Tson's footsteps echoed louder with each laborious step, and every drag of his feet drained what little energy he had left. He gripped the wall tighter as he neared the front entrance, his thoughts still scattered and foggy. His head pounded endlessly, but his determination remained firm. His body might be failing him, but the thought of someone breaking into this house was a bit odd—there were so many other houses in the neighborhood.
The closer he got to the broken window, the more obvious the extent of the damage. The sharp, jagged edges of the shattered glass sparkled under the dim flicker of the overhead lights. He looked through the broken glass at a set of fingerprints smudged on the window. After briefly analyzing them, he moved into the room beyond. The space was disheveled, with broken furniture and toppled equipment littering the floor.
The chaos was unmistakable. Whoever had broken in was still here—it was evident from the noise heard earlier. Puddles of water were scattered across the floor, and the scent of something burning lingered in the air. Muddy footprints led away from the window, dried and not recent. They were dried and not recent; there was so much information to take in, but right now... with his head throbbing and having been exhausted from the merging process with Sentinel Tson, he was spent.
Then it started again. A low, muffled thud echoed from a multitude of different rooms. While also hearing shifting noise coming from a bunch of different directions, Tson didn't know what it was, but he thought if he followed the footsteps laced with mud, it would eventually lead to the noise. Tson started following the footsteps that led down the hall. Slowly but surely, the footsteps started to fade further in the hallway.
As Tson advanced, his steps grew slower, more cautious. The fading footprints trailed deeper into the dimly lit hallway, each step tugging at his resolve. The wet smudges glistened faintly under the flickering lights, leading him to a heavy oak door slightly ajar at the end of the hall. A faint hum, almost electrical, buzzed from beyond it, mingling with the distant thudding sounds. His breathing quickened, matching the uneasy rhythm of his pulse while staring into the doorway of a dark room.
Then in one of the rooms In one of the rooms, a figure slumped in the shadows caught his eye. His heart quickened with a single thought: Sentinel! The suit responded instantly, merging with him like liquid metal wrapping around his body. It locked into place piece by piece. The hiss of hydraulics and the hum of power filled the air as the suit became an extension of himself.
As he took a cautious step forward, he noticed a figure obscured in the shadows, their face hidden, their presence unsettling. Unable to make out any details, he moved closer, his scanner sweeping over them.
Before he could react, the figure stirred. Then, with a fluid motion, another suit began to merge with the shadowy figure, forming and locking into place with the same seamless precision.
It was Nexus.
When did it get out? His breath caught as the truth struck him with overwhelming force. The person standing before him wasn't just wearing a random suit of armor; it was a suit of armor he had developed alongside a sentinel, one he viewed as a failure. He thought back to when he woke up and started tracking his steps back when he woke up. When he didn't see the other reactors, he thought the backlash shot somewhere in the room, but never in a million years did he think the arc reactor could have activated the suit. It was possible, but he just hadn't thought about it, seeing as someone would have to place the arc reactor on the suit chest. It was one of the other reactors, the most defective one. This one already had an IL in its arc reactor; it was one of the scientist's very first prototypes… Upon his getting closer The Nexus suit had completed the transformation process, bonding to whoever was in the shadows.
Tson's heart sank. The merging process—the Sentinel fusion—had already drained him to his limits. Yet here he stood, facing a threat he didn't fully understand, with no clear path forward. He straightened himself as best he could, forcing the exhaustion aside. He had to act—and quickly—before the figure could do something very stupid or something that could be very detrimental.
Tson steadied his breath, his pulse hammering in his ears. The sight of the Nexus suit—a prototype long abandoned for its dangerous instability—was a nightmare come to life. He couldn't tell who was inside, but the fact that it had bonded meant that the arc reactor had somehow overridden its safeguards.
Tson, slow and steady, won the race, going down the stairs to make it toward Nexus upon finally coming face to face with Nexus. "Stop right there," Tson commanded, his voice amplified and modulated by the Sentinel suit. The authority in his tone masked the unease clawing at his mind. His scanners pinged, attempting to gather data on the individual within Nexus, but the feedback was distorted—static-filled and erratic. The suit's experimental systems were interfering with his readings.
The figure in the Nexus suit didn't respond. Instead, he was in the corner slumping over as if they were inebriated and unable to get up. Then, without any deliberate precision, they started to raise their hand. Tson's sensors blared a warning a split second before a pulse of energy shot from the Nexus suit's palm, slamming into the wall beside him. Sparks and debris erupted in the confined hallway, and Tson barely managed to throw up an energy shield in time to block the blast.
He held the shield and powered through the blast. He marched toward Nexus with the shield holding steady. He punched the suit or Nexus, depending on who you asked. Already slumped over, the Nexus fell, and the liquid reverted back to someone he knew.
It was Kevin, his head leaned sideways almost as if he had already been knocked out before he had been punched.
Relief swept through him, softening his tense features.
Then just when he thought he resolved his issue, he heard another noise coming from somewhere else. A sharp, crackling pop, like static electricity snapping through the air, followed by a low, resonant hum that fades quickly.