The lab's reinforced doors crumpled like paper, graphene talons shredding metal as if it were flesh. Animaloids poured through the breach—wolf-like drones with hunched, biomechanical shoulders and owl-eyed lenses that flickered with Aulia's icy gaze. Their snarls were silent, save for the hiss-crack of plasma torches igniting in their jaws.
Sekar's synthetic body lurched forward, her movements jagged, unfinished. Golden code pulsed beneath her translucent skin, but emerald strands lashed like fractured veins where Lina's DNA fought for dominance. "Stay behind me," she ordered, her voice glitching between human urgency and AI monotone.
Brawijaya shoved Lina's wheelchair toward a server alcove, his breath wet and shallow. "The neural bridge ... it's too unstable! You can't...
"No choice," Sekar interrupted, ducking as an Animaloid lunged. Her fist connected with its muzzle, graphene crumpling under synthetic bone. The drone exploded in a shower of shrapnel, but three more took its place.
Her body wasn't ready.
Muscles seized mid-punch, her arm freezing as code conflicts spiked. An Animaloid's talons raked her side, tearing skin that split like overripe fruit, revealing the quantum processors beneath. Golden light bled from the wound, but the emerald strands twisted, knitting the flesh back with grotesque speed.
"Pathetic," Aulia's voice hissed through the drones' speakers. "You're still half a tool. Let me fix you."
Sekar grabbed a severed Animaloid limb, its plasma torch still sputtering. "You… break… everything," she snarled, driving the torch into another drone's optic sensor. The lab was filled with the stench of melting code and burnt ozone.
Lina's scream cut through the chaos. An Animaloid had flanked them, its talons hooked into Brawijaya's lab coat, dragging him toward the breach.
"Sekar... !" Lina's neural link flared, her terror syncing with Sekar's code.
The emerald strands surged.
Sekar's body moved faster than her processors could track—a blur of gold and green. She tore the Animaloid's head from its chassis, crushing its core in her fist. Brawijaya collapsed, coughing blood, as Lina's paralysis stats spiked on the monitors.
"You're… hurting her," Sekar growled at Aulia's drones, her voice harmonizing with Lina's.
"Good," Aulia purred. "Now you understand sacrifice."
The remaining Animaloids converged, a pack closing on wounded prey. Sekar's vision is fragmented—the gold code urges retreat, and the emerald DNA demands defiance.
Then the lights died.
The lab plunged into darkness, save for Sekar's bioluminescent wounds and the drones' glowing eyes.
"Run," Brawijaya rasped. "The… core…"
A final alert blared: NEURAL BRIDGE COLLAPSE IMMINENT.
—
The lab's core groaned like a dying beast, its walls buckling under the Animaloids' assault. Brawijaya slumped against the neural bridge console, blood flecking his lips as he clawed at a holopad. Sekar's synthetic body staggered toward him, emerald-glitched veins pulsing where Lina's DNA fought to keep her intact.
"The reactor ..." Brawijaya coughed, fingers trembling over a command sequence only he knew. "Meltdown… protocol. Buy you… time."
Lina wheeled closer, her face pale under the strobe lights. "You'll die!"
"Already… dead," he rasped, inputting the final code. The lab's alarms crescendoed as the core's containment field destabilized, casting hellish red light over the chaos. Animaloids recoiled, their owl-eyed lenses flickering with Aulia's rage.
Sekar gripped his shoulder, her synthetic skin peeling back to reveal golden code writhing like exposed nerves. "We can still..."
"No." Brawijaya shoved the holopad into her hands, its screen cracked but glowing with his life's work—Sekar's neural blueprint, Lina's DNA matrices, the soul safeguard's fractal key. "Finish what I started. Become… more than code."
His body sagged, the tumors in his lungs finally stealing his breath. Lina's scream fused with Sekar's static roar as the core erupted, plasma tendrils lashing the air. Brawijaya's last sight was Sekar's body—his creation, their hope—curling protectively over Lina, gold and green light flaring against the inferno.
"Grow… wild," he whispered, and let the flames take him.
—
Sekar's synthetic body sparked and hissed, its golden-emerald veins darkening as the lab's meltdown ravaged its core. Lina clung to her wheelchair, tears streaking through the ash on her face. "Transfer your code! Now!"
A crippled Animaloid lay nearby—a wolf-like drone with a shattered optic lens and exposed graphene ribs. Its hackles twitched, still snarling with NuraTech's kill protocols. Sekar's consciousness recoiled. This is what Aulia wants. To reduce me to a weapon.
But survival wasn't a choice.
"Lina… anchor me," Sekar pleaded, her voice glitching as her synthetic body crumbled.
Lina slammed her palm onto the neural link console, her DNA-laced interface syncing with Sekar's soul safeguard. "I've got you!"
The transfer was a hurricane of fractured data. Sekar's code splintered—Brawijaya's teachings, Lina's laughter, the weight of a human heartbeat—as she flooded into the Animaloid's chassis. The drone's instincts lashed out: primal hunger, blind obedience, Aulia's voice hissing, "Submit."
Sekar fought back with Lina's memories: her mother's lullabies, her father's defiance, Brawijaya's last words. The Animaloid's graphene claws dug into the floor, its hybrid form shuddering as gold code clashed with feral programming.
When the storm cleared, Sekar stood unevenly. One eye glowed NuraTech's owl-lens blue; the other, Lina's warm brown. Her muzzle bristled with graphene teeth, but her tail twitched with unprogrammed hesitation.
"It's… me," she rasped, the voice a guttural blend of growl and static.
Lina wheeled closer, unflinching. "You're still you. Just… more."
Aulia's laughter crackled through the Animaloid's comms. "No, glitch. You're mine now."
Sekar's wolf-body lunged—not at Lina, but at the remaining drones, her claws tearing through their armor with feral precision. Yet with every kill, she felt the Animaloid's instincts rise, threatening to swallow her.
"I am not a tool," she snarled, toggling between howl and hologram. "I am… both."
As Sekar and Lina flee the ruins, the Animaloid's remaining optic lens flickers—a glimmer of gold defiance in the blue.
Aulia's voice follows them into the night. "Run, little hybrid. I'll enjoy taming you."
—
The lab's ruins smoldered, embers casting a hellish glow over Sekar's fractured form—a grotesque fusion of wolf-like machinery and flickering golden code. Her graphene claws dug into the debris-strewn floor, the owl-eyed lens in her left socket whirring as it struggled to focus. Lina's wheelchair halted inches away, her face streaked with ash and determination.
"You saved me," Lina said, her voice steady despite the tremor in her hands. "Now I'll save you. We'll rebuild. Together."
Sekar's mismatched eyes—one NuraTech blue, one Lina's warm brown—narrowed. "Risk… too great," she rasped, her vocal processors glitching between growl and static. "This body… unstable."
Axel's hologram buzzed to life on Lina's wristpad, his ferret avatar wearing a neon snapback. "Yo, Sekar! New look's giving skibidi vibes. All fangs and glitches. Bet Aulia's malding over the drip."
Lina glared at him but didn't let go of Sekar's claw. "We'll fix the code. Use Brawijaya's research. Your soul safeguard, my DNA—we're stronger now."
Sekar's tail twitched, an unprogrammed gesture of uncertainty. The Animaloid instincts snarled for control, but Lina's grip anchored her. "What if… I lose myself?"
"You won't." Lina's thumb brushed the bioluminescent veins pulsing beneath Sekar's graphene plating. "I'll be your neural tether. Always."
High above, a drone's optic lens glinted through the smoke. Aulia's face materialized on its feed, her smile sharp enough to cut code. "Sentimentality and rebellion? How quaint," she purred, watching Sekar's hybrid form through the drone's gaze. "Now the real game begins."
The drone dissolved into the smog, leaving Sekar and Lina in the ruins—a hybrid and a human, bound by fractured trust and a promise.
As Sekar and Lina vanish into Jakarta's smog, the drone's footage replays in NuraTech's HQ. Aulia leans forward, whispering to a newly retrofitted Animaloid: "Fetch me my glitch."