The first thing I noticed, as I slipped the headgear off, was that I didn’t recognize the room. I dropped the headgear onto the ground and studied my surroundings, trying to wrestle with the seeming impossibility of what’d happened.

I was not in the room for controlling the shell, nor any other room that was part of the base. Instead I was in a chamber which was about thirty feet wide, fifty feet deep and at least twenty feet tall.

A dull green light was produced by strips along the floors, each one parallel to the other. The lines ran from behind me all the way to the deepest part of the chamber, calling attention to an over-exaggerated throne.

The seat was crafted of metal, a combination of I believed titanium, gold, and a few others. The back of it stretched up high, and was designed to resemble two men stretching up for a sphere.

Along the walls sat numerous monitors, some of which showed scenes from various places within the Architect metropolis. A few even seemed to show a first person perspective. The remainder of the monitors were dead, with either static or nothing shown.

There was a bit of movement amongst the shadows on the throne, and I realized that someone was seated on it. Their body was obscured by darkness, the light strips on the floor barely showing their silhouette.

“Finally.”

The voice was the same I’d heard before my surprise transference, a whisper that felt like it scraped across my eardrums. There was a tinge of familiarity to it, but also a strange distortion that made it unique.

I choked on a bit of blood, retching it and my stomach's contents onto the floor. “Where am I?” I asked once I could breathe again.

“Cathedra Coda.”

“Sure, that answers everything,” I muttered, “why am I here?”

I tried to stand up, the mere attempt enough to send immense pain through my body. Without my cane I could barely manage to stand, and though I had a way to support myself I wanted to hold that in reserve.

“Feculent blemish.”

Those two words sent a chill down my spine, and a thought into my mind that was impossible. I threw aside my thoughts of reserving my abilities, and instead gathered a ball of energy in my left hand. With as much strength as I could muster without harming myself I threw it, and the ball floated through the air toward the stranger.

As it floated the ball cast a light around it, and the darkness that coated the poorly illuminated chamber was beaten back. When it reached the throne the light revealed a man, one who looked unlike any I’d seen before.

Rather than clothing the man was instead covered in a light transparent film, one that I couldn’t even guess as to the purpose. All that did was reveal the fact his skin was mismatched, as irregular patterns of different skin hues ran across his body.

Up and down the body the mismatched skin could be seen, and it wasn’t only that which proved wrong. The legs weren’t equal in size, nor the feet, and even the arms and hands seemed to be asymmetrical.

As my gaze slid up the body I also realized something else, the long hair that spread down and half-obscured some of the man’s chest didn’t match. Most of it was white, but there were some red, brown, and black strands mixed in.

When I looked at the face I at first only noticed the eyes, with how one was red and the other green, yet a fact began to dawn. It was familiar, or at last half of it was, even though it was heavily scarred.

“Helim,” I whispered, and then winced as I realized the mistake that had been made.

He shifted on his silly throne, standing up almost as slowly as I had. Tubes that were connected to his back via the chair came into view as he walked away from the seat. With unsteady steps he approached me.

“Finally, your meager existence is here,” Helim said as he leaned in to stare at my face, “Theodore.”

I started to lean back, but my muscles spasmed and I instead had to struggle to not collapse on the spot. Through gritted teeth I managed to ask, “How are you still alive?”

A visible quiver ran down his body as he studied me, and one gaunt hand reached up to grip my face. “Your arrogance granted opportunity. Fractured body and napalm insufficient.”

He lifted me up as though I weighed nothing, and carried me over to one of the walls of the room. Helim shoved my face at one of the blackened screens which flickered to life as we neared it.

The image was of a group of people caught in the middle of an encirclement. The circle consisted of odd half-man and half-lizard looking monstrosities, while the ones in the center were easy enough to recognize.

Lisa, Mika, Trium, and Boros were fighting off the monsters, even as a new egg had formed on the ground near them. All around them there were corpses and blood, yet none was on my daughters or the two remaining Architects.

“Her descendents?”

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That was a question which I didn’t feel the need to answer, as even if he found out who my daughters were it’d prove useless to him. “Is that why you think I’m Theodore?” I asked him, in an attempt to disrupt his accurate theory, “because some girls look like somebody you knew?”

The image on the screen flickered, and then shifted to one that showed a point of view of a drone. It was the one that I’d fought on floor fifty, prior to having to rely on the shell. A skeletal overlay was placed on top of my figure, and a line traced how my body moved as I attacked the drone.

Then a screen to the right of the first flickered on and showed an image of Theodore. Of me, from over a thousand years ago, as I fought some type of Architect. The movement of the skeletal overlay on that was a flawless match, albeit it with a change in height and reach.

Before I could say anything Helim rammed my face into the nearest monitor. “Deception will not work. Who are they?”

The screen crunched against my face, the shards of it embedding into my flesh. Helim grinded my face against the shattered chunks for a few seconds, and then pulled me out.

“Clarify their identification,” Helim said, “and explain how you rejuvenated and transformed.”

His demands only made me laugh, as blood oozed out of my lacerations. “Why would I tell you anything when you aren’t even saying how you’re still alive.”

Helim tossed me against the nearby wall so hard that my one shoulder was embedded into a screen. A wave of pain and dizziness swept through me, but I tried to lift my head and look to see what he was doing.

He had turned and started to walk away from me, moving perhaps back to sit on his throne. Yet he only made it a few feet before he whipped about and glared at me. Half of his jaw clenched, as though in rage, as he stomped back over.

“Adaptation and donation.”

The first part I could understand, but the second only made me frown. “Donation? I’m certain it was more like forced acquisition, wasn’t it?” I asked, “and you also abducted everyone to turn into those things!”

It was almost as though Helim attempted to sneer, but only a few parts of his face could manage it. “The purpose of the lesser.” He lifted one leg and used his foot to shove me against the wall, one of my bones cracking audibly. “Explain yourself.”

Yet I didn’t need to say anything, as the building we were in began to shudder. As though some explosions were happening somewhere within, the floor beneath violently shook. It was enough of a vibration that Helim looked away from me, and instead glared at one of the monitors.

“Insufferable aggravations!”

Another unknown thing shook the floor, and it was severe enough that Helim staggered for a moment. In that moment I struck, as magic was summoned in the form of a sword. As I enhanced my frayed muscles I also swung the sword, aiming to slice Helim in half at the waist.

The magically formed weapon barely bit into his flesh before it came to a stop. Helim let out a hiss of either anger or pain. He smashed his left hand down at the flat of the blade, and it snapped in half like a twig.

His retaliation was a punch, one directed at my face. I managed to lift my arms up in defense, a small bubble of energy formed in front of them.

The punch cracked the bubble I’d made, and then shattered as Helim brought all his strength against it. Helim’s fist shoved all the way through to my arms, and I found myself once more pushed against the wall.

It was painfully obvious to me that Helim was superior in strength, and I had no reason to doubt that he was any slower. With my body still ruined from my fight on the fiftieth floor, I had to utilize my magic merely to move. Even when I attacked him in a moment of distraction I’d dealt what amounted to nothing.

Two hands gripped my thin neck and lifted me up, as Helim started to squeeze my throat. “Perhaps dissection will prove informative,” he said through gritted teeth, as a wicked grin half-contorted his face.

I could only choke, my hands grasping at his arms, while I felt the life being squeezed out of me. In a few seconds I knew that he’d either snap my neck, or I’d fall unconscious due to a lack of blood flow. Once that happened he would be free to use his army of mutated dragons against the rest of the labyrinth, and possibly even kill my daughters.

“I’ll tell,” I barely managed to croak out, as a bit of spittle oozed out of the corner of my mouth.

That was all I needed to say to get Helim to relax his grip a little. He grinned, this time with his entire mouth, and stepped in closer. “Explain everything!”

“It’s simple,” I said, my voice hoarse, “Lute was dying so she put her hand on my cheek, and whispered the secret.”

As I said that I also lifted my own hand up, resting it on Helim’s cheek. The skin was old, almost mummified, but still somehow pulsed with warmth. He glanced down at my hand, for a moment leaning away, but when he realized that my arm barely had the strength left to hold it up Helim relaxed.

“See, the magic, it-” I started to say, but then grimaced as I tried to swallow. My breath was uneven, and I already knew that most of my strength was gone. In my right arm I could feel a warmth building, one that I focused on containing as much as I could.

“Continue,” Helim ordered me.

I looked at him and tried to look as tired and scared as I could. “Promise not to hurt the two girls,” I said in an attempt to buy a little more time.

It was as though Helim couldn’t resist sneering at my request. “Mercy guaranteed.”

A promise that I knew was as useful as a goblin’s. I closed my eyes, as I focused inward and gathered all of my concentration on my right arm. “Good, I’ll tell you then,” I said.

Even with my eyes closed I could feel his presence inch a little closer. There was an eagerness about that, as I could only surmise he wished to free himself from the salvaged body parts he relied on. It was also probable he was soon to reach the limits, and was perhaps the reason he’d opted to sacrifice most of the Architects to create his dragon army.

I slowly opened my eyes and stared at him, once more seeing the face of the man who’d murdered Pierre in cold blood. A millenia ago he’d told me about his plans for cleansing the labyrinth, and it had served as the catalyst for everything that followed. It was also the reason why I’d pushed myself to the brink of humanity, and why Lute’s program had kicked in.

About all I could manage to do was smile at the madman, and then my right arm exploded. It was a burst of blinding light and energy, one that far exceeded any I’d ever created before in the past.

My body was driven back by the force of the explosion, the rigid wall giving way against my frail body due to the sheer power of what I’d done. I could feel the bones in my body, already damaged to begin with, cracking from the trauma.

It was a few moments before I could even look, as though I might have wished to close my eyes I hadn’t wanted to show any warning to Helim. Even the smallest of defensive moves to shield myself would have ruined the surprise.

When my eyesight returned I first saw the aftermath on my own body. My right hand was gone, along with most of my arm. The injury had been cauterized by the heat of the explosion, and the remnants of the upper arm that remained hung loose and refused to respond.

I clenched my teeth, the sight of the stump enough to remind my brain of the pain, but I had other things to worry about. I scanned the room, as I studied the damage that I had wrought with my burst of raw magic.

I had focused as much of the damage in Helim’s direction, and the aftermath of my magical spell showcased that. The stone floor was burnt, with a hole crudely blown into it which was at least half a foot deep. On the distant side of the room the throne was gone, and part of the wall that’d been behind it had been vaporized.

A few feet in front of me, in the crater that my magic had created, was a smoldering pile. As I approached it the fact that it was Helim’s remains became obvious, as his legs and lower torso were still there. The rest of him was gone.

I started to laugh at it, wincing as the pain caused me to stop. “I should’ve done this in the first place,” I admitted to the corpse.

In our last encounter over a thousand years ago I’d allowed my emotions to control me, and in the end I’d merely shattered every bone in his body. While he coughed up blood and cursed me I’d chucked him into a pit of fire, leaving him to burn to death.

To me it’d been a fitting punishment, yet somehow the monster had dragged himself out. A mistake that I could only regret, one that could’ve cost everyone in the labyrinth if I hadn’t reincarnated.

I shook my head and lifted my left hand. Energy gathered, what little remained within my body, and I faced my palm at the remnants of Helim. “You always did let your arrogance get the better of you,” I told him, and perhaps myself.

I unleashed the energy and destroyed the corpse. I stood there and stared at the mark on the ground where he’d been, and only once I felt certain he couldn’t revive himself did I allow my consciousness to slip.