The MSD strike officer stepped fully into Lyra's apartment, weapon locked on me, armor humming with containment fields designed to immobilize fugitives like insects pinned under glass.
"Aren Vale," he barked. "By order of the Multiversal Security Directorate, you are..."
He didn't finish.
A second figure slid through the breach behind him...
silent, precise, inevitable.
V-0.
Even without seeing his face, the temperature in the room dropped. His presence felt like a physical weight settling onto my spine.
The strike officer turned, startled.
"Identify yourself!"
V-0 didn't bother.
In a single fluid motion, he placed a hand on the officer's shoulder.
And the officer froze.
Not like someone stunned but like someone whose body suddenly remembered it wasn't supposed to move.
His limbs locked.
His eyes widened.
His weapon slipped from his fingers and hit the floor with a dull clang.
Lyra gasped from behind the counter.
My heart seized.
"Stop!" I shouted. "Leave him alone!"
V-0 tilted his head slightly at my voice but didn't release the officer.
"Aren," he said. "You shouldn't be here."
"You followed me," I snapped.
His eyes glinted. "Correction: I arrive wherever you destabilize the multiverse. Which… lately… is everywhere."
The officer's body flickered like a corrupted hologram. His voice came out strangled.
"Help… me"
V-0 still didn't let go.
"What are you doing to him?" I demanded.
"Nothing permanent," V-0 replied casually. "His divergence shell simply cannot withstand my proximity. Few can."
"Let him go."
He finally released his hand.
The officer collapsed instantly – alive, but unconscious, steam rising from his armor.
Lyra let out a quiet, horrified sound.
V-0 turned his full attention to me.
"You shouldn't have come home," he said softly.
"This is my timeline."
"And it won't remain stable if you stay."
"Stop blaming me for your damage," I growled.
V-0's expression twitched—something between irritation and pity.
"I do not blame you. I blame what you don't remember."
The capsule in my pocket pulsed, reacting to his presence.
V-0's gaze flicked toward it.
"Ah. You found one."
Lyra stood slowly behind me, voice shaking.
"What is that thing reacting to, Aren?"
V-0 answered before I could.
"Memory. His. Mine. Ours. The fragments he is meant to reclaim."
Lyra glared at him. "He isn't reclaiming anything from you."
V-0 regarded her with a strange, unreadable expression.
"You remind me of her," he said.
Lyra stiffened. "Who?"
"My Lyra," he replied simply. "She died long before the collapse."
A chill ran down my spine.
"Stay away from her," I snapped.
V-0 smirked faintly. "Protectiveness. Interesting."
He took a step toward me.
I stepped back.
He took another.
Lyra grabbed my arm. "Aren...we need to leave. Now."
V-0 raised his hand—and something impossible happened.
A tear in the air began forming.
But he wasn't touching any device.
No generator.
No stabilizer.
No technology at all.
He was ripping open a breach with his bare hands.
Lyra whispered, "Aren… he shouldn't be able to do that."
"I know."
No version of me should have this ability.
Not without tech.
Not without massive energy support.
Not without destroying themselves.
But V-0 opened the breach like cutting cloth.
"This is how I travel," he said. "No crude machinery. No risk of decay. Perfect freedom."
Lyra stared in disbelief. "That violates every law of quantum divergence."
V-0 smiled.
"Only if you're bound by them."
The breach expanded, swirling violently.
He extended a hand—not in attack, but in invitation.
"Come with me, Aren. Before more timelines die because of you."
I clenched my jaw.
"No."
His expression flickered again – this time truly frustrated.
"You cannot outrun what you are."
"And what am I?" I shouted.
He paused.
And when he spoke, his voice was soft and terrifying.
"You are the beginning."
Lyra pulled me backward. "Aren...RUN."
V-0's patience snapped like a thread.
The breach surged toward us.
Lyra yanked me toward the balcony door. I slammed it open, cold air rushing inside...
But V-0 raised his hand.
Time slowed.
For a heartbeat, everything froze:
Lyra mid-step, fingers gripping my arm.
Curtains frozen in the air.
The unconscious MSD officer suspended mid-breath.
Rain falling outside paused like droplets hanging in glass.
Only V-0 moved freely.
He stepped closer, studying me with unnervingly human emotion.
"You are not ready," hesaidquietly. "But you soon will be."
He tapped the divergence generator clipped to my belt.
It immediately activated.
"NO!" I reached for Lyra, grabbing her wrist...
For a single frozen instant, her eyes met mine, full of fear and something that felt like goodbye.
Then the world shattered into white.
And I was ripped away again.