There had been a major shift.
Cosmo could tell that much at a glance.
If maintaining its endeavor had become impossible, then the Spire had likely altered its motives. It wouldn't be easy to discern what it intended so quickly, but the moment they resumed another exchange, he was confident he would be able to keep up again.
Until he looked closer.
Close enough to see the eyes scattered across the Spire's body spiraling wildly, losing all semblance of focus.
'No.'
The realization struck him a heartbeat later.
'It's not out of control. It's abandoning coherence.'
Before the Spire could act, he knew he had to move.
"You two," he called, snapping Tyson and Red to attention, "you have to leave now. Something's gone wrong."
They looked toward the Spire, but neither could discern what had changed.
"I overestimated it."
"Don't you mean–"
"No, that's not it," he cut Red off. "I didn't think it would give up on her so quickly. Either it's less of a glutton than I assumed, or it's found something else to rely on. Regardless, it's no longer interested in leaving Rita at the console. I wasn't expecting this. Unfortunately, it'll be difficult to predict anything from here on."
"But it's still manifested out here," Red added. "So it's not going to stop these voids either."
By now, the black voids had already expanded across countless areas around them. In truth, it would have been harder not to notice the sheer number obstructing their sight.
"Nothing has changed," Tyson said suddenly, shifting away from a tear that opened uncomfortably close. "So what if you can't tell what'll happen. It can't either. Stop acting like you're omniscient and figure something out already."
"You're such a hypocrite, you know that? But you're not wrong." Cosmo's senses were being strained by the sheer amount of expanding voids, but he ignored the pressure to track the crying Spire.
Then, something felt wrong.
It continued screaming, but that was all.
There was no intent, movement, or action.
Cautiously, he focused on its physical form, probing for an explanation.
What he found made his heart sink.
"It's a decoy!" he shouted, eyes scanning frantically for the missing dark matter that should have composed its true body.
Red and Tyson immediately went on alert, but neither detected anything amiss.
'Is it using the inverted voids as cover? I can't sense it at all.'
Realizing this, he resorted to the most educated predictions he could muster.
If the Spire was confident it could catch him off guard, it would still have to acknowledge it only had one shot. Meaning its first move would need to be fatal to one of them. Especially now that it had discarded its major advantage.
As for who it would target, he considered its aversion to Tyson's flames, but dismissed it as too obvious.
Then he considered their dynamic.
As a duo, he and Tyson lacked the synergy required to hold out this long. Not to mention how ineffective the flames were, unable to touch the Spire under normal circumstances.
Meaning the variable that it needed to eliminate to ensure an uphill battle was likely their link.
"Hey–"
He turned to prepare his officer, but that minuscule moment had been anticipated.
As he caught sight of the space before him being ripped open, he realized a major detail he had forgotten.
Simply giving up its rampant chronological control did not mean it had lost access to the imaginary space.
Given such an absurd oversight, he was confused about how it had slipped his mind.
It only needed Rita to send and receive information across the vertical axis, but it could still inherently travel through the horizontal axis of that space.
Physically, in fact.
Because of that oversight, he had been easily misled.
Still, failure wasn't set in stone.
They were face‑to‑face now, but that was still enough room to defend and retaliate.
He believed it was.
However, through all the tactics the Spire had used and he had countered, the last thing he expected was for it to employ a convenient skill of his own making.
A skill he might have shown her in that other possible outcome.
Before his face, its palms struck together.
CLAP!
…
"It hurts… it hurts so much…"
He wept endlessly as she dragged his body from the depths of the collapsed engine.
The last metallic tendrils latched to his arms were torn away, leaving nothing but scorched flesh from his elbows to the tips of his fingers.
The woman with long black hair leapt off the engine and dropped the child carelessly onto the ground, without a hint of remorse.
And without sparing him a glance, she lifted her gaze to the red sky and lit a cigarette, adding only a speck to the already suffocating clouds of smoke and ash around them.
He wouldn't stop crying.
Whether from the intolerable pain coursing through him, or the unbearable weight of something far worse.
"It's strange. I knew you had blood and tears… but it's still shocking to actually see them. Do you know why?" she asked.
"I…"
"It's because you were right all along. I'm not your mother," she said. "And I couldn't be the mother you deserved, no matter how much I pretended. That's why you never listened to me… why we're here."
He crawled forward despite the agony, desperate to reach her, and to be reached.
"I swear… I didn't…"
But his body gave out under the strain, and he collapsed onto the blackened soil.
"What excuses will you make this time?" She finally turned toward him, her expression so bitter it dwarfed any pain the world could inflict upon him. "That it wasn't your fault? Or better yet, was it just an accident?!"
She stormed toward him, and for a moment it seemed she would finally strike the child.
But when she reached him, and he hoped, rather than braced for judgment, her hands slowed, then covered her own eyes.
"Damn it… what was I supposed to do?"
Water slipped through her fingers before she could catch them, and her frustration made her bite her lower lip till it bled.
"Tell me… what could I have done differently to make you finally listen? Why did this have to happen? Don't you understand this is something you'll never walk away from?"
He was forced to understand.
"…it hurts so much," he sobbed again. "…please… just kill me…"
The weight was something he would never be able to shed, no matter how he struggled.
After all–
"It's all gone… They're all gone… They're never coming back. And that's the truth you'll have to live with for the rest of your life. I'm sorry. Maybe I just don't love you enough to do what's best."
She mourned as she stood.
Behind her, the southern skies as far as the eye could see twisted into a storm, a storm rapidly approaching them, and a sign that Degeneration's sanity had returned.
"Those arms will never stop hurting. They'll remind you of this day every waking moment. You will live on searching for a way to free yourself from the torment of what you've done."
She turned toward the storm.
"That's as much as the world will be allowed to punish you. But as for the rest… the Nebula will bear the sins of its cub."
She walked toward the storm without a shred of hesitation, refusing to look back even as the child cried out.
'Wake up.'
"Wait…"
Three others followed behind her. Needless to say, they had made the same choice.
"Please… don't leave me behind!"
'Break this cage of yours!'
"I'm sorry! I won't do anything on my own anymore… Gloriosa!"
'…or you lose them!'
…
ZAP!
A preconfigured bolt of lightning struck Cosmo directly through the head, proving to be the fastest way he could force himself awake.
Though the timing was far from ideal.
It had only been a split second since the Spire flooded his mind with enough irrelevant information to disrupt his neural currents, in addition to trapping his senses in an illusion made of his own memories.
This forced him to shut down all activity with a dangerous jolt.
Unfortunately, it was enough time for the spire to complete another attack.
A direct strike at him wasn't guaranteed to be fatal despite the momentary stun, so instead, it had crossed the short distance toward someone else, three meters away.
Before his sight caught up to his senses, Cosmo felt a blazing heat from a direction he immediately rushed toward.
It was already too late, however.
Tyson's attempt to defend himself was rendered meaningless.
The gauntlets of flame the Spire once avoided now shattered under the force of its blow. along with the bones of the forearms beneath.
Tyson's upper body snapped with the momentum, leaving him instantly immobile as he toppled off the nest of chains and toward the multitude of voids yawning below.
"No!"
In a desperate attempt to save his teammate, Red fired a link toward him, failing to notice the hand shooting for his head.
And when he finally saw it, it was already protruding from the back of someone who had sped in front of him.
"Cap… tain…"
Even with blood splattered across his face, Red stood frozen, unable to accept the sight of the Spire's hand driven through Cosmo's chest.
He failed to even realize the strike hadn't fully missed him.
A gash had opened beneath his right eye, running along to the tip of his ear.
And with that misfortune unfolding, no one was able to stop Tyson's fall before his body vanished into the darkness of no return below them.