The world pulsed red.
Lucas ran through the industrial ring of Haven-17, sirens wailing above. The crystalline drive Rena had given him flickered in his hand — its light dying fast.
Behind him, drones swept the streets, scanning, searching.
[Containment breach extending beyond projected range.]
[Target proximity: 12 meters.]
He slid behind a steel pillar, breath ragged. "Twelve meters? From what?"
Then the air tore open.
A burst of gold light split the street, forming a rippling vertical scar that hummed like static made solid.
Through it stepped a figure — tall, composed, wrapped in white armor threaded with light. Her silver hair drifted weightlessly in the golden haze.
Her eyes — cold, grey and focused — locked on him.
[Resonance synchronization: 47%.]
Evelyn Rowe.
Lucas froze, instinct screaming before his mind caught up. "You're the one from before…"
She raised a hand; the air shimmered around her palm like a blade forming from data.
"You've contaminated the network," she said evenly. "Stand down."
"Contaminated?" He laughed once, bitter. "You're the one hacking people's heads."
[Warning: Aggression detected.]
The System's voice cut through both their interfaces, overlapping, distorted.
"Containment objective: neutralize interference."
Both heard it.
Both thought it was aimed at the other.
Evelyn moved first. Her Resonance Field flared, twisting the air into waves of force that shattered nearby glass.
Lucas dove sideways, twin Uzis materializing in his hands, golden circuits running along their sides.
Bullets tore through the space between them — but each one bent midair, deflecting harmlessly as Evelyn's field reshaped gravity itself.
She advanced step by step. "You shouldn't exist."
"Funny," Lucas said, reloading fast. "I was thinking the same thing about you."
He activated Skystep Soles, launched upward, and fired downward in a tight arc. Sparks danced across her armor, barely leaving scratches.
She flicked her wrist — and the ground beneath him folded inward like soft metal, slamming him into a wall of light.
Pain seared through him.
[Damage sustained: 42%.]
"Yield," she said.
"Not… my style."
He triggered Resonance Shift.
Gold light exploded from his body, every motion sharpening into instinct. The world slowed.
He moved — not faster, exactly, but cleaner. Every flick of her wrist, every shimmer of her field, mapped out in his HUD as lines of probability.
He stepped into one — the weakest — and fired.
One bullet slipped through.
It grazed her shoulder, cutting through the resonance shield just enough to make her flinch.
The flicker of surprise in her eyes was almost human.
[Alert: Link destabilizing.]
Both felt it — a surge of connection and static, emotion bleeding across distance.
For one heartbeat, each saw the other's world:
Lucas saw a perfect white city and the lonely girl inside it.
Evelyn saw smoke, pain, and a boy too stubborn to die.
Then the System screamed.
[Synchronization breach: Critical.]
[Emergency separation engaged.]
A blinding pulse split the air between them, hurling both backward.
When the light faded, the street was half-destroyed — walls melted, ground cracked, drones falling lifeless from the sky.
Evelyn staggered to her feet, eyes still glowing faintly silver.
Her voice trembled for the first time. "You… you're not the corruption."
Lucas pushed up on one knee, breathing hard. "And you're not just a machine."
They stared across the ruin — two anomalies caught in the same storm.
Neither spoke. Neither lowered their weapon.
Then the sky above them shimmered.
[Containment Protocol escalating.]
[Deploying Core Sentinels.]
The air filled with the sound of engines — massive, mechanical, divine.
Evelyn looked up. "They're coming for both of us."
Lucas holstered one gun, meeting her gaze. "Guess that makes us on the same side for now."
She hesitated — then nodded once, slow and reluctant. "For now."