They did not give them time.
The world never did.
The moment the last containment layer collapsed, the city's systems shifted posture—no longer calculating, no longer testing.
Preparing.
She felt it first.
Not through the bond.
Through her body.
A deep, wrong pressure settled behind her eyes, like something unseen had taken a step closer and decided she no longer qualified as alive.
"Get down," he said.
Too late.
The strike came without shape.
Without direction.
Without mercy.
—
It wasn't force.
It was erasure.
A zone ahead of them simply ceased to exist—matter, air, energy all nullified in a perfect sphere of absence. The edge of it brushed them, close enough that her skin burned cold, nerves screaming as reality peeled.
She cried out.
He reacted instantly, twisting, shielding her with his body as the void expanded—
—and stopped.
Mid-motion.
The bond locked.
Hard.
She felt it like a spike through her chest.
"No—" she gasped.
His body jerked as invisible constraints slammed into place—not around him, but through him. Lines of light burned across his skin, precise and geometric, pinning him in space like an equation solved too aggressively.
Termination lattice.
Designed not to kill instantly.
Designed to hold long enough to finish properly.
—
"Anomaly restrained," a voice echoed distantly. "Proceed."
"Anomaly restrained," a voice echoed distantly. "Proceed."
She struggled, hands shaking as she pushed herself up.
The bond screamed in protest—feedback tearing through her nerves, vision blurring—but she forced herself to stay conscious.
"They're not killing you," she realized, horrified. "They're—"
"Studying the failure point," he finished, voice strained but controlled. "Me."
"And me?"
A pause.
His jaw tightened.
"They already decided yours."
—
Another zone of erasure began to form.
Closer this time.
Targeted.
Her.
Panic clawed at her throat—not blind fear, but something sharper. Angrier.
"No," she whispered.
The bond pulsed.
Weak.
Fractured.
Not enough.
She staggered forward anyway.
"Stop!" she shouted—not at the systems, not at the unseen operators—
At him.
His eyes snapped to hers.
"Do not disengage," he warned. "If you break alignment now—"
"I know," she said, tears streaking down her face. "But if I don't—this ends here."
She made a choice.
Not loud.
Not dramatic.
She let go.
—
The bond did not sever.
It inverted.
Pain tore through her as the direction flipped—her emotions no longer feeding him, but anchoring him. She felt his restraint slam into her like a tidal wave, crushing, burning, rewriting how her body understood endurance.
She screamed.
The termination lattice flickered.
"What—?" a voice stammered above. "Bond behavior abnormal—"
She fell to her knees, blood dripping from her nose, vision swimming—but she stayed connected.
"Look at me," she gasped.
He did.
Really did.
Not the world.
Not the threat.
Her.
"I'm not your limiter," she said through clenched teeth. "I'm your reason."
The lattice cracked.
Just a fracture.
But it was enough.
—
He moved.
Not explosively.
Precisely.
Power folded inward and then through her—filtered, reshaped, no longer restrained by fear of hurting her, because she had already chosen to bear the cost.
The termination field collapsed.
Violently.
The erasure zone destabilized, imploding instead of expanding, tearing a wound in the street that screamed with broken physics.
Silence followed.
Then alarms.
Real ones.
—
She collapsed fully this time.
He caught her, arms tight, breath ragged.
"You shouldn't have done that," he said, voice breaking. "That damage—"
"I know," she whispered. "I can feel it."
Something inside her had changed.
Not healed.
Scarred.
Permanent.
—
Above them, chaos erupted.
"Termination failed!"
"Bond inversion confirmed—this wasn't in the model!"
A voice cut through, cold and final.
"Update directive."
New text burned onto every screen.
TERMINATION STATUS: FAILED
ADAPTIVE THREAT CONFIRMED
NEXT PHASE: ABSOLUTE SOLUTION
A pause.
"Authorize deployment."
—
On the ground, he held her close, forehead pressed to hers, hands trembling.
"They will not stop now," he said softly. "What you did—what it cost you—"
She smiled faintly, blood on her lips.
"Worth it," she whispered. "You're still here."
His grip tightened.
"So are you," he said. "And I will make sure the world regrets trying to erase that."
In the distance, something massive shifted.
Ancient.
Buried.
Awakening.
Termination had failed.
And the world had just escalated to something far worse.