Too many Nomu. Too many variables. Too many broken pieces of the people I cared about.
And not enough of me left to hold it together.
I dropped to one knee behind the ruined corpse of a building, hand trembling as I pulled open the secure black casing I'd kept locked away since the U.S. mission.
Zane landed behind me, boots cracking stone. His voice came slow. Controlled. "Is that…?"
I didn't answer.
I didn't need to.
The second the seals hissed open and the blue-black light flickered into the air, I saw Zane's entire posture shift.
His breath hitched. "No way."
I stared at the capsule—smooth, cylindrical, etched in runes we could barely read as kids. The glass hummed with something unnatural. A single vial floated inside.
It looked like liquid starlight.
Genesis Flame.
Something that was never meant to exist.
"You found it," Zane said, his voice almost… reverent. Or terrified. "You actually went back there."
"After Chicago fell," I muttered, my voice dry. "I had a lead. Broken facility under Nevada. No power, no light. But the vault still worked."
"Anos… you realize what that is, right?"
"I do."
He dropped to his knees next to me, eyes glued to it. "The final project. The weapon they said could burn time itself."
I remembered the whispers.
"If humanity ever unleashes this… it's not victory. It's erasure."
I closed my eyes—and I was there again.
Flashback – 10 Years AgoThe underground lab was silent except for the hum of servers.
Dr. Emsley stood at the glass window, her fingers tapping the frame like she couldn't decide if she was proud or horrified.
We were just kids.
Me and Zane, maybe nine or ten, standing awkwardly near the railing. The adults never noticed us sneaking in anymore.
Her voice was brittle, sharp.
"We call it the Genesis Flame. A final solution. But the cost…"
One of the other scientists—the one with the synthetic eye—shook his head. "It won't just eliminate Nomu. It'll rewrite energy signatures. Reset matter."
Zane had looked at me then, eyes wide. "Like… erase people?"
I didn't answer.
I just watched Dr. Emsley say the words that haunted me even now:
"This is not a weapon. It's a sin."
PresentAnd now here I was, crouched in the middle of a warzone, about to use it.
"Why now?" Zane asked quietly.
I glanced across the field.
At Diamond, back-to-back with Marcus, blood on her face.
At Riley, barely standing but still throwing lightning like a storm goddess.
At Izuku, confused and cornered.
At my family.
And said, "Because if I don't, this ends with more than death. It ends with extinction."
Zane hesitated. "You sure it'll work?"
"No."
"But you're doing it anyway."
"Yeah."
We stood together, silent for a moment, the air around the capsule warping with heat.
Then I lifted it.
The world slowed down.
Every sound faded except for the pulse in my ears and the crackle of pure, ancient energy in my hands.
I tossed it.
Straight into the dark rift.
Where the Jokers had been pouring Nomu into our world like a river of nightmares.
The second it touched shadow, the light exploded.
Not out.
In.
Like the flame was burning reality itself from the inside.
The sky twisted. The rift convulsed.
For just a moment—just a moment—the screaming stopped.
The battlefield went completely still.
Like the earth itself forgot how to breathe.
Then the ground shook, hard, and a blinding light towered skyward.
Everyone around me fell to one knee.
Even the Nomu howled—some clawing at their own bodies like the flame was inside them.
Zane shielded his eyes. "It's reacting to the clone tech!"
I gritted my teeth. "Good."
Because this wasn't just symbolic.
This was punishment.
For what they made us into.
For what they did to the world.
The fire raged higher.
And as the clouds twisted in gold and black, I wondered what the cost would be.
Because I knew one thing:
We had just opened a door that could never be closed.