Beneath Virelia's glowing skyline, far below the reach of snow and neon dreams, the city had another heart.
It did not beat.It calculated.
Blue light pulsed softly inside an underground vault hidden between abandoned metro lines and encrypted data tunnels. Wires crawled across the walls like veins. Holographic streams flowed in the air, mapping every street, every signal, every breath the city took.
At the center of it all sat Xyren.
He did not move.He did not blink.
His body was half-human, half-machine—skin pale under the glow of data, thin wires threading into his spine and neck. One eye was natural. The other shimmered violet, layers of code spinning endlessly inside it.
Screens hovered around him, alive with motion.
Elaris Vein.
Her location blinked on the city map—moving fast. Too fast. Snowstorm interference. Elevated heart rate. Neural instability detected.
Xyren leaned forward.
"She made contact with him," he said calmly.
His voice carried no panic. No anger. Only precision.
A holographic replay unfolded in front of him—fragmented footage from street cams, drone reflections, corrupted audio. A glimpse of silver hair. A dark coat. Two figures colliding in the snow.
Then—
A spike.
Neural data surged violently.
Xyren's fingers paused mid-air.
"A kiss," he murmured."Unplanned."
The system flagged it as a protocol breach.
Xyren closed his eyes for exactly one second.
Inside that second, thousands of calculations ran. Threat levels updated. Emotional interference increased by thirty-eight percent. Kael Dravien's risk index spiked from dangerous to critical.
When Xyren opened his eyes again, the violet glow sharpened.
"Stabilizing her now."
He reached out, fingers slicing through holographic layers. Traffic systems bent to his will. Surveillance feeds blurred. Drones misread signals. Streets rewrote themselves digitally, becoming traps—or escape routes.
The city obeyed.
A distorted audio signal crackled through his implant.
"Xyren…"
Elaris' voice.
Breathless. Shaking. Alive.
"I messed up," she whispered. "He kissed me… then I slapped him. They're coming."
Her signal cut in and out as snow interference surged.
"I'm sorry."
Xyren's jaw tightened.
"You are not programmed to apologize," he replied softly. "You are programmed to survive."
For a fraction of a second—so brief it barely registered—a flicker crossed his face.
Jealousy.
He buried it instantly.
"Sector 3," he continued, voice steady. "Eight minutes until intercept. Tunnel Five. Apply pressure to the bleeding site."
Her breath steadied slightly.
"He's… not what I thought," she muttered. "Something in him flickered… and disappeared."
Xyren's fingers froze.
He replayed the footage again. Slower. Frame by frame.
Kael Dravien's face—cold, controlled—until one frame slipped.
A flicker.
Something ancient. Something territorial.
Xyren's violet eye dimmed.
"Danger confirmed," he whispered.
A new alert bloomed red on the far screen.
UNAUTHORIZED DATA PACKET DETECTED
Encrypted. Old code. Signature pattern unfamiliar—but the frequency…
Kael's.
Xyren leaned closer, studying it.
"So," he murmured, "you remember her too."
The data packet tried to burrow deeper, searching, probing.
Xyren smiled faintly.
It wasn't kind.
"You're not welcome here."
With a sharp gesture, he trapped the packet inside a digital loop—endless, circular, feeding it false memories and broken echoes. Kael would feel it later. Confusion. Doubt. A sense of déjà vu that never resolved.
Xyren rerouted Elaris' path again.
Signals vanished behind her. Digital footprints erased. The city itself folded around her like armor.
She sped through the snow, unaware of how close she had come to being caught.
Xyren watched her dot move farther away from Kael's pursuit lines.
Safe—for now.
He leaned back, wires humming softly.
"You are not his," he said quietly, though Elaris could not hear him."You are mine to protect."
The screens shifted.
DreamWare Corp logos appeared—clean, white, harmless. Beneath them, layers of hidden architecture unfolded. Black sites. Shadow projects. Crimson Circuit protocols buried deep inside VR environments.
Xyren had built them all.
She thought she was the weapon.
But weapons needed control.
A new feed flickered on—Kael Dravien standing in his penthouse, snow drifting past broken glass, bloodied rose in hand.
Xyren zoomed in on Kael's wrist.
The mark appeared for half a second before the system blurred it.
A broken wing.
Xyren's fingers curled slowly.
"Interesting," he murmured. "You were marked long before tonight."
He switched the feed off.
Silence returned to the vault, broken only by the hum of data.
Xyren closed his eyes.
For the first time in years, something unfamiliar pressed against his logic cores.
Fear.
Not of Kael.
Of losing her.
"You can chase her," Xyren whispered into the dark. "Dream of her. Obsess over her."
His violet eye flared brightly.
"But remember this, Kael Dravien."
The lights dimmed.
"The battlefield is her mind.And I was here first."
Far above, snow continued to fall over Virelia.Elaris drove deeper into the night, unaware that two forces now pulled at her fate.
One wanted to claim her.One wanted to keep her.
And neither intended to let go.