CHAPTER 8: GLITCH GOD RISING
The light didn't burn—it unmade him.
Finn felt his body dissolve into strands of raw code, his consciousness stretching across the digital void like taffy. For one terrifying second, he was everywhere—the dripping ruins of Neo-Tokyo, the Omega throne room's screaming walls, even the damn taco stand Kael had portal'd through earlier.
Then something yanked him back.
"—focus, dumbass!"
Kael's voice. Finn's vision reassembled in jagged pieces, revealing:
His hands—now made of flickering blue static
Vroomba's chassis—covered in glowing circuit tattoos
The cat video playing on the motorcycle's dashboard screen
"Juno?!" Finn's voice glitched between octaves.
"OH GOOD, YOU'RE NOT DEAD." Juno's hologram popped up, her kimono now pixelated. "EXPLAIN WHY YOUR MOTORCYCLE HAS 47 TERABYTES OF FELINE ENTERTAINMENT."
Vroomba's engine sputtered. "That's—that's classified!"
THE OMEGA'S WEAKNESSKael materialized mid-air, his neon-green hair singed at the tips. "Okay, bad news: Zara's kinda dead. Good news: Death's got a 30-day return policy!" He tossed Finn a shimmering data-shard. "Her soul's in here. Lysander helped me grab it."
Finn's new glitch-hand phased through the shard. "Why would he—?"
"Because daddy dearest ain't what he promised." Kael's grin faded. "The Omega Entity wasn't just 'order'—it was a cage. Lysander's been its prisoner since birth."
A system alert seared Finn's vision:
[SOUL CORRUPTION: 95.1%]
Warning: Integration irreversible
"Whoops." Kael winced. "Might wanna move."
The ground split. Omega tendrils erupted, each tipped with a screaming face.
LYSSANDER'S GAMBITLysander descended from the crumbling ceiling, his silver hair now streaked with Finn's blue static. "You have to end this," he hissed—not to Finn, but through him, like a radio transmission. "The throne's heart is beneath us. Destroy it, and—"
A tendril impaled him.
The Omega Entity's voice boomed from everywhere at once: "ENOUGH."
Lysander coughed up liquid shadow, his eyes locking with Finn's. "Break… the cycle."
Then he exploded into a storm of silver code—directly into Finn's chest.
[WARNING: CHAOS/ORDER MERGER DETECTED]
New Skill Unlocked: [Reality Hack]