As long as I can remember… I've been adapting.
Not living. Not growing. Not choosing. Just adapting.
To heat. To cold. To hunger. To sleep. To grief. To guilt. To battle.
And when that wasn't enough, they pushed harder.
When I stopped adapting fast enough, they broke me into adapting again.
My body changed. My thoughts changed.
But somehow, the one thing that never did… was the loneliness.
Even when they cheered for me. Even when they called me a miracle, a savior, a queen of evolution—I never felt like one of them. I never felt like anything at all. Just a mechanism built to survive. Just a tool on autopilot.
Even when I killed Syris…
The only one who used to tell me to rest. The only one who said my adaptation was already enough.
I thought if I could kill him, I could reach something new.
Instead, I lost the only person who ever looked at me like I was more than a weapon.
And now, here I am.
Surrounded by ash. My race is gone.
My purpose… vanished.
And they—a white-haired boy and a strange blue dragon—stood where no one else had.
Not with fear. Not with chains. Not with experiments.
But with questions.
Questions I never knew how badly I wanted to be asked.
> "Do you really want to die?" "What if what you want isn't death?" "What if there's something more?"
Noir's voice echoed in my mind like a spark in an empty cave. His hand still lingered in my memory, extended to me—not because he wanted to control me, but because he wanted to invite me.
They said they're going to Earth. That there's a war. That people need help.
That I could choose to come.
Choose.
The word itself felt alien. Like trying to breathe a new kind of air.
I looked around the camp. What little remained of my people's habitat. Scorch marks. Broken tech. Clones whose lives flickered and faded without ever getting to wonder why.
There's nothing left here for me.
But there was something. Something they gave me before the end.
The genetic archive. The rebirth lab.
The chance to revive the Victinions one day—on my terms. Not as weapons. Not as test subjects. But as people. As a family.
I clutched the small device in my palm. A portable DNA vault, encrypted and hidden even from the last of the traitors.
I will go with them.
But when it's over, I will return. I will start again.
And this time, I will choose what kind of life I live—and what kind of people we become.
---
The next morning came quietly. The sky over Venus, still tinged with ash, held a strange kind of stillness. The chaos was over. The fighting stopped. There were only three now.
Kyi stood before the spaceship with Noir and Cloud.
"You ready?" Noir asked.
She nodded slowly.
"I'm going with you," she said. "I don't know what I'll find out there… but it has to be better than standing still."
Cloud studied her with his unreadable draconic eyes. "And after?"
"I come back. I bring back my people," Kyi said softly. "But… not like before. Not as weapons. Not as survivors. Just… alive."
Cloud gave a slight, approving nod.
Noir smiled. "Then it's settled. Tomorrow, we leave this rock."
---
Meanwhile…
Beneath the crust of an asteroid orbiting Venus's far side, in a hidden underground facility humming with data streams and artificial light, the scientist stood again before his monitors.
The feed showed the three of them: the Blue Dragon Person, the White-Haired Black-Eyed Boy, and the Human-like Girl with strange markings.
He narrowed his eyes as the ship powered up.
"They're preparing to leave," he muttered.
Behind him, a small team of assistants adjusted equipment, calibrated scanning ranges, and logged final notes.
"What are your orders?" one asked.
The scientist turned slowly, his voice smooth but cold.
"Send a drone."
"Just one?"
"One is all we need," he said. "If they survive what's ahead, we'll need more than surveillance. But for now… observe. Log. Record."
"And if they go to Earth?"
His lips twitched, almost into a smile.
"Then we'll finally get to see what the anomaly does when it's placed in the center of the storm."
He tapped the console, watching the drone's pod launch into orbit.
"Let them think they're free. Let them choose. The universe doesn't care about choice."
His voice turned to a whisper:
> "But I do."
---