[Day 66 Post-Awakening | LE: 1,754/10,000 | Time Remaining: 34 Days]
SCENE 1: RUNNING THE KILL CORRIDOR
[0652 Hours | Sub-Level 6 → Surface Extraction Point]
The alarm shrieked like a dying animal.
We sprinted through Helix's bowels—me, Kiera, Whisper—while security doors slammed shut behind us, sealing our retreat.
Kiera's voice, breathless: "They're corralling us. Funneling us toward—"
The corridor ahead opened into a kill box.
Thirty Helix enforcers. Plasma rifles. Riot shields.
All aimed at us.
"WHISPER—SMOKE!"
The shadow Primordial dissolved—his mist-form flooding the corridor, choking visibility to zero.
Gunfire erupted. Plasma bolts seared through the fog, melting steel walls.
Kiera grabbed my arm. "Left alcove—move!"
We dove.
A plasma bolt scorched the air where my head had been.
I touched the wall.
Felt the Network pulse—Barrage was 200 meters above us, in overwatch position.
"Barrage. Fire mission. Coordinates: my location, 40 meters north. Danger close."
The weapon-Primordial's flat, mechanical voice: [Affirmative. Firing.]
The ceiling exploded.
Barrage's bio-cannons punched through three sub-levels—compressed-air seed pods detonating in the kill box, shredding enforcers in a hail of organic shrapnel.
Screaming. Alarms. Smoke.
Kiera stared at the carnage. "Jesus Christ. You made a goddamn artillery strike Primordial?"
"I made a survivor." I hauled her up. "Now RUN."
[Helix Casualties: 18 KIA | 9 WIA]
[Barrage Ammunition: 74% remaining]
[LE Cost: 0 (Barrage operates independently)]
[Ethan's Guilt: +15%] — (He's killing humans now. Efficiently.)
SCENE 2: TEAM BRAVO — ARIA'S ASSAULT
[0655 Hours | Main Entrance — Simultaneous Action]
Aria didn't do subtle.
She kicked down Helix Shanghai's reinforced entrance doors—literally, boot through steel—and strode in with Thorn, Ember, and three other Primordials flanking her.
Security turrets swiveled.
Aria grinned.
"Light them up."
Ember ROARED.
Flames exploded from her hands—napalm-hot, LE-fueled—melting turrets, igniting security stations, turning the atrium into an inferno.
Thorn surged forward—root-limbs punching through concrete, entangling enforcers, lifting them off their feet and slamming them into walls.
Aria moved like a hurricane—twin combat knives flashing, every strike lethal. Throat. Kidney. Femoral artery.
No wasted movement.
Just death.
Helix reinforcements poured in.
Fifty. Eighty. A hundred.
Aria keyed her comms. "Mira—we're drowning here. How long do we hold?!"
Mira's voice crackled: "Two more minutes. Alpha's almost out. DO NOT BREAK."
"HOLD THE LINE!" Aria roared to the Primordials.
Ember's flames guttered—LE reserves dropping. "I'm... I'm running dry..."
"Then burn smarter!" Aria threw a plasma grenade into the oncoming enforcers. "Thorn—shield her!"
Thorn didn't hesitate.
He planted himself—roots driving deep into the floor, limbs spreading into a living barricade around Ember.
Plasma fire hammered him. Bark charred. Sap bled.
But he held.
"SOVEREIGN'S WILL!" he bellowed. "WE! DO! NOT! BREAK!"
The other Primordials rallied. Formation tightened. LE synchronized.
They became a wall of fury.
And Helix broke against them.
[Helix Casualties: 34 KIA | 22 WIA]
[Primordial Status: Thorn (moderate damage) | Ember (LE critical: 40%) | Others (functional)]
[Team Bravo: HOLDING | Time bought: 2min 14sec]
SCENE 3: THE BETRAYAL SCARE — KIERA'S IMPLANT
[0658 Hours | Sub-Level 2 — Near Extraction Point]
We were so close.
Fifty meters to the tunnel exit. Whisper scouting ahead. Kiera covering rear.
Then her wrist-comm chirped.
Helix frequency.
She froze.
I grabbed her arm. "What was that?"
"Nothing—"
"Kiera." My voice dropped. Network-edged. Dangerous. "What. Was. That."
She looked at me. Amber eyes—conflicted, afraid.
Then she pulled up her sleeve.
A subdermal implant glowed faintly under her skin. Helix logo etched into the casing.
"Tracker," she whispered. "They put it in when I was an asset. I... I thought I'd disabled it."
"You thought?!"
"I tried cutting it out!" Her voice cracked. "Twice! It's bonded to my radial nerve. If I go deeper, I lose my hand. I—"
Footsteps. Heavy. Armored.
Helix kill-team, closing in.
Whisper materialized.[Ethan. Enforcers inbound. They're tracking her.]
Kiera's face went white. "I didn't—I swear I didn't mean to—"
"Doesn't matter." I pulled her close. Looked into her eyes. "Can Selene remove it?"
"Maybe. If we survive the next sixty seconds."
I keyed the Network. "Barrage. Fire mission. My coordinates. Countdown: three seconds."
Kiera's eyes went wide. "You're calling artillery on yourself?!"
"On them." I shoved her toward the exit. "RUN!"
We ran.
Behind us, the corridor erupted.
Barrage's seed-pods punched through the ceiling—compressed air and LE detonating in the kill-team's position, collapsing Sub-Level 2 in a cascade of rubble and flame.
The shockwave threw us forward.
We hit the tunnel exit hard—tumbling, rolling, Kiera's body slamming into mine.
When the dust cleared, I was on top of her.
She was laughing.
Hysterical. Breathless.
"You insane bastard. You almost killed us!"
"But I didn't." I grinned—manic, adrenaline-drunk. "And now they can't follow."
She grabbed my face. Pulled me down.
Kissed me.
Hard. Fierce. Alive.
Not like Selene's soft goodbye.
This was war. Survival. Fire.
When she broke away, her eyes were molten.
"Don't you dare die, Sovereign. I'm not done with you yet."
Then she shoved me off. "Now get moving before I change my mind and shoot you myself."
[Kiera Navarro: Loyalty CONFIRMED (despite implant)]
[Romance Flag: TRIGGERED | Harem tension escalating]
[Helix Kill-Team: ELIMINATED (12 KIA)]
[Barrage Ammunition: 51% remaining]
SCENE 4: EMBER'S SACRIFICE
[0701 Hours | Surface Extraction Point]
We burst out of the tunnel—into chaos.
Team Bravo was falling back—Aria covering, Primordials limping, Ember barely conscious in Thorn's arms.
She'd burned too hot. LE reserves at 8%. Her body was cooling—flames guttering, skin turning ashen.
Dying.
I ran to them.
"What happened?!"
Aria's face was blood-streaked. "Plasma grenade. Meant for you." She gestured at Ember. "She threw herself in front of it. Took the blast."
I looked at Ember—barely breathing, LE core flickering like a dying ember.
"Sovereign..." Her voice was ash. Smoke. "...did we... win...?"
"Yes." I knelt. Touched her face. "Yes, Ember. You won."
She smiled.
Then her eyes closed.
"NO!"
I poured LE into her—50 points, raw, desperate—trying to restart her core.
The Network screamed: [WARNING: RECIPIENT LE CORE DESTABILIZED | ABSORPTION INEFFICIENT | LOSS: 80%]
Only 10 LE actually reached her.
But it was enough.
Her eyes fluttered open.
"...Sovereign...?"
"I'm here." My voice broke. "I'm here."
She coughed. Sparks, not blood.
"...Silly... Sovereign... wasting LE... on me..."
"You're family." I held her. "I don't leave family behind."
Thorn knelt beside us.
His bark was scorched, sap still bleeding from the plasma impacts he'd tanked.
But his voice was steady.
"Sovereign. We must move. Helix reinforcements—"
"I know." I lifted Ember—light, too light, her body barely corporeal. "Barrage—cover our retreat. Burn remaining ammunition."
[Affirmative. Engaging suppression protocol.]
The artillery Primordial UNLEASHED.
Every remaining seed-pod, fired in a curtain of explosive death across Helix's perimeter.
Enforcers dove for cover. Vehicles exploded. The facility's outer wall collapsed.
In the chaos, we ran.
Aria took point. Kiera covered rear. Primordials limped, bleeding LE and sap.
But we were alive.
All of us.
Barely.
[LE: 1,704/10,000 | -50 (Ember revival)]
[Primordial Casualties: Ember (critical) | Thorn (moderate) | Others (minor)]
[Helix Shanghai Facility: 62% damaged | Clone production HALTED]
[Mission: SUCCESS (Pyrrhic)]
SCENE 5: EXTRACTION — THE COST
[0730 Hours | Safe House — 12km from Shanghai Facility]
We collapsed in a Resistance safehouse—abandoned factory, rusted metal, safe.
Selene was waiting.
The moment she saw Ember, she moved.
"Get her on the table! Now!"
Thorn laid Ember down. Selene's hands flew—LE scanners, injectors, desperation.
"Her core's failing. I can stabilize her, but she'll need days to recover. Maybe weeks."
"Do it." I stood over them. "Whatever it takes."
Selene looked up. Violet eyes hard.
"It'll cost you 100 LE. Minimum. You're already at 1,700. That'll put you under 1,600."
"I don't care."
"Ethan—"
"Save her."
Selene's jaw tightened.
Then she nodded.
"Mira—prep the LE infusion kit. Aria—I need coolant packs, now. Kiera—"
She stopped.
Stared at Kiera's wrist. The glowing implant.
"What the hell is that?"
Kiera raised her hands. "Long story. Short version: Helix tracker. Can you cut it out?"
Selene's eyes narrowed. "You led them to us?"
"Unintentionally." Kiera's voice was ice. "And I'm asking for help. You going to give it, or do I lose my hand?"
The room went silent.
Aria's hand was on her knife. Mira's gun was almost drawn.
I stepped between them.
"Selene. Remove it. Kiera's with us."
"Ethan, she's a liability—"
"She's family." I looked at Kiera. Then at Selene. "We don't abandon family. Not for anything."
Selene held my gaze.
Then exhaled.
"Fine. But after I save Ember. Priorities."
Kiera nodded. "Fair."
[Crisis averted.]
[Harem tension: SIMMERING (Selene vs Kiera distrust established)]
[Ember Status: STABILIZED (LE infusion ongoing)]
[Kiera implant: SCHEDULED FOR REMOVAL (Ch. 38)]