Love was a Virus.

An insidious disease that nearly wiped out everything 136 years ago.

Scientists tried to contain its spread, bombing cities in desperation—but it was too late.

3.8 billion men dead in weeks—

Wiped from history.

The women were silent carriers. Immune. Unaffected. The perfect vectors. By the time the truth was known, it was already over.

10,000 men banded together in secret.

They had no choice.

They imprisoned as many women as they could, cautiously taking samples—preserving their DNA.

Killing any men who didn’t agree.

Branding them traitors.

Threats to their future.

They gathered all the supplies they could, packed their ships, and fled with the samples, blowing their planet and everyone left behind to dust.

16 years later, they found a new world to start again—

Zyrokx8

A largely inhospitable desert. But there was nowhere else to go, so they made do.

The early years were the hardest. The three suns beat down on them, scorching their bodies as they built their new civilization from the ground up.

Cloning was perfected—but it wasn’t enough.

Scientists experimented, splicing genes, stripping away weaknesses.

The hybrids were their answer. Not fully human. Not fully anything.

Engineered without flaws. Completely sterile. Without unpredictability.

Without love.

Or so they thought...

|>>>12 YEARS<<<|

|>>>>>AGO,<<<<<|

|>>>>>>IT<<<< <<|

|>>HAPPENED!<<|

A body was found. The signs were undeniable.

The Love Virus had returned!

A whole generation of hybrids, a potential transmission vector.

Panic spread like wildfire. The government launched an emergency amnesty. A single order wiping out an entire generation of hybrids.

But one escaped.

Lying dormant...

A *SparK* waiting for the wind to fan it into an INFERNO!

And ten years ago—

SHE FLAPPED HER WINGS!

***

Tyken leaned against the bar, his gloved fingers tracing the rim of his glass. An icy mist floated off the blue liquid, curling in the scorching air.

Beyond the sleek, glassless windows of the Skyloft Lounge, the skyline stretched endlessly—three suns at various stages of orbit, their light fractured across Zyrokx8’s smog-choked horizon.

Bringing the glass to his mouth, he took a sip—the synthetic chill crackling across his enhanced taste buds.

He smiled contently.

It was perfect—just the way he liked it.

The way he expected it.

Frozen—Not thawed!

But his mind wasn’t on the drink.

Across the city, through a web of hidden cameras, hacked surveillance feeds, and deep-system trackers, he was watching her. She'd left a trail of bodies in her wake, erasing her identities, hacking registries—a perfect ghost.

She never stayed in one place for too long.

Always moving—adapting, changing her appearance, shifting through social classes.

A decade of metamorphosis gave rise to her name...

The Butterfly!

His neural interface chirped, feeding him a real-time data stream from her apartment. The heat signatures, the breath patterns—it was all there. She was unaware. Blissfully so.

He’d waited too long for this moment. He wasn’t about to let her disappear again.

She thought she was a ghost, but she would learn the hard way—

He always got his mark.

***

Tyken didn’t break his stride, his fingers expertly dashing across his wrist interface, as he triggered the outage.

The holo-sign above the reception desk flickered in a dull neon purple—

TARON RESIDENCES: YOUR SAFETY IS OUR PRIORITY.

He smirked. Not tonight.

A low-energy surge crawled through the system, barely noticeable. A brief flicker, a harmless blip.

At the security desk, the guard sighed, barely looking up.

Tyken had spent weeks conditioning him—triggering the spike at random intervals. Always at different times. Always just enough to be an annoyance, never enough to warrant an investigation.

Now, the man barely reacted.

“Dammit, not again,” the guard muttered, already rising from his chair, grabbing the flashlight from the counter.

Like clockwork. Another pawn losing a game he didn't even know he was playing.

Tyken quickly moved to the disused stairwell, stifling a sneeze as dust rose from the concrete. It had been years since anyone last climbed these stairs—why would they, with the panoramic views visible from the glass elevators?

The emergency glow-strips along the walls dimmed, the power flux stabilizing.

He exhaled slowly.

This was the part most operatives screwed up—the rush, the urge to move too fast.

He didn’t have that problem.

Infiltration was muscle memory at this point. Hell, he could do this in his sleep.

He climbed the stairs two at a time—a predator HUNGRY for his meal.

Reaching the top, he melted into the shadows.

Residents moved through the hallway, idle chatter drifting down the corridor, oblivious to the hunter in their midst.

When it was finally clear, he walked calmly to her door.

Bending down as if adjusting his laces, he quickly glanced each way. Satisfied he was alone, he retrieved a small mechanical snake from his belt, barely larger than a stylus.

As he placed it on the ground it slithered under the door, seamlessly camouflaged against the carpet.

His cybernetic eye flashed red as he switched to the grainy overlay, seeing through its feed.

The snake's sonar pulse rippled through the walls, mapping out the heat signatures in the apartment. The interior unfolded before him in ghostly, flickering images.

SHE WAS IN THE SHOWER!

Tyken retrieved the snake, clipping it back onto his belt. He held his wrist interface up to the card reader, unleashing an attack that defeated the keypad in seconds.

The lock opened—

=CLICK!=

He winced at the sound, waiting, ears straining.

SILENCE.

Creeping through the doorway, he made his way toward his target.

Then he heard it...

Singing!

He felt strangely drawn to it. The hauntingly beautiful melody stirring something long buried—something he didn’t understand.

For a split second, the room around him warped—

Melting into a different place...

A different time.

A woman’s voice.

Soft. Familiar.

A memory?

Maybe?

NO

IMPOSSIBLE!

Tyken blinked hard, his fingers twitching as he grounded himself back in the present.

He reached the bathroom, slowly peeking in.

HIS BREATH HITCHED.

Warm, soapy water cascaded down over her curves.

His lips parted as her intoxicating scent filled the air.

Calling to him.

Inviting him closer.

Luring him in.

It was unlike anything he'd ever seen.

He knew he shouldn't look.

That he should stop.

That it was...

FORBIDDEN!

He froze.

A strange ache =blOOMED= in his chest—something alien, something dangerous.

Slowly, he retreated, leaving the apartment.

The Butterfly flicked the tap off, hurriedly wrapping a towel around herself.

She could have sworn she just heard something.

She tiptoed to the door, poking her head around the frame, her eyes darting around the apartment—searching for something out of place.

Nothing.

Then she saw the door.

AJAR!

Her heartbeat pounded in her ears.

Had she left it like that?

She must have.

RIGHT???

She hesitated, one hand gripping the edge of the towel, the other reaching for the blaster beneath her bed.

A sinking feeling twisted in her gut.

She moved quickly, retrieving her handheld device, fingers flying across the encrypted messaging app.

!!*We need to meet...*!!

!!*Sooner than planned.*!!

!!*Possibly compromised!*!!

***

Tyken sat in the dim corner of the Skyloft Lounge, his drink thawed.

His wrist interface vibrated.

!!*BOSS CALLING.*!!

He exhaled slowly. “Go ahead.”

His superior’s voice was calm...

Too calm.

“How'd it go?”

He hesitated for the first time in his career.

THEN—HE LIED!

“It wasn’t her. Another false lead.”

Looooong pause...

“You’re sURe???” his boss asked.

There was a shift in his voice now. Something measured. Something... off.

A moment.

AN OUT.

A chance to correct the mistake.

Tyken clenched his jaw. Doubled down.

“I’m sure.”

Another long pause.

Then, finally:

“Goodbye, Tyken…”

Not ‘better luck next time.’

Not ‘I’ll have another team follow up.’

Just “Goodbye.”

A chill settled over Tyken’s spine. He felt something slide into place.

Something irreversible.

The call ended.

Tyken exhaled, sharp and uneven.

A flicker in his cybernetic eye.

The words burned into his vision, overlaying reality.

==================================

--SYSTEM INSTABILITY DETECTED-

-------CORE INTEGRITY 98.6%------

-SYSTEM SHUTDOWN IN 71 HOURS-

==================================

It blinked once.

Twice.

Then disappeared.

GONE.

TykEN's

HanDs

sHoOk...

WHA—

CRACK!

The glass shattered in his grip.

He barely felt it.

Blood dripped from his fingers onto the table, mixing with the melted ice.

Pushing back from the table, he moved too fast, colliding with a patron.

"Watch it!" the man hissed as Tyken barged past.

Tyken barely heard him. The error message. His boss’s pause. His own hesitation. It was all clawing at the edges of his mind.

He shoved open the restroom door.

Stumbling into a stall, he barely made it before the bile rose.

His body rejected everything—his drink, the lie, the feeling twisting in his gut.

He wiped his mouth with the back of his hand, swallowing hard before moving to the sink.

Cool water splashed against his face. He gripped the porcelain, knuckles white, breathing heavy.

He met his reflection’s gaze.

His usual sharp, calculating stare was gone.

Something else was there now.

Something wrong.

Do I have it?

Is this how it starts?

Control!

Regain control!

He inhaled deeply, holding it for a second before exhaling.

Straightening, he wiped the lingering moisture from his face.

He walked out, ordering another drink.

Returning to his table.

Trying to pretend nothing was different.

Trying to pretend he didn’t notice The Butterfly getting into a hover taxi.

But he did.

He’d learned to trust his instincts.

And they screamed she was in danger.

He sprinted to the nearest hover taxi, his drink not the only thing forgotten.

***

The Butterfly sat in the back of the hover taxi, her mind reeling.

First the door.

Then the holo taxi she could swear was following her.

She had a bad feeling.

She forced herself to breathe slowly.

Steadily.

Her fingers grazed the small transmitter on her wrist. A silent ping to her contact.

No response.

She didn't like this.

The taxi descended, hovering inches above the abandoned streets of Sector 5.

No surveillance, no patrols.

Ideal for business, but perfect for an ambush.

She stepped out, eyes sweeping the street, sharp and calculating.

No one.

She wasn’t convinced.

Years of survival had taught her better.

Crossing the street without looking back, she turned sharply down a narrow alley.

Disappearing into the shadows.

She waited.

Fifteen seconds.

Twenty.

Nothing.

Just nerves.

She stepped out, continuing to the meeting point, still unsettled.

Her contact was already waiting.

That wasn’t right.

He never arrived first.

His posture was off. He trembled, unable to look her in the eye.

The Butterfly slowed her steps.

He flinched, putting a finger to his ear.

Her stomach dropped.

A trap—Fuck!

***

Tyken spotted them as he stepped out of the hover taxi—four shadows, creeping into position, moving like he once had—

Silent.

Deadly.

No—five.

One was circling wide. Flanking her.

Tyken’s grip tightened. He couldn’t risk a firefight—not yet.

He moved before thought.

The blaster already in his grip, a familiar friend, his body slipping into the rhythm of the hunt.

The first kill was easy. A shot to the base of the skull, the suppressor eating the sound. The Love Hunter twitched, body slackening, eyes rolling back before he even realized he was dead.

He caught the second from behind, his jagged knife tearing through his carotid artery. Warm blood sprayed everywhere as he bled out in Tyken's arms.

Another name erased.

Four left.

He saw the third’s breath in the frigid air. Tyken's cybernetic eye tracked the nearby heartbeat, the pulse flickering erratically beneath skin.

Two shots.

Direct hits.

One to the chest.

One to the throat.

Three down.

Tyken sighed. He recognized the fourth one.

Kess.

Memories flickered—fistfights in the training pits, stolen rations shared behind their commander’s back.

Kess turned, eyes widening. Tyken saw it.

Recognition.

Hesitation.

His chance.

“Tyken?” Kess rasped.

Tyken didn’t hesitate.

Couldn't hesitate.

She needed him.

A single shot between the eyes.

He shook his head, forcing himself to focus.

One left.

His cybernetic eye flickered—warning text flashed across his HUD:

==================================

--SYSTEM INSTABILITY DETECTED-

------CORE INTEGRITY 97.1%-------

SYSTEM SHUTDOWN IN 69.8 HOURS

==================================

Tyken swore.

Too late.

A flicker of motion from the rooftops.

Then he heard it.

BANG!

A SNIPER!

Tyken fired back—pure instinct, the muscle memory of a thousand hunts.

The final Love Hunter fell, his body hitting the road with sickening thud.

But it didn't matter...

The shot had already been fired.

Tyken turned, eyes widening in horror as The Butterfly’s body jerked, crimson creeping across her white dress.

She staggered.

Tyken moved without thinking.

A blur of motion.

Closing the distance.

He caught her before she collapsed, her body weak, trembling against him.

Her eyes—wide, wild—stared up at him.

Fear.

She thought this was it.

That he was about to finish the job.

Tyken tightened his hold. “You’re going to be fine,” he murmured, gently stroking her hair.

She didn’t look like she believed him.

Tyken wasn’t sure he did either.

He tightened his hold as she sagged against him.

Her breathing was shallow.

Too shallow.

“Stay with me,” he murmured.

She didn’t respond.

He threw her onto his back—securing her with one arm as he ran. His legs burned, but still he pushed harder, sprinting toward the waiting hover taxi.

The driver turned, eyes widening in alarm.

Tyken didn’t slow down.

“SHE’S BLEEDING OUT!”

“Not my problem—”

Tyken’s blaster was against his temple before he could finish the sentence.

“IT IS NOW!”

The driver swallowed hard.

Tyken turned to The Butterfly, pressing his fingers to her throat.

Faint.

Too faint.

No!

No, no, no.

He refused to let her die.

Tyken lay her down gently on the road, ripping open her dress. He tilted her head back, fingers pressing against her ribs.

He started CPR, counting each compression under his breath.

She didn’t respond.

Tyken kept going.

Even as his muscles ached. Even as his hands bruised against her ribs.

Even as something inside him fractured.

“Come on,” he whispered desperation in his voice.

“Come back.”

Tyken snapped. “POP THE HOOD!”

The driver hesitated. Tyken shoved his blaster into his face.

“NOW!"

A whirring click. The hood lifted.

Her breathing was shallow. Her skin pale.

Not yet.

Please.

Tyken reached into the exposed engine bay, ripping out a length of wire with a single, brutal yank. Sparks shot into the air.

“Wh—what the hell are you doing?” the driver stammered.

Tyken didn’t answer. He pulled out his knife. The driver flinched.

Tyken didn’t stab him. Didn’t threaten him. Instead, he quickly stripped the insulation off each end, before pressing the blade against his own scalp, carving a circle along the top of his skull.

The driver gasped in horror as Tyken pried the flesh back, exposing the metal beneath.

His access panel.

“What the fuck—”

Tyken shoved the knife into the driver’s hands. “Unscrew it.”

The driver’s eyes went wide. “No. No way. You’re insane—”

Tyken cocked the blaster.

"I said UNSCREW IT!”

The driver’s hands shook as he carefully removed the four tiny screws, one by one. The panel came loose. Beneath it, his core glowed—a fragile, pulsing light.

Tyken lay next to the Butterfly, ignoring the nausea clawing at the edges of his mind. He held one end of the exposed wire against The Butterfly’s chest. He handed the driver the other end.

“No matter what happens, you keep going until she wakes up—

UNDERSTAND!!!”

The driver nodded his hands shaking.

“Do it,” Tyken ordered

The driver hesitated.

“DO IT!”

The moment the connection sparked—

AGONY.

Tyken’s world collapsed into light.

A woman. The details were blurry, shifting. He couldn’t see her face.

But that voice—

That melody—

The same one from the apartment.

He felt warm. Happy.

Her face was still a blur.

Who was she?

==================================

--SYSTEM INSTABILITY DETECTED-

------CORE INTEGRITY 21.3%-------

--SYSTEM SHUTDOWN INITIATED!-

==================================

The woman again.

This time, she was walking toward him, tears in her eyes.

A screwdriver in her hands.

It was her.

The Butterfly—

Zara

==================================

--PREVENTATIVE ACTION NEEDED--

------CORE INTEGRITY 12.6%-------

--⚠️WARNING: CRITICAL STATE⚠️---

==================================

Him and Zara.

Together!

Cooking breakfast.

Laughing and dancing.

Her smiling when he gave her the necklace.

==================================

-----⚠️DANGER⚠️--⚠️DANGER⚠️----

------CORE INTEGRITY 0.01%-------

----⚠️SHUTDOWN IMMINENT⚠️----

==================================

Tyken desperately gasped for air.

A hand grasped his.

Warm.

Alive.

He forced his eyes open.

She was staring at him.

Her lips trembling.

Eyes red with tears.

SHE WAS ALIVE!

Tyken smiled weakly, his chest aching.

He felt it again.

That flutter.

She reached for his hand, their fingers meeting in the space between them.

Her lips parted, voice barely above a whisper.

“Hi, I’m Zara.”

Tyken’s breath hitched. He squeezed her hand weakly.

“Tyken,” he rasped. “Phoenix Tyken… but you already know that.”

She let out a wet laugh, tears slipping down her cheeks.

“You remembered.”

Tyken smiled.

“How could I forget?”

Each time, they had 72 hours together before Zara gave him the cure—erasing his memory, sending him away—new name, forged papers, paid shadows.

He always found his way back. Each time she'd remind him of his promise.

That it would be Valentine's Day every time they were together—an ancient tradition he'd heard rumors of.

This time, she sent him to work for the enemy.

To kill her.

To free him.

Her breath shuddered. She was fading.

Tyken knew he was too.

Using the last of their energy, they moved toward each other.

A final kiss.

His lips brushed against hers, soft, desperate—

“Happy Valentine’s Day,” he whispered.

Zara smiled.

Then—

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*==↓===↓=↓===↓==*

|→GAME OVER!!←|

*==↑===↑=↑===↑==*