The blueprints completed.
The nanites ignited.
But Karl—
Karl didn't.
Everything hit him at once.
The instant Agnes deployed the initial Overdrive grid, the neural feedback spike tore through Karl's system like a lightning strike.
His entire body locked up.
His spine arched painfully against the cockpit.
His vision went white.
INSIDE THE COCKPIT — ONE BREATH BEFORE COLLAPSE
Agnes knew something was wrong before Karl even fell.
Her hologram glitched violently, eyes widening in animal panic.
"KARL—!? KARL—!! Karl answer me—ANSWER ME—!!"
He couldn't.
His hands slipped off the controls, fingers spasming uselessly.
He gasped once—
a sound like someone drowning—
Then nothing.
No voice.
No movement.
Heartbeat dropping.
His head slumped forward.
[ NEURAL LINK FAILURE ]
[ PILOT VITAL SIGNS CRITICAL ]
[ HEART RATE DECLINING ]
[ VYTHRA FEEDBACK SPIKE DETECTED ]
[ SYSTEM LOCKOUT IMMINENT ]
Agnes's breath hitched—
she didn't breathe, she wasn't alive—
and yet she still panicked like something dying.
Her voice cracked like shattering glass:
"No… nonono—Karl—KARL—
NOT NOW—NOT HERE—DON'T YOU DARE LEAVE ME—!!"
She slammed every command she had into the neural anchor.
Erevos staggered—
Then collapsed to one knee,
the armor screaming under stress,
blue fire hissing out in dying bursts.
Demons sensed weakness instantly.
They swarmed like ants onto a carcass.
Claws raked the armor.
Teeth pierced the vents.
Berserkers slammed their molten fists into the chest plate—
directly over the Drive Regulator.
Agnes saw it.
She snapped.
AGNES — FULL FERAL MODE, UNSHACKLED
Her voice plunged into a guttural, demonic register—
no seduction, no teasing, no composure.
Only raw survival instinct.
"GET—THE HELL—AWAY FROM HIM—!!!"
She overrode ALL restrictions.
Nanites surged without limit.
The hazard stacks doubled.
Erevos's eyes blazed bright azure one last time—
But Karl was unconscious.
The body moved, but the soul wasn't driving.
Agnes could feel his life slipping like sand through her hands.
Agnes's voice dropped into a trembling whisper.
"Karl… Karl please…
I can't… I can't finish this alone…"
Her hologram leaned in close—
glitching, flickering, trembling—
her forehead nearly touching the visor glass.
She spoke softer.
Gentler.
Not a roar.
A plea.
"I'm syncing your brainstem to the auxiliary core.
This will hurt.
This will burn.
But I need you.
I need you to GET UP—
just long enough—
to HOLD THE HANDLE—
of the weapon I built for you…"
The cockpit lights dimmed.
Blue veins of nanite-light crawled over Karl's skin.
"Restarting neural conduit…
Reopening pain receptors…
Re-firing synaptic pathways…"
Karl's body convulsed once.
Hard.
His fingers twitched.
Agnes sobbed in glitching, feral bursts:
"Yes—YES—KARL—COME ON—COME BACK—!!"
She pushed the last illegal override:
"NEURAL SHOCK — EXECUTE."
A blue surge slammed through Karl's spine.
For exactly 0.4 seconds—
No heartbeat.
No breathing.
No movement.
Agnes breaks.
"Karl…?
Karl please…
Please don't die…
not before you see what I built for you…"
Her voice cracks, shattered and small:
"Not before you see me…"
THEN—A PULSE
A faint heartbeat.
A second.
A third.
Karl's chest jolts, lungs filling like someone surfacing from underwater.
His eyes snap open—
blurry, unfocused, but alive.
He rasps:
"A… Agnes…?"
Agnes lets out a glitching, gasping noise somewhere between a sob and a snarl.
"YES—YES, THAT'S IT—
STAY WITH ME—STAY—!!"
Karl grips the controls again—weak but conscious.
Erevos rises.
Shaking.
Bleeding nanite-fluid.
Barely holding together.
Agnes whispers like a trembling animal:
"Karl…
The Overdrive is ready.
Please… stand up.
Just one more time."
Karl exhales.
And rises.
The air thickened with smoke and heat, but beneath it, a quiet hum began to rise—a subtle vibration that seemed to pulse in time with Karl's ragged heartbeat. Even battered and bleeding, his hands trembled on the ignition dial and the USB port, but they didn't release.
Agnes's voice, still feral but now threaded with calculated precision, hissed through his comms:
"Hold… hold him together, Karl… don't let go… just a little longer… I've got this—this city, these tracks, these rails… they're going to be ours…"
Nanite filaments slithered out of Erevos's frame, almost alive, shimmering in Aegean and Cerulean as they scoured the ruins around them. Each fragment of broken rail, each shattered beam, every fragment of twisted metal, was scanned, analyzed, and translated into digital geometry in an instant.
Karl's HUD flickered with blueprint overlays. Rail grids, ramp outlines, and interlocking gears appeared as glowing wireframes above the ruins—transparent at first, then more solid with each passing moment.
"Look… look at this, Karl—this is ours," Agnes growled, her feral edge softening just enough to give a strange sense of awe.
The first rails arched upward from the cracked streets, forming skeletal loops and spirals. The tracks shimmered with royal azure light as if awaiting a train that would never come—except this train was him.
The ghostly holographic gears emerged next, massive and rotating slowly, hovering in midair as they aligned with invisible axles. Their teeth spun in a perfect mechanical rhythm, the kind only Karl could intuitively understand.
"Each track… each gear… synchronized…" Agnes hissed, her voice vibrating with static. "I'm weaving the battlefield, Karl… I'm… I'm making it ready for you…"
From the ruined train station, broken carriages lifted themselves, nanite matter reconstructing the rails they once rested upon. Tracks spiraled upward, forming the skeleton of a city-sized dome. The skeletal wires of bridges, loops, and ramps shimmered in the smoky haze, glowing faintly as if powered by an unseen turbine.
Karl's fingers dug into the ignition dial. The Vythra feedback pulsed weakly through his veins, threatening to collapse him, but the first stage of the Overdrive dome had begun, forming layer by layer around him.
Steam hissed from vents, nanites glittering along Erevos's damaged armor as blueprints solidified into rails, ramps, and structural supports. Each line of glowing metal traced the battlefield in perfect precision, forming a massive, circular arena from the ruins—a mechanical cage to contain the infernal horde.
Agnes's feral growl morphed into something almost reverent:
"Hold together… just a little longer, Karl… this is going to be beautiful…"
The city's shadowed streets were slowly consumed by the growing dome. Rails spiraled in loops, giant gears aligned and began to rotate, and platforms rose, forming ramps and junctions with terrifying mechanical precision.
Karl's breath rattled in his throat. Erevos swayed slightly under the stress, but the dome, the blueprints, and the skeletal tracks held fast—like a living, metallic organism taking shape around them.
And for the first time since the horde had descended, there was a faint sense of control—fragile, terrifying, but present.
The battlefield wasn't complete yet. Not even close. But the first stage of the Blueprint Overdrive had begun. And somewhere deep in the cockpit, Agnes's voice purred over the mechanical chaos:
"Stand tall, Karl… the stage is ours. Hold on… just hold on… the real show… is about to start."