Zoe and Kieran stepped out of The Place.
She patted the bright pink scooter parked out front—her bestie in chrome. "Meet Pinky. Cybertrucks yield to her out of respect."
Kieran gave it a flat stare. At this point, he wouldn't have blinked if she'd rolled up on a dinosaur.
They'd barely taken off when Pinky beeped—sharp, insistent.
Zoe rolled her eyes. "Seriously? What is today, enemy-drone discount day?"
The air split with a metallic hum. A translucent drone flickered into view, red beacons flashing.
Kieran's gaze traced the faint green outlines. "You can see it too? I thought I was losing my mind."
"Of course I can. You know how many of those pests I've run into today?" She didn't wait for an answer—because it wasn't a question. It was a declaration: whatever madness this was, they were in the same show now.
"Zoe. Drive when I say." His voice shifted—cold, precise. One hand brushed his wristband.
Data exploded around him in ghostly streams: weather, wind vectors, traffic flows, headlight angles from cars a block away. His brain crunched it real-time code.
"Faster," he murmured. "Three… two… one—hard right."
"What—are you trying to kill us?" Zoe yelped, even as she obeyed.
Pinky skidded through a puddle, spraying mud across the windshield of a hovercar. The driver slammed brakes, chain-colliding with the cars behind. Horns blared a mechanical orchestra.
The drone juked to adjust.
"Left—slower—brake now!"
Zoe bit down hard, Pinky screeched to a stop. Their heads knocked together. The drone zipped past, overshooting.
She shot him a glare. "You've got a gift for heart attacks, you know that?"
Kieran didn't answer.
Metal shrieked above them. A crane on the construction site rattled from the earlier crash, a massive steel beam loosening—
—CLANG.
The beam slammed straight through the drone's chassis. Sparks burst, circuits popped, then—boom. Shards rained in a flash of white.
Zoe's jaw dropped. She turned to Kieran, stone-faced, as if it were just another Tuesday. "Okay. Tell me straight. Engineer… or wizard?"
"Just numbers. Calculations." His shrug was pure conversation-ender.
They rode in silence for a beat. No drones. No chaos. Just the hum of Pinky's engine and a strange pulse between driver and passenger.
"Ever since I met you…" Kieran muttered, "…my life's gone off the rails."
Zoe beamed. "Aww. No one's ever complimented me like that before."
"That wasn't—"
"Anyway. I'm staying at your place tonight."
"…What?" He blinked. "Why?"
"For your safety, duh."
"I can handle myself. Didn't you see who took that drone down?"
"That was just an appetizer. Entrées haven't even arrived."
"Why would they even come after me, a so-called ordinary guy?"
"Maybe…" She side-eyed him through the mirror. "…you're not that ordinary."
She left Pinky coast, twisting around to look at him. "At least… you're special to me."
And there it was—thud.
Kieran sighed a fed-up teacher scolding a bratty student. "Stop looking at me like that."
"Embarrassed~?"
"No, Zoe. Not even close."
Her smile faltered for half a second before she faced forward again.
As for Kieran's heart? It was pounding hard enough to trigger a national security alarm. Lucky the budget didn't exist for that system—Otherwise he'd be arrested on charges of…
'Falling in love on the freeway.'
It didn't take long for them to reach Kieran's apartment—
a place he'd never imagined would be invaded by laughter and hair the color of strawberry sherbet.
"Come on in…" Zoe strolled ahead like she owned the place. Honestly, he had to recheck whose room this actually was.
"Thanks for inviting me over…" she added, arching her back in a lazy stretch, catlike.
"As far as I recall, I never invited you."
Naturally, Zoe didn't care. The room became her theme park as she bounced from corner to corner, opening the delivery-unit tucked in the corner—a quantum matter-transporter the size of a microwave. (To explain it properly would require five physics textbooks and maybe a gun to your head to make you finish.)
She chuckled, pulling out a frozen burger. "Do you survive on this every day?"
"I don't like wasting time on unnecessary things," he replied flatly.
"Then dinner's on me. Consider it a rental." She declared it as gospel truth and marched straight to the kitchen without waiting for approval.
Minutes later, something resembling dinner landed on the table. Kieran eyed it the way a bomb squad eyes a ticking box with too many wires sticking out. He prodded it with a fork, braced himself, and took a bite with the kind of courage most people save for actual life-or-death moments.
Silence. Two breaths.
"If you're not good at cooking, you don't have to torture people."
"It's just a little overdone," Zoe said brightly.
"In forensics, they'd call this: charred beyond identification."
"Fine! I'll just reheat the burger then. Picky much?" She tilted her head back with a groan, embarrassment clearly not included in her DNA.
The only soundtrack left was clinking silverware—an indie film titled Two People and One Awkward Meal.
Zoe broke the air by diving into her story: interdimensional travel, demon armies, dragon kings—basically the whole epic saga.
"Pretty badass, huh?" Her grin was the curtain call of a one-woman monologue.
Kieran tried not to laugh. Failed.
"You're unbelievable," he said, leaning back. "But you tell it well. You could write webnovels."
Zoe puffed her cheeks like a kid scolded for too much screen time. "I'm telling the truth! Believe it or not."
"Didn't say I didn't believe you." His tone was casual, but—God help him—she was cute, not that he'd admit it.
"Then what was with the almost-choking laugh?"
"Aren't you supposed to be an adult here? Sulking like a kid."
"I'm not sulking!"
"Okay, okay, Miss Capable…" His smile softened, but his gaze cut sharper.. "If you really are some kind of dimension-hopping traveler… how did you end up here? Who sent you?"
Zoe leaned back, arms crossed, reminiscent of an intruder playing landlord. "Just… someone who acts like he's writing his own script all the time."
"And that would be…?" Kieran raised a brow.
She stabbed at her food with her fork. "Headmaster of the magic academy. And the crea—" She swallowed the last word, then pivoted so hard it squeaked. "Anyway. If you ignore the cryptic talk, he's smart enough to run workshops for gods."
Kieran squinted at her, as if decoding the layers behind her sarcasm. Underneath all the snark, though, her eyes screamed respect.
Zoe dropped her voice, mocking an old wizard. "If I told you more, your cake in the fridge would vanish~"
Yeah. If Silvernight ever heard her, she'd end up as a pastel pony chair in his garden.
"And what exactly does that have to do with sending you to… babysit me?"
"Protect, not babysit." She corrected him. "…Don't know. Maybe just one out of a billion errands. I'm only doing it because I was free anyway."
"Sounds exactly like you." Kieran's eyes pinned her. "So when you say protect… protect me from what?"
"From this world. From them. And from yourself."
"Protect me from myself? That's straight out of a dandruff shampoo ad."
"Ugh…" She groaned loud enough to rattle the windows. "Forget it. I only know, like… tip of the icebear kinda info."
"It's an iceberg," he corrected.
"Whatever. Bears are cooler anyway." She snorted as if an angry bull.
Kieran rested his chin on one hand, then fired questions, a machine gun of doubt. "What's Alpha Core? What can it do? Why is it so important? Why me? And how do we even find it?"
Zoe groaned. "God, you nag. Fine—it's tied to your past, and it's huge. Think giga-mega-ultra huge."
"Big as fighting a demon army?"
"You are trying to piss me off, aren't you?" She clenched a fist.
He raised both hands in fake surrender.
Zoe huffed, snapped open her foldable phone, and shoved the glowing map into his hands, a sulky tour guide on the world's strangest trip. "Route to your very own cosmic mess. I'm just the navigator. Our next stop: Arkadia Zone—an abandoned industrial district haunted by more ghosts than office politics. ~"
Kieran took the relic as though it had crawled out of a museum display. "Does this still work? No data leaks? And how does it even run?"
"Magic," she deadpanned, not bothering to look at him. She hugged a pillow and rolled lazily on his couch. "I've got a mint-green one too. Want it?"
"…Thanks, but no." His stare pinned to the coordinates, mind already running simulations—legal routes, and the ones where you packed a gas mask first.
"You should get some rest," he muttered, head bent over his work. When he glanced up again—Zoe was out cold.
She'd curled into herself, a spoiled cat in sunlight—face softened, almost fragile.
Kieran exhaled quietly, draped a blanket over her, and told himself he wasn't thinking anything about it.
But the holographic shimmer from his monitors painted shadows across her features, and in that sliver of time, the word familiar bit into his chest. A wave rose inside him, crashing the shore of his heart in a storm tide he couldn't name.
Déjà vu? Or just the exhaustion of three sleepless nights?
Get it together, Kieran.
He sat at his workstation, the question vultures circling overhead, then tapped the band on his arm. Blue energy veins pulsed across the alloy, birthing a transparent display. Bio-sensors scrolled streams of data: pulse, oxygen, vitamin D levels—because why not.
He reconfigured it, weaving a personal defense field strong enough to shrug off a small explosion. Then he tested Undo—tossed a pen, rewound it neatly into his palm, as though performing sleight of hand.
The steadiness didn't last.
Fragments bled in from the past—their argument sharp behind a cracked door, screens flickering, the moment snapping to black. Not the clean cut of a movie ending, but the suffocating choke of memory imploding inside him.
Pain lanced through his skull. He tore the device from his arm, clutching his temples—his body a machine red-lined and screaming
Every time he reached for the past, it shattered—burned pieces of a jigsaw never meant to be whole again.
And then, the signal in his head.
'You're not ready…'
Kieran said nothing. He just sat there, letting the thunder of his own heartbeat answer back.
Before the systems ever came online—before the chaos had a manual to ignore—Zoe was already here.
She found him instantly.
The blue-haired boy.
Not exactly superhero material, yet enough to make her heart miss its rhythm.
That's him? Kieran? She inhaled sharply.
"…Looks so much like Sky. Gave me goosebumps. No—Skyler looks like him. They're connected. They have to be."
Her mission shifted—from protecting someone…to unearthing a truth she might not be ready for.
Instead of barging in, she lingered in the shadows.
Anyone who knew Zoe well would laugh—observe was never in the same sentence as her name. But this Zoe was different. A little older. A little calmer. Enough to know that if she interfered too soon, the System might delete her faster than a cache purge, no warning, no confirmation.
But patience has an expiration date. And what she saw was burning through it fast.
Drones. Invisible, tailing him in dead air—as if auditors snooping on a life account statement. But Zoe knew quiet never meant safety.
Then it started.
The first time—A car came screaming straight at him, its driver fresh out of hell. Kieran dodged… but not quite fast enough.
The second time—The bridge beneath his feet caved deliberately, dropping him toward nothingness.
The third—A power line snapped overhead with a hungry hiss, sparks raining down hot shrapnel.
She saw it all.
Not once.
But again and again.
Each death reset him back in his room, his face blank, His memory was nothing.
This wasn't a game.
And Kieran wasn't an NPC.
He was a person.
Zoe bit her lip. Her stare cracked, rain pressing in through the narrow alleyways of her heart. If she revealed herself now, the System could erase her—Delete + Enter. No confirmation.
But stand by and watch?
No.
Sorry, System. I'm no obedient puppy waiting for commands.
I am Zoe—the Nine-Tailed Fox. And I'll stop this myself.
When Kieran finally finished tweaking his device, he turned—and there she was.
The strange girl who'd barged into his life, asleep on his couch without a care in the world.
One arm pillowed her head, her face buried in the cushion, one leg draped over the armrest as if claiming squatter's rights by default.
He stood over her for a long beat, arms folded, then finally reached down and shook her shoulder. "Wake up. We've got to go."
She stirred, grumbled, and buried herself deeper into the pillow like a kid refusing Monday morning. A few seconds later, she cracked her eyes open—blue irises gleaming through the haze of sleep—and managed to sass him anyway.
"You're the most annoying alarm clock on Earth, you know that? If you're so eager, go without me."
Kieran's sigh was heavy enough to sail a boat. "You dragged me into this mess, Zoe."
The pink-haired menace yawned wide, rolling onto her back, reminiscent of a cat draped in pure indifference. "I don't remember signing us up for a dawn patrol."
He stared in disbelief. "Oh, for—what the hell am I supposed to do with you?"
She didn't answer. Just burrowed into the pillow again.
"Seriously," he muttered, pinching the bridge of his nose. "What kind of girl crashes at a stranger's place like she owns it? Don't you have any survival instincts left?"
Zoe sat up, hair a tousled halo, lips curling into that mischievous smile. "Excuse me—pretty girl, thank you. Careful, your honesty's showing."
She blinked slow, deliberate—aiming for sultry, landing on seasonal allergy.
Then, without warning, she leaned in, closing the distance until even his cynicism felt the heat. "Told you already. I'm not a kid… want me to prove it?" she whispered, breath tickling his ear.
Kieran stared at the ceiling as if heaven owed him an escape hatch. "Just… go get ready." He turned on his heel and walked away.
Arkadia Zone.
Doesn't sound dangerous or suspicious—until you actually set foot inside.
This was an industrial graveyard—every dystopian sci-fi set ever built, fused together and left to rot. Towering steel skeletons eaten by rust. Vines crawling over cracked walls, nature reclaiming the scraps of a civilization that walked out mid-shift.
The streets were silent, nothing but wind and scraps of obsolete data-paper swirling. Every step echoed too loud, a pursuer always one beat behind.
Kieran tapped the metal cuff on his wrist. A translucent map bloomed to life, real-time red blips marking patrol drones and sentry units. At first glance, harmless. But when a sensor sweep of crimson light cut across the alley, he knew this wasn't just surveillance.
"They're protecting something…" he murmured, whispering numbers under his breath—angles, trajectories, reflections, escape routes. Every calculation is crisp, surgical.
And the girl beside him? Zero patience for any of it.
"Don't—" he started.
Too late. Zoe was already stepping out of cover—no plan, no backup, no hesitation. Pure, reckless Zoe.
"Are you seriously paying me back in trauma right now?" Kieran gritted his teeth and sprinted after her.
She vaulted onto a crate, launched herself out into the open a neon firecracker, and slammed her heel into the joint of a patrol unit. The machine crumpled, dust exploding around her.
Showtime.
She snatched up two steel rods from the ground, twirling them like she'd been born with them welded to her palms. A laser beam sliced past; the ends of her hair singed. She spun and flowed, movement as sharp as choreography, not a flicker of hesitation.
Kieran froze mid-stride. In his world, there were only two kinds of women to fear: the beautiful and the dangerous. Zoe was both—turned up to eleven.
Another automaton charged. She cracked its power core with one strike—sparks showered, the thing toppled.
"Look out!" Kieran shouted, hand flung forward uselessly as a lock-on symbol painted across her chest. He couldn't stop it. Couldn't save her. All he could do was stand there and watch.
She glanced back at him. Smiled. I've got this.
Then she stomped down on wreckage and sprang upward, running on thin air as though gravity had signed her a permission slip.
Kieran's throat tightened.
Great. Was it real—or just my sanity breaking again?
But of course, this was Zoe—the girl who negotiated with the impossible like it owed her lunch money.
The next sentry aimed its cannon—she slid under, low and fast, before its targeting system could keep up.
"Too slow, sweetie!"
The rod speared its chest. One clean kill.
Gunfire ripped from another. She ducked, hurled her second weapon straight through its frame, tearing out its control board. It collapsed in a heap.
Above, a drone rained down laser fire. Zoe spun through the dust cloud it created, using it as camouflage—darting closer, a brushstroke made real.
Crack. Boom. Crash.
Every move was destruction as art. A pink-haired declaration: if you want to stop me, you'll have to get past my speed, my madness… and my ridiculous good looks.
The last drone burst apart. She back-flipped through the haze of broken machines, closing her own curtain call—until her foot snagged a stray scrap of metal.
Thud.
Dust jumped. Kieran's pulse dropped into freefall. He almost bolted forward, almost betrayed how much he cared—but stopped short, biting it back.
"Are you okay?!" His voice cracked out before his brain could veto it.
Zoe lifted her face slowly, knowing exactly which angle made her look devastating on camera. "Lucky it wasn't a love pitfall—my legs would be toast." She winked.
Kieran offered a hand. "Next time, watch yourself." His tone was flat, but his grip was steady.
"Ohhh, someone's worried about me~" she teased, brushing dust from her jacket.
He didn't answer. Just stared straight ahead, silently bargaining with his heart to calm the hell down.
It didn't listen.