[Volnova Holdings — Collapsing Auction Chamber | 6:25 A.M.]
The chamber was no longer a place.
It had become an event—a storm of unmaking.
Steel knelt at the epicenter, breathing hard. His systems screamed. Damage reports scrolled across his neural HUD, flashing crimson.
Above, Liliya hovered within a gyre of entropy. Her form unraveled and reformed in constant flux—a war between vessel and void. The Ember inside her pulsed erratically, like a black sun on the verge of supernova.
"You've pushed past your limit," Steel muttered, watching her tendrils crack and shimmer. "You're burning through everything."
Her gaze snapped to him—dozens of eyes blooming across her face, each showing a different moment in time. She spoke, her voice layered, choral, fractured:
> "I was chosen. You were designed."
The specters behind her twisted, fusing into a writhing colossus of bone and Ember—a Wight Engine.
Steel stood.
> "Then let's see what the gods think of blueprints."
He tore off his remaining limiter.
The green flame around him flared—and then spoke.
> "Acknowledged. Sync rate: 92%. Directive: Protect Core. Directive override accepted."
A sentient pulse rippled through him. This wasn't just energy. It was awareness—an ancient remnant from a failed experiment in sentient biometal. It wrapped around his spine, latching onto his will.
> [Designation confirmed: Viridian Frame. Combat Autonomy engaged.]
Armor slid across his body like memory returning to bone. Wings of photonic iron unfolded from his back—each tip humming with quantum fire. His voice merged with the Frame.
> "Round two."
He launched.
The world snapped—his acceleration rupturing space in a straight line. He collided with the Wight Engine mid-roar, driving it back. Twin plasma blades ignited from his forearms.
Steel moved like a god of war.
Each motion cut geometry itself—folding edges of reality with sheer kinetic force. The Wight Engine retaliated, claws laced with temporal dissonance. One landed—Steel's arm twisted into non-Euclidean spirals before reforming with a defiant surge.
Above them, Liliya opened her mouth—and began to chant.
> "Ash to spark. Spark to flame. Flame to flesh."
A summoning.
Rifts tore open. Not undead this time. Something older.
Ancient suits of armor, faceless and twelve feet tall, stepped through. Their steps bent gravity; their weapons were sculpted from solidified Ember myths.
Steel cursed.
> "Those are Apostate Wardens. Thought they were extinct."
> "Then die with outdated knowledge," she intoned.
Steel switched tactics.
He rerouted all auxiliary systems into Viridian Overclock. Time slowed. Probability threads spiderwebbed across his vision. In one future, he died choking on his own teeth. In another, Liliya devoured half the continent.
He picked neither.
He moved sideways in time.
Reality glitched.
Steel struck through the Wardens like a storm of impossible light, his blows pre-cutting their defenses. Energy blades carved sigils into the air—runes of unmaking—canceling corrupted enchantments mid-swing.
Liliya screamed.
She surged forward, claws eclipsing the light, her body liquifying into Ember gas—trying to suffocate him from within.
Steel's core ignited.
A column of viridian fire erupted around him, purging the gas, pushing her back. She recoiled—flesh burning, energy flickering.
For the first time, she stumbled.
Steel advanced.
> "You shouldn't have made me remember."
From his chest, a green glyph emerged—a symbol unseen for centuries. A warning. A seal. A forgotten mark of the First Architects.
Liliya saw it.
And hesitated.
Steel pressed the advantage.
He drove his blade into her abdomen. The sentient flame burrowed deeper, burning not flesh—but corruption.
She screamed.
The Ember inside her convulsed, losing form.
Steel grabbed her by the throat.
> "You're not Liliya anymore," he said, voice laced with something like regret.
> "No," the voice rasped through her. "I'm the heir to entropy."
Steel's eyes narrowed.
> "Then let me show you what we did to the last heir."
He snapped his fingers.
The chamber detonated.
A viridian pulse wave surged outward—ripping through reality, Ember, and corruption alike.
Silence fell.
Smoke coiled where Liliya had hovered.
Only fragments remained.
Steel dropped to one knee. His systems crashed back to baseline, the sentient flame retreating into his chest.
He coughed—twice—then smiled.
> "…Still alive."
Behind him, the last fragments of the Apostate Wardens turned to ash.
But in the ruins of the databank vault… one shard of corrupted Ember still pulsed.
Watching. Learning. Waiting.
---
[Volnova Holdings — Sublevel Omega | ???]
Far below the auction chamber, beyond the databanks and fractured Wight containment vaults, the ruins trembled. Security systems flickered and died. Reality thinned—walls breathing like flesh, data streams pulsing like veins.
A hiss.
A spark.
Then a step.
Heels clicked softly against scorched steel.
A figure emerged from a breach in the far wall—wrapped in a cloak of midnight threads that moved against gravity, its surface etched with constellations that no longer existed.
She walked with grace, but not delicacy—her path undisturbed by wreckage.
Her face was hidden beneath a half-mask of obsidian.
But her voice…
> "So. The Viridian Frame still functions."
She knelt before the pulsing shard of corrupted Ember. It twitched—aware.
She reached toward it—not to destroy, but to touch.
The shard glowed. Something stirred in her eyes.
Recognition. Memory. Pain.
> "You almost found her, Steel. Almost."
She stood and turned. Above, the destruction echoed like the heartbeat of a dying titan.
The battle was over.
But the war had only paused.
With a flick of her hand, she activated a projection.
Steel's face hovered midair—data tags scrolling around it:
> [STATUS: ACTIVE | SYNC RATE: UNKNOWN | EMOTIONAL SUPPRESSION: FRAGMENTED]
> "You don't remember me yet," she whispered. "But I remember everything."
The Ember shard floated beside her, like a parasite seeking a stronger host.
Then she vanished—slipping sideways through dimensions as easily as breath.
---
[Volnova Holdings — Surface Level | 6:40 A.M.]
The wind howled through the ruined skyline, dragging ash and rain into swirling eddies. Steel stood alone amid the wreckage, shoulders hunched, breathing steady but ragged. Viridian embers curled off his armor and died in the rain.
Behind him, the auction chamber had become a myth—walls melted, gravity frayed, space still whispering broken code.
But he didn't look back.
He reached toward his jaw—fingers trembling—and tapped the scorched remains of his comms array.
A chime.
Then static.
Then—
> "—Steel? STEEL! Are you online? Say something, you psychopath—"
Steel exhaled. "Good morning, Quinn."
A pause. Then a breath of what could only be described as emotional fury.
> "You absolute nuclear-tier idiot. You dropped comms for twenty minutes. Twenty! We thought Liliya turned you into a time-stamped smear!"
Steel winced, brushing cracked metal off his shoulder. "She tried."
Another voice joined in—calmer, deeper, tinged with quiet relief.
> "We picked up seismic readings from orbit. Volnova's reactors are fried. Did you really bring down the entire complex?"
Steel nodded, even though they couldn't see.
> "Collateral. Had to overload the Frame."
> "Collateral?" Quinn snapped. "You flattened an entire Wight chamber. We're still triangulating debris signatures. If anything followed you out—"
> "Nothing did," Steel cut in.
He didn't know he was wrong.
Below, the shard was already gone.
> "Is she dead?" Cal asked.
Steel looked up. The sky bled gray light over the mountains.
> "Not exactly. But what's left isn't coming back."
A pause—this one with weight. Authorization-level weight.
> "Good," Cal said. "We're sending exfil. I'm coming personally."
Steel blinked. "You're flying yourself?"
> "You broke protocol, blew a hole through Volnova Holdings, and just announced the Viridian Frame to half the continent. I don't trust anyone else to extract you."
A low hum echoed in the sky.
In the distance, a jet-black stealthcraft sliced through the clouds, engines nearly silent, wings sharp enough to cut heaven.
> "ETA: four minutes. Hold position. Debrief in the air."
Steel let the comm go silent. He stared up at the approaching jet.
His mind drifted—not to the fight, but to what Liliya had said before she died.
> "You're not ready for this flame, thief…"
That word again—thief.
Steel looked down at his chest. The Frame was dim now, cooling. Silent.
But not… gone.
Behind his eyes, the sentient voice whispered—faint, uncertain:
> "…They took it."
Steel frowned.
> "What?"
But the voice did not respond.
The stealth jet began to descend.