Eurus opens his eyes. The Pneuma of Mirra weighs heavily on his mind, its words echoing over and over again. He goes through the mountain base, occasionally seeing Cells transporting equipment to the soon-to-be battlefield.
He arrives at the fertilization lab, where Georgia is still finalizing the calibration of the machines. She looks up at him and says: “Bad dream?”
“Quite the opposite,” Eurus says, “Big day. How are we looking?”
“You can get Kalopsia and Archie. I’m pretty much done here after they eat.”
Eurus finds them not in their assigned rooms but rather back at the cafeteria. Archie has found some apocalypse-proof bacon and eggs, coffee and milk, and is making breakfast for Kalopsia. She’s wearing a night robe she found in one of the closets, with the initials KC and when she sees Eurus approach, she says:
“Look what I found! Someone’s brought my stuff here!”
Archie comes from the cafeteria’s kitchen with a plate full of food – English breakfast being served. He’s wearing flip flops, a t-shirt he found and some shorts.
“Here you go, Kalopsia,” he says, “Anything I can get you, sir?”
“A coffee with milk,” Eurus says.
“Coming right up,” Archie says.
“Kalopsia,” Eurus says, sitting opposite her at the table.
“Eurus,” she cuts him off, “I wanted to thank you. You know… for all this.”
Eurus is quiet.
“I know by making me comfortable you are simply optimizing the mission parameters, but… Thank you…,” she says looking Eurus straight in his eyes.
“I don’t know if it’s because the Codex compels me. But I genuinely don’t want you to suffer, Kalopsia,” Eurus says, “I happen to care.”
“Really?” she says, looking a little bewildered, “Who woulda thunk?”
“Not me,” Eurus says.
They finish eating their breakfast and drinking their coffees and Eurus takes them to the fertilization labs again. Georgia gives Archie a plastic cup in a matter-of-fact manner, while giving him a look of understanding. He goes off back to his room.
Kalopsia excuses herself to the lavatory for a moment.
When Archie arrives at his room, his communication device beeps up, showing him several picture messages from Kalopsia – raunchy in nature. They come with a message:
“Hope it helps you along,” with a small picture of kissing lips.
Kalopsia returns from the lavatory to the main lab and Georgia says: “I have a few more tests to run, can you change into the gown over there?”
Georgia points to a hospital gown on one of the lab stools. Kalopsia goes to do as she’s told.
Suddenly, Eurus’s communication device blares up:
“Eurus! It’s Ares! They’re coming in force. What are your orders?”
“Gearing up myself. Execute plans as ordered. Meet you on the peak,” Eurus says. He then dials up Astraeus and says:
“Astraeus, the siege is upon us. Hold down the fort at the lab! I’m going topside.”
“Copy that, Eurus,” Astraeus says.
Eurus sends a look of confirmation at Georgia and Kalopsia, now in her gown and storms off to the armory to don his power armor and weapons.
He quickly assembles his weapons and armor, equipped for maximum contact capacity. He’s got a shoulder mounted plasma cannon, several auxiliary battery packs, a jump pack and jump boots, a bull rifle, his power sword, and a dozen grenades and the plasma cutter. He says to the Cells who’ve been refitting the Cell Artillery Deep Strike unit that they should take it outside now via a rail that runs through the armory and get ready to deploy. The last one there will remain guard with Astraeus.
He then runs off, and steps onto a massive elevator that takes him almost to the top of the 7 kilometer mountain where a vision of battle all too familiar to him opens. The skies filled with drop ships and the forests below him bellowing with explosions. Men like ants swarming through the woods cut down by the hundreds by the Cells tactically placed around key access parts created by Magnus and his team. The Phoenix Nova shoot out from a hangar below him and blast towards the fighter squadrons approaching their location, engaging in aerial combat. The snowy wind around him not faltering his steadiness one bit.
He activates his jump pack and barrels down the mountain to where the strike teams are the thickest, to help out Boreas and Nautilus with the advancing troops. The forests are thick with soldiers as far as the eye can see. Their screams and roars as the Cells mow them down echo intermittently through the explosions and gunfire. Boreas, Nautilus and Eurus move in tandem swapping targets and reengaging at simultaneus coordination, no words being needed. The soldiers are completely overwhelmed, but even after the hundreds they kill, thousands will take their place.
“Mistral,” Eurus says to his comm-device, “Any sighting of the copycats? Or Notus?”
“Not yet. Keep you post-.”
A loud explosion cracks the sound of battle and Eurus looks up to see Mistral’s Vulcan 5 explode in a violent nuclear detonation, triggered by the grav tanks that Notus deployed.
“Damn!” Eurus curses, “Ares, same question!”
“No copycats yet, but I’ll keep you post-.”
Another loud explosion cracks the sound of battle and Eurus sees Ares’s Vulcan 5 explode the same way.
Luckily, there’s a lull in their own onslaught with Boreas and Nautilus so he can go to Nautilus.
“Nautilus!” Eurus says, “Notus is tracking our comm-device signals. Get to the armory, and set up a long range radio without encryption using the FM frequencies. They won’t think to look for them and have others switch to FM too. In a tree traversal two per leaf you can do it with speed without wasting time looking for everyone. Give my commands to the Goliaths too to hunt down the grav tanks. Go! NOW!” Eurus commands.
“Affirmative,” Nautilus says and uses his jump pack to leap away back towards the mountain base.
Boreas and Eurus barrel forward, to crack through to the other side of the advancing army. They leap and jump through the thick trees and foliage, each leap costing the enemy countless soldiers as they get splattered and torn apart by Eurus and Boreas. After a few kilometers the waves of enemies grow less frequent as that section of the battlefield collapses for Notus’s forces and their commanders sound the retreat. Eurus finds a three-fold unit of grav-tanks at the rear line, and they try to target him and Boreas. But Eurus and Boreas land on the turrets of two separate ones and activate their plasma guns, setting them to rapid fire and literally dig into the armor using superheated gases from the atmosphere. The third tank attempts to snipe at Boreas, but he leaps off his own tank just as it fires, killing their comrade. Eurus is making quick work of his grav tank, tearing it apart, causing it to explode.
When he jumps onto the last grav tank, he tears off the hatch and jumps in, and with a quick succession he kills off the crew of three men. He looks at their datapads and finds the locations of the rest of the grav tanks. He mutres to himself: “DAMN! Nautilus should be any minute now,” and he jumps out of the tank again. By fighting their way through the ranks, Boreas and Eurus can focus on the rears of the other sections. But Eurus’s comm-device beeps and he sees that one of Magnus’s motion trackers has been triggered by Notus, catching a quick glimpse of his movements towards the mountain. Eurus knows that he’s attacking alone, hoping to infiltrate the mountain complex covertly, but that’s precisely why he will not get the upper hand this time.
Eurus and Boreas kill off the squad of soldiers they’d been fighting for the last minute and Eurus pulls Boreas aside, looking at his helmet where his eyes would be.
“Boreas,” Eurus says, “Continue culling the rear…”
“Yes, Eurus,” Boreas says.
“Stay safe, Boreas,” Eurus says, “I’m going after Notus.”
“Right back at ya,” Boreas says, and gives Eurus a Roman handshake. Eurus pulls Boreas close and wraps him in a momentary hug, patting his back. He blasts off to find Notus in his last detected location on the flank of the mountain.
Meanwhile, his communication device crackles and beeps, noting of an incoming transmission. Eurus switches to it, and hears Nautilus’s voice:
“Eurus! This is Nautilus! I have the FM radio. Do you read?!”
“Read you, loud and clear Nautilus! What’s the combat situation?”
“It’s dire but I think we can win. We managed to shoot down the drop ships and their fighters but lost our air wing to grav tanks – we couldn’t warn them all. Magnus is still keeping up the bottleneck but it seems it’s getting rough over there.”
“I see,” Eurus says, running and leaping through the forest, “I’ve found Notus. How many have we killed how many are left?”
“I estimate 75 thousand enemy troops remain, we have 23 Cells left. If every Cell keeps up, we can wipe them out with a few remaining.”
“Have you deployed CADS?” Eurus says.
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“Only one so far, to Herkules, he was being overrun but it seems to be stable,” Nautilus says.
“Deploy one to Boreas’s location and one to Magnus, keep those bottlenecks alive. How are the Goliaths doing?” Eurus says. While he gives the commands he hears one loud crack from the mountain and a trail of smoke as a Cell was shot out of an artillery cannon.
“Bogged down, but a few Cells fighting alongside I think we can pull through against the armor,” Nautilus says.
“Good,” Eurus says, “And the mountain?”
“A few false cells are trying to scale it but Tor keeps swatting them aside – no real threat there yet at least.”
“Good,” Eurus says, “Coordinate as needed. Remember, we need our numbers more than they do. Giving you command of the forces. I’m going after Notus. Eurus out.”
He continues his hunt for the Cell who is responsible for all this pointless slaughter. He makes a mental asimuth between the mountain and the motion tracker location that Magnus had placed before and continues in a direction that would cut off Notus if he were to attempt to scale the cliffy sides. Soon after he receives another notification about a motion tracker being triggered by someone this time not caught on camera but it coincides with his approximation of Notus’s speed. He arrives at expected location of contact and sees nobody yet scaling the cliff. He approaches it himself through the woods to hide near it and to take down or kill anyone attempting the climb.
Without warning however a slight noise as he sees that a grenade has been tossed right at his feet. Eurus dives backwards and gets his suit a little battered up from the grenade’s sharpnel and heat. Luckily, the kinetic barriers still hold so the physical integrity of the suit is still in working condition. He looks towards the assumptive direction of the grenade’s backward path and though he doesn’t see his assailant, he sees the bushes rustle in that direction so he surges after him.
“It’s pointless Notus!” Eurus calls out, “I’ll hunt you down, one way or another. Whatever happens today, you’ll die unless you give yourself up.”
Suddenly he hears a click in the distance and dives towards some foliage as the rattling of a Bull Rifle cracks the thunderous air of battle around them. Bullets whiz past Eurus’s skull right where he was standing. Had he waited for one more millisecond, he’d be dead.
“What are you DOING, Notus?! Do you honestly think this is what’s best for humanity?!” Eurus calls out.
He hears a rustle in the bushes and throws a grenade far away beyond the source. A loud crack resonates through the forest as the grenade goes off and the rustle changes directions.
“I’m doing what I must as a Cell Circuit, Eurus! Everything I’ve ever done has been for the well-being of humanity! Everything! I’ve made great strides at providing humanity with a paradise!”
Eurus hears Notus from a direction now closer to the cliff. He can’t allow Notus to scale it. He uses his jump pack to cut Notus off, catching a glimpse of him before he dives back into the foliage. Eurus opens fire with his Bull Rifle mid-leap in the direction, but hits only bush and leaves.
“Great strides? Strides towards what? With the state of Earth’s defenses, any bug, any rogue AI from outer space could wipe out Terram because it doesn’t have the appropriate forces to respond. It’s a paradise built on a delusion! The Codex was made to keep humanity safe!” Eurus calls out.
He jumps towards where he saw Notus go, and hears a rattling of the Bull Rifle in the distance again, a bullet grazing his shoulder pad. He blasts a giant ball of plasma from his shoulder mounted cannon in the direction, causing a fire.
“The Codex is a set of laws Eurus! It could never withstand the slow march of entropy! Even a mountain whittles down to a dune of dust by the wind! If I don’t do my part, the Codex withers and dies! The whim of chaos awaits for no man, Cell or not!”
Eurus leaps towards the source of the voice and lands just a few dozen meters away from Notus who opens fire from his plasma gun, but Eurus dashes to his side and then right towards him, crashing into Notus and knocking him back. But Notus is quick on his feet, he uses his jump pack to gain distance again.
“So that’s it?” Eurus says, “You fear a lapse in a Cell’s judgement so you give Earth’s security to mechs? Cell HQ’s communications to spy networks? Send away the Navigator Dreadnoughts? You’ve done exactly the opposite from saving it!”
Eurus then sees Notus run back deeper into the woods, away from the cliff. He jumps after him, both leaping through the landscape as the rumbling of battle around them rages on.
“Yes, some tenets had to be sacrificed –“ Notus says.
“Sacrificed? What do YOU know of sacrifice? I’ve given everything for the Codex, for humanity – everyone I’ve ever cared for gone! And you tell me of sacrifice?!” Eurus says while leaping after Notus. Eurus is distraught that Notus doesn’t see his turmoil.
Notus opens a stream of bullets from his Bull Rifle, but Eurus manages to dodge behind trees to avoid it, while returning fire. He hears some of them hit Notus, and he grunts a little from the damage.
“Oh, yes, I’m perfectly aware of your lover on Martis. How did your interpretation of the Codex work out for her, Eurus? That’s exactly my point!” Notus says.
Eurus snarls with anger blasting several plasma orbs towards Notus who ducks and hides behind a busted grav tank.
“So, I lay with a woman on Martis, and in response, you send away our strongest military assets?” Eurus calls out.
He lands beside the tank to see Notus gone. “DAMN IT,” Eurus thinks to himself realizing Notus is just delaying.
“Astraeus, defend the secondary entrance, I have the cliff line under control,” Eurus says to his comm device.
“Copy,” Astraeus says.
He leaps back towards the cliffs, seeing Notus dart ahead between the trees and opens fire from his Bullrifle again, causing Notus to change direction.
“Bare? I''ve created a paradise, Eurus! I''ve given Terram a true chance at peace! In exchange for sending away the Cells, I''ve built stability—a world worth living in!” Notus calls back.
Eurus throws grenades at several directions, hoping to flush Notus out of his hiding spot. Eurus can’t believe the lies he’s uncovering. He calls out bewildered:
“In exchange for… I see… You sent the Data Mother away? It was you who betrayed us?! Don’t you see that nullifies the first thing we were created for?!”
Eurus keeps an eye on the cliff, while ducking behind a big rock.
“The Data Mother saw what you never could! The Codex—YOUR Codex—is a relic. I''ve helped 9 billion people live better lives, Eurus. What have you done but kill? How many have you saved? What’s the tally? Do you even know?!” Notus calls out.
A flurry of shots whizzes past Eurus as he sees several False Cells run towards him through the forest. Eurus peeks out from behind the rock to see Notus barreling towards him as well. He jumps out, power sword and Bull Rifle drawn, firing also from his shoulder-mounted plasma gun.
Notus jumps at him, engaging him in melee, while the False Cells arrive too. Eurus evades and fights them all at once, kicking Notus with his steel boot right in his helmet, sending him tumbling away. He then reshifts his focus onto the False Cells coming in. He blasts a few with his plasma gun, then ducks as one tries to hit him with their Bull Rifle. A few ‘plumps’ from a grenade launcher give away to Eurus that he needs to leap away, right into the thick of it with three more False cells. He pulls one’s arms off while gutting and slicing another with his power sword. He rearms his Bullrifle and surgically destroys a few more trying to get at him. But Notus is nowhere to be seen and he looks up to see Notus a few hundred meters above him, around 10 seconds ahead of him, using his jump pack to get up the cliffs. He immediately blasts off too, disengaging from the fight.
Eurus leaps above after Notus, but he realizes that Notus might reach Kalopsia first. He tries to raise Astraeus but he sees that his comm device has been damaged during the fight. It’s up to him to catch up with Notus. Around him all sides of the mountain are engulfed in flames and explosions, thousands of men dying as the minutes crawl on. One of the Goliath tanks in the distance sets off, a massive cloud of nuclear detonation emerging. Its shockwave blasts Eurus aside a little as he’s mid-leap. But he quickly recommits now around 13 seconds behind Notus.
Notus arrives at the threshold of the mountain complex’s cliff entrance and immediately sprints ahead. Despite his iron-clad exterior, his steps are almost silent, faint taps on the concrete around him as he moves in full sprint. The complex is not difficult to navigate for him but he must act quickly as he knows Eurus has by now for sure caught on to his ruse. He knows all the available Cells are now engaged outside of the facility, Eurus being the only one of any real worry, but even he won’t be fast enough to catch up to Notus. He darts through the passages and hallways, and sees a few signs pointing him on the right way.
Soon he runs past a cafeteria, and beyond it is a door “Fertilization Labs” sign above it. He busts through the door to see a woman – Kalopsia straddled in a gynecology chair. She’s wearing a hospital gown and there’s another woman sitting on a smaller stool, bending between her spread legs, clearly working on something. Notus stops his sprint as Kalopsia looks at him, her eyes clearly startled and Dr. Georgia Vakkar pops out of the gown as well, looking downright terrified. Kalopsia darts her eyes around the room, hoping to find a weapon – anything to save her. But she’d have little hope with a scalpel or a reflex hammer against Notus. She only looks into his eyes now, her gaze studying his stern mask of confidence. Beneath his mask is not confidence, however, it’s doubt.
Notus slowly walks towards Kalopsia. His mind is racing with a million thoughts. He’s sure he must halt this procedure and kill Kalopsia in order to fulfill his mission and to foil Eurus’s betrayal of the Codex. But he’s also no longer certain Kalopsia could qualify as a real threat. But at the same time she’s sitting there almost naked, he can smell her fear through the sterile environment and her exposed parts as she’s likely right about to finish going through with the harrowing process? He’s supposed to kill this young woman – this girl almost, to save humanity? This defenseless lamb to the slaughter for what? For a promise of a better Terram? For whom? He walks almost in a dream like state. How’s he supposed to kill her? With the sword? The gun? Wait until the procedure finishes?
Moments before Eurus is scaling the mountain as well and arrives at the threshold Notus went through. He sprints through the entrance tunnel, his feet completely silent on the concrete despite his iron-clad armor. The few straggler False Cells were picked off by Boreas who was also scaling the mountain after him far below. He’s not sure what the situation in the Fertilization Lab is so he chooses a different, slightly round-about path through the facility to arrive flanking Notus. It’s a tunnel he saw going out of the lab, naturally made it seemed. He crawls through it, completely quiet as he goes. When he arrives he sees Notus right ahead of him, standing next to the gynecology chair with Kalopsia and her spread legs. What is Notus thinking? Is he realizing his mistake? Eurus knows that he cannot possibly hope to stop Notus killing Kalopsia if he were to believe Eurus to have the upper hand. He needs to lure Notus away from the gynecology table first. There are only moments here before Notus will likely recommit and kill Kalopsia.
Eurus purposefully drops a pinned grenade onto a tray of medical tools to cause Notus to turn around. At the same time he jumps after it, and Notus pulls out his power sword, jumping towards Eurus. Eurus draws his sword but he only feigns a defensive swipe, allowing Notus to stab him directly in between one third of his rib cage. The pain in his chest bellows throughout him and Eurus groans in response to getting one of his hearts pierced by the blade. He coughs up blood and collapses.
“NO! GOD NO!” Kalopsia calls out from the gynecology chair, her eyes wet from the sudden burst of tears.
Notus releases the blade, allowing Eurus to collapse onto the lab’s floor. He trembles backwards a few steps himself his face in clear disbelief. He managed to physically best and down the legendary Eurus? He cannot at all to bring himself to come to terms with this massive triumph. Eurus’s gambit has failed he realizes and that his moment of victory is near. He turns around to see Kalopsia bawling her eyes out at seeing Eurus’s sorry state.
Right at that moment Eurus moves his arm completely silently and aims his revolver at the head of Notus who now has his back turned towards him. This moment of doubt, hesitation may be genuine for all Eurus cares, but it may also be fleeting and it might cost humanity its only chance at redemption. He aims carefully and slowly caresses the trigger, coaxing the gun to fire. The barrel jumps and barks and a blink of an eye later, Notus’s head explodes right before him. The bullet tore his skull clean open, killing him right there.
Kalopsia jumps out of the chair and runs to Eurus now slowly hoisting himself up. Right at that moment, Boreas busts through the door as well. He rushes to her side and to Eurus’s aid and says:
“Eurus,” in a calm voice, “We’ve won. The enemy is in full retreat.”
Eurus spits up a little blood.
“Eurus!” Kalopsia gasps, “You’re dying!”
“Not really. He only… ughh…,” Eurus groans in pain, “He only got one heart, the other seems intact. Don’t worry, I’ll recover soon.”
Kalopsia looks at him with a confused smile on her face.
“You allowed him to stab you?”
“Yes,” Eurus coughs again, “I had to make him turn his back to you. I don’t know why but he hesitated long enough. We were lucky.”
“Lucky?” Boreas says, “It’s thanks to you humanity has a fighting chance. You did everything I knew you’d do all along. Well done, Eurus!”
“How many are left,” Eurus says, while slowly standing up, “How many Cells?”
“11 alive, 2 of whom are wounded but recoverable, and you,” Boreas says, “We took heavy losses, but they’re in shambles. Barely ten thousand were left before they bolted.”