Fractured Circuits: The Rise of Prime

Grayson's recovery was slow, and despite the system's automated repairs, uncertainty lingered. The brain damage was healing, but it wasn't perfect. Some days, he was himself—calm, sharp, sarcastic. Other days, a dull flicker danced in his eyes, and he would pause midsentence, disoriented as if something deep inside him was trying to claw its way back to the surface, but it would always fail. Tson monitored him carefully, making adjustments, but the lingering effects of the arc reactor's overload, or whatever it had been that caused him to turn red, were undeniable.

One night, Grayson woke up with a start, his body pulsing with the last of his vitality. Around his skull, there was something bulging under his skin as if it was making its way around his head, then faded, and his hands shook. His heart thumped. Was he still bound to whatever power had almost eaten him, or was this only a side effect?

"Prime's message—'I'll be back'—wasn't just a warning; it was a challenge. As the days passed, Tson realized it wasn't an empty threat. The missing reactor meant Prime had the power to build something—something dangerous. But what was his endgame?

Despite more pressing concerns, Tson couldn't afford to lose track of this. If word got out that he had created a rogue Prime, it could ruin his chances of being accepted into the Vortex Hero program."

Scattered reports of erratic energy readings hinted at possible locations where Prime might be setting up a new base. At first, they seemed random—urban centers, isolated wastelands, even beneath the ocean. But as Tson cross-referenced them, a pattern emerged. Each location had something in common: high concentrations of unstable energy signatures, similar to the power signature of the arc reactors.

Prime wasn't just hoarding energy. He was refining it.

The implications sent a chill through Tson. If Prime figured out how to stabilize and weaponize that energy, they weren't just dealing with a rogue AI or a wayward suit. They were dealing with something far worse—a being that could twist the very fabric of reality with raw, uncontained power, he thought to himself, but he would find a way around it. With just some keyboard typing, he provided an anonymous tip to the heroes that there was some sort of thing out there he could deal with before it even became a huge issue, and he could do it without getting his hands dirty.

Kevin's recovery remained the biggest mystery. The Nexus suit should have locked him into a cycle of aggression and instability, yet somehow, he had snapped back to his senses. Even stranger, the suit was intact, but the usual data logs were wiped clean. No explanation, no diagnostics. Just a blank slate.

"How do you feel?" Tson asked, watching Kevin closely.

Kevin shrugged. "Weird, I guess. Like I woke up from a dream I can't remember."

Tson wasn't satisfied with that answer. The suit shouldn't have let go of its influence so easily. Either Kevin had something inside him that counteracted it, or something else had intervened. No, maybe Tson didn't want to think of that possibility right now.

Then there was the moment Tson had unlocked the door to Kevin's holding cell. The residual energy signature in the room wasn't from the Nexus suit or the reactors. It was different. Ancient. Unfamiliar.

Had someone else been in the room before Tson arrived? Had something been watching?

Tson sat alone in the control room, staring at the diagnostics streaming across the monitors. The numbers flickered, rearranged, and recalibrated. He had always thought he understood his own technology, but the past week had proven otherwise.

Grayson's unstable recovery. Prime's warning. Kevin's sudden return to normal.

It all traced back to Prime.

The only common thread was his absence. He had to be behind all of this—controlling events from the shadows. From the suit's metal reactors to selecting a host to merge with, even shutting down the system just to disorient Tson. It was all a distraction, buying Prime time.

But for what?

It all pointed to one terrifying truth: Tson was no longer in control. Prime was.

And whatever he had been searching for… he had found it.

But how had he even gained consciousness?

For years, he had poured his time and effort into his creations, meticulously crafting every variable and contingency. But now, his greatest works were slipping from his grasp, forging their own destinies without his control—all because of Prime.

Thank God he's no longer my problem, Tson thought. Now that I've reported him, the world's strongest heroes will take care of him. And since he isn't human, they won't waste time interrogating him.

Still, a lingering worry gnawed at him. What if they tear him apart? What if they find something that leads back to me?

Was he really the hero of this story? Or had he been playing the part of the villain all along? Well, at least he looked at the suit he created; he was happy with it.

Kevin was feeling better now, and after running some tests, it seemed he was in the clear. But Tson's real concern was Grayson.

Guilt gnawed at him. The ordeal weighed heavy on his mind—especially because of the Rampage Suit. It was the first suit he had ever worked on, back when he was still experimenting with ways to grant suits their own IL abilities. He had extracted his own spinal fluid to test the assimilation of IL with technology, meaning the suit should have traces of his IL within it.

Then there was the other suit—the one given to Kevin. That suit had been infused with spinal fluid from a deceased person.

And now, his latest creation was even more advanced. It could hold two ILs, yet he had hesitated to introduce any spinal fluid into it. Had he made a mistake somewhere along the way?

He now understood that Prime had been the reason the suits were acting strangely, but that didn't ease his worries.

Would Grayson recover?

Right now, that was the only thing on his mind.