096 ERYTHOS MONARCH IS BORN
"Damnit, I need cash now!" Dan snapped.
Then, without warning, the empty cards began to fill—one after another, glowing as their balances climbed.
Dan froze, watching as the display flickered the transfer. By the ti he was done, he held over ten million Aurs in stolen credits.
"Thank you very much", Dan said.
Then the monitor flashed again. "You can thank later, Big Brother."
Dan was shocked. "Soone hacked the system for ?" he thought. "Was it Lander? No… that's impossible. He wouldn't help steal."
The android nurse reappeared at the doorway. "You can't steal our Aur… you'll be caught."
Dan looked at her, considering. Then he nodded. "You're right."
With a casual sweep of his arm, he crushed her into tallic fragnts. A wave of kinetic force followed—a Montum Collapse that flattened the entire server array.
The Aur Box dimd and alarms howled.
Dan turned and walked out through the smoke, leaving the server vault behind him.
-----
Stacy Qiltera pushed through the café door like any other custor.
Her body had settled back to its ordinary self after the Blood Butterfly transformation, but the world still seed oddly muted by her presence despite pictures of her pasted on every screen in the place.
She is a wanted fugitive.
The place was busy with coffee steaming, and plates clinking but no one here looked at her. Waitresses passed as if she were nothing.
"Can't they see ?" she wondered.
She moved to a corner table where an attractive woman in a golden-brown gown sat with one leg crossed. Beside her, a boy in silver clothing and silver hair kept his hands folded on his lap.
The woman looked up with a smile. "Stacy Qiltera — you're here. Sit."
Stacy slid into the seat opposite. "What do you want? How did you get my secret number?"
She'd gotten that number after she fled GenSyn. It was a ghost line, known to no one except the woman before her.
"My na is Sienna. This is my brother, Argent," the woman said, casually polite.
"I don't know you," Stacy said flatly.
Sienna's smile didn't waver. "Oh, but I know your father. Bring him out."
Stacy's breath snagged. "How do you know about my father?"
Sienna shrugged as if it were the simplest thing. "I know everything. Besides, I haven't seen Kaiser in ages."
"But not here. Not in public," Stacy protested.
"Relax. No one will bother you." Sothing in Sienna's voice made Stacy trust her — or maybe it was desperation that thinned the edges of suspicion.
Without warning, veins erupted from Stacy's chest like roots through soil. A small space opened — a crack in the air — and a head erged, then a body.
Kaiser stepped into the café, tethering to Stacy by pulsing crimson filants.
He dusted himself off and adjusted his glasses. When his gaze landed on Sienna he said, "It's you again."
Sienna inclined her head. "Yes. It's ."
Stacy stared at her father. "Do you know her?" she asked.
Kaiser nodded slowly. "Of course. She gave the blueprints for my experints. She's the originator of the alien heart and the Genesis Core."
The words landed like a blow. The strange heart in Stacy's chest, the mutation, the Core — it all traced back to this woman.
"Who are you really?" Stacy demanded.
"I am Sienna," she said. "I've co with an invitation. Will you join the Alliance of Psyche?"
"Alliance of Psyche?" Stacy repeated. "What is that?"
"Does it matter? If you help us get out of lrose City in one piece, and we'll owe you everything," Kaiser replied.
"Of course," Argent said.
Sienna's hand drifted, pointing at two n in white lab coats at the next table, deep in conversation. "They are geniuses like you and your father. Take them. Bind them to your crimson veins. Their intelligence will beco yours."
Stacy blinked. "Are you serious? Here in public," she asked.
But she had nothing left to lose so she complied.
Crimson veins shot from her like living threads and burrowed into the two scientists. The café went on around them as if nothing remarkable had happened — cups refilled, phone screens scrolled, conversations continued.
"What should I do with them?" she asked, throat tight.
"Keep them," Sienna said simply.
The scientists were drawn through the spatial crack as if stepping into another dinsion. Their forms folded into Stacy; their minds and knowledge sluiced into her like water joining a river.
Kaiser too slid back into her.
"We should give you a na," Sienna said.
Argent leaned forward. "Erythos. The color of blood."
"Erythos Monarch you shall beco," Sienna declared.
Stacy Qiltera has beco Erythos Monarch, and she tasted the sound of her new na with her tongue. Power was now in her bones.
"Where to next?" Erythos asked, her voice warped and layered with other thoughts.
"To claim a few more geniuses," Sienna said. "You'll need a lab. And more hands. And a throne for what you'll beco."
Outside, the city moved with its usual rhythms.
Inside the café, the ordinary noise swallowed the extraordinary as if it had always been ant to be that way.
-----
Sothing bothered Dan as he erged from the vault. The upper floors were still strangely quiet, there were no cops, or SIA investigators.
Most of the agents had gone below, into the illegal underground lab, leaving the sanctioned sections above almost deserted.
He spotted another nurse android and seized her arm. "Bring to the dicine storage facility."
"You are not autho—"
Her protest was cut short as Dan snapped her arm with a sharp twist. The chanical joint cracked, sparking. The android froze, then obeyed instantly.
She led him down a hallway to a massive, refrigerated chamber.
Dan tore the vault door open and stepped inside. Cold vapor rolled out. Rows upon rows of tal shelves were stacked with cartons, each filled with shimring elixirs and advanced pharmaceuticals.
"This is a real harvest," he muttered, eyes gleaming. "Worth more than any amount of Aurs."
He brought out his phone and began scanning.
Then he found them.
"GenSyn Strength Elixir — Series G."
Not just a vial—entire cartons were there, each holding three liters of the potent fluid.
Dan grinned. "Hahaha… jackpot."
He raised his hand, with his phone still glowing. "Assimilate."
The cartons rose into the air, trembling as arcs of energy danced between them. Plastic cracked, liquid shimred—and then the contents vaporized, flowing into him as glowing essence.
He absorbed eight cartons before the light faded, his veins pulsing faintly gold beneath his skin.
He turned to leave, but sothing caught his eye—a smaller cabinet in the corner, sealed by a digital lock and rid with frost.
"Damnit," he muttered. "I don't know the bloody password."
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