Raw lightning, drawn from the cosmic wellspring by Alex's Conduit art and amplified by his desperate resolve, danced around his fists, illuminating the dusty nexus chamber with a ferocious, primal light. The air crackled with ozone, the resonant hum of the Waystation momentarily overwhelmed by the sheer untamed power Alex was about to unleash. This wasn't the elegant energy manipulation of the Aethel; this was a Rusthaven back-alley brawl fueled by alien grace.
The UGF officer, despite the storm gathering before him, remained preternaturally calm. His personal energy dampeners intensified, creating a faint, visible shimmer around his charcoal-grey armor. "Elemental electrical discharge," he observed, his voice flat. "Unrefined, but potent. Your versatility is your greatest asset, Chimera."
He didn't wait for Alex to attack. He moved with blinding speed, his personal cloak making him a mere blur. He wasn't trying to engage Alex head-on with the lightning; he was too smart for that. He darted towards one of the large, dormant crystalline interfaces lining the chamber wall.
"He's trying to use the Waystation's own tech against us!" Kai yelled, firing his disruptor at the officer's shimmering form, but the shots still passed through or were deflected by the cloak and dampeners.
Alex saw the officer's intent. If he could interface with one of these Aethel crystals, even a dormant one, perhaps he could disrupt the Waystation's internal systems further, or worse, find a way to aid the spreading Alaris corruption.
"He seeks to create a cascade failure in the localized energy grid, Keybearer!" Elysius's voice warned, tinged with growing alarm. "It would amplify the Alaris corruption's spread significantly!"
There was no time for finesse. Alex lunged, not with a directed bolt, but by becoming the storm. He let the raw lightning erupt from his body, not in a single blast, but in a blinding, uncontrolled nova of electrical fury, a desperate attempt to saturate the area and force the officer away from the crystal.
The nexus chamber became a cage of arcing lightning. Bolts slammed into the walls, the floor, the ceiling, superheating the ancient Aethel material. The dormant crystals in the chamber flickered erratically, some glowing with sympathetic energy, others cracking under the strain.
The officer, caught in the electrical onslaught, was finally forced to abandon his attempt on the crystal. His personal cloak sputtered and failed under the sheer electromagnetic interference, revealing his charcoal-grey armor clearly for the first time. His dampeners were working overtime, arcs of lightning grounding harmlessly against his suit, but the sheer intensity of the barrage was clearly straining them. He was momentarily pinned.
"Now, Kai!" Alex roared, though he knew his comms were still jammed.
Kai, understanding Alex's intent, didn't need the verbal cue. He opened fire with his disruptor, not at the officer directly, but at the ceiling supports above the officer's position, weakened by Alex's stray lightning bolts.
With a groan of stressed Aethel material, a large section of the ornate crystalline ceiling cracked and began to fall.
The officer, his cloak offline, glanced up. His movements were still incredibly fast. He sidestepped the main impact, but a shower of smaller crystalline shards rained down on him, forcing him to momentarily shield his head, his dampeners flaring as they deflected the debris.
This was Alex's chance.
He focused the storm, drawing the chaotic lightning back into his fists, then unleashed it in two focused, concentrated blasts, like twin thunderbolts, aimed directly at the officer's strained energy dampeners.
The impact was immense. The officer's dampening field flared brilliantly, then, with a sound like shattering glass, it visibly fractured, a web of cracks appearing in the shimmering energy around him. He staggered back, a pained grunt escaping his vocoder for the first time.
His primary defense was compromised.
But the officer was a creature of pure, lethal pragmatism. Realizing his energy dampeners were failing, he didn't try to repair them. He didn't try to flee. He did something utterly unexpected.
He reached into a compartment on his thigh armor and produced a small, dull grey injector. Without hesitation, he slammed it into his own neck.
Alex paused his assault, his Aethel Cognition screaming a warning. What was that?
The officer shuddered, his body convulsing for a moment. Then, he stood straight, and Alex felt a horrifying shift in his energy signature. The cold, analytical presence was still there, but it was now overlaid with something else… something disturbingly familiar.
The diseased, sickly green energy of the Alaris corruption began to seep from the officer's armor, not from a device this time, but from him. His eyes, visible for a moment through his visor as it recalibrated, glowed with that same malevolent green light Alex had seen in the reanimated Stalker Mech.
"He… he just injected himself with a concentrated Alaris catalyst!" Voss's voice, somehow patching through the fading jamming field on a narrow, desperate frequency, yelled in Alex's ear. "He's willingly becoming a conduit for the corrupted entity!"
The UGF officer – no, the Alaris-infused thing he was becoming – let out a choked, inhuman laugh. The Alaris shard on his person pulsed, and the corruption spreading from the breach in the Waystation wall suddenly surged, advancing faster, its tendrils reaching hungrily towards the chamber's energy conduits.
"Keybearer! He is attempting to become a living nexus for the Alaris corruption within this Waystation!" Elysius cried out, its mental voice now filled with genuine distress. "If he succeeds, he will channel its full destructive potential directly into my core! This sanctuary… will fall!"
The officer, now wreathed in a sickly green aura that seemed to physically repel the Waystation's natural purple light, turned his corrupted gaze upon Alex. "The UGF sought to control Alaris," its voice rasped, now a grotesque chorus of the officer's tones and the ancient, alien hunger Alex had sensed from the Alaris Call. "Fools. Alaris… consumes. Alaris… integrates. And you, Chimera… you will be its finest vessel."
It lunged, not with UGF speed, but with a horrifying, unnatural swiftness, its hands, now claw-like and dripping with green corrupting energy, reaching for Alex. The dampeners were gone, but it was now shielded by a roiling aura of pure Alaris power.
Alex, facing this new, monstrous evolution of his enemy, felt a moment of pure, unadulterated dread. This wasn't a UGF operative anymore. This was a piece of Alaris itself, given form and purpose.
But then, the serene chime of the Aethel resonated within him, strengthened by his Conduit connection to the Waystation, a reminder of balance, of harmony, of the true power he wielded.
He met the corrupted officer's charge, his own Aethel energies – Shielding, Cognition, Conduition, and the raw, elemental forces he'd claimed – coalescing into a incandescent aura of defiance.
The eye of the storm had passed. Now, the final confrontation.