"Are you insane?" Michael breathed, his voice a hoarse whisper.
Jinx didn't even look at him.
Her eyes were still fixed on the ceiling, a general staring at a battlefield map only she could see.
"Probably!" she shot back, her voice tight with a manic energy. "Been living in a sewer for five years, eating rat kabobs and talking to myself. 'Sane' left the building a long time ago, kid."
"We're not going to fight them," she said, finally tearing her gaze away from the ceiling to lock onto his. "We're going to bring the whole damned roof down on their heads."
Michael followed her gaze.
Looming directly above them was a massive, central power conduit.
It wasn't like the clean, modern tech on the surface.
This was an ancient beast, a cancerous growth of thick, green-tinged copper cables, each as thick as his arm, held in place by crumbling ceramic insulators that were cracked and weeping rust.
Sparks of raw, untamed electricity arced between exposed wires with a dangerous, hungry FIZZ.
It looked less like a piece of infrastructure and more like a sleeping dragon, breathing electrical fire in its sleep.
"Conduit Zero was decommissioned because a Gate collapse destabilized the primary power junction," Jinx explained, talking fast, her mind clearly working a dozen steps ahead. "That thing up there is a relic. It's not connected to the main grid anymore, but it's still got sixty years of residual energy bleeding into it. It's a bomb just waiting for someone stupid enough to light the fuse."
"We're the stupid ones," Michael guessed.
"Bingo," she grinned, pulling a small, ugly-looking block of gray putty from a pouch on her belt. It was studded with wires and a small, blinking red light. "This is my last 'Get Out of Jail Free' card. Scavenged C-4, wired to a DGC-issue EMP charge. It'll fry anything electronic in a fifty-foot radius before it blows."
"The Ghosts are pure energy," Michael argued. "An EMP won't hurt them."
"It won't have to," Jinx said, pointing up at the conduit. "It just needs to short out that main junction valve right there."
She indicated a huge, wheel-like valve covered in warning signs so old they were barely readable.
"But the charge won't be enough on its own. The system is too degraded. I need a catalyst. I need something to shatter those old ceramic insulators first, get the energy arcing out of control. Make the whole thing go critical."
She looked at him, her blue eyes glinting.
"I need a magic bullet, kid. And you're the only one I know who can throw them."
The plan was terrifying.
The plan was brilliant.
He nodded, his jaw set. "What do you need me to do?"
"See those big insulators?" she asked, pointing. "The white, ceramic-looking ones? There are three of them holding the main cable cluster. You need to break them. All of them. Throw something. Anything. But it has to be fast."
"I'll need to get closer," Michael said.
"I'll cover you," Jinx said, already moving. "Go!"
Michael broke from cover, sprinting towards the center of the tunnel, directly beneath the unstable conduit.
The three Ghosts reacted instantly.
Their glitchy, frame-skipping movements converged on him, their purpose clear.
The hunt was back on.
Michael scooped up a jagged chunk of concrete from the floor. It was heavy and unwieldy.
He poured the last of his will into the rock, feeding it the precious drops of his remaining Void Energy.
[VE: 5/125]
The concrete shard glowed with a faint, purple-black aura.
He took aim and hurled it with all his strength.
FWIP!
The rock flew true, striking the first insulator with a loud CRACK!
The ceramic shattered, and a thick, copper cable sagged, unleashing a shower of angry, white-hot sparks.
The Ghosts faltered, their forms flickering as the raw, chaotic energy washed over them. The Alchemist was right. They couldn't handle dead zones.
Jinx used the opening.
She scrambled up a pile of rubble, getting closer to the main junction valve. She slapped her explosive charge onto its rusted surface, her fingers flying as she armed the detonator.
"One down, two to go, kid!" she yelled.
The lead Ghost recovered.
It registered Michael as the primary threat.
It raised its hand, the air shimmering as it prepared to fire a Phase-Ripper.
Michael was exposed. He didn't have enough energy left for a Shadow Step.
He was a dead man.
WHUMP!
A shot from Jinx's rifle, fired one-handed from her precarious perch, slammed into the ground at the Ghost's… feet?
It wasn't meant to do damage. It was a distraction.
The Ghost's attention was diverted for a fraction of a second.
It was enough.
Michael grabbed another piece of rebar-studded concrete, imbued it with his last, desperate flicker of power, and threw.
[VE: 0/125]
His internal well ran dry. The power that had defined him was gone, leaving him feeling hollow and terrifyingly mortal.
CRACK!
The second insulator exploded.
A massive cable snapped free, whipping through the air like a striking serpent. It slammed against the tunnel wall, sending a cascade of rock and dust raining down.
The electrical arcing intensified, the air now screaming with the sound of raw, uncontrolled power.
"It's gonna go!" Jinx shrieked, jumping down from the rubble. "Last one, Michael! NOW!"
The Ghosts were in disarray, their forms flickering wildly as the chaotic energy field interfered with their phasing ability. They were trapped between their mission to erase Michael and their own self-preservation protocols.
Michael grabbed one last rock. He had no energy left to give it.
This was all physical strength. All desperation.
He roared, a sound of pure, human fury, and threw it with everything he had.
The rock wobbled through the air.
It was too slow.
It was going to miss.
Then, one of the snapping, live cables swung down and struck the rock in mid-air.
ZAP!
The supercharged piece of concrete, now glowing white-hot, slammed into the final insulator.
SHATTER!
The entire conduit system failed at once.
"FIRE IN THE HOLE!" Jinx screamed, pressing the detonator.
The world went white.
A deafening BOOM! shook the very foundations of the earth.
It was followed by a horrific, grinding screech of tortured metal and cracking rock.
The ceiling gave way.
Tons of rock, rebar, and ancient machinery came crashing down in a thunderous, apocalyptic avalanche.
Michael and Jinx threw themselves to the ground, covering their heads as the world ended around them.
The roar was absolute.
The ground shook so violently it felt like it was trying to throw them off.
Then, as suddenly as it began, it was over.
The silence that followed was more profound, more complete than anything Michael had ever experienced.
It was the silence of a tomb.
A thick, choking cloud of dust filled the air, so dense it was impossible to see, to breathe.
Michael coughed, his lungs on fire.
"Jinx?" he choked out, his voice a raw croak.
"Here," a voice gasped from nearby. "Still… breathing."
He could hear her coughing violently.
The dust began to settle.
They were alive.
They were trapped on the other side of a mountain of freshly collapsed rock.
The Ghosts were gone, either buried or forced to retreat.
They were safe.
Michael let out a shaky breath of relief and pulled up his status screen with a thought.
The glowing blue text was a death sentence.
[VE: 0/125]
He was completely and utterly powerless.
A soft scraping sound came from the other side of the massive rockfall.
It was a faint, rhythmic noise.
SCRAPE.
DRAG.
SCRAPE.
Jinx heard it too. She froze, her coughing fit silenced.
"Well, kid," she whispered, her voice trembling for the first time. "We're alive."
She turned her head slowly, her wide, terrified eyes meeting his in the suffocating darkness.
"The bad news is…"
SCRAPE. DRAG.
"…I think I heard something moving on the other side of those rocks."
"And it definitely wasn't one of the Ghosts."