Eclipse Protocol

Chapter Three: Fracture Point

The ground beneath them shuddered.

Azure's eyes narrowed. "He's herding us."

The plaza's fractured edge gave way, revealing a vertical shaft plunging into the city's underbelly - a yawning chasm lined with ancient, rusted support beams and the glint of something... alive in the dark.

Voryx stepped back into the shadows. "Follow, if you dare."

The collapse accelerated - tiles sliding, dust spiraling into the void.

Umbros' tone didn't rise, didn't crack. "You're about to find out why he wanted you here."

Cut Scene - Below the Surface

Deep below, in the rusted chambers of the undercity, shapes moved with unsettling precision. They weren't soldiers. They weren't machines. They were something between - skeletal silhouettes with jointed limbs that moved in perfect sync, each one humming faintly with the same energy radiating from Voryx's armor.

A massive console flickered in the dark, runes scrolling in patterns too fast for the human eye to follow. On its cracked surface, a three-dimensional projection spun slowly: the city above, pulsing like a heart. And from its core, thin red lines spread like veins - converging exactly where Nyctarion's team stood.

Voryx's voice - cold and clinical - echoed from a comm channel only his creations could hear.

"They think this is about me."

A pause.

"It's about the fracture."

The creatures froze, then turned their heads upward in unison - as though they could feel the team's footsteps drawing closer to the trap.

Return to the Plaza

The floor vanished.

Nyctarion's stomach lurched as the world dropped away, the wind howling past his ears. He caught flashes - Azure twisting midair to control the fall, Crimson reaching for a support beam, then vanishing into shadow like smoke.

Umbros' voice cut through the freefall, impossibly steady: "Eyes open. We're in his territory now."

The shaft widened suddenly, swallowing them in black. Somewhere below, something mechanical and alive roared in welcome.

And in that final instant before impact, Nyctarion realized the truth:

Voryx hadn't come to win the fight.

He'd come to bring them down.

The drop stole the air from Nyctarion's lungs.

Steel ribs and broken elevator cables whipped past as the shaft swallowed them whole. HUD glyphs strobed violet across his visor.

TRANSLOCATOR SHARD
Blinks remaining: 7
Time budget: 21s

"Recommend not dying," Umbros deadpanned in his ear. "Also: screaming helps no one."

Nyctarion blinked-three seconds of nothing-and reappeared lower, rolling off a rusted beam. 6 / 18s left. Above him, Azure twisted mid-fall into a blur of after-images, Chrono-Bracers whirring as he bled speed. Crimson vanished and reappeared in a ribbon of shadow, cloak catching a gust just enough to pivot her onto a maintenance gantry.

They hit the undercity hard-knees buckling onto a corroded platform that groaned like an old god waking. The chamber beyond was vast and wrong: a cathedral of girders and cables, lit by a lattice of red lines that pulsed like veins beneath glass.

Shapes moved.

Not soldiers. Not machines. Something between-skeletal frames plated in living alloy, heads shaved to sensor domes, ribcages glowing with the same sterile light that leaked from Voryx's armor. They turned in unison. No wasted motion.