The ice cold water seemed to be good for something, as it helped to numb the pain, yet soon all that begin to fill Alan’s mind was the desperate need for air. Portions of his vision were beginning to swim in and out of focus. Eve was yelling something at him, yet he was finding it difficult to focus on her words. It was a struggle to force his arms to move upwards, every motion pure agony.

Yet he pushed onwards.

And then, almost miraculously, Alan surfaced. He took a deep breath, coughing up water. Somehow, he managed to stay afloat, the power armor set to some special mode by Eve. It hurt too much to think about it. Alan had somehow been blown all the way to beneath the far side of the bridge.

He slowly made his way to a rocky outcrop beneath a cliff. Using his upper body, Alan forced himself onto the rocks, collapsing in a heap of pain, shutting his eyes, trying to ignore it all. His backpack had been lost in the water, but his knife was still in a side compartment, and Alan had a few pain reliever pills from the med-kit stashed in another pocket, placed there after the previous battle. Avoiding looking at his legs, he took the pills out and swallowed a handful. A minute passed, and Eve's words finally made it to him.

OPEN YOUR EYES. LOOK TOWARDS THE CITY.

Wearily, Alan forced himself to sit up and did so, widening his eyes in surprise at the sight he saw. The fog had been blown away completely, revealing complete devastation in its wake. A crater had formed, nearly a mile in diameter, centered at where the bunker had once been. All of the surrounding buildings in the immediate vicinity had been flattened by the impact, including the fort, the force that pushed Alan backwards a miniature tsunami that had crashed into the cliffs behind him. Fortunately, it looked like the Golden Gate Bridge and most of the city was unaffected. All that earthquake reinforcement paid off.

The object had hit close enough to the coastline that the landing had created a deep hole in the cliff line, allowing Alan to look directly into the middle of the smoking pit. Staring as the smoke slowly drifted away, Alan was surprised to find that at the center of the crater there was a humanoid figure, on one knee. The Predecessor.

An over 10 foot tall behemoth, the Predecessor wore no armor except for a belt and a pair of shorts made out of some sort of dark leather. Despite being a member of an elder race, it looked remarkably savage and uncivilized, wielding no advanced technology as far as Alan could see. The Predecessor appeared to be a hairless humanoid, bulging muscles with bits of black pieces of metal embedded into its dark skin.

After staring at the Predecessor for a few moments, Eve sent: