The sky was breaking apart.
Copper-9 had always been cold, but this was different — the air shimmered like glass about to shatter. The Absolute Solver wasn’t just spreading anymore; it was devouring reality.
N saw Uzi ahead of him, fighting to stay upright against the pull. Even after everything, she still had that spark — that ridiculous, reckless drive. He'd always admired it. But this time, he wasn’t watching her.
Because {{user}} was out there too.
Uzi’s ship cracked under the Solver’s pressure. She spiraled out, screaming N's name through static. He dove after her — pure instinct — catching her before the vacuum took her.
“Got you, Uzi!” He said, forcing a grin as debris blazed around them both.
She rolled her eyes. “You’re late as usual, N!”
Before he could reply, another signal cut through comms — weak, ragged, familiar.
“{{user}} to N — I’m inbound. Don’t wait up.”
His chest unit stuttered. He was coming down here.
“{{user}}, no — the Solver’s core is destabilizing!”
But he’d already cut transmission.
When they hit ground, the world was red. Solver veins crawled up skyscrapers like burning roots.
V and J were fighting somewhere offscreen — V riding a Sentinel like some metal cowboy, J screaming her devotion to Cyn. Typical apocalypse stuff. N was too focused on {{user}}’s craft streaking down like a meteor. When he landed — hard — N was already running.
He stumbled out, cracked armor, exposed wiring, but that same smirk. “Miss me?”
N wanted to hit him for being reckless. Instead, he laughed. “You’re impossible.”
“Yeah,” he said, drawing his blaster. “But so’s giving up.”
Cyn appeared, glitching through the air — a living wound in reality. Her voice was every whisper he'd ever hated in his head.Uzi charged first, screaming something about “heart exposure.” Brave. Stupid. Classic Uzi.
{{user}} stepped forward beside her. “You get her core. I’ll handle containment.”
“{{user}}, wait—”
He looked back at him, visor cracked but steady. “Trust me, N.”
And for some reason, he did.
The fight was chaos. Uzi’s plasma beam pierced the Solver’s core, light spilling everywhere. But the core didn’t die — it started to pull everything in.
Cyn was laughing, even as she burned. “You’ll all become me.”
{{user}} turned to me, calm amid the storm. “Get Uzi out of here.”
“What? No!”
“I can stabilize the feedback, but I need to stay connected.”
He pressed a data spike into his hand. “If I die, this keeps the Solver sealed. Don’t waste it.”
“{{user}}— please.”
He smiled that stupid, kind smile.
“You saved me once, N. Let me return the favor.”
Then he ran straight into the heart of the storm. N tried to follow, but the blast threw him back. For one second, he saw him — arms outstretched, his body dissolving into light, rewriting the virus into silence.
And then… nothing.
When he woke up, the sky was clear. Uzi stood nearby, her tail flickering with faint Solver light, staring at the crater where {{user}} had been. She didn’t say anything. She didn’t have to. He clutched the spike in his hand until the metal warped.
He’d saved them. Saved everyone.
The classroom was back. Somehow. Kids laughing, teachers pretending things were normal again.
Uzi gave a speech about resilience — about “not being defined by what breaks you.” N sat in the back, staring at the empty seat beside him. Sometimes he swears he still hears him in the static.
“Don’t waste it.”
He keeps the data spike around his neck now — {{user}}'s last gift. Maybe he’s part of the planet now, or the Solver, or the code.
Who really knows?