The blinding flash subsided, leaving a ringing silence in its wake, punctuated by the sputtering of the Project Chimera Core Unit and Thorne's ragged gasps. The air crackled with residual energy, the scent of ozone thick in the chamber. Thorne clutched his chest, his usually composed face contorted in a mixture of shock and pain. The reflective visor of his helmet was cracked, revealing a sliver of his aged and furious face.
"Impossible…" Thorne wheezed, his eyes wide with disbelief as he stared at me. "How could you…?"
"Years of therapy, Doc," I quipped, my chest heaving, the effort of the reflective pulse having taken a significant toll. The connection to the younger me within the Core Unit felt frayed, like a stretched rubber band about to snap.
Nightshade, Maya, and Nova seized the opportunity. Nightshade unleashed a barrage of focused energy blasts, targeting Thorne's exposed face. Maya followed with a concussive wave, while Nova shimmered, attempting to further disrupt Thorne's concentration with disorienting pulses of light.
Thorne, though injured, was far from defeated. He raised his hands, and the energy tendrils from the Core Unit, though flickering erratically, lashed out again, forcing my allies to take cover. He still had a connection to the machine, albeit a weakened one.
"You may have delayed the inevitable, Subject Omega," Thorne snarled, his voice regaining some of its former authority. "But the Final Stage will proceed!" He reached for the remote, his hand trembling slightly.
The sight of Thorne reaching for the remote sent a fresh wave of panic through me. I had to sever his connection to the Core Unit, and fast. But the effort of the reflective pulse had left me drained, the link to the younger me feeling fragile.
『Harem Streamer System: Host energy reserves critically low. Resonance feedback loop unstable. New skill suggestion: 'Empathic Severance.' Description: Focus on the emotional distress of the trapped subjects within the Core Unit to disrupt Thorne's control and potentially destabilize the machine. Warning: May result in significant emotional distress for host and unpredictable energy release.』
"Empathic Severance?" I thought, the name sounding ominous. Focusing on their pain… it felt wrong, like exploiting their suffering. But the alternative was letting Thorne unleash whatever horrors he had planned.
Taking another deep breath, I closed my eyes and focused on the fractured reflections within the Core Unit's blue glow. I tried to feel their trapped emotions, the echoes of fear, confusion, and a desperate longing for release. The pain lanced through me, not just my own past trauma, but a chorus of stolen childhoods screaming for freedom.
The Core Unit shuddered violently, its blue light flickering more intensely than ever. Thorne staggered back, clutching his head, a look of agony on his face. "What… what are you doing to me?" he gasped.
"Feeling their pain, Doc?" I retorted, my voice strained. "It's been bottled up for a long time."
Thorne's connection to the Core Unit was clearly weakening. The energy tendrils flailed wildly, no longer under his precise control. Maya and Nova pressed their attack, their blasts now finding their mark against Thorne's faltering defenses. Nightshade moved with swift precision, disarming Thorne of the damaged remote with a well-aimed energy blast. The device skittered across the floor, out of his reach.
With Thorne's control disrupted and the remote neutralized, the Core Unit began to spin erratically, its humming escalating to a high-pitched whine. The reflections within its energy field flickered and distorted, the younger version of me seeming to fade in and out of existence.
"It's overloading!" Glitch's voice crackled in our earpieces, laced with urgency. "The energy readings are off the charts! We need to get out of there!"
Nightshade grabbed my arm. "Scott, we have to go!"
But I couldn't move. My gaze was fixed on the Core Unit, on the fading reflection of my younger self. The empathic severance had created a different kind of connection now, a shared sense of… release. But the machine was unstable, threatening to explode.
"What about them?" I asked, my voice barely a whisper. "The others… the other subjects?"
Thorne, his face contorted with rage and defeat, lunged towards the Core Unit. "If I can't have them, no one can!"
Before he could reach the machine, Maya unleashed a final, powerful blast of cosmic energy, slamming into Thorne and sending him crashing against the wall, unconscious.
The Core Unit spun faster, the whining reaching a deafening crescendo. The blue light intensified, bathing the chamber in an almost blinding glow.
"Scott!" Nightshade yelled again, pulling harder on my arm. "There's no time!"
I looked at the unstable Core Unit, at the fading echoes of stolen lives within its energy field. A terrible choice had to be made. We had to escape, but leaving them trapped…
With a heavy heart, I allowed Nightshade to pull me away, my gaze fixed on the spinning, overloaded machine. As we reached the exit, the Core Unit emitted a final, earth-shattering roar, and the chamber was engulfed in a blinding white light. The force of the explosion threw us back against the corridor wall.
The fate of the other subjects, the echoes of Thorne's cruel experiments, remained unknown, lost in the blinding flash and the deafening roar. We had stopped Thorne, but at a terrible cost. And as we stumbled out of the ravaged research facility, the weight of that sacrifice settled heavily upon us. The victory felt hollow, tainted by the ghosts of the past trapped within the heart of the exploded machine.