Months ago…
Smoke fills a corridor leading away from Deathrow, and a figure stalks through the smog. We see a poster taken on the breeze of Arcadia’s internal ventilation systems coming to rest at the feet of Nox. The poster reveals an advertisement for Doom Industries.
Nox scoffs through his gas mask, having just seen his old “friend’s” metal masked visage plastered on it, before his hand reaches down and picks it up.
Now…
We see the same poster now hanging on a wall in front of Nox as he stares intensely at it as he sits upon a chair in his labs. “They say true discoveries are made when you stand on the shoulders of giants. Men of science very seldom get to notoriety without using the work of another. You invent and create things based upon their work to advance your own.”
“You see these posters everywhere, all over Arcadia. It’s like they treat you as a god, Subbins, and I think you feel that you’ve gotten to where you are on your own.”
Nox gestures at the poster advertising Doom’s inventions. “You made quite a name for yourself, my friend. You built an empire for yourself while I was buried. Dead to the whole of Arcadia, so in my absence, what did you do? You took from me, and you built an empire based on my works. You profited and profiteered from my research.”
Nox grows enraged, stands, and kicks the chair he once sat on. “You would be nothing without me, my research, my schematics; you didn’t just stand upon the shoulders of giants like so many have. You stood up on the shoulders of the giant in our field, and you thought that because I was on Deathrow I would never find out. You thought you could make a fortune off the back of my work, and I would just let it be?”
Nox’s eyes draw to a focused squint. “Stubbins, you wouldn’t be drawing a breath without me, and I will readily admit that I attempted to reverse the act I took in saving your life by taking it when I eliminated the Pantheon in a blaze of my glory. However, you had to survive; in fact, you faked your own death…”
Nox cocks his head in begrudging approval. “Well done, for now. You’ve held me back for far too long, Stubbins, you’re an albatross around my neck, an anchor tied to my ass, and it’s time I did to you what I did to Luther Grimm…”
Nox reaches a hand out to a table behind him and produces a pistol. “I know it’s a bit primitive, but sometimes primitive is the only way to reach your resolutions. For too long, you’ve stood on this giant’s shoulders. It’s time I shrugged you off…”
*BANG!*
Nox aims and pulls the trigger, putting a hole dead-center through the forehead of Doom in the poster. “It’s time you realized we were never equals, while all of Arcadia watches you fall from my shoulders.”