Chương 45: 44: The Twelve Prototypes III

The glacier remained silent for a moment. Even the observation platforms had fallen quiet. Two scientists had already fainted outright, colleagues hurriedly easing them onto the deck while everyone else remained rooted in place, too overwhelmed to speak. Then Atlas cleared his throat.

"…Atlas Okoye. Prototype Ten." Naomi inclined her head.

"Naomi Eze. Prototype Three."

"Linh Dao," the petite woman said, raising a hand.

"Prototype Two." Mateo flashed an awkward grin.

"Mateo Ruiz. Prototype Eleven."

"Cass Vega." Cass shrugged.

"Prototype Eight."

"Selene Armitage," came the calm reply.

"Prototype Four." Miriam lifted a hand with a cheerful smile despite everything she'd witnessed.

"Miriam Holt. Prototype Five." Gideon scratched the back of his bowl-cut head.

"…Gideon Marsh. Prototype Six." Elias folded his arms.

"Elias Mercer. Prototype One." Freya rested her hands behind her back.

"Freya Holm. Prototype Seven." Yuna gave a small, almost shy wave.

"Yuna Akiyama. Prototype Twelve." Lucien nodded once, committing each name to memory as another line appeared across the face of his watch.

"Thank you." His gaze drifted calmly across the ten surviving prototypes.

"That will suffice." Silence settled over the proving grounds. Wind howled through the shattered glaciers, carrying ribbons of snow between the two groups. Even the observation platforms had fallen quiet. Selene floated forward.

"One question." Several prototypes glanced at her. She met Lucien's gaze without flinching.

"Who are you?" A brief pause.

"And what do you want?" A collective gasp rippled across the observation platforms.

"Prototype Four!"

"Selene!"

"What are you doing?!" Several scientists instinctively shrank behind their consoles. One physician covered his face with both hands.

"She just questioned him," someone whispered.

"She challenged him…"

"No," another breathed.

"She spoke to him." Nobody interrupted. Nobody moved. The frozen continent itself seemed to wait. Lucien regarded Selene with the same calm expression he'd worn since arriving. He opened his mouth to answer. Victor's body jerked. Once. Twice. Then every shattered fragment scattered across the battlefield twitched in perfect synchronization. The Conflict Drop had done exactly what it had been engineered to do. Every surviving cell became an instruction. Every fragment remembered the whole.

Muscle slithered across broken bone. Blood reversed its own flow. Nerves braided themselves together with wet, snapping sounds. The ruin of Victor's body pulled inward as though reality itself had decided the damage had been a clerical error. A stunned silence rippled across the proving grounds.

"…It worked," Mateo breathed. Cass stared, wide-eyed.

"We can actually come back from that?"

"I'm not volunteering to test it," Gideon said immediately, taking a careful step backward.

"Absolutely not." Miriam let out a nervous laugh.

"Same. I believe the science just fine from over here." Atlas folded his arms, eyes fixed on Victor's reforming body.

"…I reckon we could." Naomi glanced sideways at him.

"You volunteering?"

"…No." A few of the prototypes snorted despite themselves. Freya's gaze never left Victor.

"I think only he could survive that."

"Because he's the fastest?" Selene asked quietly. Freya nodded.

"Fastest metabolism. Fastest regeneration. Conflict Drop's probably rebuilding him quicker than the rest of ours could." Elias remained expressionless.

"…Or we all can." Nobody seemed eager to find out. High above, the observation platforms buzzed with barely restrained disbelief. Scientists clutched tablets so tightly their fingers trembled. Telemetry streamed across every display exactly as the theory had predicted... then exceeded it.

"It regenerated him..."

"Complete structural restoration..."

"The serum remembered the original body..." The narrative has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the infringement. Their voices shook with exhilaration, but nobody dared celebrate too loudly. Not while Lucien was still watching. His eyes flew open. Relief never came. Confusion never came. Only rage. A guttural roar tore from his throat as he staggered upright, fists trembling with murderous intent. Across the wasteland, another flash. A spear of white-blue lightning descended from a cloudless sky. CRACK.

It struck Lucien squarely between the shoulders. The impact flooded the horizon with blinding light. Electric arcs spiderwebbed for miles, racing across shattered stone before dissipating into the earth. At Lucien's hip, an egg-sized device quietly hummed to life. Pale blue circuitry brightened beneath its black casing as the lightning pouring across his body diverted into it instead.

The current bled into the device without resistance, feeding the mechanism until tiny status lights climbed steadily upward, calmly converting Roman's attack into stored energy. A booming laugh followed, wild, triumphant, almost hysterical. Roman lowered his smoking arm, cobalt electricity dancing through every vein beneath his skin.

"Surprised?!" he bellowed, laughter breaking into raw anger.

"Come on! Tell me you felt that!" Several prototypes exchanged glances.

"…You know," Mateo said slowly, "I think we probably could survive that now." Miriam blinked.

"After watching Roman turn into soup?"

"Well..." He pointed toward the crackling speedster with an awkward shrug.

"If Roman can come back from that..." Cass rubbed the back of her neck.

"... I hate that you might actually be right." Atlas gave a thoughtful grunt.

"Worth remembering." Naomi shot him a look.

"Not worth testing."

"I didn't say I was going to."

"You were thinking it."

"…Maybe a little." Even Freya allowed herself the faintest smile. Somewhere behind them, scientists shouted over one another.

"Vital signs restored!"

"Prototype Twelve is responding!"

"Stand down!"

"Wait for synchronization!"

"DO NOT REENGAGE!" Nobody listened. Every prototype's eyes remained fixed on Lucien. Acknowledgement was gone. Replies no longer mattered. Only the instinct to fight remained. The desire had eclipsed obedience. Lucien slowly turned. Smoke drifted lazily from the back of his immaculate coat as he brushed a fleck of ash from one shoulder.

"…Good." The corner of his mouth lifted, a flicker of genuine interest breaking through his usual composure. His pale eyes sharpened as they swept across the eleven survivors.

"Even after that…" he murmured.

"How resilient." A low mechanical hum emanated from somewhere beneath Lucien's ash-coloured suit, so soft it was almost soothing. Blue motes bloomed across every prototype. Before anyone could react, their bodies dissolved into countless shimmering pixels. The battlefield was empty. A heartbeat later, all twelve reformed in a perfectly straight horizontal line suspended high above the glacier. The line immediately collapsed.

"Huh?!"

"Oi!"

"Wait!" Several gasped as gravity seized them. Instinct took over. Flight flared almost simultaneously as each prototype caught themselves before hitting the ice, eyes darting wildly between one another.

"…How did he do that?"

"We didn't even move…"

"I didn't feel anything." Lucien observed them calmly, hands already folded behind his back.

"One instruction." His pale blue eyes drifted from face to face.

"Attack me." Silence.

"If you cannot… die."... Roman's grin widened. Victor cracked his neck. Around them, the remaining prototypes lowered into fighting stances.

"Don't touch him," Selene said under her breath.

"After what happened to Roman."

"Ranged attacks only," Naomi agreed immediately. Mateo nodded.

"Keep your distance."

"And nobody let him pull that rifle out again," Cass muttered.

"I'd rather not have another hole through the planet," Miriam said. Atlas rolled one shoulder.

"I'll stay back." Naomi looked at him.

"You? Staying back?"

"…For at least five seconds." Linh's sharp green eyes never left Lucien.

"Spread out. Don't give him one target." Freya drew a slow breath, frost curling from her lips.

"I'll restrict his movement." Elias glanced skyward.

"I'll test his reactions." Yuna bounced lightly on the balls of her feet.

"I'll keep him distracted." Gideon rubbed the back of his neck.

"…I volunteer to be somewhere else." A few of them snorted. Roman's electricity crackled louder.

"On three." Victor smiled.

"Let's see what management can actually do."

"One." The air tightened.

"Two." Power gathered across the frozen continent.

"Three." They launched. The world became streaks of colour. Lightning. Ice. Gravity. Emerald fire. Sonic force. Blinding speed. Shimmering afterimages. The sky erupted as all twelve attacked from different angles at once. Lucien watched them come. THMMMMMMMMMMM. Something settled. A subtle shift passed through the atmosphere, as though the universe had remembered a forgotten law. THOOM. Context. An invisible weight descended. It wasn't pressure. It was significance.

Every particle within a thousand miles suddenly understood where it belonged. And it wasn't standing. The earth collapsed. KRRRRRRAAAAKK. Mountains folded flat like damp paper. Oceans recoiled beneath impossible pressure. Cities beyond the horizon vanished beneath immeasurable force before anyone could register fear. Clouds pancaked into razor-thin sheets. Forests ceased to be forests.

Every bird, insect, whale, bacterium, and human within the radius died before signals in their nervous systems could complete a single thought. Half the planet visibly compressed, the crust flattening as though some incomprehensible giant had calmly lowered itself into a chair. The charging prototypes never reached him. They simply stopped. Then became stains pressed into bedrock thinner than parchment. Silence. Lucien closed his eyes.

"…Ah." He exhaled softly.

"I believe that's still miscalibrated." Pearl slowly rotated away from him. Her white shell somehow managed to look embarrassed. Lucien regarded her for several seconds.

"I only wanted to test their durability and strength," he said.

"This is rather excessive."

"I told you to keep my systems limited to one percent." Pearl shrank in on herself.

"It reached twelve." She gave the tiniest guilty wobble. He watched her continue pretending the opposite direction was fascinating. Context wasn't gravity. It was metaphysical weight. The higher its calibration, the greater the contextual weight reality imposed upon whatever lay beneath it. Strength alone offered no protection. A being capable of lifting worlds could still be reduced to a stain if that weight exceeded what its existence could bear.

For a simple test of the prototypes' durability, one percent would have been more than sufficient.

"…Pearl." She remained facing away, her eye dimming slightly with unmistakable sheepishness. Lucien sighed. Then clicked his fingers. The tiny drone instantly spun around, giving a delighted little bob as her eye brightened.

"You're forgiven." She chimed happily. Internal mechanisms immediately whirred to life. Brilliant white light blossomed from her core. It passed through. The light swept across the ruined world without sound, force, or even disturbing the dust. Pearl wasn't reversing time. She was printing. TEMPORAL BUFFER VERIFIED. STATE INTEGRITY: 100%. OVERWRITING CURRENT REALITY. Flattened continents dissolved into countless threads of pale light. Compressed oceans fragmented into luminous particles.

Crushed cities, dead forests, extinct wildlife, even the air itself quietly unraveled as though they had only ever been rough drafts. Then the archive took their place. Atoms resumed the exact positions they had occupied seconds earlier. The breeze continued its path. Clouds reclaimed their former shapes. Heartbeats carried on uninterrupted. Blades of grass stood exactly as they had before. The second in which Lucien's miscalibrated Context Device flattened half the planet simply ceased to exist.

Reality continued from its saved state as though that moment had never been permitted to occur. Only two observers retained continuity across the overwrite. Lucien. Pearl. To everyone else, nothing had happened. The world existed once more as a perfect duplicate of itself from exactly one second before the prototypes charged. Pearl's glow dimmed slightly as the overwrite continued. Lucien regarded the restored horizon with quiet satisfaction. He glanced at his watch.

"Pearl." She bobbed gently without interrupting her diagnostics.

"Set a reminder for my golf game this afternoon." A cheerful chime answered him.

"Done." He nodded once.

"And I haven't forgotten your maintenance is scheduled today." Pearl immediately shook herself from side to side. Firmly. Stubbornly. Lucien watched her for a moment.

"You want it before golf?" She bobbed emphatically.

"…Because I'll be gone for several hours." Another vigorous nod, followed by an impatient little chirp. A faint smile touched the corner of Lucien's mouth.

"I suppose making you wait until evening would be rather inconsiderate." Pearl gave a pleased little spin before returning to the final integrity verification of the restored snapshot. SNAPSHOT OVERWRITE COMPLETE. REALITY INTEGRITY: 100%. Only then did Pearl drift silently back onto Lucien's shoulder. He made another note on his watch.

"Collateral corrected." His pale blue eyes finally lowered to the prototypes.

"Now," he said calmly, "shall we proceed with introductions?"