" What happened? "
Tom asks Pads as you both look around the dimly lit warehouse.
" They know I'm in their system and they're trying to hack me out of it! It looks like they activated a fail-safe in the facility that's labeled for use only in the event of a desperate emergen-"
Pads voice glitches in a distressed tone. Tom responds, asking him a question.
" Pads? You alright? "
" I'm fine! These cocksuckers can't hack for shit compared to what I can do! I'll get the lights back on here in a bit! I gotta keep their connection to the surface severed while I lock them out of their system! "
You immediately hear a loud banging sound above you as if something large is moving around inside the ceiling. You and Tom both look up, but before you switch your vision to your Trap Sight, you see a hatch in the ceiling open and a giant machine falls down, slamming and clanging loudly on the ground in the dark warehouse. You can barely make out the shape of it, observing its silhouette as some kind of mechanical creature with four legs and several tendrils coming out of its neck. You then see the cracks between the jagged plates on the creature's body glow a bright purple and it begins to illuminate the warehouse as it gets brighter and brighter. Then, a set of eight glowing purple eyes turn on on the creature's long face and the creature stands up, staring down at you and Tom with a mechanical purr before roaring a monstrous robotic roar that causes a sonic boom, shattering all of the glass throughout the warehouse and pushing you and Tom backwards.
" IS THAT A DRAGON?! "
You ask in disbelief as the colossal machine comes charging at you, trying to crush you with its tendrils. The glowing purple tendrils melt everything it touches as you and Tom both evade its strikes with a jump to opposite sides of the room and Pads answers your question in the earpiece.
" I just scanned their data archives and I found it! It's called the Tarragon Project, and it's apparently a prototype weapon of Voldoor that was intended for use in the war against Moriarch! "
The Tarragon goes to step on Tom with its sharp colossal claws and Tom meets its strike with his fist, obliterating half of the Tarragon's arm and knocking it over onto its side.
" We can't let it bury this place before we find Ryen! "
Tom says as he starts to fly into the air. The Tarragon then immediately purrs as it gets up, and you hear a humming sound emanating from its damaged arm. The shards of metal from the Tarragon's broken arm then magnetically reform on the damaged limb as a jagged blade with a glowing purple edge where its arm used to be. The Tarragon then roars again as it stabs the blade into the ground aggressively, causing a shockwave of antimatter to explode in a large radius around where the blade meets the ground. The floor around the Tarragon dissolves into a crater and several pillars that hold up the integrity of the warehouse begin crumbling into it as the ceiling caves in, but you and Tom both hold the structure together telekinetically to prevent it from falling apart as you both attack the Tarragon from opposite sides.
Tom flies into the Tarragon's face and headbutts it causing the entire face of the beast to shatter while you fly into its body, delivering a punch that shatters its stomach area into pieces. The Tarragon quickly recovers, immediately putting itself back together as it spins and hits Tom with its tail, knocking him into the wall. The Tarragon then stands up on its hind legs and goes to stab you with its bladed arm, but you quickly fly away to avoid the second antimatter shockwave that makes the crater in the ground even larger. Without wasting any time, the Tarragon lunges at you but Tom comes flying out of the wall at an incredible speed.
" Let's actually give some effort! "
He says before he delivers a hundred more blows all over the Tarragon's body in the blink of an eye. The Tarragon's entire body fractures into a million pieces that explode and scatter everywhere, but all of the pieces immediately converge on the other side of the warehouse and put themselves back together, reforming its tendrils as six miniguns that float around its new body. It roars again as it fires a barrage of antimatter rounds at you and Tom, and the hail of bullets penetrates and shreds through the warehouse walls and several other rooms behind you. Tom continues to hold the integrity of the facility together with his telekinesis as you both rush the Tarragon to close the distance.
" How do we kill this thing!? "
You ask as you fly into the Tarragon's mouth and grab one of its enormous teeth, ripping its bottom jaw completely off and shattering it by swinging it against its face.
" I'm not sure, Donny! This place is going to cave in if we don't stop it soon! I have to pull my punches against it because if I don't, it'll cause an earthquake on the surface! "
Tom shouts as the jaw of the Tarragon reforms itself and it shoots a beam of antimatter out of its jagged maw toward you. You swiftly evade the beam by flying around in a random pattern as the antimatter obliterates everything it touches in the environment around you. The entire facility begins to rumble as it slowly falls apart, so Tom uses his telekinetic power to immobilize it. The Tarragon roars and struggles to move as Tom holds it in place, then right as Tom goes to crush it, the body of the Tarragon detonates into a deafening antimatter explosion that illuminates the entire facility a bright white.
Tom contains the explosion into a sphere with his telekinetic power and you squint your eyes as you cover your face with your hand to shield your face from the brightness of the explosion. Once the purple fire settles inside the sphere and the explosion is finished, you put your hand down to see that the Tarragon is gone.
The warehouse is calm for a moment, then you look around and begin to see the Tarragon reforming across the warehouse from the molecules in the air. As the dust from the Tarragon's body magnetizes back together, Tom turns to you and speaks telepathically.
" Donny, we're going to have to siphon the Light from it. Since we're deep underground, it's our best option if we want to defeat it quickly. "
You nod your head before sticking your hand out with Tom and your hands begin to glow green as the Light from the Tarragon funnels into them. Within an instant, the Tarragon disappears and the facility goes silent as you both descend, landing on the ground. Tom then immediately repairs the walls and ceiling with the rubble from the warehouse using his telekinetic power, then he nods for you to let go of what you're holding and the structure of the facility remains stable.
" We probably should've done that from the start… "
You say as you both walk towards each other and meet each other in the middle of the crater. Tom gives you a serious stare as he responds.
" No, Donny. You shouldn't erase beings from existence unless it's absolutely necessary. Killing or sparing them is always a better option. "
You look at Tom confused, then he goes on to elaborate.
" Erasing a being from existence would rob them of their natural death, and it tampers with things like the fabric of reality and fate. Every being is fated to die at a specific time, and they were never supposed to interact with Black Traps like us. Also, every being's fate is interwoven like an ultra-complex and scrambled knot, so removing one being from existence could rob billions of others from fulfilling what they're destined for because they were meant to be affected in some way by the being that you erased. "
Tom then puts his hand on your shoulder and speaks in a foreboding tone to stress the gravity of what he's telling you.
" When you erase a being from existence, you don't just erase them from one universe… you erase them from all of them. "
You think about it and it makes sense. The power that Black Traps have comes directly from Uphedis. What Tom's saying means that Light and Darkness aren't literal elements of what a being is made of, but rather what allows a being to exist within and throughout the Omniverse.
Black Traps like you and Tom are singularities that weren't intended to be part of The Holy Omniverse, so that also means the beings within the Omniverse were never fated to interact with you. Simply interacting with the beings of these universes would be enough to drastically change the course of their lives from what was intended for them. Ariel was a perfect example of that. So if your interaction with a being could drastically steer them away from their destiny, then that means that completely erasing them from existence could very well have an immeasurable impact on the rest of the universes that they exist in.
" I never knew it was that serious… "
You say to Tom as you look down, trying to process what he just told you. Tom responds in a sorrowful tone.
" You actually did, Donny… before you lost your memories. It's fine, though. All that matters is that you're alive and you remember what was important. "
You look up at Tom to see he's giving you a heartfelt gaze.
" Ariel and Rosie. "
The doors then unseal and the remaining lights that weren't destroyed in the warehouse switch on as Pads interrupts in your earpiece after eavesdropping on your conversation.
" Awww! How sweet! You got one hell of a friend, you know that, Abbadon? It warms my digital heart to know that Otherlanders like you guys care for each other like that! "
" Not a friend, Pads. We're brothers. Where do we go from here? "
Tom asks as he starts to look around. A door then opens on the far side of the warehouse and Pads responds.
" Well, the surveillance system in the warehouse is absolutely fucked after that fight; but if you head through the door I just opened, it should lead you right to the core of the facility. "