The rain fell hard. It always did in Novacore. Cold, relentless, indifferent.
Nikk stood at the city's edge, staring out at the relentless neon skyline, its colors muted behind the storm that raged. The streets behind him were lined with people - citizens, survivors, the ones who had stayed silent while the world around them burned.
And they all looked at him the same way.
With hatred.
"You did this."
The words had been whispered at first. the they grew louder. And louder. Until they were screams.
He didn't fight it. Didn't argue.
Maybe they were right.
The Core was gone. The government was shattered. But in the end, what had it cost?
Everything.
His crew. His friends. Tia. Kaya. Bria. Ace. Ray.
He had carried them this far, and now he walked alone.
A man without a city. Without a home.
Without a heart.
And even now, he didn't cry. He couldn't. He had no tears to shed, so the skies broke in sorrow and cried on his behalf.
The officials didn't drag him away. They didn't have to.
"Leave."
That was the only order given. The only sentence pronounced.
So he walked.
Through the streets that they had fought for. Past the ruins of a government that had once controlled every breath they took. Past the walls where Tia had smiled at him for the first time. Past the alleyways where Ace had bled out in the dark.
He kept walking until the neon faded, until the rain swallowed him whole.
And Novacore forgot him.
Like he had never existed at all.
A static-filled message spread through the city a week later.
A virus. A whisper. A last echo.
"Love is not a glitch."
"They tried to erase it. They tried to Kill it. But love is a fire. Even in the dark, it burns."
"Even if no one remembers us, we were here."
"We loved."
"And that means we won."
The message ended.
No one knew where it came from.
Or who had sent it.
But for the person who brought back the emotions for others, he himself was left hollow.