Julius shoved his arm into the narrowing gap. The hatch clamped down, stopping dead against his forearm.

"Agh!"

Pain rippled through him as the pressure crushed bone and muscle. He felt the agonizing sensation of his arm on the verge of being torn free.

His vision swam.

Then Julius snarled and forced the blade forward.

Clang——!

Steel wedged into the seam. With a heave, he pried the hatch apart. The mechanism buckled at once.

The seal snapped back open just enough for him to rip his arm free. And with it, he grabbed Joachim.

With a heavy pull, he ripped Joachim out of the pod and hurled him down. Joachim's body slammed against the floor below as crystal fragments scattered across the ground.

The next moment, Julius slipped into the Knightframe and activated it at once. Systems flashed to life around him as his vision flooded with data.

His crimson pupils shifted to a deep azure glow the moment SIBYL came online, overlaying every status readout across the suit's interior.

Indeed, being directly involved in the Knightframe's development had been well worth it.

Back then, while assisting with its reengineering, Julius had discreetly injected SIBYL into the system.

The result was absolute control. Unparalleled access to every Knightframe ever created, all without a single soul realizing it.

Not even Isolde.

Perhaps she would scorn him for it. Julius had used SIBYL in the very way she never wanted it to be commercialized, and he had done so behind her back.

But that didn't matter.

In this life, Julius controlled SIBYL. Not the other way around.

"Did Father foresee this as well?"

Perhaps Johannes had anticipated that Julius would one day need to use the Knightframe. Perhaps that was why he had permitted its limited distribution to the USSR in the first place.

A contingency prepared long before Julius himself realized he would need it.

Julius felt the space inside the Knightframe slowly changing.

Vision distorted as the cockpit dissolved into abstraction. The world collapsed into a single retinal feed, a narrow peripheral view framed by falling data.

Then the interfaces formed.

Blue orbs materialized one by one.

"...."

One aligned with his right hand.

Another with his left.

Two more locked into place at his feet.

Each orb synchronized with his movements, as if translating his intent into motion.

The Knightframe had become an extension of his body.

Julius moved forward.

Crash——!

A wall of crystal erupted in front of him as the Knightframe's momentum carried through it. Shards blasted outward, fracturing across the floor.

Behind the debris, Joachim's body began to change.

His arm bent at an impossible angle. The joints folded the wrong way as his flesh mangled and reknit itself.

Muscles warped into translucent strands with growing crystal lattices. Bones elongated, sharpening into jagged supports rather than limbs.

His figure swelled.

Crystals bloomed from his spine, branching outward like malformed wings or antlers. His torso split and reformed. The ribs peeled open only to seal again under layers of glass.

What remained of his face cracked, one eye sinking into a crystalline socket while the other multiplied, refracted endlessly within the growth.

An anomaly given will. A malformed core of Glassheart evolution pushed past every limit, an SCP not meant to exist outside a containment chamber.

Julius ground his teeth.

The Knightframe surged forward.

Fist met fist.

Boom——!

The impact detonated through the chamber. The collision sent a concussive blast through the air, shattering observation glass and igniting broken conduits along the walls.

Fire blossomed.

Sparks flashed from above as exposed wiring caught in flames, racing along spilled fuel. Heat distorted the air, turning the facility into a living furnace.

Joachim's transformed arm slammed into the Knightframe again. Spikes erupted from his limb on impact, gouging into the mech's armor before snapping off and regrowing almost instantly.

The Knightframe staggered back a step.

Julius compensated at once, rerouting power through the orbs bound to his limbs. The suit responded like muscle. He drove an elbow into Joachim's torso and felt crystals shatter from the blow.

The flames roared higher.

The testing facility began to collapse. Steel beams slowly warped as heat and pressure mounted.

Bang——!

Something tore through the far wall.

From the smoke emerged another anomaly. Perhaps drawn by the commotion, it stepped into what remained of the testing facility.

Then another followed.

And another.

Anomalies spilled out one by one.

SCP-077 staggered forward first, its elongated spine dragging across the floor. Its body was partially phased between solidity and something less defined.

SCP-201 crawled out of a broken corridor next. Its torso had split into four segments, each rotating independently. Crystal growths pulsed along its surface like exposed organs.

SCP-319 descended from above, clinging to the ceiling with blade-like limbs. Its head was inverted, with its jaw opening vertically as shards dripped from its mouth.

More followed. Their presence warped the space around them.

The facility was no longer a laboratory, but a nest.

Flames licked higher as structural supports failed. The sound of alarms drowned out under the collective noise of crystal and distorted vocalizations.

At the center of it all was Julius, encased in the Knightframe, and facing Joachim's distorted figure as the anomalies closed in from every direction.

"We'll both die here anyway," Julius spat. "So who is it? Who is the second painter?!"

"Hahaha…!"

Joachim only laughed.

The sound was no longer human. His fractured form shuddered as the laughter spread.

"You still don't see it," Joachim said. "Even now."

Julius tightened his grip.

"Say the name."

"A name wouldn't help you," he replied. "Because you already know the idea."

Flames surged behind him as another anomaly slammed into the chamber wall. Shards rained down, embedding themselves into Joachim's body, only to be absorbed.

"The Second Painter doesn't need a face," Joachim continued. "He doesn't need recognition. He only needs a canvas."

"And you were the paint?"

Joachim grinned, what remained of his mouth splitting wider.

"I was the first layer."

The testing facility shook again, the roar of collapsing structures drowning out the alarms.

"Just say he didn't even give you his name."

"...That might be true."

Joachim sounded quite hurt. Or maybe it was just Julius's imagination.

"Perhaps I only ever spoke to his associate," he continued. "But that doesn't matter. I am the only outsider who truly recognizes his genius."

Bang——!

Their fists collided again.

"Calling him the Second Painter is an insult," Joachim went on. "A common misconception from fools who misunderstand him. He never wanted to lead Germany. Such small ambitions bore him."

Julius shoved forward, forcing Joachim back a step.

"And you think crossing the moons is some grand ideal? It's delusional."

Joachim laughed. "You're too narrow-minded to understand."

He swung again. Julius blocked it instantly.

"Technology that can escape our stellar cage," Joachim snarled, "is technology that surpasses everything this universe has to offer. And you call that madness?"

Fire surged higher around them. Anomalies screamed from the collapsing corridors.

Julius met Joachim's gaze.

"And what happens next?" he asked. "After you cross the moons. After you find yourself in another universe. What then?"

"What then?" Joachim scoffed. "You really are simple."

Bang——!

"By then, he will rebuild humanity as he sees fit. A clean slate. A new world. A new species, if necessary."

Julius shifted his stance.

"Humanity will be settled on another planet," Joachim continued. "One untouched. One untainted. And he will ensure that the plague, the rot festering within us now, never sees the light again."

"By erasing everyone who doesn't fit…"

Joachim's smile widened. "By perfecting them."

The flames roared louder.

"That's not salvation," Julius said. "That's genocide."

"...You have no right to say that to me," Joachim snarled. "Not you. Not a German. Not a rat who's never lived as a Glassheart."

Crystal elongated across his body as his rage spiked.

"You speak of humanity as if it ever belonged to us," Joachim continued. "We were born from their greed. Shaped by their cruelty. Studied. Cut apart and contained. And now you dare lecture me about morality?!"

Julius didn't look away.

"You're right," he said. "I am a hypocrite."

Joachim's lips curled.

"But that's fine," Julius continued. "As long as I get to exterminate every last one of your race."

Joachim's laughter cut short. "...You're not any better than me."

"No," Julius replied calmly. "I'm a lot worse."

The Knightframe's systems spiked. Blue light surged through its joints as power flooded into its limbs.

Around them, Zima-12 screamed as it died.

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