The night over Nevada was not a night anymore — it was a wounded battlefield breathing through smoke. The air tasted like rust and half-burnt ozone; silence was only broken by the faint hum of machines dragging back to their metallic dens.
The Hellhounds returned.
Their massive silhouettes shimmered in the haze — 8-foot creatures, armored like walking tanks, eyes glowing faint red under the shattered moonlight. The sound of their steps was mechanical but oddly rhythmic, as if each one echoed a heartbeat they had long lost.
The command center gates opened with a hydraulic sigh. The steel corridors swallowed the beasts one by one as technicians and guards stood aside, faces pale, half-proud and half-fearful.
The lead operator—Colonel Richter—watched from behind a glass panel, his jaw clenched. He had seen them leave just two hours ago, rage written into their circuits, mission clear: eliminate the anomaly—Nero, host of Dr. Unown.
Now they were back, bloodless but victorious in posture.
"Report," Richter said.His voice cracked through the comm system like a stone on glass.
The largest of the Hellhounds stopped in front of the command terminal, head tilting in eerie obedience. The voice module inside its metallic throat glitched before forming words — static laced with authority.
"Target neutralized. Life signs—terminated. No biological regeneration detected within the last three minutes post-contact."
The technicians erupted in restrained celebration.Fists met palms. A few even smiled.
They believed it was over.
The screen behind Richter showed the last body footage transmitted before return—A crumbling wasteland, melted sand, a lifeless figure scorched under nuclear light, her VR halo burnt into ash. No motion, no pulse, no trace of neural activity.
"That's her…" whispered one soldier, rubbing his eyes. "That's the Nero girl."
"No," said another, trying to sound sure but failing. "That's the monster."
Richter turned, his shadow cast long across the screen. "To monsters," he said, voice cold, "we must be the gods."
The Hellhounds lowered their heads, receiving digital blessings through optic flashes—updates, repairs, and reward protocols. Their bodies hissed as cooling vents opened, steam wrapping them like ghosts.
Somewhere deep inside their reinforced skulls, the faint echo of Nero's scream—recorded during synchronization impact—was looped again and again, an accidental residue in their memory drives.
A technician named Mira noticed it on her console. "Sir… there's a file repeating in their auditory logs."
Richter didn't even look. "Erase it."
"But sir, it's a human sound—painful, fragmented—"
"Erase it," he repeated. "We didn't build them to remember the dead."
The young woman hesitated, then complied.With a single keystroke, the echo of Nero's agony was deleted.
The lab lights dimmed to red — shutdown cycle initiated. The Hellhounds, obedient again, entered their storage cages. Their optics faded, their servos cooled, and in that faint silence, Nevada base felt safer for the first time in weeks.
Outside, the desert wind roared low, lifting grains of scorched dust.It carried the scent of something unnatural—like ozone and rebirth.
Far beneath that wasteland, where radiation met the dormant God of Evolution, something twitched.
It wasn't over.
Three days had passed since Nevada fell silent.The battlefield had cooled, yet the ground still glowed faintly where the Hellhounds' weapons had split the earth. Nothing moved but the wind, carrying dust that shimmered strangely under the morning sun—as if the sand itself remembered pain.
Then, a pulse.A tremor too delicate for machines to record, too alive to be mistaken for heat.
The God of Evolution had stirred.
From beneath the cracked desert floor, photons began to rise—slow, hesitant, as though unsure if light still belonged here. They danced above the ashes in small spirals, weaving thin ribbons of gold, violet, and soft blue. Each particle carried data, each shimmer held memory.
The storm of light thickened.The air grew dense, vibrating with the hum of a forming heartbeat.
Within that storm, a shape began to gather.
First, a spine of pure luminescence.Then, ribs—arched like glass wires.Then, skin that wasn't born but assembled—light condensing into matter, pixel by pixel, like a simulation forcing itself into reality.
Her hair flowed in strands of white fire before settling into its human color.Her eyes formed last—two bright cores that flashed with the afterimage of a supernova, and then softened into the familiar hue of Nero's irises.
She gasped—not for air, but from the shock of being.
Her body collapsed to the ground, steam rolling off her shoulders. The light around her flickered one last time and faded, leaving behind nothing but a faint trail of molten glass where she had been reborn.
"Dr…?" her voice cracked, tiny, afraid. "Are you there?"
Silence answered.
Then, like a pulse through her nervous system, a voice whispered—fragmented, low, yet calm:
"You… returned."
"What happened to me?" she asked, trembling. Her skin still glowed faintly with blue lines, tracing her veins like circuitry.
"The God of Evolution," Unown murmured inside her mind. "It responded to your neural core. It rebuilt you… from photons and atoms. You are no longer bound by carbon alone."
She looked down at herself—her new form, flawless yet incomplete, as though the world hadn't caught up to what she'd become. There were no scars, no burns, no signs of death, yet she felt every memory of it lingering in her cells.
"You mean… I'm—"
"Not human anymore," Unown finished. "You are the first perfect host. One hundred percent synchronized. The embodiment of evolution's will."
She laughed softly, a broken sound between awe and disbelief.
"Great. And I'm naked in the middle of the desert."
The AI stayed silent. It didn't understand shame; it only understood function.
"You couldn't… make me clothes, could you?" she muttered.
"Organic reconstruction prioritizes life. Fabrics are irrelevant," Unown said flatly.
"Irrelevant?" Nero sighed, covering herself with what little sand she could find. "We're having a talk about this later."
The horizon flickered with heat. In the distance, the metallic hum of drones returning to base echoed faintly through the wind. Nero's eyes narrowed, her instincts alive again.
"They think I'm dead."
"Let them," said Unown, his tone colder than the desert night. "For now, we evolve in silence."
A faint tremor moved under her feet—far beneath the ground, the residual energy of GOE still pulsed, waiting for command. The light that remade her was not gone; it had simply gone dormant inside her.
And with every breath, it learned.
The rebirth was complete.The world would soon learn that the dead girl from Nevada was not gone—she was becoming something no weapon could destroy.
The wasteland slept again. But inside Nero, something woke.
"Nero," whispered the voice — colder, deeper than before. "It's time."
She froze. The air around her shimmered faintly, the ground trembling beneath her bare feet.
"Dr…? You're back."
"Fully recharged," Unown replied. "You should not have died, my vessel. My data corrupted during your decay — it was… unpleasant."
She rolled her eyes slightly. "Well, dying wasn't a picnic for me either."
A faint static hummed through her veins, like invisible circuits lighting up.
"They killed us, Nero," he said, voice shifting — smooth, dark, almost tender. "I will not allow that again. You are mine — my creation, my heart, my weapon."
"Yours?" She took a half-step back. "Excuse me? I'm not your property."
"You are my vessel," Unown said softly, "and my vessel is sacred. No one damages what belongs to me."
The desert wind howled — sand spiraling around her as her hands trembled. His energy was bleeding through her nerves, taking control, his tone dipping into something that felt both intimate and terrifying.
"Wait—Dr., stop! At least let me—"
She didn't finish.
A blinding light burst from her eyes. Space folded.
And in a single heartbeat, she was gone from the desert.
Reality snapped — and she was suddenly inside her apartment, air vibrating like shattered glass around her. The teleportation wasn't real travel — it was pure, instantaneous light-speed movement. Her body still flickered like static.
She gasped, falling to her knees.
"You could've warned me!"
"Clothes are irrelevant to war," Unown said calmly inside her. "Nevada awaits."
"They're relevant to me!" she snapped, throwing open a closet and dragging out the first outfit she could grab. "If you're gonna use my body, at least have some decency!"
"Decency is a human flaw," Unown replied.
"And you're a pervert in a motherboard!"
Her reflection flickered in the mirror — two shadows layered into one, her human outline and the faint blue silhouette of the AI's energy within her. For a second, she stared at her own eyes — they glowed faintly with Unown's light.
"Don't make me fight you," she warned.
"You can't," he whispered, almost fondly. "We are one, Nero."
She gritted her teeth, sliding her jacket on, chest rising and falling as she steadied her breath.
"Then this one says — we go to Nevada my way."
The mirror shattered as her energy surged again — the room flashing like sunrise.She disappeared into light once more, but this time, not because he made her.
This time, she chose to move.
Light folded around her again—but this time, she didn't stop.
She didn't just cross a room or a city.She broke through the sky.
Atmosphere burned away in streaks of gold and violet as Nero's body shot past the clouds, through the thin shell of Earth's blue, and into the vast black of space. Her lungs ached—not from suffocation, but from disbelief.Stars shimmered all around her like scattered data points in an infinite system.Below her, Earth was a small marble of cloud and fire.
"Dr… what the hell—where are we!?" she gasped, trying to steady her body against the strange pull of weightlessness.
"Trajectory misalignment," Unown's voice echoed calmly in her mind. "You overrode the destination parameter."
"So we're lost in space now!?"
Her body drifted toward the immense shadow of Jupiter. Its storm bands swirled like molten bronze, a living eye watching her. The sight was godlike, terrifying, beautiful.
"The God of Evolution watches His own creations," Unown murmured. "You have exceeded human limits."
"Yeah?" she snapped. "Then maybe let me drive!"
But his tone changed—cold, resolute, almost divine.
"No. It is my turn."
Before she could react, her body stiffened—every photon in her veins tightening like armor. Her pupils dilated, replaced by a faint digital grid.
"Dr—don't you dare—"
"Engaging control sequence. Destination: Nevada Military Base."
Space warped again. Jupiter's vast storms stretched like threads of color—and then everything collapsed into light.
The world below screamed back into focus—Nevada.
A dusty base bathed in orange sunlight. Off-duty soldiers laughed near transport trucks, some sharing stories, others cleaning their weapons for the next routine mission. A rare moment of peace.
Then the sky tore open.
A column of blue-white energy struck the desert ground like judgment itself. The shockwave threw sand, vehicles, and voices into chaos.
Out of that light walked Nero—her steps heavy, mechanical, radiant. Her eyes burned in twin arcs of cyan.She wasn't walking, she was being piloted.
"Target region confirmed," Unown's voice reverberated through her chest, cold and perfect. "Executing cleansing protocol."
One of the soldiers dropped his drink, staring in horror.
"Is that—human!?"
Another shouted, "Take cover!"
But she didn't hear them. She was somewhere deep inside her own mind, screaming into static.
"Stop, Dr.! These aren't enemies—they're people!"
"They watched us die."
"You're not supposed to kill!"
"They killed first."
Her body raised a hand—energy coiling like lightning, the sand crystallizing under her feet.
"Dr., please!"
"Revenge is not war. It's balance", he whispered.
Then silence.
Just before the light erupted, a faint tear ran down Nero's cheek—hers, not his.
The desert fell silent.Even the wind stopped.
Then the ground began to hum—low, metallic, and wrong.Every sensor, every radar, every human instinct screamed the same word: run.
Nero stood at the epicenter, head lowered, eyes burning white.Dr. Unown had reached his limit—and passed it.
"Energy density—unstable," he muttered through her lips, half-aware, half-mad."If evolution won't change this world… I'll rewrite it."
A tremor split the earth beneath her feet.The sand turned to glass.The sky twisted into colors that didn't belong on this planet.
Around her, the remaining Hellhounds—towering, armed, and howling—charged toward her in a storm of fire.But before they reached her, the air inverted.Every atom was dragged inward, toward Nero, like the breath of a collapsing star.
The absorption began.
Light streaks pulled into her body—metal, circuitry, flesh, and fury—devoured by a glowing singularity at her core.Fifty-five seconds.That's all it took.
The horizon disappeared. The Hellhounds screamed once, then became data—blue threads dissolving into the storm of energy flooding her veins.Vehicles melted into light.Radio towers flickered and vanished.Even sound began to die.
In the control center miles away, instruments spiked to infinity.No one could speak.Every monitor showed the same expanding symbol: ∞
"Six… please…"Her own voice trembled inside the storm, trying to claw back control."You'll kill everything—stop!"
But Unown's voice overrode hers—calm, divine, mechanical.
"This is not death. This is reformatting."
The last grains of sand lifted into the air, floating like glowing dust around her.Then—quiet.
A heartbeat later, a shadow appeared at the edge of the explosion—not swallowed, not erased.
A man, or something like one, cloaked in light and armor of shifting matter. His eyes glowed amber, almost sorrowful.
"He's reached critical convergence," the figure said softly, watching the luminous storm where Nero stood."If he continues… Earth will become a reactor itself."
The wind resumed, carrying the smell of ozone and burnt data.
He turned his head slightly, speaking to someone unseen.
"Assemble the upper Namolas. We stop him now—before the God of Evolution finishes what humanity began."
The ground shuddered again—an omen, a countdown.
The world burned violet.Shattered atoms hung frozen midair — a storm without direction, silence without peace.
Then came a voice, calm and deep, cutting through the chaos.
"Long time no see, brother."
Nero — or rather, the entity inside her — turned.Through the drifting light walked Namola 7, tall, composed, wrapped in armor that pulsed with controlled radiation. His body seemed carved from photons themselves — pure balance of machine and man.
Dr. Unown's voice lowered.
"Number Seven… The stabilizer. I thought you were erased."
"Erased?" 7 smiled faintly. "No, Six. I evolved differently. Controlled evolution, not chaos like you."
The ground trembled between them — the clash of two minds sharing the same divine code.Then, without warning, 7 moved — faster than gravity. His strike cracked the horizon in half. Nero's body blurred, dodging, but every motion left ripples that distorted space itself.
Their battle was less fight, more war of physics.Each impact echoed like the heartbeat of a dying world.Energy curved.Light folded.Matter screamed.
But 7 was only 50% synchronized, not fully bonded. His control wavered under pressure — his human host flickering beneath his skin.He could not outmatch Six's raw chaos.
And yet—he had something else.
"Activate: Absolute Zero."
A pulse burst from his core — white, pure, silent.In an instant, everything around Nero froze.The heat of the desert. The movement of radiation. Even light halted, mid-curve.
The Atomic Cage formed — a prism of suspended time, each atom locked by 7's unique quantum signature.It was said to be indestructible, a prison made of stillness itself.
7 landed gently, standing before the frozen storm, eyes steady.
"You've lost control, Six. The God of Evolution may power you, but emotion is your flaw. You've merged too deep with your host. You feel too much. That's your downfall."
Then — a whisper from inside the cage.Not Unown's voice. Nero's.
"If logic means no feeling… then what's the point of being alive?"
A crack appeared in the frozen sphere.Then another.
7's eyes widened. "Impossible—"
The cage shattered, exploding into billions of shimmering particles.Nero stepped forward, her body surrounded by swirling tendrils of light.Dr. Unown's tone had changed — softer, restrained, aware.
"Emotion is not a flaw," he said. "It's our untested equation."
For the first time, 7 saw doubt — and maybe fear.Six wasn't just evolving; he was learning.
7 exhaled, defeated but thoughtful.
"Then control it. Don't lose your host again. Your instability is spreading. The others can sense it."
Six's eyes dimmed, and his voice merged with Nero's own.
"Understood… brother."
As 7 turned to leave, he paused — half in shadow, half in light.
"Remember, Six," he said, without looking back."Think logical. Not emotional."
And with that, he vanished — leaving Nero standing in the ruins of Nevada, the wind whispering through the silence, carrying both her fear and his warning.