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Richard didn't remember deciding to attack.
One second, Siara stood in front of him, gun raised, breath ragged in the frozen air. The next, the world narrowed to motion and instinct, and his body moved without asking permission.
Chrome energy surged through him like liquid lightning.
He crossed the distance between them in a blink—too fast, uncontrolled. Siara barely rolled aside as Richard slammed into the ice where she'd been standing, the impact shattering the ground beneath him.
"Richard!" she shouted. "Stop!"
He tried.
That was the worst part.
His hands shook violently as he forced himself upright, teeth clenched hard enough to draw blood. Phantom's presence clawed at the back of his skull, the microscopic chip flaring, flooding his nervous system with command impulses.
Move.
Kill.
Retrieve the serum.
"No," Richard rasped.
Siara didn't fire again. She stepped closer instead, slow and deliberate, eyes locked onto his.
"You're still here," she said. "I know you are."
The cold intensified.
Not gradually.
Instantly.
Every exposed surface flash-froze. Frost raced across metal, across skin, across breath itself. Siara's words crystallized in the air between them.
Then the ground split open.
The vault beneath the ice collapsed inward in a perfect circle, revealing a cavern of frozen steel and dormant machinery—lights flickering on as if awakened by their presence alone.
At the center stood a massive block of ice.
Something moved inside it.
Richard felt it before he saw it. A pressure so absolute it didn't feel hostile—it felt final.
The ice shattered.
A boy stepped out.
Barefoot. Calm. Silver-haired. His eyes were empty in a way that made Richard's skin crawl.
"So," the boy said, looking around lazily. "This is the Omega event?"
Siara swore under her breath. "Zero."
Zero's gaze slid to Richard, lingering there with sharp interest.
"…Huh," he said. "You're loud."
The temperature plummeted.
Siara's fingers went numb instantly. Her breath came out in fractured shards.
Richard turned to her, panic cutting through the fog for the first time.
"She can't be here," he said.
Space didn't bend.
It tore.
Siara vanished.
Not shielded. Not frozen.
Gone.
Richard screamed as the act ripped through his body, blood pouring from his nose, knees slamming into the ice as his balance shattered. Whatever that had been, it wasn't control—it was instinct so raw it nearly killed him.
Zero blinked.
Then smiled.
"Oh," he said softly. "That's new."
Chrome energy detonated through Richard's system in response, wild and unfiltered. His muscles screamed as power flooded places it didn't belong, tearing microfractures through bone and tendon.
He didn't teleport again.
He jumped.
Richard launched upward, propelled by nothing but brute force and overflowing CE, punching through the vault ceiling in an explosion of ice and steel. He crashed onto the surface above, skidding across snow and rock, body smoking in the frozen air.
Zero emerged moments later, stepping out of the hole like gravity was optional.
"That wasn't space," Zero noted. "That was desperation."
He sounded pleased.
Ice rose around them—walls, spires, shapes forming and reforming at his whim. Richard pushed himself upright, chest heaving, vision flickering.
"You're not Omega," Zero continued. "But you're… fermenting."
Richard lunged.
Fast.
Fast enough to surprise Zero.
His fist connected with Zero's jaw, snapping the boy's head to the side. Blood splattered onto the snow, steaming faintly.
Zero laughed.
"Okay," he said. "That one counted."
The ice answered him instantly.
From the ground, jagged constructs tore free—humanoid shapes sculpted from dense frost. They rushed Richard in a wave, slamming into him from every direction.
Richard fought like an animal.
No technique. No finesse. Just raw speed and violence. He tore through one construct, shattered another, took a third head-on and got buried beneath it. His body broke and reformed under the pressure, chrome energy stitching him together just fast enough to keep him moving.
Zero watched, hands in his pockets.
"This is progress," he said. "Sloppy. Painful. But real."
Richard charged again, landing two more solid hits—enough to push Zero back a step.
That was when Zero stopped playing.
He raised one hand.
The world froze.
Not metaphorically.
Molecular motion halted around his palm, a sphere of impossible cold expanding outward. Richard saw it too late.
He raised his arm to block.
The technique hit.
Richard's arm froze instantly—skin crystallizing, veins locking, chrome energy surging uselessly against the absolute stillness. For a fraction of a second, it held.
Then it shattered.
Bone exploded outward in a spray of frozen fragments. Richard screamed as the remains of his arm disintegrated into ice and blood, pain finally overwhelming his system.
He collapsed to his knees.
Zero lowered his hand.
"…Good block," he said calmly. "Wrong opponent."
The ground trembled as alarms wailed deep beneath the ice. The vault began collapsing in earnest, the north itself groaning under the strain.
Zero turned away.
"You lived," he said over his shoulder. "That's enough for today."
He vanished into the white.
Richard fell forward into the snow, consciousness slipping as chrome energy sputtered and faded.
The narrator does not call this victory.
This was the first Omega intervention.
And it nearly killed him.
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