Singularity Cloister, Nexuscape – Time… Infinite.
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Schrödinger, the Writer, hummed a soft tune as he tucked the twins into their crib. Both were fast asleep. The first twin stirred in her slumber, accidentally kicking the second—Alice—who retaliated with a sleepy smack from her mittened hand. Schrödinger smiled faintly. He closed the nursery door behind him and left the automaton nurse to watch over the sleeping infants.
He walked slowly down the polished corridor, then paused. Drawing a pocket watch—its casing etched with intricate astronomical mechanics—he adjusted the dial. The surrounding space shimmered, reality folding into itself. A door emerged from the wall. Without hesitation, he stepped through.
Beyond the threshold stood a central platform humming with arcane machinery—an exquisite fusion of clockwork precision and modern circuitry. The device was a triumph of mechanical and electrical innovation: rotors mounted on a spindle, their brass pins and circular contacts representing the alphabet. Each rotor bore Roman numerals and, when aligned, connected via spring-loaded pins to create intricate electrical conduits. A plugboard with interchangeable wiring, inscribed with Greek letters, protruded at the front. Beneath its surface lay layers of crystal regulators, RF amplifiers, and meticulously calibrated circuits.
The room dissolved into an opulent grand hall, like one might find in a baroque mansion—but he knew the House's shifting nature well enough to avoid getting lost in its labyrinthine geometry.
He proceeded into the sprawling greenhouse. There, he tended to a cosmic garden, its foliage glowing in pearlescent whites and iridescent colours. These were no ordinary plants—their roots reached across solar systems, through galaxies, and into the very framework of the multiverse.
As he pruned and watered the celestial flora, his eyes caught a thread of flame winding through the branches of the tallest tree. He fetched his tools and a ladder. With precision, he plucked silken cocoons from the limbs while an automaton assistant held a tray beneath him. Once gathered, the cocoons were poured into a cauldron of boiling aether—its fire sourced from a supernova suspended in stasis.
Using tongs, the Writer extracted strands of Psyche’s Silk and set them out to dry. Only then did he realise he'd forgotten to remove his top hat upon arriving. With a weary sigh, he placed it on a nearby workstation.
Suddenly, a flare of brilliant light burst behind him. He turned—just in time to see the World Tree splintering, its branches rupturing the very fabric of time and space.
A blaring alarm echoed through the greenhouse. Tremors shook the foundations of the Singularity Cloister. Red emergency glyphs blinked into existence, and a holographic screen erupted with warnings:
"UNKNOWN INTRUDER BREACHED CONTROL. WARNING! INFRASTRUCTURE DAMAGE DETECTED IN NURSERY!"
The Writer dashed into the hall. Retrieving his cane from the umbrella stand, he adjusted the mechanism on his pocket watch once more. Space warped violently. The grand hall twisted into the ruined nursery.
The automaton nurse was reduced to mangled scrap. The crib—empty. The twins were gone.
Another alert blared:
"UNAUTHORISED AKASHIC RECORD ENTRY DETECTED!"
The Writer twisted the watch a third time and drew a concealed blade from within his cane. The room shifted again—this time into the chamber he used to traverse between Bundles. Where once had been a calm, starlit void now swirled a chaotic vortex of fragmented realities. The domed, transparent ceiling had shattered, allowing an infectious luminous sheen to spill inward like a spreading virus.
In the centre of the room stood a man, his eyes fixed on the spiralling firmament above. Symbols, equations, and ancient hieroglyphs twisted like smoke, dancing in the air around him.
“What have you done with the twins?!” the Writer cried, his voice a mixture of panic and fury. He advanced toward the man.
No answer.
“Answer me, Arthur!” he barked, losing what patience he had left. He clenched his fist, half-ready to strike his son. “You know the law—we Sephiroth must never access the Akashic Record, regardless of curiosity or obsession! What you’ve done to the Nexuscape borders on annihilation. You’ve opened a door to something unknowable. Now tell me—where are the twins, or I will strike you down where you stand!”
Arthur exhaled a slow sigh. “To access the Akashic Record, I had to offer something precious in exchange,” he said calmly. “I don’t own anything of value. You’ve said it yourself—I’m a selfish, heartless bastard.”
He turned to face his father. “So I gave them. I offered my twins to the Record. Threw them into the Spiral.” He chuckled. “Honestly, it was like flushing them down a cosmic toilet.”
The Writer struck him, but Arthur only staggered.
“You are a heartless bastard,” the Writer growled. “And your wives were no better—leeches, all of them. What do you have to say for yourself?”
Arthur raised his hand. The room twisted again, its architecture distorting into impossible geometries. “I no longer follow the laws of the Narrative,” he said, eyes glowing with unnatural light. “I write my own. And you—will obey me. I am Enigma.”
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90-60 Union Turnpike, Glendale, Queens, NY, USA – February 14, 2023 | 00:00 A.M. ...
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The Apartment29Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ26W0Xp5X57
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The apartment trembled from the force of Sievernich’s punch. Ceramics shattered, picture frames rattled on the walls. Brimstone checked the time on a rusted pocket watch adorned with intricate astronomical mechanisms. The hands had been frozen for several minutes—but now, they began ticking again. He exhaled deeply, rising from his chair.
Leaving his office, he passed through a corridor where injured Paradox rebels were being tended to by medics. Moans, groans, and the antiseptic scent of trauma filled the air, but Brimstone paid no attention. His purpose lay elsewhere.
He summoned the elevator. When it arrived with a subdued ding, he stepped inside. Despite the tremors still reverberating through the structure, he reached his destination floor without incident. The hallway was lined with guards, each one radiating discipline and latent violence. They saluted as he walked past. He stopped at the sixth door on the right—Room 306. Two guards disengaged the magnetic lock and let him in.
The room buzzed with flickering fluorescent lights. The air was thick with suspicion and exhaustion. Two Paradox Movement guards stood rigid in the corners like mannequins in combat gear. A dented metal table dominated the centre. Remy sat with arms crossed, wiry and tense. Ramona leaned slightly forward, her gaze sharp yet tired.
Brimstone dragged a chair backward, flipped it, and straddled it with the ease of someone who'd done this a thousand times. He threw his boots onto the table and folded his hands in front of him with a mockingly relaxed air.
"I take it you both had a bumpy ride?" he said.
Remy’s lips curled in irritation. “Cut the bullshit. What the hell do you want with us?”
Brimstone snapped his fingers. One of the guards stepped forward and handed him a thick, dog-eared folder. Brimstone opened it with theatrical ease.
“Remy Claremont. Son of Harlan Claremont—hedge fund vampire and offshore property hoarder. Military school dropout. Sealed drug charges. Failed anger management. Six months juvenile detention for breaking a cadet’s jaw with a rifle butt.”
“He deserved it,” Remy muttered.
“Oh, I’m not judging,” Brimstone replied. “I admire a man who doesn't flinch. But selling M-17s to the Gremlin Spires gang in the Bronx? That was bold.”
“We were trying to survive,” Remy shot back.
“How noble.” Brimstone’s tone dripped with sarcasm. “Now—Ramona Perkins. No silver spoon for you. Single father, alcoholic. Police visits more frequent than dinner. Then one night, a break-in upstate, a teenage girl ends up dead. No prints. A forged school record and, somehow, a transfer to West Point... the same week Remy appears.”
“I didn’t mean to kill her,” Ramona said quietly, coldly. “It was an accident.”
“But you didn’t walk away from the life, did you?” Brimstone continued. “You and Remy—black market prodigies. Sly. Mobile. Unpredictable. Then, poof—NIX Corp steps in. New names. Clean slates. In exchange?”
He closed the folder, leaning forward.
“You hunted down Elizabeth Starling.”
“We did what the contract demanded. We didn’t know who she really was,” Ramona replied.
“They said she stole data from NIX and hid in the MAD. Said she was planning to sell it to the wrong people,” Remy added.
“And you believed them? A company whose salvation plan involves selling nuclear prosthetics to crime syndicates?” Brimstone scoffed. “Rather ironic—coming from two arms dealers.”
“We believed in escape,” Ramona snapped. “We were kids, covered in blood. They offered us a way out. No questions asked. We kept our heads down. Did our part. They did theirs.”
“So you tracked her through the Stranding Fields. Earned her trust. Took her necklace. Made by her late little sister.”
A pause.
“We were supposed to kill her...” Ramona said, voice lowering. “But I couldn’t. She seemed... kind. He voted to do it. I didn’t.”
“You think I wanted to?” Remy growled, eyes narrowing.
“Seven years,” Brimstone said, drawing the tension taut. “And now you’re here. Thank you for confirming her death. But I don’t think NIX just sent you to kill her. I think they wanted you to retrieve something.”
“What?” Ramona asked, confused.
Brimstone slid two photographs across the table. One showed Elizabeth Starling in her lab coat. The other—a girl, older now, eyes different. Alice. Alive.
Remy stared, stunned. “That’s not possible.”
“Oh, it is,” Brimstone replied. “It’s likely she psychically embedded a failsafe—some mechanism to ensure you both misremembered her appearance. And now she’s angry. Which is very bad for all of us. My fault, actually.”
He reclined, casually confident.
“So—I suggest a collaboration.”
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Union Turnpike Street29Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡFnl0kXwFBx
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Sievernich slammed into Zeus, sending the Machine God skidding down the rain-slicked road. Zeus corrected his trajectory mid-air, taking Sievernich with him, blasting skyward into the troposphere. From above, Zeus strikes Sievernich with a devastating punch , he plunged back down like a meteor, that embedded him deep into the concrete below. Without pause, Zeus transformed into a bolt of lightning, slamming down onto Sievernich’s torso. The impact made the titan reel—but the assault was abruptly interrupted.
Two figures crashed into Zeus from opposite directions: Lucy and Tetsuo.
Rain lashed the battlefield in violent sheets. Nearby, the scorched corpse of Starling smouldered in the centre of the street.
Tetsuo’s chokutō morphed into a Swiss-army-style switchblade. He brought down his M.J.O.L.N.I.R.—upon Zeus, but it phased harmlessly through the god's flickering form.
In retaliation, Zeus unleashed a cascade of lightning. Tetsuo activated his Constellation, vanishing milliseconds before impact—barely escaping incineration.
Lucy, manipulating gravity, levitated wrecked cars and spun them around Zeus in a cyclone of twisted steel. The crushing force ground against his body—until, with a sudden eruption of energy, Zeus exploded. The blast flung Tetsuo, Lucy, and Sievernich in all directions. Zeus’s severed head hit the asphalt, rolling with a hollow clang.
But the threat was far from over.
Sparks erupted from the detached head. Bolts of electricity surged outward, pulling molten debris from destroyed vehicles to reform Zeus's body. His arm reshaped into a railgun, and he fired a shot directly at Sievernich. The beam seared into his chest, sending him skidding across the pavement. His invulnerability absorbed the damage, but not without visible strain.
Lucy drove a blade into Zeus’s back. He twisted unnaturally, seized her by the head, and hurled her through a second-storey apartment window with bone-breaking force.
Tetsuo and Sievernich engaged Zeus in brutal close-quarters combat. Tetsuo sliced off Zeus’s limbs with surgical precision before they could regenerate. Sievernich followed up with a series of pummelling blows, then tore the Machine God in half with raw, violent strength.
For a moment, it seemed they'd won.
Another lightning strike detonated overhead, irradiating the entire block. Sievernich dropped to his knees, coughing and trembling, while Tetsuo remained barely standing, eyes dim.
From above, an arrow struck Zeus in the chest—then detonated, disrupting his core. Lucy, now perched on a shattered window frame, dove down and drove Excalibur through Zeus’s midsection.
"Freeze!" she shouted through the storm.
A holographic interface blinked to life over her eyes: "RULER Ability Activated."
Time halted. The rain froze midair. Zeus stopped, encased in suspension.
Breathing hard, Lucy stepped back, then hurried over to Tetsuo.
"Hey... you okay?"
“Nope,” Tetsuo gritted, pain wracking his body as his Constellation overheated. His cells fought to regenerate faster than his nerves could handle.
Reinforcements poured from the apartment complex—rebels of the Paradox Movement. They encircled Zeus’s immobilised form, while others gathered survivors and led them inside. One rebel reversed the spatial entropy within the local supermarket, restoring its destroyed contents to a half-functioning state.
Sievernich regenerated, approaching one of the rebels—Raphael. “What took you so long?”
“We were waiting for Brimstone to give the green light,” Raphael replied, shaking his head. “Some of our supply caches are gone. We’ll need more resources if we want to save the rest of the survivors.”
Behind them, a burst of energy flared—Zeus was beginning to move again. Sparks traced over his suspended body, threatening to shatter the time-lock.
The rebels drew their phasers, backing away cautiously.
“Will it hold?” Tetsuo asked, voice laced with tension.
“It will,” Lucy assured—right before blood poured from her nose and she collapsed.
The suspension shattered. Zeus was free once more.
“Fire!” Sievernich roared.
The rebels opened fire. Projectiles struck Zeus in rapid succession—stunning, but not destroying him. He summoned a photon-saber and lunged forward, cutting through the barrage.
Sievernich caught the blade inches from a rebel’s neck.
“You’re strong, young man,” Zeus said, pressing forward. “But it won’t be enough to stop me from fulfilling my wish.”
Sievernich planted his feet and roared back. “Recharge—and keep firing!”
Tetsuo hoisted Lucy onto his back and sprinted toward the apartment building.
Inside, the makeshift triage centre was overflowing. Tetsuo scanned the chaos, frantic. Lucy’s breathing had grown shallow.
“Sir—need assistance?” a man asked calmly, just finishing with another patient.
“Yes—please! I don’t know what to do!”
“Lay her here,” the man instructed. He adjusted Lucy’s position, shone a penlight into her eyes, then unlocked a diagnostic Gizmo. A wave of data scrolled across his screen.
“She’s suffering from Morpheus Particle overload. If I don’t administer an adrenaline burst, she’ll slip into a regenerative coma.”
“Do it.”
The man solved a code-lock on his Gizmo and retrieved a syringe pen. He injected the serum into Lucy’s spine.
Her body went rigid. Then—with a gasp—her eyes snapped open.
“You’ll need to rest,” the man said gently. “No Constellation use for at least a week.”
“Thank you, Doctor…?” Tetsuo asked.
“Buchanan. But call me Bart.”
Bart smiled kindly—but paused as he saw the look on Tetsuo’s face, as if the young rebel had seen a ghost.
“No! Don’t go out there!” a girl shouted from across the room.
Autumn chased two children toward the exit. Adults tried to stop them but hesitated near the conflict outside.
Bart crouched beside Autumn, offering a wrapped candy. “A gift, my liege.”
She accepted it without hesitation.
“What about me?” Georgie pouted.
“Candy is reserved for our radiant princess,” Bart replied playfully.
“Can you tell me what happened?” Bart asked gently.
“Those strange kids ran back into the warzone,” a teenage boy said unhelpfully.
“They’re not strange!” Autumn snapped.
“They look like they stepped out of Schindler’s List,” another teen chimed in. “Unless they’re cosplaying…”
“Blake, Meg, please back me up—they’re not weird, right?” Autumn turned to her gothic-dressed sister, Meg, who hesitated.
“I didn’t even get to make my wish because of pipsqueak over there,” the jock Gordon growled, glaring at Georgie.
“Hey! It wasn’t his fault!” Blake said, shielding his brother.
“Seriously? Wishing on a genie? That’s textbook disaster,” another teen girl scoffed.
“Can we please help my friends?!” Autumn’s voice cut through the noise.
Gordon knelt, face solemn. “Kid... they’re probably already dust.”
Autumn broke into tears. “It’s all my fault…”
Meg pulled her sister into a hug. “What is wrong with you?” she hissed at Gordon.
“I didn’t mean it like that. I just thought you were cool kids with cool older siblings…” Gordon muttered, retreating.
“Georgie, why did you tell them about the Djinn?” Meg snapped.
“I’m sorry…” he mumbled.
“Great. Now I’ll never get my sexy vampire girlfriend,” Gordon whined.
“Watch your mouth!” Freddie snapped. “My siblings are here!”
Teenagers shook their heads. Autumn suddenly stood up.
“That’s what my friends are trying to do! They’re making a wish!”
She bolted for the door. Tetsuo caught her mid-sprint, and she squealed.
“Sorry, civilians can’t be on the battlefield,” he said, passing her to Meg.
“But we have to help!”
“I’ll help your friends,” he promised.
“Pinkie promise?”
Tetsuo blinked at the strange gesture. Bart nodded encouragingly, mimicking the motion.
Tetsuo finally linked pinkies. “Yes. I promise.”
Tetsuo burst out of the apartment in a blur. The battlefield sprawled before him—chaotic and filled with destruction. Paradox rebels unleashed heavy-duty artillery on Zeus, while Sievernich launched a barrage of devastating attacks, leaving the god-like entity with no chance to recover. The rebels held the line as long as they could, but their resources were nearly spent.
Amid the chaos, unnoticed by most, two children crouched beside Starling’s corpse. They whispered to each other, a blood-stained knife in hand.
“Excuse me,” Tetsuo called out urgently, “I know this is a lot for children to handle, but you need to get to the shelter.”
They stared at him blankly, as if his words didn’t register. Another explosion rocked the area.
Tetsuo immediately threw himself in front of them, shielding their small bodies from the shrapnel. A piece as large as a floorboard impaled his arm. He hissed, mentally cursing, and slowly began extracting the debris so his body could initiate healing.
But as he removed the largest fragment, the girl seized his bleeding arm and hovered it over Starling’s mouth. The boy gently opened her jaw.
Blood dripped in.
Nothing happened—until it did.
Suspense tightened around Tetsuo like a vice. Then Starling’s eyes shot open.
The scream that followed echoed across several city blocks. Zeus, Sievernich, and the rebels all stopped mid-action, staring in the direction of the sound with expressions that read the same: What the hell was that?
Inside the triage unit of the apartment, Lucy groaned and clutched her forehead. “What the hell was that noise? My head’s splitting.”
A patient beside her muttered, “Dunno. Maybe a Void found a flat raccoon.”
Meanwhile, Bart turned to Autumn, worry etched into his face. “What did you mean by ‘what your friend’s trying to do’?”
Autumn, chewing on the last of a candy given to her by the medic, replied matter-of-factly, “They’re feeding blood to the crispy girl with cool powers.”
Bart blinked. “Wait—you’re saying that thirteen-year-old’s a vampire?! That’s not what I wished for when I found that genie!”
Gordon voiced his frustration nearby. His friend simply replied, “That’s karma,” before giving him a light slap on the back of the head.
Then midnight cracked open.
An eclipse lit the dark sky. Everyone who could still walk rushed to the windows.
The street transformed—glass tiles rippled beneath rainfall, neural energy firing along the surface like circuitry. The ground reflected the cosmos itself.
Out of the haze walked a figure—shocking pink trainers striking against the glowing path. She approached the towering form of Zeus.
“You’ve granted wishes,” she said, voice calm amidst the silence. “You’ve torn this world apart for them. But what about you?”
She stepped forward. “What do you wish for?”
Zeus hesitated.
She continued softly, quoting, “What you wish for in youth, you have in age... but it is a ghost.”
Time resumed.
“Thorn, give me the Book of Life,” Zeus commanded, marching toward her.
Starling, now fully transformed into an adult, stood firm. Her outfit had changed—a purple, space-dyed T-shirt tucked into high-waisted blue jeans. Only her trainers remained the same.
“I would’ve,” she snapped, “if you hadn’t fried me to a crisp. You ruined my favourite sweatshirt.”
“Then I’ll take it by force.”
Zeus lunged, slamming her into the pavement—only to find her suddenly seated atop a supermarket roof, completely unscathed.
Then it hit him.
His body buckled under a crushing, unseen pressure. Thorned vines burst from his mechanical frame, and the elemental forces he controlled—weather and wishcraft—recoiled.
Starling reappeared in front of him.
She lifted her left arm, twisted her wrist—and snapped it with a sickening pop. Calmly, she drew a blade from within her forearm like unsheathing a sword.
Tetsuo’s jaw slackened. “Her bones are made of M.J.O.L.N.I.R?!”
Everyone instinctively stepped back.
Starling sliced through Zeus. His form dispersed like mist—but to his horror, he couldn’t regenerate.
Her attacks were precise, vicious. She drove the blade’s tip into him, hurling his body across the battlefield. He crashed through a building.
Enraged, he fired a railgun blast. Starling merely raised her hand, flicking the projectile aside as if extinguishing a candle.
A diversion.
Zeus detonated a third nuke. Sievernich shielded his team, conjuring a cathedral-like projection. Tetsuo gathered the children and fled back into the apartment, nearly tripping on the steps.
The rebels followed, retreating inside. Sievernich was clearly at his limit—drenched in sweat, swaying—but still standing.
Moments later, Brimstone emerged from the elevator. Remy and Ramona peeled away from him silently, heading toward Bart, who had just finished treating another patient.
“What should we do, Brimstone?” Sievernich asked, slumping into a chair.
Brimstone gave no clear answer. He simply stared into the distance and said, “We let that monster finish the job.”
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