueled his mental energy. The beetle-borg shrieked—a high, unnatural sound of organic horror. His metallic armor rapidly slackened, and his joints seized. In seconds, Agent Koba shriveled into a motionless, inorganic husk, his beast crystal still active but its energy reserves nearly depleted. I released him; the massive War Beetle collapsed like an empty shell.
Meanwhile, Felicity and The Hand delivered a focused, overwhelming assault on Marla. Felicity, atop The Hand, unleashed a relentless barrage of energized chakrams and psychic static, forcing Marla to focus entirely on defense with her Swarm Skin Cloak and vipers. As Marla banked to avoid a massive X-Buster volley from The Hand, I leapt from a nearby balcony reaching, stretching for Marlas ankle!
My Orgone Palm Suckers momentarily latch onto Marla's ankle mid-air.
The psychic drain, though brief, was enough. Marla shrieked as I pulled her vibrant green energy from her Medusa Core. We hit the ground, her majestic bat wings shriveling and cracking, her eyes dimming. I rolled with her through the fall, ensuring the drain was complete. Marla, the beautiful weapon, was reduced to a withered, exhausted husk, alive but utterly powerless.
"Got them," I projected to Felicity, gripping the back of necks of the two withered and paralyzed husks. "Let's go. Ten minutes!" I threw the withered bodies of Marla and Koba onto the shoulder of The Hand. The colossal guardian blasted through the remaining outer wall, launching the trio and our prisoners out into the city night.
A silence—heavy and unnatural—fell over the city after the helicopter explosion. Then came the sound that drowned out the sirens and the distant screaming ambulances: a deep, internal groan that resonated through the bedrock of the metropolis.
The CENO Tower, a monolithic symbol of corporate and scientific arrogance, was beginning its final descent.
The first indication above ground was a series of synchronized, controlled explosions that ripped through the structure's core support columns, designed to ensure the tower didn't simply topple but imploded upon its own footprint. Sparks and fire laced the lower levels, climbing rapidly up the immense structure.
Then, with a terrifying slowness that belied the speed of its destruction, the entire building began to buckle inward. The glass facade shattered completely, raining down millions of crystalline shards onto the streets below. The rebar twisted, the concrete crushed, and the high-tech sensors and internal structure vaporized under the massive, collapsing weight.
The final sound was a world-shattering BOOM as the upper two-thirds of the tower plunged downward, meeting the lower section in a dense, roiling cloud of smoke, pulverized concrete dust, and flame. The earth shook violently, a final, cataclysmic tremor that echoed the moment of Ash's rebirth.
Where the tower had stood only moments before, there was now a massive, smoking crater. CENO had been erased from the skyline, its secrets buried under a mountain of smoking rubble, its operation momentarily crippled by its own desperation. The Lunar Cry would have to wait. We arrived back at the Gutter Nest moments before the catastrophic sound of CENO Tower's self-destruction echoed through the Vein. I, Felicity, and The Hand stood by the Altar, the sacred stone structure of our base. On the altar, I stacked the two prisoners—the husked forms of Marla and Koba—like two pathetic pieces of firewood. The husks, still conscious, began to plead, their voices thin and dry.
"Please... Ash, don't leave us like this," Marla croaked, her voice barely a whisper. "Release us from this wretched state..."
I ignored their pleas, my focus already on the next phase. I communed with the Aegis Node 7.
"Aegis, initiate search protocol," I commanded. "Search for 'control devices' capable of managing Genome Beast behavior through vital energy regulation."
Felicity, still shaken but focused, interfaced her own tech with the Aegis Node. The matrix glowed, its crystalline structure analyzing the data on CENO's captured assets. The Aegis Node pulsed, and the answer appeared on Felicity's screen.
"Analysis Complete. Optimal solution: Dhakra Control Rod."
I smiled, a look of grim satisfaction on my face. "Ooh, don't you like the ring of that? ' 'Dhakra Control Rod' ' it is. I have the materials. All those Bal-rog scraps and organic materials we collected. The Aegis Node can synthesize them now."
Felicity watched as I began to feed the raw, hardened remains of the Bio-Balrog and other scraps from the Inventory Ring into the Aegis Node 7 forge. The Aegis Node began to hum, synthesizing the components. I now had the means to permanently control CENO's own elite agents. The outcome of humanity and this ''Lunar Cry'' might just depend on the loyalty of two very unwilling new subordinates.
The Aegis Node 7 forge hummed with contained, focused power. The raw, jagged remnants of the Bio-Balrog and other exotic organic scraps I had retrieved were dissolving within the crystal matrix, being rebuilt and refined at the atomic level. Felicity watched, her face illuminated by the forge's violet glow, as the process completed.
With a final, sharp ping, the forge cycled down. Within the crystalline recess, an object rested on the blackened altar: a slender, dark violet Rod.
I picked it up and it felt cold, potent, and utterly devoid of mercy. A three-D display popped up in my vision; I was stunned. "Herja is this your doing?"
I heard Herjas voice in my mind, yes Ash. I am your system after all, I can show you an items description, thanks to my link with Aegis node 7." I marveled at the technological sophistication of the three-D menu. if followed my vision were ever I turned. It also listed all of my personal stats and total vital health! I now had an HP and Orgone bar!
I looked at the Rod in my hand, the Dhakra Rods purpose was instantly clear through Herjas interface: it was a specialized tool designed to "train" beasts. It could kickstart the cultivation path to one desirous to become a Beast Master. Ensuring absolute subservience, through focused waves of Intent, and those waves could be pleasurable or painful or a mixture of both. The Rod was also capable of leveling up, but I would have to cultivate it on unbroken beasts. The more one cultivated their ''pet'' with the rod an ''obedience node'' would begin to develop. To offer immediate pain one must absorb the targets orgone signature.
I gripped the Rod firmly and I felt a perverse fire light in my heart. I would become a Beast Master.
"Time for some obedience training." I stated, turning toward the two husked figures stacked like firewood. Marla, still withered and weak, offered no resistance, only a dry, pitiful plea. "Ash, please...this isn't necessary. We can talk—"
I grabbed her by her leathery, shriveled wing and lifted her face into the light. Her eyes, though dull, were wide with dawning horror. I smiled, should we talk Marla? you killed me after all, tell me why I should let it slide?
Marla was speechless and her withered eyes looked away. I touched the rod to Marlas weak orgone signature, letting the rod drink it in. " I have your orgone signature, now, I control it and I can use it take you to heaven, or hell." I let a jolt of Marlas own animus through the rod, sending a crackling wave of pain through her.
Marla writhed in agony for a moment, before I cut the flow. Her withered husk of a body panted in agony. "What do you want from me!" She finally managed to rasp. I eyed her firmly. "You and Koba work for me now." I held up the glowing rod "capace?"
Fine! fine I work for you now, just save me, restore me!" I placed a palm sucker between her withered bosoms and allowed the beautiful, terrible power I had drained from her to flow back—but it was filtered, regulated, and absolutely subservient to the disc's programming.
Her skin instantly began to rehydrate, her muscles re-coiling, and her eyes flared back to life. Her majestic bat wings snapped open, fully restored.
Koba, the massive War Beetle borg, was next. I walked over to his crumpled husk of a body and absorbed his orgone signature with the rod. "Okay big guy, you heard it too, you work for me now. You don't want me to use this rod on you, got it?"
I placed my palm against Kobas War Bettle shell and allowed orgone to flow back into his body, rehydrating it with vital life essence.
I tested the link, my Intent flowing into the Dhakra Rod. My mental command was simple: "KOBA, kneel. MARLA, report on CENO's core directives."
Koba didn't drop immediately. He struggled violently, his massive frame trembling with internal resistance. It was a clear, physical struggle against the rods influence. But then, the memory of being an empty husk—of absolute powerlessness—must have flooded his remaining consciousness. With a groan of grinding chitin, the massive beetle-borg dropped instantly to one knee, his head bowed. Obedience was chosen.
Marla's response was slower, filled with venom. Her restored eyes, blazing with fury, locked onto mine. She hated me, her every fiber screaming defiance, yet she knew the price of refusal. She felt the silent, potent threat radiating from the Control Rod in my grip.
"CENO's primary directive," Marla began, her voice hoarse with suppressed rage, "is the creation of the final Genome Beast forms necessary to survive the Lunar Cry event." She stopped, biting back the rest, forced to choose every word. "My medusa core crystal remains intact, but my continued access to its power... is now contingent upon your will. I choose survival."
My control was absolute, purchased not with magic, but with fear and the promise of endless suffering. With the threats momentarily managed, I nodded to Felicity. "Now. What did you get from the vault? Start with anything related to the Lunar Cry."
I kept my attention focused on Marla and Koba, ensuring the painful reality of the Obedient Discs—and the threat of the Control Rod—kept their obedience absolute.
Felicity, who had been nervously watching the confrontation, quickly interfaced the captured CENO data drives with the Gutter Nest's primary server. She bypassed layers of encryption, the screen flashing with lines of military jargon and scientific code.
Then, she stopped, her tech eye widening as she zeroed in on a single, labeled file.
"Ash, I found it," she breathed, her voice tight, the awe and terror mingling in her voice. "The first critical piece of data isn't a weapon or a beast project. It's an astronomical data packet labeled: 'Lunar Observation Anomalies.'"
She pulled up the file, and the data transformed from text into a high-resolution, time-lapse video feed, likely captured by a CENO deep-space satellite. The image filled the cavernous wall of the Gutter Nest: a stark, desolate view of the Moon's surface.
But it wasn't empty.
The screen revealed a massive, black, swirling Ribbon—like a seam of utter darkness—on the surface of the Moon. And what was worse, moving across the pockmarked lunar landscape were tens of thousands of Lunar beasts—swarms of indistinct, rapidly moving silhouettes—all rushing toward the black ribbon in low gravity. The sheer volume of the creatures was staggering.
"That's what's coming," Felicity whispered, her voice laced with dread. "The Lunar Cry isn't a metaphor, Ash. It's a migration. The lunar beasts are coming here."