Downstairs had become war.
Entire sections of concrete had collapsed inward under Alfred's distorted sound manipulation.
Brunhildr still advanced. Her spear burned.
Flame of Vengeance had transformed entirely. Its silver shaft engraved with radiant runes now engulfed in white-gold fire that refused to spread like normal flame.
It was swung with a divine wrath compressed into form.
Each strike carved incandescent trails through the ruined hall, forcing Alfred backward despite his constant sonic interference.
"You're still standing? That loyalty thing is genuinely unhealthy."
Brunhildr's expression remained calm.
"You murdered one of ours."
Her spear ignited brighter as she lunged.
"There is no version of this where I retreat!"
The spearhead split apart into burning fragments mid-thrust before reforming at impossible angles. He was going to evade.
BOOM!
A shot interrupted him.
Shams Raye was standing far behind shattered support beams
For the first time, he chanted his Astra's name. He spoke its true name.
"RE:Metamorphosis."
The shotgun growled unnaturally.
The shell fired instantly.
Then burst midair into glowing crimson threads that stitched themselves briefly through the environment.
Connecting surfaces like invisible arteries.
A second shot followed. The threads activated at the same time.
Every prior wound Alfred had received suddenly resonated together. Dealing a critical damage rather than physical harm.
Accumulating consequence.
"Blood remembers force, my Astra stores trauma."
Alfred staggered. "…Okay, now that's really annoying."
Then vanished forward.
Straight toward Avery. She barely reacted in time.
Avery turned swiftly. Intercepting Alfred's strike before countering immediately.
Swift footwork, close-quarter exchanges erupting between them as sparks scattered violently through the ruined floor.
"Oh? You got hands?"
Avery drove a strike toward his ribs.
"Just step aside from our path!"
Then Brunhildr descended between them. The spear crashed down violently.
Alfred snapped his fingers and sound detonated. Explosions erupted everywhere.
The floor shattered as the spot began shaking.
BOOM!
A distant shot landed.
Shams struck Alfred clean across the torso, launching him violently through a collapsing wall.
The wall Alfred crashed through did not stay broken for long.
A violent wave of distorted sound ruptured outward.
Alfred stepped through the dust laughing, one hand pressed briefly against his ribs where Shams's previous shot had landed.
Blood still stained his shirt but the grin remained as usual.
"You people are unbelievably persistent."
His fingers twichted.
Every sound source in the room suddenly became hostile.
Loose screws burst like bullets. Ricocheting in the room crazily.
The vibration of Avery's breathing detonated shattered glass around her. The groaning ceiling compressed into sonic mines waiting to rupture.
Brunhildr raised her spear instantly, intercepting a wave of resonance with Flame of Vengeance.
The divine fire clashing violently against distorted sound pressure.
While Shams moved sideways through debris with the practiced efficiency.
His Astra shifted in his hands again. Flesh-like metal flexed unnaturally before settling into a longer frame.
"RE: Metamorphosis. Let's do it, buddy."
"That thing keeps changing." Alfred said.
"Hmph, you are wrong. We are built different."
Shams chambered a shell.
"No body survives trauma without changing."
BOOM!
The bullet flew but instead of impact, it missed. Completely.
Alfred laughed. "You are going to act blind now?"
Shams didn't answer. The shell embedded into a distant pillar. Then another. Another.
Three deliberate misses.
Crimson fractures spread invisibly through the environment.
Alfred paused. He observed his surroundings and realized, he was in a triangle.
Shams finally spoke.
"Experience teaches something important. Blood remembers not only wounds. It remembers every mistakes."
Suddenly, for one compressed second, the exact kinetic force Alfred had unleashed minutes ago returned upon him simultaneously.
Every violent vibration he had produced. Compressed into one moment. The floor beneath Alfred cratered.
His body folded violently under accumulated consequence. Blood exploded from his mouth.
"What the hell—?!"
Shams lowered the barrel slightly.
"I thought you said you were unbeatable? My bad, I must've misheard. Damn, the 'undisputed champion' got folded in 4 minutes. New record?"
Another shell clicked into place.
"I know you are toying with us and I will make you regret it after you go hell."
Alfred coughed, forcing himself upright.
"You are joking during murder now?"
Shams shrugged once.
"When people bleed, memories leave scars. RE: Metamorphosis archives those scars."
Alfred rose from the rubble slowly. Coughing once before wiping the blood from his mouth with visible irritation.
His rocky armor was damaged now—half cracked open where Brunhildr's strike had landed.
Exposed Runic layers flickering beneath fractured plating but the expression on his face had become somehow worse.
He looked between the three of them and laughed under his breath before speaking again.
"You know what is genuinely impressive?"
Alfred said, pacing a few steps across shattered concrete like he had all the time in the world.
"The confidence. Seriously. You people are bleeding, exhausted, mentally hanging by threads and somehow still acting like this is winnable. That kind of optimism should honestly be studied."
He pointed casually toward the broken remains around them.
"I watched one of your friend explode. I have been tearing apart this entire building floor by floor. Half my body feels like it got dragged through industrial machinery because that shotgun guy over there decided trauma has accounting laws."
He glanced toward Shams.
"Somehow the collective decision here is still: Yeah, we got this."
Avery looked at him annoyed by his trash walk.
"You done talking?"
"No. Actually, I am warming up."
Before Avery could retort again, Brunhildr quietly stepped beside her.
"You are compensating too much,"
Avery blinked after processing information in brain.
"…Excuse me?"
"Your right shoulder." Brunhildr continued. "You tense it before every pivot. Against someone faster, eventually that habit becomes fatal."
Avery stared at her.
"We are in the middle of hell."
"Yes."
"And this is when you decide to critique my form?"
Brunhildr paused briefly before answering, quieter this time.
"I would prefer you alive long enough to be annoyed by me later."
Avery opened her mouth and then looked away.
"…That was annoyingly sincere."
"Okay, I apologize."
A small sense of familiarity passed between them. Only they could understand.
The kind earned only after surviving enough together.
Avery sighed again scratching her head.
"Fine. Then you don't get to die either."
Brunhildr nodded once. "Acceptable."
Behind them, Shams Raye stood motionless, thumb brushing lightly against the frame of RE: Metamorphosis while studying Alfred's movement carefully.
He's unstable now. The sound distortions aren't clean anymore. Timing is slipping.
Shams narrowed his eyes but unstable people are dangerous.
Then Alfred vanished with a swift dash.
A burst of compressed sound launched him forward hard enough to fracture flooring beneath his feet. Avery reacted instantly.
"Oh, not this again."
She ran toward him. Actually toward him.
Mid-sprint she planted one foot onto a collapsed support beam, rebounded sideways onto exposed piping and twisted her body through open air at an angle that barely looked possible to perform by a human.
Alfred swung his fist swiftly and unfortunately...
She was already behind him.
"Catch this, old hag."
A small grenade struck his chest.
POP.
A dense chemical burst detonated into distorted particulate, disrupting vision and scrambling auditory focus.
"What did you—"
Avery didn't wait. She began throwing hand and foot. One foot touched the wall.
Another landed briefly on fallen concrete.
A downward kick to the jaw. Elbow to the ribs. She launched a sharp strike into the throat.
Every motion chained together so naturally it looked less like fighting and more like refusing gravity permission to matter.
Alfred stumbled and Brunhildr appeared.
"Step aside!"
Avery ducked instantly. The spear descended on Alfred.
A crushing strike slammed into Alfred's torso with enough force to rupture armor apart, divine fire splitting flesh and metal simultaneously.
Something in Alfred snapped. The smile vanished.
"…You know what? No. I am done being patient."
The room trembled violently. The entire upper floor detonated and burst down.
Avery barely turned before rubble crushed her leg beneath the slab.
Shams raised an arm. Jagged fragments ripped across half his face, leaving blood streaming down his cheek.
Dust filled everything and somewhere inside it.... Alfred started laughing.
The laugh of someone slipping apart.
"You people... are way more entertaining than expected! Hahahahahaha!"