November 1952, Enewetak Atoll, Pacific Ocean. Alison landed amid salty sea winds as the pocket watch's cracks oozed dark golden mucus, corroding the skin of her palm. Beyond the hydrogen bomb test site's cordon, U.S. Army engineering tents spread like a giant spiderweb, with scientists scurrying between them—several had the distinctive blood-red flecks in their pupils from Charles' embryo.
She infiltrated the underground control room and overheard a shocking conversation. Soviet spy "Grey Fox" Vasily Korov was conspiring with U.S. traitor Lieutenant General Richard Blake: "The USSR needs H-bomb fission data, and General Blake, Lord Charles promises to make you the nuclear god of the new world." The incantation on Blake's forehead matched Wilson's from the Hiroshima lab exactly, with embryo fragments parasitizing his cerebral cortex to manipulate his will.
At the control room's center, a colossal H-bomb model was ringed by twelve scientists. Alison used cobalt serum to create an illusionary clone, slipping her real form toward the main console. Embryo fragment parasites controlled the detonation system via neural links; she had to peel them off one by one, or the H-bomb blast would catalyze the embryo's ultimate metamorphosis.
"Unknown energy fluctuations detected!" Alarms blared as Grey Fox's dagger stabbed from the shadows. Alison dodged sideways, anchoring time to freeze the blade mid-air, but the weapon's Charles incantations corroded her serum shield. Blake mobilized guards to surround her, silver bullets raining down alongside Soviet "anti-entropy rounds"—capable of briefly freezing time flow.
She bit into a blood curse capsule, and the watch erupted in a mirror storm, sucking half the guards into temporal rifts. But s from embryo parasites burst from the scientists' throats; one physicist's eyeball exploded, embryo tentacles wriggling from his orbit to manipulate the H-bomb model's circuitry. Forced to switch tactics, Alison used a temporal blade to sever the parasites' neural links—each cluster of tentacles cut down, a scientist collapsed, and the H-bomb system's alarms grew more frantic.
Grey Fox seized the chance to tamper with detonation codes while Blake activated a backup trigger. Alison anchored the H-bomb core's temporal coordinates with her watch, using marrow incantations to force a detonation override—the bomb would explode early in the sky, starving embryo fragments of full energy. But Blake's parasite-enhanced brain hacked her incantations, trapping both in a tug-of-war between programming and sorcery.
Suddenly, mirror fluid oozed from the control room floor, and Charles' afterimage materialized in the reflections: "You think stripping fragments stops me? The embryo has seeded global nuclear devices—every fission is my rebirth ritual." Alison slashed at the afterimage with a serum-conjured temporal blade, only to find it a phantom projection of the embryo.
In the final moment, she gambled everything, embedding the watch in the H-bomb detonator and activating a reverse fission program at the cost of her own marrow core. The H-bomb exploded early in the clouds, its mushroom cloud swallowing the embryo fragments' screams, but the watch's cracks spread to its core—her temporal coordinates began collapsing, parts of her body dissipating like sand.
"Too high a price," Grey Fox sneered amid the blast's aftermath, picking up an embryo fragment. "Lord Charles foresaw your sacrifice. Embryo entropy has the 1963 nuclear treaty facilities, 1980 submarine missiles... Your revenge only speeds my eternal ascension."
Alison reconstituted her body, escaping with a temporal barrier formed from her last energy. The watch displayed a new coordinate: 1963, Moscow, at the nuclear treaty signing. But Charles' new symbol emerged along the dial's edge—a skull formed by H-bomb fission trajectories, with pupils inscribed: "Your death will be my thousandth rebirth."