Pinned beneath Joachim's gigantic form, Julius found no room to move.

"If the suppression fields are still active," Joachim began, "then why do you think they haven't opened the exit yet?"

He leaned closer.

"Don't you find yourself asking that, Dimitri?"

Julius narrowed his eyes. The answer surfaced almost immediately.

"…They're washing their hands clean."

If the suppression fields were active, then the anomalies that had escaped should never have been able to approach the exit.

The surviving researchers were trapped there, but by all logic, that zone should have remained safe. There was no reason not to open the doors and let them out.

And yet, they remained sealed inside.

"They might be planning to nuke this place…"

Joachim let out a dry laugh. "Right? I doubt there's anyone left behind that door at all. We've all been abandoned here. Hahaha…!"

The laughter echoed strangely in the space swallowed by fire.

Julius turned his gaze to where Yuliya was.

"...."

…Or where she had once been.

What remained was a headless researcher in a white coat. Blood sprayed across the floor and walls.

There was no sign of Yuliya at all.

The remaining researchers had either fled or were already dead. But in the first place, there was nowhere left to hide in Zima-12 since the facility was burning from the inside out.

Julius's vision narrowed.

For a brief second, everything went quiet.

"…I see."

Whatever chance there had been to pull her out, to shield her behind the Knightframe, wasn't possible anymore.

Julius clenched his fist.

"Looks like you were too late," Joachim said. "Funny, isn't it? A Directorate dog like you trying to save someone from the USSR. Those Schneiders, or whatever, wouldn't have left you alive. The head of that family is an absolute psycho."

Julius met his gaze. "Julius."

"What?"

"Julius Sebastian Schneider. That's who I am."

For a single second, Joachim froze.

The pressure pinning Julius down slackened, just enough, and that was all he needed.

Julius moved his torso and drove an elbow into the joint of Joachim's arm. Joachim stumbled back.

Julius rolled to his feet and rose.

Joachim stared at him, then burst into laughter.

"Haha… I see now. This makes it all the more worthwhile. You were the bastard killing all of my—"

He never finished the sentence.

Julius moved.

His fist shot forward in an instant, so fast it felt less like displacement. The impact crushed the air between them. Joachim was sent flying before Julius caught him mid-motion and dragged his torso across the concrete.

Sparks erupted as crystal scraped against concrete and steel.

Julius slammed Joachim down.

Crash——!

His fist came down again.

Bang!

Again.

Bang! Bang! Bang! Bang!

The Knightframe's arm pistoned down as if it were autonomous. Shockwaves spread out through the floor as cracks shattered outward.

Bang! Bang! Bang! Bang! Bang!

Joachim tried to raise an arm.

Bang!

It shattered on contact.

Pulverized under relentless force, the crystalline armor peeled away piece by piece. Joachim's laughter devolved into gasps, then into broken sounds he could no longer form into words.

Bang! Bang! Bang!

Julius's expressions didn't change.

His fist descended again and again, driving Joachim deeper into the ruined floor. The concrete slowly formed into a crater beneath them. Crystals burst like glass under a hammer.

Bang! Bang! Bang! Bang! Bang!

At some point, Joachim stopped resisting.

At some point, the body pinned beneath Julius stopped moving.

But he didn't stop.

Only when the Knightframe's sensors registered no further structural response did he finally pull his fist back.

Julius slowly rose.

Smoke drifted around him. Flames roared within his vicinity as the Knightframe stood over what remained of Joachim.

Julius looked down one last time.

Then he grabbed Joachim's ruined body and hurled it into the fire.

What followed was not a battle, but total annihilation.

Inside Zima-12, Julius slaughtered every SCP creature in existence.

Those roaming the halls were crushed. Those still sealed in containment were executed just the same.

There was no mercy, distinction, or deviation. One by one, the anomalies, or Glasshearts that had yet to be experimented on, were erased until nothing remained capable of moving.

Blood coated the Knightframe's exterior. Metal plates were hanging loosely due to the sustained damage. Fuel levels warned red across the interface.

Julius ignored them all.

With a final surge, the Knightframe charged the exit.

The reinforced barrier shattered under impact. A massive hole blew open at once.

And beyond it awaited silence.

The facility on the other side was empty.

"...."

Indeed, everyone who was trapped inside had already been abandoned.

Julius stepped out of the facility and moved. The sound of helicopters thrummed overhead. He pushed the Knightframe forward until it could no longer sustain itself as the last of its fuel drained away.

The machine finally ground to a halt.

Julius exited the Knightframe and continued on foot, leaving the dead metal behind.

He pressed on through the cold until the outlines of a nearby village emerged ahead of him.

Julius stopped before one of the houses and knocked.

"Ah, yes?"

The door opened just enough.

Julius slit the man's throat before a second word could form. He caught the body as it collapsed and stepped inside, pulling the door shut behind him.

The house fell silent as he invited himself in.

* * *

The exertion of pushing the Knightframe to its absolute limit had caught up to him.

His limbs felt as though they were being torn apart from the inside. Whatever artificial support the Knightframe had provided was gone, leaving only exhaustion behind.

Being forced to travel on foot through the northern cold only worsened it. The already frigid climate drained what little strength he had left.

By the time he could no longer move, fever had taken hold.

For days, Julius fell in and out of consciousness, burning hot under the blankets of someone else's home.

A week later, having recovered just enough to move, Julius left the village without a word.

A month passed.

By then, he was back in the city.

Under the rattling lights of a subway station, Julius pulled his cap lower and opened a locker tucked away at the far end of the platform. Inside was a phone he had hidden there a year ago.

He stared at it for a moment before turning it on and making the call.

"Yes," he said. "I'll be waiting."

A few days later, Julius was smuggled out of the USSR.

After layers of procedures, erased records, and silent transfers, he finally returned to Germany.

Dimitri Ilya Mikhailov was officially pronounced dead in Zima-12, along with forty other researchers.

The stated cause was a catastrophic narrative of failures within the facility's containment systems, followed by an uncontrollable internal fire.

By then, Zima-12 was shut down for good.

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