Opening – The Pulse Echoes
Across the Cindervault battlefield, silence follows the rewrite wave. A moment of eerie calm.
Then: noise—human, broken, alive.
Hounds—once indoctrinated killers—are on their knees, eyes wide with memory. Some scream names of lost families. Others tear off their insignias. A few reach for weapons—but turn them on their former commanders.
The fracturefront has begun.
Rhoan (over comms):"Kaelen… it's working. Units on the east ridge just laid down arms. Some are even protecting our people."
The Awakened Press Forward
Calyra, commanding the eastern spearhead, seizes the opportunity.
Calyra:"No time to second-guess. Push the breach—liberate what minds we can. End what we can't."
The Awakened surge forward through shattered lines, using EMPs laced with memory keys—smaller versions of the rewrite pulse—targeting key enemy clusters.
In some cases, entire squads are turned without a shot.
In others… they have to be put down.
Not all can be saved.
Kaelen and Zarxes Clash Again
Inside the Isu spire, Kaelen and Zarxes battle on a level beyond physical. Each strike carries echoes of memory.
Zarxes forces Kaelen into a mental lock—attempting to overwrite him with fear, pain, ancient trauma from Vael'Ruun's fall.
But Kaelen endures, showing him other memories.
Kaelen:"You saw rebellion as disease. Vael'Ruun saw it as the cure."
He blasts Zarxes with a feedback pulse from the archive. For a heartbeat, Zarxes staggers—shadows flickering across his form. Regret? Guilt? Or something worse?
Seren's Advance
Meanwhile, Seren leads a second strike unit into the Obsidian Relays—control towers for Zarxes' drone clouds and mental suppression fields.
Each tower is manned by a cadre of Hounds still loyal—or too far gone.
Seren fights like a specter, each move lethal. But she pauses when one enemy hesitates.
Seren:"Do you remember your sister's name?"
The man drops his weapon. Begins to sob.
Seren spares him.
The next one isn't so lucky.
Zarxes Regains Control
Despite the breach, Zarxes adapts. He orders a psychic lockdown—cutting off command access to all fractured units. His fleet begins bombarding the battlefield, indiscriminately targeting even his own.
Zarxes:"If I cannot command them, I will bury them."
Kaelen watches in horror as a chunk of the battlefield disappears under fire.
Kaelen:"He'd burn it all just to be right."
Turning Point
Just when the Awakened seem poised to retreat, Calyra and Rhoan make a daring play.
They redirect a pulse amplifier to breach the skies—broadcasting a final wave across the entire gorge. It's unstable. It might collapse the spire. It might kill them all.
Kaelen nods. It's time.
The Second Pulse
It hits.
Not just data—emotion. Identity. Memory.
All at once.
The sky goes white.
For a second, everyone—Awakened, enemy, human, Isu-born—all remember what it meant to feel.
Mothers. First steps. Warm sun. Betrayal. Laughter.
Even Zarxes staggers. A memory not his own—Vael'Ruun smiling sadly before turning away.
"You never listened, old friend."
Closing – Smoke and Silence
When the light fades, half the battlefield is smoke.
Dozens of Hounds lie unconscious. Many more stand confused, unarmed. Others cry, silent.
The Awakened regroup. Exhausted. Changed.
And far above, Zarxes vanishes in a flash of dark light—retreating, for the first time.
They've won… this battle.
But no one is cheering.