The rain never stopped in Sector V. Neon lights flickered over cracked pavement, painting puddles in toxic hues. Ella's boots splashed through them as she moved like a shadow past holo-ads and wire-strung alleyways. The city had changed, but not as much as she had. Her once fiery eyes now glowed dimly violet—synthetic irises, a gift from her time in hiding. Her breath steamed in the cold air, the only proof she was still alive.
Everyone thought she died in the blast that saved the world. Everyone but Skelly.
Now, she walked again—not as the bad girl she once was, but as a ghost with unfinished business.
Above her, surveillance drones buzzed. One paused mid-air, scanning her face. Static. A glitch. Then silence. Skelly's virus was still active. The city's systems couldn't find her—she didn't exist on any grid.
Her fingers brushed the side of her neck, where hidden metal met skin. She wasn't just hiding anymore. She was adapting
In the industrial ruins of Gridpoint 17, sparks lit the night like fireflies. Rez stood at the center, his body more machine than man. Thick armor covered his limbs, cables writhed like veins beneath his plated chest. His face—what remained of it—was covered in a mask of chrome and bone. The last time Ella saw him, she left him for dead.
Now, he lived again—rebuilt, reprogrammed, and angry.
"She's alive," he growled, his voice metallic and layered. "I saw the signal. Same signature as before."
A masked figure stepped out from the shadows, cloaked in digital static. "Then she'll come here. She always circles back."
Rez's cybernetic eye pulsed red. "Let her. This time, I won't fail. I'm not who I was."
He turned to a terminal embedded in a crumbling wall and jammed a spike into the port. Data bled out like light. "She took everything from me. Now I take everything back.
Ella crouched on the roof of a tenement tower, scanning the skyline through a cracked visor. The Resistance was growing—pockets of survivors, rogue AIs, hackers, and old allies who still believed in her. They called her Neo Ella now. A myth. A warning. A second chance.
But she felt none of that.
She opened a satchel and pulled out a device—a shard of Rez's old tech. Stolen. Dangerous and ruthless .