Virginia oversees the planned drop of the Nucleus but a particle beam melts the exit shaft, killing power and superheating the interior. Amid rising heat and panic, Holiday secures Sophocles while armored Lions force Virginia into an emergency lift. Oro, unarmored, burns as Holiday fails to pull him in before the doors seal. The lift stalls; Minotaur forces below force Virginia’s team to exit upward into Bastion One.

In darkened corridors with power cut by Votum Greens, Virginia’s Lions fight a running, cloaked retreat, using doors and local systems while evading converging Votum and Apollonius’s Martian veterans. Traps and mines thin their numbers; Arminius dies suddenly. Holiday’s scouts report shaft D appears clear, and interrogation reveals Kavax lives with a broken back, sent to the rear as a prize.

At the tank garages, Holiday’s drone spots cold anomalies and a hidden stasis field lining shaft D: an Apollonius trap. Virginia rejects surrender broadcast by Cicero au Votum and plans to seize a high-value prisoner to trade for Kavax. They lace the lift mouth with nanowire, fake a retreat, and incinerate the opening; charging Golds are sliced apart, and the Lions pivot to concentrate fire.

Apollonius storms their formation. A net briefly snares him and a shieldDome isolates him with eight Lions. In brutal close-quarters, Virginia spears his knee; Holiday blocks a killing stroke, then tries a misericord. Apollonius uses his horn to stab Holiday and thrashes free as Glaucus punches rounds through his helm. The misericord proves a dud.

Apollonius boots them into the dome as his men press outside. A grenade rolls under the shield, detonates, and breaks the containment. As the largest figure rises amid stunned Lions, Virginia aborts the capture and orders a retreat, abandoning the chance to secure Apollonius despite wounding him.