More Distractions

"Now answer me, Darien. Why did you impersonate me?"

I had to preserve the Time Continuum as best I could...without become a monster like you.

"And the neko and humans you experimented on?"

I was trying to CURE them of YOUR venom! They begged me to finish them off, but I couldn't...my Oath would not let me. My Spark would not let me. I kept trying to extract an antidote from my own resistant blood, but it never worked on any of the others.

"Oh, it worked, Darien. It just fulfilled their last wishes in the process. And Lucian?"

I never told her. But somehow I think she knew. All those games she played with my younger self were actually divination rituals. She was casting runes...

"You had your lost love right there in your own home, and you never surrendered to your old habits?"

It took every ounce of will I had. I immersed myself in trying to cure the survivors of the expedition. All the while the Hydra was building resistance to my antibodies, growing stronger.

"Until it took you over. But it did not know the secret of its own demise."

I hid it deep in my heart.

"HA! LITERALLY! You removed it and turned it into an abomination!"

I knew Qli would destroy it. After I captured her and Koen, I told her to dissect the heart while Koen was still unconscious. Then I released them both and fled.

"The whole circular sequence, hidden in your mutated heart...along with the coordinates for her to propel you back to the First Temple at the Mobius event?"

Yes.

"Brilliant work! Woefully misapplied genius, but brilliant nonetheless! Perhaps you'll be useful to me as a Replicator..."

*BZZT!* Regent! Qli-249 reporting! Legacy Guardian construct is encountering intruders in the Greenhouse! Your food supply is in danger! Sending an attack squad!

"The Greenhouse! Do NOT breach the structure, 249! Meelee weapons ONLY, do you hear?"

*BBZT!* Confirmed! Deploying bladed units!

*BZZT!* Regent! Qli-109 reporting! Armed aethership detected on intercept course with New Erebus!"

"FOOLS! Send an Interceptor squad and channel the Vortex energy to construct an anti-aether funnel to pull the ship towards Caledon! WE shall intercept THEM!"

*BZZT!* Confirmed!

Towards...Caledon??

*evil laughter*