"Nooooooo!"
Sylar screamed, his voice raw and breaking as he ran forward, but his cry did nothing to stop what came next.
The half-mechanical being raised its hand, and an explosion of gray energy erupted outward. The shockwave struck the orphanage ruins like a hammer, disintegrating the remaining walls and silencing the cries within.
The monstrous figure turned toward the sound of Sylar's voice. Cold, unreadable eyes locked onto him. Then the creature raised its arm again.
Another pulse.
The blast hurled Sylar backward like a ragdoll. He slammed through branches, crashing hard against the forest floor.
For any normal person, that would have been the end. But when the smoke cleared, Sylar stirred.
Blood streaked his face, his clothes were torn, and his body screamed in pain, but he stood.
The abomination tilted its head, faint surprise flickering through its mechanical eyes. The boy's resilience made it pause. A faint tremor ran through its arm as it prepared another strike, but then it froze, its gaze snapping upward toward the distant sky.
Above them, fire rained from the firmament. Dozens of burning shapes streaked through the clouds, not stars, not meteors, but something else.
A sharp, alien light flashed across the creature's eyes. It lowered its arm. "Take care of things. Show your devotion to the Lord," it said, voice flat and inhuman.
Then, with a surge of energy, it launched itself into the air and vanished toward the falling lights.
From the rubble of the destroyed city, figures began to emerge. At first, they looked like survivors, crawling from the ruins, staggering on shaking legs. But as they stepped into the light, their true nature became clear.
They were abominations, half flesh, half machine. But unlike the first two beings, these were crude, incomplete, horrifying. It was as if human bodies had been ripped open and stitched together with metal in mockery of life. Cables writhed from their skin. Gears turned where veins should be. The smell of oil and rot hung heavy in the air.
One of them, a hulking mass with twin skull-like heads, had tubes snaking across its chest and a furnace glowing in its torso. A mechanical cannon was fused to its right arm, its barrel wreathed in flame. It roared and fired, unleashing a jet of burning gas that reached two hundred meters across the ruins, far beyond the range of any weapon the world of Arcade had ever built.
Screams rose again, echoing through the streets as fire consumed everything left standing.
Another abomination lumbered forward, its bloated upper body of flesh merged into a spider-like machine below. It raised its left arm, a crude cannon grafted in place of its limb, and fired. Projectiles exploded through walls and vehicles, tearing through the last remnants of human shelter.
The rest followed suit, each one different but equally monstrous. Some had saw-bladed limbs. Others carried railgun appendages fused into their backs. Each was an unholy blend of man and weapon.
And then one of them turned toward the forest.
It was by far the most grotesque of all, a swollen, pallid creature with bulging veins and a gaping maw that split its face from jaw to chest. Metal claws extended from its right arm, twitching as though eager to taste blood.
Its gaze fell on Sylar, who stood at the forest's edge, staring blankly at the devastation. His body trembled. His eyes were hollow, his spirit stripped bare.
The creature raised its rifle-like appendage, aiming squarely at the boy's chest, but then lowered it. Slowly, it began to walk forward instead, its heavy steps cracking the earth beneath it, as its claw trembled with thrill.
Finally, it stood before the boy, ready to fulfill its most depraved desires.
The other abominations didn't care about the desire for mutilation, but they began to frown as the creature remained still in front of the boy, not doing anything.
"Arman!" one of them shouted, the one with the flamethrower arm. "Hurry up! Stop playing around!"
Arman, the massive creature, didn't answer. Instead, a wet, sickening sound filled the air, the tearing of flesh and the grinding of metal. The other abominations turned, confused.
Arman's body began to shake violently. Then, with a hideous crack, its torso split apart. Its upper flesh tore free from its mechanical lower half, ripped in two by hands that shouldn't have had the strength to do so.
When the dust cleared, a small figure stood where the monster had been.
Sylar.
The boy's face was splattered with blood and black oil. His eyes, once warm and human, now burned a deep, unnatural red, twin embers of fury.
He stood over the bisected corpse, breathing hard, fists trembling.
The other abominations froze. For the first time, fear flickered in their grotesque eyes.
The flamethrower creature snarled and raised its arm. A roar of fire erupted from its cannon, a blazing inferno that spanned dozens of meters and engulfed the forest's edge.
Sylar moved before the flames reached him, diving behind a massive tree trunk while still holding the upper half of Arman's mangled body. The blast tore through the clearing, incinerating everything in its path. The heat seared his skin, the smell of burnt leaves and flesh choking the air, but he didn't falter.
He could no longer afford to feel pain. Or grief. Or anything.
All that remained in him was purpose, cold, focused, absolute. That was the only way he could move forward and do what needed to be done.
Sylar's eyes narrowed as flames roared around him. The firelight reflected in his crimson pupils, but his mind was elsewhere, fixed on the strange messages that had echoed through his head the moment the second abomination destroyed the orphanage.
[Awakening Condition Completed: Lose Everything]
[Nemesis System Activated]
[20 Free Points Granted]
[Host has allocated 20 Points to Strength]
The final message had appeared right before he tore the first abomination apart. It had been instinctive, one thought, one surge, and his strength had nearly doubled, letting him rip that monster in two. There had been more data, more words flashing in his mind, but he had no time to focus on them now.
Sylar steadied his breathing. His thoughts went silent, his senses sharp as blades. He waited.
The abomination with the flamethrower continued to pour its inferno across the forest, a constant torrent of fire that lit the night like dawn. But even monsters had limits. After several long seconds, its body trembled. The flames faltered. It needed to recover.
Unfortunately for it, the boy did not.
Sylar burst from behind the charred tree, moving with terrifying speed. In his hands was a rifle, the same weapon torn from the arm of the creature he had just killed. He raised it, aimed, and fired.
A single deafening shot.
The flamethrower abomination's head exploded into fragments of flesh and metal, and its body collapsed, lifeless, into the burning earth.