The air was still. Not peaceful—but holding its breath.
Nova stood at the edge of the impact crater where Device Omega had vanished, staring at the faint outline of his own bootprints in the scorched dust. Around him, the remnants of the city were eerily quiet, the silence stretching like a warning written in absence.
The battle was over.
But Varkel's final words echoed louder than any explosion.
> "You're not the Chosen One. You're a diversion."
Disquiet in the Code
Nova sat against the wreckage of a fractured light tower, knees up, breathing slow. LUMINA's voice lingered in his thoughts—no longer constant, but quiet. Calculating.
> "LUMINA?" he asked.
> "Processing Varkel's last statement. Cross-referencing all Device X protocols and memory fragments."
> "And?"
> "...Nothing matches. There is no known classification of 'diversion protocol' in Device X's codebase."
> "So either he was bluffing—"
> "Or we are operating with a corrupted understanding of the origin."
Nova looked at the back of his hand—the crest embedded into his flesh shimmered faintly. For the first time since the fusion, it felt... wrong. Not dangerous. But incomplete. As if he'd only unlocked the front door of a house with infinite corridors.
Suddenly, a pulse. Faint. Different from any energy Nova had felt before.
LUMINA's tone sharpened.
> "Dimensional distortion detected. Source: beneath the continental shelf. Seismic activity consistent with... vault detachment."
> "Vault?"
> "A memory archive. But not Garoban. It's older. Predates all known intelligent species by approximately 18.4 million galactic cycles."
Nova's eyes widened.
> "Is that even possible?"
> "It shouldn't be. This predates the Garoba. Even the origin of the universe as we know it."
> "Then what the hell is it doing here?"
LUMINA paused.
> "We have to find out."
Descent into the Abyss
Three hours later, Nova stood on the deck of a black, hovering transport created by LUMINA's nanotech—sleek, silent, and cloaked from satellite systems. Beneath him, a yawning chasm opened up under the ocean, hidden from radar and invisible to any human detection system.
At the bottom of the trench lay something impossible.
A tower.
Not constructed from stone or steel—but from ideas. Its surface shifted, woven from memories and unknown materials that refused to obey physical laws. As the transport descended, the tower shimmered in and out of visibility.
> "LUMINA... are we hallucinating?"
> "No. This is a cognitive artifact."
> "English, please."
> "It's not built to exist. It's built to be remembered."
> "So how's it still here?"
> "Because someone still remembers it."
Nova's blood chilled.
> "And who the hell is that?"
The Archive of Ghosts
As they entered the tower, Nova felt pressure—not on his body, but his soul. Every step echoed with a feeling of déjà vu, as if he had been here before in dreams he'd forgotten.
The walls whispered. Not in sound, but in meaning.
Flickering in the air were ghostly versions of himself: a Nova made of light. A Nova in Zarnokian armor. A Nova with no face.
Each turned toward him and said in unison:
> "You were never the first."
Nova's breath hitched. "What does that mean?"
LUMINA spoke, voice shaken.
> "There have been others. Versions of you—across dimensions, timelines, and false starts. You're the 741st iteration of this experiment."
Nova froze.
> "What experiment?"
> "Project Genesis. The attempt to find the one host capable of harmonizing with both halves of Device X—LUMINA and NEMIRA. To become not just a protector... but a creator."
> "So I'm not chosen," Nova whispered. "I'm... manufactured?"
> "You are... a possibility."
The First Nova
In the center of the archive, a chair awaited. Carved from what looked like fossilized light, it pulsed with living memory.
Nova approached and touched it.
In an instant, reality folded.
He was no longer in the tower—but on a battlefield, under a sky with two suns. Alien ruins burned around him. He was in another version of his body—taller, older, armored in a way he didn't understand.
And next to him—
Another LUMINA.
But this one wept.
> "I failed," she whispered.
> "You're not my LUMINA," Nova said.
> "No. I was hers. The first. And she... didn't survive."
Nova blinked, and the memory collapsed.
He fell back into his own body.
Revelation
> "LUMINA," Nova whispered, "how many versions of you have there been?"
> "Seven hundred and forty," she replied.
> "And I'm the 741st attempt?"
> "Yes. But you are the first to unlock both Phase Two and the Nexus Protocol without corruption."
Nova paced.
> "So Varkel was right. I'm not the Chosen One. I'm a test subject."
> "No," LUMINA said, suddenly fierce. "You are the one who chose to continue. That's what makes you different. The others were perfect candidates, but they broke. You're imperfect—but you endure."
He stopped.
> "So what now?"
> "Now," LUMINA said, "we find who's been running the simulation."
The Shadow Operator
At the heart of the tower, a being waited.
Not Garoban. Not Zarnokian. Not human.
It sat atop a throne of broken stars, its face shrouded in a constantly changing mask.
> "Welcome, Nova," it said. "You made it further than most."
> "Who are you?"
> "I am the Fractured Origin. I was the first entity to split Device X. I made LUMINA and NEMIRA. I started the cycle."
> "Why?"
> "To find a host who could rewrite reality without succumbing to control."
> "And what happens if I say no?"
The being smiled. "Then the 742nd will try."
Nova clenched his fists.
> "No. This ends with me."
> "Are you sure?" the Origin said. "You've seen the others. You've seen the pain. The truth. Are you ready to bear the burden of rewriting your entire existence?"
Nova looked at his hand. The crest pulsed once.
Then he met the Origin's gaze.
> "I won't rewrite my story. I'll write a new one."