90-60 Union Turnpike, Glendale, Queens, NY, USA – February 14, 2023 | 02:00 A.M.
38Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡGg1UAL9Dna
38Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡbl0uNj8ryd
Starling sat cross-legged on the stone sign in front of the apartment complex. The rain had stopped moments after she summoned her Eidolon, Raijin. Across from her, Zeus—the wounded Djinn—struggled to regenerate, his injuries severe, the damage inflicted by Starling’s Eidolon Zeus’s divine force. Starling had reluctantly called upon Asclepius to stabilise him.
Her focus, however, was fractured. The apartment’s courtyard buzzed with the irritating presence of children and their older siblings, all up far too late. Their voices echoed like gnats in the damp night air.
Nearby, Tetsuo observed Anubis—the jackal-headed Eidolon—as he sniffed the air and listened to the whispering wind. Starling had instructed the god of the underworld to locate her missing sister, Eva.
“I’ve been gone too long,” she said quietly. “Tell me—how was Eva while I was away?”
She waited a beat for the chaos to subside, giving Tetsuo a moment to introduce himself properly. Bart lingered in the background, distant and cautious since Starling’s harsh judgment of the seven offenders.
“She was ranked first on the NIX Stargazer Index,” Tetsuo finally said. “She would’ve become an elite... if Apophis hadn’t attacked our world.”
He clenched his fist. The tension in his jaw was unmistakable.
“Apophis?” Starling turned to him, brows lifting.
“Yeah. It wiped out our world before we arrived in 2023.”
“Who named it Apophis?” she asked, voice sharpening with interest.
“The NIX did. They already had a designation ready. Honestly, it reminded me more of your Eidolon than a true Void.”
He gave a strained, uncertain chuckle.
“How so?” Starling shot him a sideward glance.
“Voids erase everything. No trace. But Apophis... it leaves wreckage. Devastation, yes—but not clean annihilation.”
“Hmm.” Starling’s response was a cryptic murmur.
Tetsuo pressed on. “Can you explain how your Eidolons work? After Eva made me read half the damn library in Belvedere Castle, I started piecing things together. I remember your face in one of the photos. Apophis—he’s a god of chaos, right? Egyptian mythology. But your Eidolons—they’re all gods too. And recently, I’ve encountered Biohazards that also leave behind strange residues—not like Voids, but... still not divine.”
His tone was curious but edged with suspicion. Starling narrowed her eyes.
“I’m flattered,” she said at last, her voice silk-wrapped steel. “You remembered my face—even though I looked… rather different then. Most people these days can’t integrate basic facts into their skulls.”
She leaned forward, casually, yet with an undercurrent of menace.
“I’ve got a sharp memory,” Tetsuo replied, holding his ground. “So go ahead. Explain it. What are you? What are they? Why are gods walking around in our world?”
A long pause followed.
Then Starling exhaled through her nose and faced him fully.
“Alright, curious boy. You want the truth?” Her voice dropped, precise and unhurried—almost confessional.
“Ever wonder,” she murmured, “why the universe no longer makes sense?”
Tetsuo narrowed his eyes. “I’m asking the questions.”
She ignored him.
“There used to be life and death. Earth and stars. Science and spirit. But those boundaries fractured long ago. The truth is… there are four kinds of existence now. Four species. And none of them are what you think.”
She studied his face. His blank, adrift expression tested her patience, but she continued anyway. Her voice took on a cadence—less like explanation, more like ritual.
“Metaterrestrials. First and highest,” Starling began. “They don’t come from planets or timelines. They weren’t born. They are. Existence itself. Some call them gods. Others, anomalies. They don’t answer prayers—they warp reality simply by existing. You can’t kill one. You can only survive its attention.”
She raised a finger.
“Extraterrestrials. Aliens, yes—but not the ‘little green men’ caricature. Civilisations older than Earth’s memory. Nomads, parasites, empires, dreamers. Some fight the Voids. Others are worse. But they’re still bound by biology, by history.”
Another finger.
“Terrestrials. Us. Humanity—and the things we’ve become. Quasars. Interstellar beings like my sister Eva, who can impose their will upon the impossible. Nexus-touched anomalies are rare, but dangerous. Some evolved. Others were changed. But all were born here. Earth is our cradle—even if we outgrew it.”
She paused before stepping closer to Tetsuo.
“And then there’s the fourth.”
Her voice dipped—low, reverent.
“Subterrestrials. The ones we forgot. Myths. Monsters. Beliefs made flesh. They were never born. They were believed into being.”
Tetsuo’s brow tightened. “You mean your Eidolons.”
Her eyes glittered. “And more than that.”
She lifted her hand. Along her wrist, faint glyphs shimmered—glowing like threads of ancient narrative unraveling across skin.
“Eidolons aren’t alive. They’re not soldiers, spirits, or code. They’re old gods. Vampires. Monsters. Fuelled by faith, trapped in story. They can’t change. A shadow god will always be a shadow. A war titan will always crave war. Their power comes from being written down—but that’s also their prison.”
Tetsuo frowned. “So you’re telling me Apophis is... what? A ghost?”
“No,” she said sharply. “Apophis is a memory. A belief. A being shaped by generations of stories. The stronger the myth, the stronger the Eidolon.”
She gave a short, bitter laugh.
“They’re bound to their legends. A vampire Eidolon will die in sunlight—because that’s how the story goes. They are their stories. They can’t change it.”
Her tone shifted—cooler now, edged with something heavier.
“But that’s still not the same as the Novae. The Transcendents. The... Sephiroth.”
Her voice softened, yet grew colder.
“Like that Djinn over there.”
Zeus, still coughing on the asphalt, groaned as the woman beside him patted his back. Autumn giggled, painting flowers on his skin with childish joy.
“They were human—once. Poets. Fighters. Icons. People whose lives mattered so deeply that Ænigma itself chose them. Branded them into the fabric of reality. And when they died, their echoes didn’t fade. They ascended.”
Starling’s gaze hardened.
“When the universe begins to fracture, they return.”
Tetsuo tilted his head. “So... ghosts too?”
She smiled faintly.
“No. Not just remembered—chosen. The Sephiroth aren’t myths. They’re perfected memories of truth.”
Tetsuo scowled. “Sounds like a fancy name for something still dead.”
Starling chuckled. “Oh, they’re not dead. They’re eternal.”
She flicked her wrist. For a moment, a glowing glyph spiralled across her forearm—ancient script, like a wound etched into time.
“When a Nova returns,” she said, her voice low and reverent, “they come back as the ideal version of their legend. Stronger. Timeless. They don’t eat. Don’t sleep. They exist purely through belief. And the more the world remembers them—the more unstoppable they become.”
Tetsuo blinked. “Then why aren’t they everywhere? Why don’t they fight the Voids?”
Starling’s expression darkened.
“Because not every story survives. Some are forgotten. Others... were never meant to return. And the Novae? They’re bound by what they were. They can’t evolve or rewrite their fates. They only relive them.”
She stepped directly in front of him now. The air between them felt colder.
“You see the difference, Tetsuo? Eidolons are legends that refuse to die. Novae are legends that deserve to live.”
Tetsuo said nothing for a moment. His eyes searched hers, trying to make sense of it all.
Then, quietly: “And what about you?”
Her eyes flickered crimson—just for a heartbeat.
“I’m nothing,” she said softly. “Just... what’s left when a story refuses to die.”
“Then why does each species leave behind different... Ambience?”38Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡceehif67UK
Tetsuo’s voice broke the quiet again—softer now, but searching.38Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ2Ki7YUV5HN
“The Biohazards. Your Eidolons. Zeus. The Voids. It’s like... they’re made of different worlds.”
Starling didn’t answer at first. Her eyes remained on Zeus, who had begun laughing—light and musical, almost human—while Autumn daubed flowers across his cracked, metallic skin. The painted blooms shimmered as if illusions had bloomed into matter.
Her fingers curled into a fist.
“Because they are,” she said at last, with a breath that wasn’t quite a sigh.38Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡp4riF4iD3m
“They’re made from Affinities. Not elements. Not magic. Foundations.”
She turned to face him fully now.
“What you're sensing isn’t just residue. It’s Affinity. The force beneath all things—the language the universe speaks. Every being in existence is born attuned to one. Even if they never realise it.”
Tetsuo raised a brow. “So... like energy types?”
“Not types,” she corrected. “Laws. Immutable, metaphysical codes. Break them, and they break you back.”
Tetsuo tilted his head. “Foundations of what?”
Starling arched an eyebrow, amused.
“Reality.”
She began pacing slowly around him, as though drawing a circle made of thought and memory.
“Biohazards—their Affinity is Entropy. They unravel stability. Gravity slips. Time folds. Flesh decays before the mind can comprehend what’s happening. It’s not evil. Just... unstructured.”
She nodded toward Zeus.
“Zeus embodies Resonance. Pure will, shaped by emotion. He exists because someone believed in him too strongly to let go.”
Her voice quieted.
“Eidolons are bound to Thorne—the Affinity of Truth. That’s what people forget. They aren’t powered by belief, not really. They are the record. The written. What can’t be unwritten.”
Tetsuo frowned. “I thought you said they came from myth?”
Her eyes flickered—like a glitch in a forgotten data stream.
“A myth becomes truth the moment it’s recorded,” she said. “Thorne doesn’t care if it’s real—only that it’s written. Eidolons can’t change because their truth is etched in ink older than stars.”
Tetsuo digested that, then asked, “And the Voids?”
“Zero,” she answered immediately. “They aren’t made of anything. They’re what remains when everything else is undone.”
A pause followed. The space between them seemed to hush, like something listening from just outside the frame of time.
Tetsuo’s voice returned—low, but firmer.
“You’ve told me about Entropy, Resonance, Thorne, Zero…”38Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡvWkBXDfSxE
He paused.38Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡYfulRsbaCg
“But I’ve seen others. People who don’t warp minds or erase timelines. They stabilise things. Like gravity anchors around them. Like thought gets clearer.”
Starling’s eyes narrowed slightly. Listening.
“Quasars,” he continued. “We don’t melt reality. We... reinforce it.”
She gave a subtle nod—almost like a teacher acknowledging a sharp observation.
“That’s Cosmos Affinity,” she said. “The structure beneath everything. Order. Law. Consciousness. Time. It doesn’t break reality—it defines it.”
Tetsuo nodded slowly. “So, the opposite of Entropy?”
“In a way,” Starling said. “Cosmos holds the thread. Entropy frays it. Neither is evil. Both are necessary.”
He hesitated before pushing the question.
“Is that what you use? Cosmos?”
Starling smiled. But it wasn’t an answer—it was a blade disguised as a grin.
“No,” she said. “I use Thorne.”
Her tone sharpened—quiet, but heavy with intent.
“I don’t guess. I know. And knowledge… isn’t often merciful.”
She tapped the side of her temple, as though reminding him of the weight she carried.
“That’s the difference. Cosmos users like Quasars work within the system. Thorne users see through it.”
Tetsuo blinked. “But you knew about Zeus’s Affinity. About the Voids. The Biohazards—”
“Thorne doesn’t just see what’s real,” she interrupted. “It sees what’s buried. It remembers.”
She stepped closer, voice dropping a register.
“That’s why Eidolons are bound to it. Why their stories can’t change. They’re written into the very spine of reality.”
Tetsuo didn’t pull away—but something behind her eyes unsettled him.
Still, he pressed on.
“But that doesn’t explain Lucy.”
Starling’s expression didn’t change—but her silence did.
“She fights like a Quasar,” Tetsuo said, “but she doesn’t use Cosmos. She breaks the rules. Like a glitch. She makes impossible things happen.”
A beat.
“What is she?”
Starling looked away—not dismissive, but cautious.
“That’s Anima,” she said finally.
“Another Affinity?”
She nodded.
“The Affinity of creation. Manifestation. It doesn’t stabilise the system. It doesn’t destroy it either.”
“Then what does it do?”
She paused.
“It cheats.”
Tetsuo’s eyes narrowed. “So Lucy’s cheating reality?”
“Or reality is letting her.”
It wasn’t a confirmation. But it wasn’t a denial either.
Tetsuo took a step back. Something clicked into place in his mind.
“Then... what else is there?”
Starling’s gaze lifted toward the night sky—quiet, cloudless, endless.
“Fundamental,” she murmured.
“What’s that do?”
Her voice softened, almost reverent—like uttering the name of a forgotten god.
“It’s the bones of everything. Motion. Gravity. Cause and effect. The reason fire burns. Why time moves forward. Why a punch hits harder from the right angle.”
She paused.
“Disrupt Fundamental, and the laws stop working.”
Tetsuo swallowed. “You mean like… breaking physics?”
Starling looked at him—calm, unreadable.
“I mean like breathing in space. Walking through a wall because ‘solid’ stopped applying.”
Silence again.
“So… which Affinity’s the most dangerous?”
Starling’s lips twitched. Not quite a smile.
“They all are. In the wrong hands.”
A beat.
“Especially the ones that pretend they’re safe.”
Asclepius strode over to Starling and said calmly, “He’s dying. Please—help him pass without regret.”38Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡeEul7qjNtW
With that, the Greek god of medicine and healing gave a solemn bow before fading into one of the many voices echoing within her mind.
Starling rose from the stone marker at the apartment’s edge and turned toward the Djinn—only to be stopped by Tetsuo’s voice cutting through the tension.
“Ever since you were freed from your prison... you haven’t once asked about Felix. Not where he is, not how he’s doing. You just used him to keep an eye on Eva, didn’t you?”
Starling turned back, fixing him with a cold, unwavering stare.
“You never asked about him either,” she replied, her tone laced with quiet venom. “So don’t pretend you care. Just because you possess the Thorne Affinity doesn’t make you omniscient. You don’t even understand how the mechanisms of the Nexuscape operate.”
Tetsuo’s response came fast—too fast, unusually defensive for him.
“I never saw it as a disadvantage to share what I know. In fact, I prefer hunting enemies who are clever—who know what’s coming. Makes the hunt more... exhilarating. Do whatever you want with the information, Jake Langdon.”
His eyes widened.
Starling smiled, all innocence and poison.
“I know what you did to him. I also know your knowledge of my sister is pitiful—something her best friend would never lack. Especially not if he were truly him. Right now, speaking to you, it feels like I’m talking to a simpleton.”
She vanished—and in a blink, reappeared inches from him.
“Don’t worry,” she whispered, voice crawling under his skin like ice. “I’ve already prepared something just for you. Be a dear and tell my father to hurry. There’s going to be carnage—and he won’t get another chance.”
With a saccharine smile, she vanished again—this time materialising beside Zeus.
Behind her, Jake—who wore Tetsuo face—stumbled back in fright, tripping over himself as he fled into the apartment. Coincidentally, he passed the real Tetsuo and Bart just as they were about to exit.
Starling knelt beside Zeus, the Djinn, who was slowly fading—embers flickering away like dying fireflies. She studied him for a moment before glancing at the woman nearby.
“I think it’s time to tuck in the little ones, don’t you?” she said.
Lifting the sleepy Autumn into her arms, Starling tried to pry her away from Zeus. The child rubbed her eyes but clung to him, unwilling to let go.
“Sorry, Autumn. It's past your bedtime,” her mother murmured softly.
“Don’t wanna,” Autumn mumbled, then promptly fell asleep.
As the mother turned to walk toward the apartment building, she paused and looked back.
“My name is Carol. What’s yours?”
Starling hesitated, visibly conflicted. “Constantine…” she muttered, rolling her eyes with a resigned sigh, as if the name pained her.
Carol smiled and stepped closer, holding out a bracelet with a lantern-shaped pendant. “Thank you. Here,” she said. “Please take care of him.”
Starling raised an eyebrow. “I’m not a saint. That’s Constantine’s job.”
Carol chuckled as she walked away. “Your name is Constantine, isn’t it?”
She disappeared into the building, fully aware that Zeus was dying.
Starling examined the bracelet, twirling it in her fingers. She rubbed the tiny lantern charm absentmindedly, when Zeus’s voice caught her off-guard.
“So... what is your wish?” he rasped, coughing.
“Pardon?” Starling asked, startled.
“You’ve bested me. Traditionally, the victor is granted one wish,” Zeus explained, his voice weak but composed.
“Don’t be ridiculous,” she said flatly. “There’s nothing I couldn’t have done myself. I never needed your wish-granting powers. You were only trying to fulfil your own wish when my father made his.”
Her eyes hardened, locking onto his fading figure. Then, something shifted in her expression.
“Actually... I do have a wish,” she said, suddenly performing a theatrical smirk—an exaggerated act of ambition that only made her look like a curious student eager to test a hypothesis.
“You’re not greedy,” Zeus said. “Tell me your real wish.”
Dropping the act, Starling’s voice turned quiet, almost somber. “Before I fractured into Shards, I was transporting a cargo—something my grandfather entrusted to me. I’ve managed to recover most of it, but his old tophat is still missing. It means a lot to me. I want you to find it.”
Zeus chuckled gently and reached into the lantern, producing a charred, worn-out tophat. “Oh, this? Carol found it in the hedges.”
Starling’s eyes widened in alarm at the sight of its condition. A faded note barely clung to the lining, with one word still visible: Return.
“I have a similar tophat at home. Here—my apology,” Zeus said, summoning another nearly identical one.
“And one more thing,” he added, retrieving a delicate hairpin from the lantern. “Felix made this for you. He asked me to keep it safe.”
Starling’s breath caught. The ornate hairpin glistened with detailed carvings of a butterfly, rose, and bird—symbols that seemed deeply personal.
“He made this? When?” she asked softly.
“10:33 p.m., November 19th, 2015,” Zeus answered.
“That’s right before his heart stopped,” she whispered, clutching the hairpin to her chest, her eyes welling with tears. “I couldn’t have made my dream come true without him. He was always there for me.”
Her voice broke.
“We met on those frozen streets of Manhattan. He lived in a cardboard box house... and yet, whenever I visited, it felt like home. Thank you. This... this is all I have left of him.”
She wept silently.
Zeus watched her with quiet reverence. “You’ll find each other again,” he said. “I’m certain of it.”
Zeus lay sprawled on the rain-slicked street, steam rising faintly from his fading body. His breath was shallow, his voice a hoarse whisper.
“Can I tell you my wish... Ænigma?”
Starling wiped away the last of her tears and composed herself. “Of course,” she said softly. “It’s the least I can do.”
Zeus closed his eyes as if turning the past into pictures behind his eyelids.
“Once upon a time,” he began, “there lived a boy whose face reminded people of an ape. They mocked him endlessly. To survive, he worked in a travelling circus, performing to amuse a crowd that never saw the pain behind the act. One day, he met a girl in that crowd—the daughter of a mad scientist. Bright, clever, curious. They became fast friends.
“The boy dreamt of building a rocket and soaring to the stars. The girl longed for a home—somewhere safe, without fear or sorrow. Childish dreams, naïve in the eyes of the world. But everything changed the day they discovered a genie in a bottle. They were playing hide and seek in the ringmaster’s tent when the girl found me, stuffed in a trunk like a forgotten prop.”
Zeus coughed but continued.
“I asked them what their wishes were. They said they had none. At first, I was frustrated... but I relished my new freedom. You see, if no wish is made, the genie is allowed to roam the earth until it’s granted. Only then am I forced to return to the bottle.
“Days passed. They still made no wish. So, I followed them, watched over them. Eventually, they asked how I became a genie. I told them: I was once a stonemason, carving stories onto stone slabs. To earn more, I began carving wishes—telling people their dreams would come true if they paid enough.
“But one child’s wish changed everything. He wanted to be reunited with his parents in the afterlife... and asked me to kill him. He offered a fortune to let me live in luxury for a day before ending it all.
“I told him to live. To work hard. To find comfort and peace in life—that only by doing so might he be granted reunion in the next world. I thought I’d failed him, but... I’d fulfilled his wish.
“Years passed. Word spread. People came in droves, greedy for miracles. I confessed it was all a lie—but by then, it was too late. I died alone, penniless, with nothing but the stories I carved into stone. For my arrogance, I was cursed to become a genie, forever granting wishes—no matter how dark.”
Zeus paused, the wind easing around him.
“But then I met the Boy and the Girl. For the first time, I wasn’t needed to grant anything. They simply smiled at me. Called me their best friend. We didn’t use each other—we helped each other. We made a promise: to reach the stars together... and never look down again.”
A shadow fell over Zeus's face as his tone darkened.
“But the circus began to change. Performers vanished. One day, the Boy disappeared. In desperation, the Girl made her first wish—to find him. It led her to her father’s lab. What she discovered there...”
He trailed off.
“The Boy had been dissected, piece by piece. Grief-stricken, she tried to wish him back—but she’d already used her one wish.
“I granted it anyway. And that was my punishment. I was dragged back into the lantern.”
He swallowed hard.
“I watched from within as she exposed her father, led the police to arrest him. She grew older, moved on. She had a family. But she never used another wish. Never summoned me again. She took the secret to her grave.
“And I remained, buried in dust and silence... until Carol found me.”
Zeus let the silence stretch.
Starling sat nearby, clacking away on a vintage typewriter. She looked up.
“Go on. What’s your wish?”
Zeus stared into the puddle beside him, seeing only the fading outline of himself in the reflection.
“I wish... I had taken them to the stars sooner—before the world wedged itself between us.”
Starling plucked the final page from the typewriter, stacked the manuscript neatly, and stood.
“I have an even better wish,” she said, smirking slightly as she began to read aloud.
“The Genie learned to befriend again—even if he was still a brute with a short fuse and a six-pack from going to the gym...”
Zeus growled, veins rising under translucent skin. “What in the cosmos is that supposed to be?”
“Wait,” Starling said, raising a finger. She read on, mockingly:
“Despite all he’d seen, the Genie had a soft spot for children—even the loud, bratty ones.”
“Apologise to them, you insufferable know-it-all!” Zeus barked.
Starling laughed, then turned serious.
“The rain subsided, though dawn had not yet come. The Genie, now little more than smoke and embers, had one final wish to grant... to Ænigma.”
She leaned close and whispered:
“Your dreams are grander than even you realise. Go—to the dreaming space where I belong. The rocket is waiting.”
She stepped back, revealing what had been hidden behind the illusion of her body—a gleaming rocketship in gleaming chrome, its design reminiscent of the golden age of sci-fi, sleek and stylised like a 1950s pulp cover.
In the cockpit, two familiar faces waved: the Boy and the Girl—whole, alive, and smiling.
In a blink, Zeus found himself aboard. The Boy at the controls, flipping switches with giddy excitement.
“Houston, we are ready for launch!” the Girl said through the mic.
Starling’s voice crackled through in reply: “Genie... good luck. Nexuscape awaits.”
Zeus grinned for the first time in decades. “Lift off.”
The rocket launched from Glendale and Turnpike Street, its engines roaring like thunder. Residents rushed to their windows, jaws slack.
Autumn watched from the apartment with her siblings, waving gently. “Bye-bye,” she whispered.
As the rocket disappeared into the sky, it folded seamlessly into the manuscript in Starling’s hands. She closed the book. Its pages shimmered briefly—then vanished into the Akashic Record.
Bart approached from behind. Starling didn’t turn.
“Are you mad at me... for what I did to those seven garbages?” she asked, her voice uncharacteristically uncertain.
“Yes,” Bart answered plainly. “You could have done better.”
She clenched her jaw. “What would that be, Bart? Sunshine and rainbows? They deserved it the moment they tried to hurt those children. I stood up to the abusers.”
“I know,” he said with a sigh. “We’ve argued about this before. I want to save lives. You want to ensure justice. But justice doesn’t mean suffering. What you did... may have been right. But that doesn’t make it justified.”
He paused. “Still... this proves something to me. You’re still Alice.”
That made her turn.
“You helped the Djinn find peace—even after what he’d done. I know I can’t save everyone. But I try. And Alice? She would’ve done the same.”
He smiled at her, though exhaustion lined his face.
She stepped forward and wrapped one arm around him in a quiet, half-embrace, resting her head on his shoulder.
“I’m tired,” she whispered. “I’ve been trying to tell you... I’m not her. But her feelings, her memories, her thoughts... they won’t leave me. I didn’t ask for them.”
She paused.
“But I want to be Alice.”
Tears slid down her cheeks as Bart held her close—no longer denying the truth, but accepting it, that Alice is dead.
ns216.73.216.96da2
