CHAPTER 42: PATCH NOTES

Rin stared down at the man in the black armor while the wind whipped his hair into his eyes, feeling the world tilt on its axis not because of gravity magic but because his brain was rejecting the reality in front of him.

"That’s not Indra," Rin said, his voice cracking, "that’s Leo."

Nyx glanced at him, then back at the figure standing in the crater of pixelated sand ten stories below. "The file said Project Indra, maybe it’s an acronym, maybe they just wanted something that sounded god-like, doesn’t matter, he’s coming up."

Leo, or the thing wearing Leo’s face, crouched, the black armor shifting like liquid mercury, and then he launched himself vertically, ignoring physics entirely, soaring ten stories in a heartbeat.

"Move!" Nyx shouted, slamming a repulsion blast into the balcony floor.

They scattered just as Leo landed, the impact pulverizing the concrete where Rin had been standing a second ago, sending marble shrapnel flying like buckshot.

Rin rolled to a stop, glass crunching under his boots, and looked up.

It was Leo, but bleached, his skin pale grey, his eyes completely black voids, and the scar over his eyebrow pulsing with that wrong purple light.

"Hey buddy," Leo said, his voice sounding like it was coming through a broken radio, distorted and layered over something guttural, "long time no see, did you watch that anime I recommended?"

"You’re dead," Rin said, pulling fracture energy into his hands, shaking. "I watched you die."

"DLC expansion," Leo grinned, raising a spear made of crackling black lightning, "new content dropped."

He thrust the spear, a beam of pure darkness shooting from the tip.

Rin didn’t dodge, he froze, muscle memory fighting against trauma memory.

Nyx didn’t freeze.

She grabbed Rin’s collar and yanked him sideways, the shadow beam missing his head by inches and punching a clean hole through the luxury apartment behind them, disintegrating the wall into black dust.

"He’s not your friend right now!" Nyx yelled, shoving Rin toward the interior door, "he’s a boss fight, get your head in the game!"

Leo spun the spear, the movement fluid, unnatural. "Nyx, traitor, deletion authorized."

He moved faster than Rin could track, closing the distance instantly, the spear sweeping low to take Nyx’s legs.

Nyx jumped, decreasing her own gravity to float for a split second, landing on the spear shaft and kicking Leo in the face.

It should have snapped his neck.

Leo didn’t even flinch, he just grabbed Nyx’s ankle and slammed her into the ground, the patio tiles cracking into a spiderweb.

"Gravity is just a suggestion," Leo said, raising the spear to impale her.

Rin moved.

He didn’t think about the ramen noodles they used to eat or the gaming marathons or the fact that this was his best friend.

He thought about the spear coming down on Nyx.

Pulse.

Rin tackled Leo, coating his shoulder in a heavy layer of fracture energy, hitting him mid-swing.

It was like hitting a brick wall, Rin’s shoulder screamed, but he knocked Leo back a few steps.

"Stop it!" Rin shouted, "Leo, snap out of it!"

Leo tilted his head, looking at Rin with those empty eyes. "Rin, you’re glitching, let me fix you."

He grabbed Rin’s throat.

The cold was absolute, not temperature cold but void cold, sucking the heat and life right out of Rin’s skin.

Rin gagged, clawing at the armored hand, his fracture energy flaring wildly, trying to burn Leo, but the shadow armor just absorbed it.

"Tier 0," Leo observed, tightening his grip, "high compatibility, low optimization, waste of code."

Rin’s vision started to spot.

’Burst won’t work, he eats energy.’

[Analysis: Opponent is using Void Integument]

[Absorption rate: 100%]

[Recommendation: Overload]

’Feed him?’

[Feed him everything]

Rin didn’t try to pull away, he grabbed Leo’s wrist with both hands.

"You want code?" Rin rasped.

He stopped pulsing, stopped regulating.

He opened the floodgates.

All the fracture energy he kept bottled up, the raw chaotic stuff that gave him headaches and scared the Association, he shoved it all down his arms and into Leo.

Leo’s eyes widened, the black void flickering.

"Error," Leo muttered, his grip loosening, "capacity exceeded."

Purple cracks started forming on the black armor, light leaking out like a broken vase.

"Eat this," Rin screamed, pushing harder, dumping enough energy to power a city block directly into Leo’s nervous system.

Leo roared, a sound of digital static, and blasted Rin away with a shockwave of shadow.

Rin flew back, hitting the railing hard, gasping for air, his throat burning.

Leo stumbled, clutching his chest, the shadow armor rippling, trying to contain the overload.

"System instability," Leo twitched, "reboot required."

He looked at Rin one last time, the black eyes clearing for a millisecond to reveal brown irises.

"Run," the real Leo’s voice said, quiet and terrified.

Then the black flooded back, Leo leaped off the balcony, diving back down toward the battlefield below to vent the excess energy.

Rin slumped against the railing, coughing.

Nyx dragged herself up, clutching her side. "You fed him? That was your plan? You fed the energy vampire?"

"He choked," Rin wheezed.

"Valid strategy," Nyx admitted, wincing as she stood. "We need to move, the building is shaking."

The entire tower shuddered, dust falling from the ceiling.

Above them, the beam of light from the spire was getting wider, the sky turning a bruised purple color that looked exactly like a fracture event but global.

"Thorne is rewriting reality," Rin said, looking up at the shattered penthouse floor. "We have to get back up there."

"Elevators are dead," Nyx said, checking the panel. "Stairs?"

"Too slow."

Rin looked at the side of the building, the glass façade reflecting the chaos below.

"We climb," Rin said.

"Sixty stories?" Nyx looked at him like he was insane. "With broken ribs?"

"You have gravity, I have platforms," Rin said, forming a small disc of purple light under his boot. "It’s just a jump puzzle."

"I hate jump puzzles," Nyx groaned.

They stepped over the railing.

The wind was brutal this high up, buffeting them as they scaled the outside of the tower, Rin creating platforms, Nyx manipulating their weight to make the jumps effortless.

Below them the battle was raging, Tau’s golden light flashing against the shadow army, but it looked small from up here, toy soldiers fighting in a sandbox.

They reached the penthouse level, climbing through the shattered window Rin had been thrown out of ten minutes ago.