Port Podesta
Port District - East Arterial Road
Alarms, explosions, and the shriek of tearing metal blend into one chaotic roar.
From the core, a cold blue luminescence seeps outward, washing over barricades and the ash-darkened faces of the living.
Within that light, shapes emerge. The dead from Port Podesta's past, brought back by Tavis.
Some have already lost their human shells. Beneath them, the raw Red Tide Projections flicker and pulse.
Nngghhh...
A splitting pain tears through Wynne's head.
Wynne!
A crimson glow leaks from the young woman's injuries. She clamps a hand over her chest and sets her jaw.
No... not yet...
I didn't come here... to drag everyone back...
I'm not going back!
With trembling fingers, she takes hold of her weapon.
If I turn into one of them... Crassus...
I know...
Faces that time should have taken long ago now drift in the cold light, their flesh half-rotted, their eyes empty.
They look at these faces and remember the names that used to belong to them.
CLANG!!
A hard metallic crack tears through the stillness.
Crassus heaves his axe and drives the ambushing Corrupted into the iron scaffolding by the road.
Snap out of it! All of you!!
His shout hits the street like a hammer blow.
You want to mourn? You want to grieve? Fine, save it for when we're not fighting for our lives!
Port Podesta is under our feet... And the whole world is watching!
Wynne forces her battered frame upright.
Pick up your weapons! Hold the line!
This is our city! Our Port Podesta!
More figures emerge from the haze.
Rebar. Rain. The sharp clang of metal on metal.
On this street, they have already given their answer about life and death.
Port Podesta
Tidal Hub
You're back, Helentine.
The harsh screech of grinding metal drags through the empty central corridor.
The man before her is now fully encased in a battle suit, his face barely visible.
Many years ago, outside your mother's hospital room... you had that same look on your face, Helentine.
...I remember it clearly.
I'm not here to relive the old days, Father.
Everything Port Podesta has suffered... this is the only way to atone for it all.
...
You're just drowning in your own past.
If you had the chance right in front of you to undo it all. Would you turn away?
If you were still the Helentine you used to be, I don't think you would.
Tavis let out a sigh.
Most of humanity's regrets come from one thing: the inevitability of death.
Death always slips beyond our grasp, leaving behind a void in our lives...
This world has failed too many people. It owes them an answer.
And I will lead humanity past death itself. I will bring about a miracle...
Something even Dominik never achieved...
You don't have the right to decide for Port Podesta, or for anyone.
Regret always comes too late, Helentine.
Tavis shakes his head.
If someone told you that you could feel your mother's arms around you one more time... that you could hear Ophelia call your name again...
Would you say no?
I won't make that choice for them.
Only because they never had one. But if they did...
No.
The young woman cuts him off.
The dead wouldn't want the living to stand still.
Open your eyes. Look at Port Podesta. Look at what it's become.
Tavis, is this really the Port Podesta you wanted?
...
Do you have any idea how many people we could save if our research were made public? Open your eyes, Marco. Look at what's happening in Port Podesta!
Is this the Golden Age you wanted?
These words are old. He heard them many years ago.
You always make things sound so simple.
I've been to a lot of places these years.
Battlefields. Ruins. Graves.
She pauses.
I've seen cities swallowed by the Punishing Virus. And I've seen people pull children from the rubble of those cities.
Death takes a lot from us. But the ones who survive still keep moving forward.
She lifts her gaze to Tavis.
It's because I've been through all of that... that I'm standing here now.
Port Podesta shouldn't be a tomb. Even if that tomb holds everyone you've ever loved.
Tavis gives a cold laugh. The blue light on his suit pulses on and off.
Heh...
You're not the only one in this world who lives with regret, Father.
If you truly understand regret, then you should be trying to change it.
Once death itself is conquered, there'll be no divide between the living and the dead. You'll understand then.
After all... you are my "daughter," too.
His fingers find his battle suit's panel and press a sequence of keys.
From somewhere deep in the hub, blue light begins to bleed outward.
Like a rising tide, it washes over the ground, up the walls, across every inch of metal beneath their feet.
Countless tiny specks of light begin to drift in the air.
They pull toward one another, gathering, tracing silhouette after silhouette.
A shame... I had hoped you would stand beside me to see it.
Commandant...!
Helentine tightens her grip on the buzzsaw.
The weapon roars to life, sparks flying from its teeth as she walks toward her father.
Years severed by death, stretched by regret, and forcibly stitched together by obsession now collide at last.
One seeks to haul the past back from the ruins into the land of the living. The other has learned that those who truly live can only carry the weight of irreversible loss and keep walking.
Even the scent of mourning flowers must finally shatter in the clash of steel.
