The silence in the crystalline chamber was deafening, thick with the weight of Kael's choice and the ancient sorrow radiating from the trapped Void-Seedling. The Apotheosis Engine pulsed, a demanding drumbeat against his ribs: *CONSUME. EVOLVE. SURVIVE.* The **Alpha Command Aura** snarled its agreement, a phantom pressure urging him towards the potent, shimmering essence. Power, tangible and immense, lay within his grasp. Stability guaranteed. Evolution unlocked. A way out of this buried hell.
But the echo of the child's shoe in the tunnel, the raw terror in the woman's eyes, the cold label of **NULL** – they formed a fragile barrier against the Engine's hunger. Consuming this… entity… felt fundamentally *wrong*. It wasn't just biomass; it was sentient sorrow fused with crystalline void. It felt like devouring a tomb.
"Synthesis Interface," Kael murmured again, focusing his will on the Engine's cryptic message. "What are you?" He directed the thought inward, towards the glitching crimson core within him.
The Engine flickered. Corrupted data streams scrolled, faster this time, almost frantic. Images flashed across his vision – not text, but fragmented sensory impressions: *A sterile lab coated in dust. Blueprints labeled PROJECT PROMETHEUS. A containment chamber identical to the one holding the Seedling, but shattered. Screams. A wave of pure, uncontrolled void-energy erupting. Figures in hazmat suits dissolving into shadows. The pulsing crystal structure growing, consuming... trapping.*
**[DATA CORRUPTED: PROJECT PROMETHEUS FINAL LOGS]**
**[HYPOTHESIS: SYNTHESIS INTERFACE PROTOCOL DESIGNED FOR CONTROLLED VOID-ENERGY HARVESTING/HUMAN ENHANCEMENT.]**
**[FAILURE: INTERFACE SUBJECT (SUBJECT: ELARA) UNEXPECTEDLY CATALYZED VOID-SEEDLING GESTATION. CONTAINMENT BREACH. FATALITIES.]**
**[CURRENT STATE: SEEDLING DORMANT. INTERFACE SUBJECT PSIONIC ECHO TRAPPED WITHIN CRYSTAL MATRIX.]**
Elara. The child had a name. She wasn't just a Seedling; she was a *subject*. A victim of humanity's pre-Integration hubris, fused with the very void-energy they tried to harness. Trapped for who knew how long. Decades? The graffiti outside made sense: **PROJECT PROMETHEUS LIES!**
The revelation shifted something within Kael. It wasn't just pity; it was kinship. They were both broken things the System, or humanity's ambition, had discarded. Him, designated Null. Her, imprisoned here.
The Engine's demand for assimilation lessened slightly, replaced by analytical curiosity. **\[ALTERNATIVE PROTOCOL: SYNTHESIS INTERFACE RE-INITIATION?\]** It projected schematics – fragmented, corrupted – showing energy pathways, resonance frequencies, psionic stabilization fields. It wasn't a manual; it was a puzzle box made of glitches. **\[OBJECTIVE: STABILIZE SEEDLING. EXTRACT SUBJECT ECHO. POTENTIAL PSIONIC ESSENCE YIELD (NON-DESTRUCTIVE). RISK: HIGH.\]**
Non-destructive. Yield. The Engine still framed it in terms of gain, but the *method* mattered. He could try to help. Or he could doom her entirely.
Taking a deep breath that rasped against his damaged ribs, Kael lowered himself slowly to the dusty floor, facing the crystalline structure. He retracted his claws, pressing his bare, human palm against the cool, vibrating surface near where the shadow-child's hand seemed to rest. He closed his eyes, pushing past the Engine's calculations and the Aura's aggression, focusing on raw intent. *Connection. Understanding. Not consumption.*
"Elara?" he whispered, the name feeling strange but right on his tongue. "Can you hear me?"
For a long moment, nothing. Then, a tremor ran through the crystal. Not the deep thrum of the Seedling, but a lighter, faster vibration. A flicker of warmth against his palm. Images flooded his mind, not Engine data, but sensory fragments: *The cold bite of the lab floor. The sting of needles. Men in white coats talking in hushed, excited tones. "Breakthrough." "Evolution." "Ascension." Then blinding purple light. Pain. Fear. Mommy! Daddy! Then… nothing. Just the dark. And the slow, heavy heartbeat of the thing growing inside her. The loneliness. The endless, crushing loneliness.*
Tears, hot and unexpected, pricked Kael's eyes. The echo wasn't just sentient; it was *terrified*. A child's consciousness preserved in crystal and despair.
"I know," Kael murmured, pouring sincerity into the mental touch. "I know the loneliness. The feeling of being broken. Trapped." He shared fragments of his own experience – the grey **NULL** screen, the betrayal, the Engine's agonizing ignition, the monstrous hunger. Not the power, but the *fear* and the *pain*. The isolation.
The resonance shifted. The fear didn't vanish, but it was joined by… surprise? Curiosity? A tentative psychic touch, feather-light, brushed against his mind. *You… hurt? Like me?* The thought wasn't words, but pure emotion translated by the Engine's interface. **\[PSIONIC COMMUNICATION ESTABLISHED (PRIMITIVE). SYNTHESIS INTERFACE PARTIALLY ACTIVATED.\]**
"Yes," Kael projected back. "Hurt. But fighting. I want to help you. Can you show me how?"
A wave of confusion emanated from Elara's echo. *Help? How? The Crystal… the Heart… it sleeps. But it hurts. It dreams bad dreams. Bad things come.* She projected an image – not of the Purifiers, but of twisted, shadowy figures with too many limbs, coalescing from the deeper tunnels, drawn by the Seedling's potent, dormant energy. **\[VOID STALKERS (Lvl. 5-7). DRAWN TO HIGH-VOID SIGNATURES. ESTIMATED ARRIVAL: 1-2 HOURS.\]**
Great. More company. But this time, Kael wasn't alone. He had a purpose beyond survival.
The Engine, analyzing the communication and the new threat data, updated its directives. **\[PRIMARY OBJECTIVE: DEFEND SYNTHESIS INTERFACE POINT (ELARA ECHO).\]** **\[SECONDARY OBJECTIVE: STABILIZE VOID-SEEDLING TO REDUCE ENERGY SIGNATURE/ATTRACTANTS.\]** **\[TERTIARY OBJECTIVE: ASSIMILATE VOID STALKERS FOR BIOMASS/ESSENCE (REPAIRS/EVOLUTION).\]**
It was a plan. A terrifying, glitchy plan, but a plan. Helping Elara meant defending her, which meant fighting powerful void-creatures, which meant fuel for the Engine. A twisted symbiosis.
"Okay, Elara," Kael projected, steeling himself. "We fight. But first, can you show me this place? The lab? Maybe there's something here… tools, data… that can help stabilize the Seedling? Or help me fight?"
A pulse of hesitant agreement came from the crystal. Images flickered in his mind – a layout of the buried facility. A control room down a side tunnel. Storage bays. A generator room, its power source long dead, but perhaps… **\[DETECTING FAINT GEOTHERMAL ENERGY SIGNATURES. POTENTIAL POWER SOURCE FOR ENGINE ASSISTED REPAIR/REACTIVATION?\]**
Hope, fragile but real, sparked. He wasn't just scavenging rats anymore. He was salvaging the wreckage of the old world to defend a fragment of its tragedy.
Leaving Elara's chamber with a final reassuring pulse (*Hold on. I'll be back*), Kael moved deeper into the Prometheus ruins. His Void-Sense, now subtly augmented by the nascent Synthesis link, painted a clearer picture. The complex was a tomb of pre-Integration ambition. Dust-covered terminals lined the walls of a control room, screens dark. Files labeled "VOID-HARMONICS" and "PSIONIC RESONANCE THEORY" lay scattered. A shattered stasis tube hinted at other failed subjects.
He found a storage bay. Most crates were rusted shut or contained decayed rations. But one, reinforced and shielded, yielded treasure: **\[PRE-INTEGRATION COMBAT EXOSKELETON (CRIPPLED). MODEL: PROMETHEUS GUARDIAN.\]** It was bulky, damaged, missing its power core, but its articulated limbs and reinforced plating were intact. **\[ANALYSIS: COMPATIBLE WITH ENGINE MODIFICATION. POTENTIAL ARMOR/STRENGTH BOOSTER. REQUIRES POWER SOURCE.\]**
The generator room was next. True to Elara's hint, deep geothermal vents below the complex provided faint ambient heat. The main generator was a ruin, but secondary conduits were intact. The Engine flared. **\[GEOTHERMAL TAP POSSIBLE. RISK: THERMAL OVERLOAD (HOST/ENGINE). REWARD: SIGNIFICANT POWER GENERATION FOR ENGINE REPAIRS/MODIFICATION.\]**
It was a gamble. But everything was. Kael spent precious minutes using his claws to carefully pry open access panels, guided by the Engine's schematics and Elara's fading psychic map. He rerouted cracked coolant lines (gaining a **Minor Pipe Manipulation** fragment from the mundane task) and exposed a primary geothermal conduit. Heat washed over him, intense but not immediately lethal. His Void-Chitin's new corrosion resistance helped marginally.
"Alright, Engine," he muttered. "Sip carefully."
He pressed his obsidian-plated hand against the conduit. **\[GEOTHERMAL TAP INITIATED. MINIMAL DRAW.\]** Raw, earthy heat flooded into him. It burned, a different agony than void-essence, but the Engine absorbed it hungrily, converting it into pure stabilizing energy. **\[STABILITY: 61%... 63%...\]** His cracked Void-Chitin plates visibly smoothed, the cracks sealing with threads of dark energy. **\[PLATING INTEGRITY: 75%... 80%...\]** The pain in his ribs subsided significantly.
He didn't dare draw too much. **\[STABILITY: 68% - OPTIMAL. GEOTHERMAL TAP SUSPENDED.\]** He felt stronger, clearer-headed. The constant gnawing hunger of the Engine subsided to a manageable hum.
Returning to the storage bay, he dragged the crippled exoskeleton frame towards the geothermal conduit. Using scavenged tools and sheer Engine-enhanced strength, he jury-rigged a connection, feeding trickles of geothermal energy into the exoskeleton's dead battery port. Lights flickered weakly on the frame. **\[PROMETHEUS GUARDIAN EXOSKELETON: PARTIAL POWER RESTORED (LIMITED DURATION).\]**
It wasn't pretty. It was bulky, restricting his agility, and the power wouldn't last long. But it added a thick layer of physical armor over his Void-Chitin and boosted his strength further. **\[TEMPORARY EFFECT: +50% PHYSICAL DAMAGE RESISTANCE, +40% BASE STRENGTH. DURATION: 20 MINUTES (EST. GEOTHERMAL CHARGE).\]**
As he finished strapping in, his Void-Sense shrieked. **\[WARNING: VOID STALKERS DETECTED. PROXIMITY: IMMINENT. QUANTITY: 3. LEVELS: 6, 6, 7.\]** Elara's fear spiked through the psychic link, sharp and terrified. *They're here! The bad dream things!*
Kael turned, the exoskeleton whining in protest. At the entrance to the Prometheus lab chamber, shadows deepened. Three figures coalesced from the gloom. Tall, emaciated, their bodies seemingly woven from solidified darkness and jagged bone fragments. Multiple glowing red eyes burned in skeletal faces. Long, blade-like claws extended from their shadow-stuff limbs. They moved with unnatural silence, radiating cold malice and an insatiable hunger for the Seedling's power. **\[VOID STALKER REAVERS.\]**
The scavenger was gone. The strategist, forged in betrayal and glitches, stood ready. He wasn't just fighting for biomass. He was fighting for a ghost of a child trapped in crystal. He was defending a piece of the world's buried, tragic history. The Apotheosis Engine hummed, not just with hunger, but with a new, unfamiliar directive: *Protect.*
"Alright, nightmares," Kael growled, the exoskeleton amplifying his voice into a mechanical rasp. He raised his obsidian claws, geothermal conduits glowing faintly orange along the armor. "You picked the wrong tomb to rob."