Chapter VII: Alice

The battlefield was chaos incarnate.

NIX personnel, Stargazers, soldiers, and law enforcement unleashed torrents of Phaser fire into the encroaching Voids. The inexperienced fell first—slaughtered, devoured—while the seasoned fought tooth and nail, holding the line for fleeing survivors.

Elsewhere, Tetsuo sprinted across the fractured city, using his SDN Equipment to phase-shift across twisted concrete and broken glass. In his hands, his M.J.O.L.N.I.R—transformed into a chokutō—spun like a turbine, generating sparks and friction. He leapt from a crumbling rooftop, dropping like lightning toward a street swarming with Voids.

He struck like a thunderbolt.

The blade pierced the epicenter of the horde, unleashing a concussive electrical blast. The smaller Voids disintegrated instantly. Charred husks and smoke marked his landing. Tetsuo stood, retrieving his blade, eyes narrowed, hunting his next target.

The scene shifted again. Lucy, amidst a shattered boulevard, phase-shifted beside a wrecked vehicle, helping a family to safety. Her M.J.O.L.N.I.R, now a pure yellow sunlight claymore, shimmered under the dusty sun.

Twelve Battleaxe-class Voids charged her position.

She struck—but the claymore bounced uselessly against their near-impenetrable skin. Then, an eerie observation: just beneath the dermal armour, a paper-thin membrane pulsed red.

There. That’s the weak point.

With a calm inhale, Lucy’s claymore dispersed into golden-threaded energy, wrapping around her hands like ribbons. Folding her palms, she compressed the strands into a single pulse—and the claymore returned in an instant, blazing with sonic velocity.

In one sweeping arc, she cleaved through all twelve Battleaxes, limbs and heads separated cleanly as they collapsed in heaps of steaming flesh.

Across the ruined skyline, Apophis—the cosmic Wyrm—rose from the ruins of NIX Polytechnic, now recognized by NIX Command as a Class-Exosphere threat. Its titanic form coiled through broken districts like a living hurricane of despair.

Eva danced across its scaled back, her M.J.O.L.N.I.R slicing down parasitic Voids that clung to the serpent’s flesh. Every breath she took was calculated. She had one target: the source of the Cosmos concentration at Apophis’s head.

Suddenly, the Wyrm launched skyward, shattering the debris atop it. Eva nearly lost her footing—but had embedded her M.J.O.L.N.I.R into its hide. She dangled, whipped violently by the monster's movements, as Apophis barreled toward the last standing Safe-Zone.

Below, defensive lines readied rail-gun artillery.

Soldiers and NIX personnel stood firm. The rail-guns fired—hypersonic projectiles screaming through the sky. One clipped the Wyrm’s spine near Eva, forcing her to lose grip on her sweat-slicked weapon. She plummeted.

But a hand grabbed hers just in time.

“Got you!”

Tetsuo, breath ragged, hauled her up. His chokutō was embedded deep in Apophis's body, anchoring them both.

“Damn, Eva, how much do you weigh?” he groaned.

“170.4 pounds and stabilizing,” she replied flatly.

Below, Lucy, Newt, and what remained of the rescue teams latched onto Apophis, scaling its massive body. Lucy nodded at the others and spoke with urgency.

“New orders from Command: kill Apophis in five minutes… or they’ll drop a Magnetar bomb on New York.”

“That’ll level more than New York!” Tetsuo protested. “That’s extinction!”

“They don’t care,” Newt growled. “They’ll do it. We’re all expendable.”

“Then we do it fast,” Lucy cut in. “I’ve studied the hits from the rail-gun. When multiple tendrils were struck simultaneously, it couldn’t regenerate. We exploit that.”

“Confirmed,” Eva added. “I’ve severed its limbs before, but they always regrew—except when the impacts were concurrent.”

Newt raised his voice over the gale. “Everyone to your assigned phase-shift vectors. Hit the weak points at once!”

“Roger!”

Anchoring with their SDN Equipment, the team held firm.

“On three! ONE... TWO... THREE!”

They vanished—phase-shifting across dimensions—reappearing at nanosecond intervals near Apophis’s tendrils, just as another wave of rail-gun fire struck.

Time froze.

Then, contact.

Their blades sliced into exposed tissue simultaneously. Apophis convulsed, a scream that seemed to unravel space-time. Its titanic body folded into itself—spiraling into a collapsing firestorm of imploding Cosmos energy.

Then—silence.

***

Among the hundreds of survivors sheltered within a hastily established temporary base inside a reinforced high-rise, Sasha clung tightly to Fenrir, burying her tear-streaked face into the warmth of his fur. The massive black dog licked her cheek in return, eliciting a soft giggle from her despite the chaos outside.

Her moment of comfort was broken when she noticed a peculiar, overweight man rushing to the far end of the hall and locking himself in a restroom. Something about him was off—his skin sagged unnaturally, as if it might peel away at any moment. But before she could process the thought, her mother Dani sat beside her, wrapping both her daughter and Fenrir in a protective embrace.

Outside, artillery rumbled. Buildings collapsed, rail-guns fired, and chaos crackled through the walls. Sasha looked up at her mother, her voice quiet but aching.

“I wish Felix was here... he always knows what to do.”

Dani gave her a soft, brave smile, masking the terror within.

“Everything’s going to be okay, Sasha.”

Suddenly, two guards approached the restroom, accompanied by a woman and a teenage boy—Emil’s family. They knocked on the door, worried.

“Sir! Are you alright in there?”

No response. Tension rose.

Fenrir suddenly stood and growled, the fur on his back bristling. Sasha’s instincts kicked in.

“Mom, we need to go. Now!”

Dani hesitated, torn between logic and instinct. But the unease in her daughter’s voice and Fenrir’s agitation convinced her.

Too late.

The door creaked open. Emil stepped out, the lights behind him flickering. His face sagged grotesquely, eyes rolled back, and his bloated stomach churned unnaturally.

“Emil—?” the woman whispered.

Without warning, he vomited a pulsating, bloody mass that erupted mid-air, sprouting limbs, mouths, and eyes. Screams filled the corridor as "the Growth" unfurled like a nightmare, swallowing guards and civilians alike. Emil’s body turned inside out, his flesh splitting and folding into the expanding monster.

Phasers fired.

The Growth twisted and dodged like a spider, leaping, lashing out with tendrils, snatching guards mid-air. Survivors ran—but not fast enough.

The Growth surged down the hallway, clinging to walls and ceilings. Doors did nothing to stop it. It poured through vents and cracks, overwhelming rooms and silencing screams.

Trusting Fenrir’s instincts, Dani grabbed Sasha’s hand and ran. Behind them, survivors panicked, jamming the main exit, trampling one another in desperation. The Growth consumed them in seconds, collapsing walls as it advanced.

Sasha, thinking quickly, tugged Dani toward a fire exit at the far end. Fenrir led the way.

Had they hesitated even a second longer... they would’ve been among the fallen.

Bursting through the fire exit, Sasha looked back—just in time to see her mother reaching the threshold. But before she could follow, a cataclysmic force blew through the building.

Apophis had arrived.

The entire structure was ripped apart, Dani vanishing in an instant—like a dandelion caught in a hurricane.

Sasha screamed. She was nearly swept away herself, but Fenrir clamped his jaws on her overalls, anchoring her to the earth. The shock passed. She hit the ground like a broken doll, the world spinning around her.

“I should’ve held her hand tighter.”

Elsewhere, Eva’s vision blurred. Her visor flickered—SDN battery: 1.33%. Only Tetsuo, Lucy, Newt, and Eva remained from their unit. She looked to her team—silent nods exchanged.

“One last time,” she thought. “Let’s finish this.”

Suddenly, the world shuddered.

Apophis phase-shifted into the Safe-Zone, impossibly fast—faster than any SDN Equipment could track. Debris—buildings, rail-guns, cars—lifted into the sky. Eva dropped into a crouch, dodging falling rubble.

That’s when she heard it:

A dog’s yelp. A girl’s scream. A name she recognized.

Looking down, she saw Sasha, desperately trying to lift rubble off Fenrir, trapped beneath fallen concrete. Light pulsed from the ground—a precursor to another massive phase-shift.

Eva froze.

To her left: Apophis’s core, the weak point.
To her right: Sasha, a child she swore to protect.

The mission or the girl?

Her team—already phase-shifting into position.

"They’ve got Apophis."

Eva made her decision.

She rewired her SDN Equipment, syncing it with her M.J.O.L.N.I.R. She threw the weapon toward Apophis’s weak point—it phase-shifted, slamming into its mark like a missile.

At the same time, Eva launched herself toward Sasha, hand outstretched.

Sasha turned at the last moment, saw the cracking ground, heard Fenrir’s final bark, and spotted Eva descending like an angel through smoke.

Their hands almost touched.

Then—a blinding white flash.

Sasha vanished.

Eva’s scream died in her throat. Her hand remained outstretched, grasping empty air. A second later, the world exploded in silence. Everything was consumed by a light brighter than any sun.

Silence.

Utter, perfect silence.

Then—

A single snap of fingers echoed in the dark.

***

In a boundless expanse of collective consciousness, vivid memories and moments surge through the minds of scattered individuals across the universes. The present fractures—each thread diverging into unique perspectives. Gradually, focus slips from the now to the then. Time becomes fluid, no longer linear, stretching backward into historical truths and forward into potential futures.

A silent observer drifts across these currents—through tragedy and triumph, mundane and monumental, witnessing the beauty and terror of life. The future branches like a fractal tree, revealing the ripples of choices yet to come. Just as the observer begins to comprehend the vastness of it all, the vision cracks. Distortions ripple outward, shattering reality like glass under pressure.

Darkness swallows everything.

Her eyes flicker under closed lids, twitching like someone lost in REM sleep—until they fly open. Awareness returns like a gasp for breath.

“ALICE! Alice! ALICE!”

A familiar voice calls out as a man in a lab coat shakes her urgently. Her vision sharpens, revealing Dr. Bartholomew Buchanan—or “Bugs,” as she affectionately knows him.

“Apologies, Bugs,” Alice murmurs, regaining her composure. “I got carried away.”

Bart studies her carefully. “You only call me that when you're confused or lost.”

“I suppose it’s been too long since I’ve been in reality... I think I forgot—”

“—what’s a dream, and what’s real.” Bart finishes with a smile, pulling her into a comforting hug.

The tower around them begins to quake.

Bart rummages through a duffel bag, removing two metallic badges—prototype SDN Equipment.

“These are one-time-use teleportation devices. Not fully optimized. Plot’s already programmed in the GPS. Don’t waste it.”

Alice examines them with intrigue. “Hand me both.” She inspects the pair, then hands one back to Bart.

He raises an eyebrow but doesn’t question her choice.

“Wait for me at the destination. I’ll find transport and get you out,” he promises.

Alice nods. Bart strips off his lab coat, fastens the badge to his silver NIX Medic uniform, and phase-shifts, vanishing into light.

As the world crackles with distortion, a voice slithers into the silence.

“Why don’t you follow him?”

Alice turns calmly to face a figure out of nightmares—a tall, demonic humanoid with light blue-grey skin, horns, elongated limbs, and mechanical heterochromatic eyes—blue and green gears ticking in place of irises. Its jagged smile splits across a face twisted in permanent menace.

“I wanted to give Bart a head start,” Alice replies without fear.

The Monster—Schrödinger—tilts its head.

“Shame you were released too late. All this ruin... so many equations to balance. You’ll have to solve what shouldn’t be solvable.”

Alice shrugs, unbothered. “No. I was released too early. I wasn’t supposed to solve any of this.”

“Yet you freed yourself early. Your dear friend would’ve died. You knew that, didn’t you?”

A wry smile curls on her lips. “Maybe I did. But the equations... they aren’t infinite, are they, Schrödinger?”

She steps to the edge of the tower, gauging the 541-meter drop. Removing her burned lab coat, she lets it fall.

“Bart can’t tell dream from reality anymore,” she says softly. “He doesn’t see I’m not the same Alice he once knew. Or maybe he does. Maybe that’s why he never questioned it…”

Alice doesn’t finish the thought. Instead, she plunges.

The fall would have killed anyone else. Alice lands gracefully, unscathed. The ground doesn’t crack—it simply accepts her.

Behind her, Schrödinger watches with an unsettling grin.

“You say the problems aren’t infinite, Alice... but humanity’s problems might be. And still—you try. You’re curious. You hope. Maybe that’s why I follow you.”

The Monster disappears in a flicker of light.

The tower crumbles behind them, leaving only the path ahead—and Alice, walking alone toward the designated point where everything may begin again.