"Every wall is a door if your fist is hard enough" — DaMiLaRe.
The wall cracked, and chucks of titanium shot outward like shrapnel. The construct’s arm sank past the elbow, stuck inside the reinforced metal frame.
The Stone-Ape tried to pull free.
The servos in its shoulder whined. Its stone fingers scraped against metal, throwing sparks, but the fist was lodged solid.
The titanium had bent around it like a claw, gripping the stone tight.
The construct yanked again....Nothing. It was anchored in place, its right arm completely immobilized.
Micah stared at the stuck arm for a full second.
"Did... did you really just punch yourself into a wall?"
A laugh bubbled up from somewhere deep in his chest.
"Damnnn!... It hurts. Oh God, it really hurts."
His broken ribs ground against each other and he tasted fresh blood, but he couldn’t help it.
"You dumb, ugly bastard."
Meanwhile, the Stone-Ape wasn’t laughing. It pulled harder.
The wall groaned. Cracks spread across the titanium. But the arm held firm.
Then, the construct did something unexpected. It stopped pulling.
Its left arm swung around instead. It aimed a hook directly at Micah’s skull from the side.
It was so close. There was no room for Micah to dodge.
The hook came fast. Faster than the right fist. The construct had sacrificed power for speed, and at this distance, Micah’s Shadow Step Boots couldn’t carry him far enough.
He couldn’t dodge it. So he didn’t try.
He went low, again! His legs buckled and his body collapsed straight down, the fist sailing over his head close enough to ruffle his hair.
The stone knuckles clipped the wall behind him and sent another shower of sparks across the vault.
But Micah was already moving. His hands hit the floor and his legs whipped outward in a tight spin sweep. His right boot caught the construct’s left ankle.
It wasn’t a hard hit. The Stone-Ape weighed more than a car. No sweep in the world was going to topple it.
But that wasn’t the point.
The spin put his body directly underneath the construct’s chest. Right below the sealed chest plates. Right where the Nexus Core pulsed behind thirty centimeters of stone.
And the construct’s left arm was still extended from the missed hook. Its right arm was stuck in the wall. Both arms were out of position.
"NOW!", Micah screamed.
He planted both feet and launched himself upward. Not with the boots this time, but with his own legs. His own strength.
His body rose through the narrow gap between the construct’s arms.
Kinetic Disruption activated!
His right fist blazed with a deep, violent purple light. The talent locked onto the stone in front of him, calculated the exact vibrational frequency of the compressed bedrock, and then flipped that frequency backwards.
The stone beneath his knuckles started to hum.
Micah drove his fist forward with every scrap of strength he had left.
Directly over the Nexus Core, purple light exploded outward from the point of contact. The stone beneath his knuckles vibrated so hard it became a blur. Tiny cracks spiderwebbed outward from his fist, spreading across the chest plate like frost creeping across a window.
The Stone-Ape froze.
Its optical sensors flickered. It went from red, to orange, black and then red again. Its internal systems were registering something they had never encountered before.
The armor wasn’t being broken, it was totally destroyed.
The atomic bonds holding the stone together were coming apart at the molecular level, each tiny piece vibrating loose from the next.
Micah’s arm was buried to the wrist in crumbling stone. The heat from the Nexus Core seared his skin.
He could smell his own flesh burning, but he didn’t pull back. He screamed instead.
He shoved his arm deeper, pushing through the burning. He pushed through the pain and the fear.
His knuckles touched the Nexus Core.
It almost felt like grabbing a live wire. Raw, unfiltered energy surged up his arm and into his chest.
The cracks in the chest plate widened.
Stone fragments began to fall. They dropped like dead leaves, clattering against the floor in a growing rhythm.
Tap. Tap. Tap. Tap tap tap tap tap....
The Nexus Core pulsed beneath his fingers, then it cracked.
The Nexus Core cracked beneath Micah’s knuckles, and the sound it made was something he’d never forget.
The crack spread across the surface in an uneven line, and crimson light seeped through it like blood through cloth. The light washed over Micah’s face, painting his skin bright red and stinging his eyes.
The Stone-Ape reacted instantly.
Its entire body convulsed. A violent, spastic shudder ran from its feet all the way up through its upper body and into its head.
The optical sensors went haywire, flickering between bright red, dull orange and dead black, cycling through colors so fast they looked like a broken traffic light.
The construct’s right arm was still buried in the titanium wall. Its left arm swung around wildly, trying to grab something, but there was nothing there.
The servos in its joints screamed, grinding against each other but Micah didn’t let go still.
His hand was still buried to the wrist inside the crumbling chest cavity. The stone around his arm had turned to gravel, loosened by the Kinetic Disruption frequency, and it was falling away in chunks that clattered against the floor.
"Hold on. Hold on. Hold on!"
He shoved his arm deeper.
The Kinetic Disruption talent was still running, flooding his brain with frequencies and calculations he barely understood.
The system was feeding him the exact molecular structure of the Nexus Core, showing him every atomic bond, every energy conduit, every hairline fracture in the crystal lattice.
All he had to do was push the right frequency into the right spot.
Apparently, the construct wasn’t going to just sit there and let him.
The Stone-Ape’s left arm stopped flailing. It locked onto Micah’s body with a mechanical precision that was terrifying.
The four blocky fingers spread wide, aimed directly at his skull.
"Oh no., you don’t!!"
Micah pulled his left hand up and caught the descending fingers. The construct’s grip was insane.
Four stone fingers, each one the size of a cinder block, pressing down on his forearms with enough force to bend steel.
The pressure traveled through his arms, into his shoulders, and straight into his chest. He felt the rib fragments shift again, grinding against each other in ways that nature never intended.
"ARGH! GET... OFF... ME!"
The construct didn’t care about his feelings. It pushed harder. The fingers dug into his forearms and he felt something in his left wrist pop, sending a bolt of hot pain shooting up to his elbow.
But his right hand was still inside the chest cavity, still touching the core, and the Kinetic Disruption frequency was still singing through his knuckles.
The cracks in the Nexus Core were spreading. It was no longer just one. Dozens appeared, then hundreds, spreading across the crystal like veins in a leaf. Each crack leaked more crimson light.