The heavy, iron-scented air of the Old Foundry District seemed to thicken as Rumani watched Agent Thorne and the man in the grey suit disappear back into the depths of Foundry 07. The revelation that the Registry’s lead investigator was a mole changed the geometry of the entire conflict.

  Rumani looked down at Jamal. The boy’s knuckles were white as he gripped his "Shadow Hero" comic. In his eyes, there was a terrifying mix of fear and the kind of reckless courage that gets people buried in 30x scale rubble.

  "Jamal, listen to me," Rumani said, his voice dropping into a tone of absolute, grounded authority. "If I knock you out right now, it's for your own safety. I can carry you to the district line and leave you with a Registry patrol."

  "No!" Jamal hissed, pulling away. "They’re the bad guys, Rumani! You saw Thorne! If you leave me with them, I’m dead anyway. I’m the only one who saw you... I’m the only one who knows you’re not just a teller."

  Rumani froze. The boy hadn't said the word "Omnihero" yet, but the suspicion was a physical weight between them. If Rumani vanished and the "Invincible" hero appeared, the secret would be shattered in the mind of a child who couldn't keep a secret.

  "Fine," Rumani whispered, the Smiling Anchor persona retreating behind a mask of cold calculation. "But we do this my way. You are my 'Intern.' We are here to perform a private audit on behalf of the bank’s insurance registry. If anyone sees us, you let me do the talking. You do not run. You do not scream. You stay in the 'blind spots' I point out."

  "I can do that," Jamal whispered, his chest puffing out. "I’m a ghost, Rumani. A soot-ghost."

  "Stay low," Rumani commanded.

  They moved toward a secondary cooling vent—a massive, circular aperture designed to exhaust the heat of a 30x scale furnace. To a normal man, it was a tunnel; to Rumani, it was a tactical bottleneck.

  As they crawled through the darkness of the duct, Rumani used his Oversight Senses to map the interior. The foundry wasn't producing steel. It was producing Dark Matter Anchors. He could see the violet energy humming through the floorboards—the "Steel-Eater" frequency had been refined. It was no longer just vibrating the earth; it was prepared to "lock" it into a state of permanent molecular collapse.

  They reached a grating overlooking the main assembly floor. Below them, a massive, cylindrical device was being suspended by industrial cranes. It looked like a needle the size of a skyscraper, its tip glowing with a concentrated, unstable violet light.

  "The Core-Breaker," Jamal breathed, his face pressed against the grate.

  "It’s a tectonic needle," Rumani corrected, his eyes narrowing as he performed a Molecular Scan of the weapon. "It’s designed to pierce the city’s crust and inject a phase-shift pulse directly into the mantle. If they fire that, Providenc won't just sink. It will be erased from the geologic record."

  "We have to break it!" Jamal reached for the latch of the grating.

  "Wait," Rumani grabbed his wrist. His Oversight Senses had caught something the boy couldn't see. "The floor isn't guarded by men, Jamal. Look at the shadows."

  Beneath the "Core-Breaker," the air was shimmering. A web of Phase-Shift Lasers—invisible to the human eye but glowing like white-hot wires to Rumani—covered every inch of the floor. If a single dust mote broke those beams, the "Scorched Earth" protocol would trigger, vaporizing the foundry and everyone within a three-block radius.

  "I can't go down there as me," Rumani realized. "And I can't go down there as him without triggering the energy sensors."

  He looked at Jamal. The boy was small. He was light. And he didn't have a "Power Signature" that the sensors would recognize.

  "Jamal," Rumani said, his voice heavy with the gravity of the choice. "I need you to be the ghost you said you were. I’m going to guide you through the web. I'll tell you exactly where to step, but if you miss by a millimeter, we both vanish."

  As Jamal dropped from the vent onto the foundry floor, a low, hissing sound echoed through the chamber. The Phase-Shift Lasers didn't just detect movement; they acted as a delivery system for a Neuro-Amnesic Vapor. It was a scentless, heavy gas designed by the Aether-Marrow Group to ensure that any unauthorized intruder who survived the facility would leave with no memory of its interior.

  Up in the vents, Rumani saw the mist rising. His Oversight Senses immediately identified the compound. It was targeting the boy's short-term synaptic links.

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  "Jamal, stay low," Rumani whispered into the boy’s ear-piece.

  But as the gas filled Jamal’s lungs, the boy’s eyes glazed over. The terrifying reality of the 30x scale foundry began to shift in his mind. The rusted girders became vibrant, ink-drawn panels; the buzzing of the machinery turned into onomatopoeia bubbles like BZZZT and WHIRRR. To Jamal, this wasn't a death trap anymore. He was inside the latest issue of Omnihero.

  "Whoa," Jamal murmured, his voice echoing in the vast space. "The graphics are... amazing."

  Rumani knew he had seconds before the boy’s memory of the "Bank Teller" was erased entirely. If he stayed in the vents as Rumani, Jamal would forget him, but might wander into a laser and die. If he became the hero, the gas would ensure Jamal remembered it only as a dream or a comic plot.

  He stepped back into the deepest shadow of the duct. In a silent flicker of absolute white, the Teleportative Overlay claimed him. The modest jacket and felt hat were replaced by the brilliant, ivory-white suit of the Smiling Anchor.

  Omnihero emerged from the vent, landing silently behind the boy.

  He used his Oversight Vision to project a faint, glowing trail of white light onto the floor—a path that bypassed every invisible laser. To Jamal, it looked like the "Action Path" in a video game.

  "Follow the light, Citizen," Omnihero said, his voice a resonant, calm hum that cut through the boy's fog.

  "Omnihero!" Jamal cheered, clenching his fists. "I knew you’d show up! Is this the part where we stop the Core-Breaker?"

  "Precisely," Omnihero replied, his gaze fixed on Agent Thorne in the control booth above. "But you have to be the one to pull the manual override. I have to hold the energy field steady."

  As Jamal skipped along the path of light, laughing at the "cool special effects" of the amnesic gas, Omnihero stood in the center of the web. He allowed the lasers to hit his suit. The Invincible tag flared, the white fabric absorbing the phase-shift energy and converting it into a low-frequency shield that protected Jamal from the worst of the memory-erasing vapor.

  The gas was working. In Jamal's mind, the image of "Rumani the Teller" was dissolving like sugar in water. By the time they left this foundry, Jamal would believe he had fallen asleep reading a comic book in an alleyway.

  But for Omnihero, the reality was still razor-sharp. He looked up at the booth. Thorne had noticed the energy surge. The mole was reaching for the alarm.

  "Thirteen minutes," Omnihero whispered, his eyes flaring with a cold, white fire.

  The atmosphere in the foundry was a toxic swirl of violet energy and the sweet, cloying scent of the amnesic vapor. To Jamal, the world was becoming a masterpiece of primary colors and bold outlines. He saw the Core-Breaker not as a weapon of mass extinction, but as a giant, shiny toy that needed a "Level 1" interaction.

  "I got it, Hero!" Jamal shouted, his voice echoing with a hollow, dream-like quality. "Just gotta pull the big red lever!"

  Omnihero stood as a pillar of white light in the center of the laser mesh. He was acting as a lightning rod, drawing the Phase-Shift beams into his own body to prevent them from slicing through the boy’s confused mind.

  Suddenly, the floor beneath the control booth hissed open. Four Industrial Golems—massive, 30x scale assembly units repurposed for combat—clanked into the light. Their "heads" were nothing more than swiveling sensor arrays, and their arms were high-pressure hydraulic hammers designed to crush granite.

  "S-Rank Minions!" Jamal cheered, unaware that a single swing from those machines would liquefy his bones. "Beat 'em up, Omnihero!"

  "Focus on the lever, Jamal!" Omnihero commanded.

  The first Golem lunged, its hydraulic fist whistling through the air. Omnihero didn't move from his spot; he couldn't leave the center of the mesh or the "light path" guiding Jamal would flicker and vanish.

  As the fist approached, Omnihero simply reached out with his left hand.

  The sound of the impact was a flat, heavy thud. Omnihero caught the hammer-fist in his palm. He didn't just stop it; he absorbed the kinetic vibration, turning the machine’s own momentum into a feedback loop. The Golem’s arm buckled, the reinforced steel folding like tin foil.

  "Nine minutes," Omnihero calculated.

  He couldn't use his full strength to shatter the machines—the shockwave would kill the boy and trigger the amnesic gas to ignite. He had to be surgical. While holding the first Golem in a dead-lock, he extended his right hand toward the other three. He fired a series of Low-Intensity Kinetic Beams, aiming for the oil-pressure valves in their joints.

  One by one, the Golems seized up, their joints freezing as Omnihero "welded" them from a distance.

  Above them, Agent Thorne was screaming into a comms unit, his face purple with rage. He realized the "teller" was gone and a god had taken his place. He slammed his hand onto the manual launch override.

  "If I can't have the data, Providenc can have the Void!" Thorne's voice boomed over the intercom.

  The Core-Breaker began to descend into its launch silo. The violet light at its tip turned a blinding, jagged white. The ground began to vibrate with a frequency that threatened to unmake the very foundation of the Old Foundry District.

  "Now, Jamal!" Omnihero shouted. "Pull it!"

  Jamal reached the lever. In his mind, this was the final panel of the comic book. He grabbed the handle with both hands and yanked downward with all his might.

  The sound of the override engaging was a massive, mechanical clunk. The violet light in the Core-Breaker died instantly. The skyscraper-sized needle stopped its descent, hanging precariously over the dark mouth of the silo.

  The amnesic gas reached its peak concentration. Jamal’s eyes rolled back, and he slumped against the lever, a peaceful smile on his face. He was finally "falling asleep" in his comic book world.

  Omnihero didn't waste a second. He moved with Sub-Sonic speed, catching the boy before he hit the floor. He looked up at Thorne in the booth. The mole was already fleeing toward a back exit, clutching a briefcase of stolen data.

  Omnihero had to choose: catch the traitor or get the boy to safety before the gas erased too much of his mind.