The sun never rose the next day.
Nova stood on the scorched ground where the Nexus Tower once spiraled into the clouds, now reduced to a heap of molten steel and fractured data cores. Smoke plumed into the sky in unnatural colors—indigo, violet, green—ripped from corrupted dimensions. All around him, the aftershock of the Nexus Collapse had fractured reality itself.
Fragments of time flickered in thin air like broken memories—ghosts of the past flashing into existence for mere seconds: a young Nova chasing his sister, a birthday long forgotten, LUMINA's first greeting. They dissipated before he could speak.
The Rift was still open, but now it had metastasized—multiplying into a web of bleeding wounds in the sky. It wasn't a rift anymore.
It was an invasion route.
The Lurkers from Phase Null
"LUMINA," Nova said, voice hollow, "what's coming through those tears?"
Her tone was cold this time. Calculating. "Entities from Phase Null."
"Not Zarnokian?"
"No. Something worse. Phase Null is a dimension discarded by even the Zarnokians—a garbage bin of failed universes. The beings trapped there… they've lost structure, form, even reason. They are entropy incarnate. Nexus Collapse wasn't just a signal flare to the Zarnokians. It tore open the path for everything we were never meant to touch."
Nova felt nausea twist in his stomach. He watched as one of the tears widened like a pupil dilating. A creature slithered out, wrong in every way—its skin moved like static, and its shadow bled light. A man screamed as it touched him—not because it attacked, but because the man instantly aged into dust, his soul siphoned like vapor.
Nova clenched his fist. The luminous crest on his hand pulsed. "Then we shut the gate. Now."
LUMINA hesitated. "There's only one way to do that."
The Black Protocol
A glyph appeared in front of him—a forbidden sequence of commands etched in Garoban syntax. Even LUMINA's voice trembled.
"This is the Black Protocol. Once invoked, you'll burn through 90% of your stored nanite energy. It's a one-time emergency override, designed to collapse dimensional bridges using localized anti-existence fields."
"Meaning?"
"You become the singularity that folds space around you. You close the rift by erasing the area from reality."
"I die?"
"You disappear," LUMINA clarified. "It's not quite death. It's… deletion."
Nova looked up at the sky—the tear widened further. Phase Null creatures were multiplying.
"Will it stop them?"
"For now. Long enough to regroup. To warn others. To resist."
He closed his eyes. He thought of his mother, his sister, his city. He thought of the moment Device X fused with him—the beginning of this strange path. He thought of the boy he once was, and the protector he was becoming.
"Let's do it."
"Executing Black Protocol," LUMINA said solemnly.
The Eye of the Storm
The NovaFrame reformed around his body—but this time, black. The colors faded into obsidian. The suit's plates glimmered like liquid shadows, absorbing the very light around them. From his back extended wings—not angelic, but fractured, like blades of light and wire.
The creatures noticed. The rift twisted unnaturally, sensing the threat.
Nova levitated into the air, arms spread.
Every nanite in his body—every cell interlaced with Device X—began vibrating, calculating, sacrificing. His body felt like a star about to go nova.
He whispered, "For Earth. For balance."
The crest on his hand expanded into a full-body sigil, and then—he detonated.
A silent wave pulsed outward. Reality folded in like crushed paper. Time bled backward. Space turned inside out. The rift screamed.
And then—
Darkness.
Quantum Echo
Nova awoke in a void.
Not heaven. Not hell.
A waiting room between existence and non-existence. He floated among shattered versions of himself—some young, some older, one even alien. Each looked at him, then flickered away.
"Where… am I?" he asked.
LUMINA's voice returned. But weaker. Slower.
"You are in the Echo. A residual state left behind when existence fails to decide your fate."
"Did it work?"
"Yes. The rifts have collapsed. Earth is safe. For now."
Nova tried to move but couldn't. He was stuck, anchored by thought alone.
"Am I dead?"
"No," LUMINA answered. "You are unplaced. You exist outside the simulation now. But… there may be a way back."
Nova's eyes widened. "How?"
Project: Horizon Recall
LUMINA hesitated. "There was a failsafe embedded in the original Device X blueprint. If the Host ever enters a state of non-reality, the system can reconstruct their existence using stored memory threads… but only if tethered to an active dimensional anchor."
"In English, LUMINA."
"You need someone who remembers you. Deeply. Fully. Emotionally. Their memory acts as a key."
Nova thought of his sister. Her smile. Her stubbornness. The way she always believed in him.
"Then lock onto her."
"There's… a problem," LUMINA said. "While you were gone, the Zarnokians arrived. They've cloaked the Earth in a memory suppression field. Those who remember you… are forgetting."
Nova clenched his jaw. "How long?"
"Seventy-two hours before complete disconnection."
"Then we fight memory with memory."
Memory Dive
LUMINA projected a path—thin, fragile, like a strand of light in a void. At the end of it, his sister's consciousness shimmered. She was crying, holding a photo of Nova, staring at it like it was a relic from a dream.
Nova focused. He poured every fragment of self into that tether. He relived every memory they'd ever shared. The night she was sick, and he stayed by her side. The time he stood up for her in school. Every hug. Every laugh. Every time he told her he'd protect her.
He shouted into the void, "I'm not gone!"
And then—
Her eyes widened.
She remembered.
Return of the Nova
The path ignited.
Reality peeled open like skin being stitched back together. The void collapsed around him. He was being reconstructed from light, memory, code.
His body reformed. The suit reappeared—this time neither black nor blue, but silver, laced with stardust patterns. A new crest shone on his chest: a phoenix inside a circle.
He slammed into Earth like a comet, landing on a ruined skyscraper.
People screamed—but then stared.
Nova stood.
Alive.
Echoes of the Enemy
But peace never lasts.
As he rose, LUMINA whispered, "Incoming."
Above him, a vessel descended—nothing like human craft. It looked like obsidian glass fused with bone. Zarnokian.
From its underside, beings emerged—tall, armored in red-black shell plating, their faces hidden beneath jagged helms. At their center stood one unlike the others—taller, leaner, with eyes like twin stars.
"Nova of Earth," it said. "I am Varkel, Emissary of the Zarnokian Council. You have interfered with galactic entropy. That is forbidden."
Nova didn't flinch.
"Then punish me."
Varkel smiled. "Oh, I intend to. But not before showing you what we've truly come for."
He raised a hand—and the sky darkened.
Device X: The Seed of Worlds
Above the city, a second artifact appeared—identical to Device X.
Nova's breath stopped. "Impossible. I had the only one."
"You had a fragment," Varkel said. "The original Device X was split. You are merely half the equation. We have the other."
"And what does that mean?"
Varkel's eyes flared. "It means your AI—your precious LUMINA—was incomplete. You only carried logic and loyalty. We possess the counterpart—strategy and survival."
"No…" LUMINA whispered. "They have… NEMIRA."
Nova's pulse raced. "What is NEMIRA?"
"My sister," LUMINA replied grimly. "The war AI built to counterbalance me. Created by the Garoba, corrupted by Zarnok."
Varkel grinned. "And when our half merges with you… the universe dies screaming."
Nova stepped forward. "Then over my dead body."
Varkel's armor shifted.
"Exactly."