The surface of Science City was in chaos. Screaming sirens echoed through the neon canyons, and the sky was a bruised purple—not from the sunset, but from the massive mana-surge Ray was emitting from below.
Suddenly, the ground in the Central Plaza erupted.
A pillar of violet light shot into the sky, shattering the 'Peacekeeper' drones circling above. From the crater stepped Ray, his left arm glowing like a captured star and his eyes burning with an ancient, cold fury. Beside him, Elara and the remaining Rust-Walkers emerged, their scavenged weapons now pulsing with Ray's mana.
"Citizens of Science City!" Ray's voice wasn't just loud; it was being broadcasted directly into every neural-implant in a ten-mile radius. "The Council has lied to you for three hundred years. They didn't build this city to save you. They built it to harvest you."
High above, on the giant holographic billboards that usually showed Council propaganda, Ray's memory-files began to play. The people saw the shriveled, dying bodies of the Council members they once worshipped as gods. They saw the 'Life-Leech' machines in the Forbidden Sector.
"It's a glitch! Don't listen to the terrorist!" a Peacekeeper captain yelled, raising his sonic-cannon.
Before he could fire, Ray simply snapped his fingers. The captain's cannon turned into a cluster of harmless digital butterflies that dissolved in the wind.
"The era of the Machine-Gods is over," Ray said, stepping onto a floating transport platform and forcing it to rise by his will alone. "Today, we take back our souls."
All around the plaza, the citizens began to stop. Some ripped the glowing blue chips from their necks. Others picked up pieces of fallen drones to use as clubs. The fear that had held the city for centuries was evaporating, replaced by a raw, desperate hope.
But as the revolution began to swell, a shadow fell over the plaza. A massive, triangular ship—the 'Sovereign-1'—descended from the clouds. It was the Council's last stand, a flying fortress capable of leveling the entire district.
"You speak of souls, Arkanos," a cold, robotic voice boomed from the ship's speakers. "But a soul cannot stop a 'Proton-Bomb'. Surrender, or we erase this city from the map."
Ray looked up at the massive ship, his violet-light arm trembling with power. "Elara, get everyone into the sub-levels. Now."
"What are you going to do?" Elara grabbed his hand.
Ray looked at the Sovereign-1 and smiled—a dangerous, beautiful smile. "I'm going to show them what happens when a virus meets a firewall."