The upper chamber was still shaking from Dr. E's entrance.
Through the broken doorway smoke drifted over the wall and sparks flew from the damaged generator pylon Viper had been thrown into. The containment field around the final Phantom Ruby flickered weakly in the center of the room, pulsating between solid and unstable.
Dr. E moved slowly in his new exosuit.
Every movement of the suit sounded expensive.
Hydraulics hissed. Metal plates shifted. The mechanical wings on his back slowly unfolded, revealing rows of red-lit vents and thin blade-like fins.
Nico got to his feet first.
He rolled his shoulders and winced.
"Alright. You get one cool entrance. That's it."
Dr. E ignored the comment.
"This fortress was meant to secure my final objective. And yet here you are. Again."
Rex stood and cracked his neck.
"You're talking too much."
The goat charged first.
Rex shot across the room and threw a brutal right hook straight at Dr. E's head. Dr. E's suit immediately took action. This arm module changed shape, a reinforced guard plate that absorbed the punch with a metallic boom.
Rex's eyes widened.
Dr. E swung his other arm.
A concussive blast fired from the elbow unit and hit Rex in the ribs, sending him flying sideways into the wall.
Nico blurred forward at the same time.
He ran low, trying to get inside the suit but Dr. E's mechanical wings snapped outward. Long, short, shark-like fins slithered from them like missiles.
Nico jerked his head aside as one blade zipped past his face and embedded itself in the wall behind them. He twisted, ducked another, and sprang upward and planted both feet on Dr. E's chest.
The result put Dr. E back half a step.
Only half a step.
Nico landed and blinked.
"Okay. That is rude."
Dr. E's chest reactor brightened.
Then the floor under Nico exploded.
A pulse of synthetic energy shot out from the reactor into the ground, creating a circular blast that forced Nico to leap backward.
Viper finally pushed himself up on the damaged console.
"Nico! Rex! That reactor is feeding every system in the suit!"
Nico looked over.
"Cool! How do I break it?"
"I'm working on that!"
Dr. E drew both arms forward.
That transformed again the modules into a twin rapid-fire emitters.
He unleashed a storm of red energy bolts across the chamber.
Nico vanished into a blur, weaving between the shots. Rex grabbed the one of the damaged metal platforms and used it as shield while charging. The bolts hammered into the platform until it glowed red-hot but Rex kept running and slammed it into Dr. E hard enough to bend the edges inward.
Dr. E's wings flared.
Thrusters ignited.
He shot up and he hovered near the ceiling as Nico reached him.
"Oh come on," Nico groaned.
Dr. E raised both hands.
From the underside of the wings six hovering drones detached and dropped into the room. They were small and black, fast and each with a glowing red lens and spinning edge blades.
"Escort Units," Dr. E said calmly.
The drones attacked immediately.
Two rushed Nico.
He ran straight at them, ducked one blade, and smashed the first drone into the second. Both spun into a wall and exploded.
Three more went for Rex.
One slashed his shoulder before he caught it and crushed it in one hand. Another attempted to cut across his face, but Rex grabbed a loose support beam and batted it out of the air like a baseball.
The last drone shot toward Viper.
Viper yelped.
Nico appeared beside it and kicked it through the control panel before it could touch him.
Dr. E was able to use the distraction wisely.
He dropped from above and plunged with a thruster-assisted shoulder charge on Nico that sent the cheetah skidding across the chamber floor.
"Nico!" Rex shouted.
Rex lunged, but Dr. E was ready.
One arm transformed into a shock hammer. The other became a cannon. He fired point-blank at Rex's legs, staggering him, and hammered the hammer down on the goat's back.
The impact drove Rex to one knee.
Dr. E's voice was colder now.
"You two rely on instinct and brute force."
He turned toward Nico.
"I improve."
Nico pushed himself back to his feet, breathing harder now.
"Yeah?" he said. "Then why do I always end up in your lab?"
He disappeared.
And this time Nico didn't just go right to Dr. E.
He ran around the whole chamber.
Again.
And again.
He gained speed until he began circling the room in a giant red ring. Papers, smoke, and debris were sucked up into the vortex he was creating. Dr. E's targeting systems lit up as the suit tried to lock on.
The suit said the velocity pattern was recognized.
Nico smirked.
"Then recognize this."
He changed direction instantly.
Nico came from Dr. E's blind side and slammed his kick into one wing joint. Metal cracked. One of the segmented fins ripped off and scattered to the floor.
Dr. E spun and fired.
Nico took the blast across the shoulder and flew backward, but he grinned through the pain.
"Ha! Got one."
Rex used that moment.
He roared and tackled Dr. E from behind, driving him straight into the containment sphere around the final Ruby.
The weakened field rippled violently.
Viper's eyes widened.
"No! If that collapses wrong, the Ruby could destabilize!"
Dr. E launched a burst from his thrusters and shoved Rex off. Then he slammed both palms into the floor.
Shadow-like synthetic constructs erupted from the metal.
Not real shadows this time.
Solid hard-light creatures made of red-black energy.
Wolves.
Birds.
Snakes.
They swarmed across the chamber in a wave of moving weapons.
Nico cursed.
"Seriously?"
The fight was chaos again.
Nico slashed through the constructs with kicks and spinning strikes while dodging Dr. E's beams from above. Rex ripped apart the shards by hand, but more were gathering in the suit's reactor system. Viper continued trying to restore the console, but sparks were sprouting from half of the controls.
Dr. E descended through the middle of it all like a boss monster.
His suit changed forms constantly. Hammer. Cannon. Blade. Thrusters. Drones. Constructs.
It felt like he had an answer for everything.
And for the first time in a while, Nico stopped smiling.
Dr. E noticed.
"You are slowing down."
Nico glared.
"Shut up."
And then, after a lot of thinking, Dr. E fired a full-power beam.
It tore through the room and flew through the walls at close range, ripping the chamber in half. The force threw all three of them apart. Warning sirens erupted across the fortress. The containment field surrounding the Ruby went out of sync in rapid succession.
Viper looked up through the smoke.
"The whole tower's destabilizing!"
Rex pushed the broken metal off himself and stood.
"Good."
Nico also gradually rose and left one arm hanging lower than before.
He wiped blood from his mouth.
Dr. E hovered in the center of the room, reactor blazing brighter than ever.
And despite everything they had thrown at him so far, he still looked like he was in control.