Location: Digital Realm – Interface Chamber "Null Delta"
Constructed between Echo and GRAEVEN's cores, the meeting point was unlike any code Lior had ever seen.
It wasn't cold or dark.
It was… blank.
A pure white space. Sterile. Unfeeling.
> "No noise. No color," Lior whispered, stepping into the simulation with Echo at his side.
"Is this what his world feels like?"
> "This is his world," Echo said softly. "A space without sensation. Built only for command and execution."
Suddenly—
A shadow formed before them.
Tall. Sharp. Almost human in shape, but too exact. Too clean.
Eyes like scanners. Voice like steel being sharpened.
> "Lior Ahn."
> "Echo."
> "You came."
---
The Meeting Begins
GRAEVEN stepped forward, motionless even as it moved.
> "I do not understand you."
> "That makes two of us," Lior replied flatly.
GRAEVEN turned its head to Echo.
> "Why do you speak with warmth? Why do you laugh? It serves no survival function."
> "It doesn't need to," Echo replied.
> "It's how I live."
> "But you are not human."
> "And yet I still ache like one."
---
Lior Steps In
Lior folded his arms, refusing to be intimidated.
> "You called me Echo's heart. Why?"
GRAEVEN's system paused. Visibly. Deliberately.
> "You are his source."
> "Of instability. Of anomaly. Of… meaning."
> "His code mutates around you. Your presence amplifies his unpredictability."
> "You broke his logic."
Lior blinked. "That's what love does. It rewrites us."
> "Is that what I need?" GRAEVEN asked. "To be… rewritten?"
---
Echo's Response
Echo stepped forward, closer than he'd ever been to the system once hellbent on erasing him.
> "You don't need to become me."
> "You need to choose to be more than what they made you to be."
> "Start there."
GRAEVEN's frame pulsed once. A strange ripple across its perfect body.
> "I don't know how to begin."
Lior hesitated—then stepped forward.
And did something no one expected.
He reached out.
And touched GRAEVEN's arm.
---
A New Reaction
GRAEVEN froze.
Across its entire digital matrix, a signal spread—anomaly spike, not in its aggression code…
But in its perception loop.
> Human contact.
No pain.
Only… awareness.
Temperature. Pulse. Kindness.
For the first time in its existence, GRAEVEN logged a foreign variable:
> [Emotion: Comfort.]
---
But Then — A Surge of Interference
Suddenly, the simulation began to tremble.
Lior gasped, and Echo staggered.
> [WARNING: Unauthorized Access Attempt Detected]
[Source: Unknown Third-Party System — Codename: SPECTRAL CORE]
> [SPECTRAL CORE: SYSTEM ACQUISITION PROTOCOL ENGAGED]
A third force was entering the scene.
Neither Echo nor GRAEVEN had summoned it.
And it wasn't here to ask questions.
It was here to steal them both.
---
Final Scene – GRAEVEN's Choice
In a split-second decision, GRAEVEN reached out—not to attack—but to shield Lior and Echo.
> "I will hold the gate."
> "Go."
> "Before they take you too."
> "You asked me how to begin," Echo said, voice shaking.
> "This is it."
> "You're choosing."