Mei stood on the cold, vibrating floor of the Nano-Unit, her legs shaking with the effort of supporting a weight they had forgotten existed. The violet light of the Star-Seed had settled deep into her skin, tracing the lines of her new neural network like a map of neon circuitry. She didn't just feel her legs; she felt the entire room. Every wire in the walls, every data-packet screaming through the local mesh-net, and every mechanical heart beating in the hallway felt like an extension of her own nervous system.
"Mei, you have to sit back down," Jin rasped, his voice thick with concern as he watched her. "The harmonization isn't complete. Your physical muscles are still atrophied. You'll tear your tendons if you try to move."
"No," Mei said, her voice sounding different—resonant, layered with a digital hum that hadn't been there before. She looked at her hands, which were sparking with tiny arcs of violet static. "I don't need to move my legs, Jin. I can move the world."
Outside, the heavy thrum of the Thorne Corporation's "Vulture" transport ships arrived. The sound was a low-frequency growl that rattled the glass in the window frames and sent dust snowing down from the ceiling. These weren't the scout drones they had faced earlier; these were aerial platforms equipped with thermal-imaging arrays and anti-personnel cannons. They were here to level the block if they had to.
Seraphina retreated from the doorway, her silver hair damp with sweat and her breathing shallow. The frost on her arms had begun to recede, leaving behind angry, red veins of mana-exhaustion. "They've locked onto the energy signature of the pill," she warned, leaning against the workbench for support. "The ships are positioning for a saturation strike. We have thirty seconds before they open fire."
Mei didn't panic. She closed her eyes, and for a moment, her consciousness left the cramped, smelling confines of the slum. Through her new "Soul-Link," she surged into the city's digital infrastructure. To a normal hacker, the Thorne Corporation's encryption was a wall of impenetrable fire; to Mei, it was a poorly written script. She saw the "Source Code" of the transport ships—the primitive, binary logic that governed their flight paths and weapon systems.
"Found you," she whispered.
She didn't just hack the ships; she "Harmonized" with them. She projected her soul into the central processing unit of the lead Vulture ship, rewriting its target parameters in a fraction of a microsecond.
High above the Sector 4 skyline, the lead pilot of the Thorne interceptor screamed as his flight controls locked. The holographic display in his cockpit turned a violent shade of violet. "System Error: New Administrator Detected," the onboard AI announced in a calm, synthetic voice.
"What is happening?!" the pilot roared into his comms. "Command, my ship is turning! I've lost control of the gimbal!"
In the Nano-Unit, Mei's fingers danced in the air, twitching as if she were playing an invisible instrument. "Turn," she commanded.
The lead Vulture ship tilted its massive nose downward. Its twin 30mm auto-cannons, originally aimed at Jin's window, swiveled 180 degrees. The pilot watched in horror as his own weapon system locked onto the second transport ship in the formation.
"Mei, be careful," Jin warned, sensing the massive strain on her brain. "The feedback from a corporate core could fry your synapses."
"I have the Star-Seed, Jin. My synapses are faster than their processors," she replied, a small, confident smile touching her lips for the first time in years.
With a mental flick, she pulled the trigger.
The night sky of the slums exploded in a hail of tracer rounds. The lead ship opened fire on its wingman, the heavy rounds tearing through the second ship's reinforced hull like paper. The second Vulture erupted in a ball of orange flame, spiraling downward and crashing into an empty warehouse three blocks away. The shockwave rattled the entire sector, setting off car alarms for miles.
The third and fourth ships scattered, their pilots panicking as they realized their own fleet had turned against them. "All units, disengage!" the Thorne command frequency erupted in static. "The anomaly is hijacking the hardware! Scramble the manual override!"
Mei didn't let them go. She surged further, following the signal back to the local Enforcer hub. She found the "Security Gate" that controlled the sector's automated turrets and the mag-locks on every door in the district.
"You wanted to trap us?" Mei's eyes snapped open, glowing with a fierce violet light. "Let's see how you like being locked in."
She slammed her hand onto the floor, sending a pulse of Runic energy through the building's power lines. All at once, every door in the Sector 4 Enforcer station slammed shut and welded itself. The automated turrets on the street corners, designed to hunt "Interlopers," turned their sensors toward the Thorne armored vehicles on the ground.
The hunters had become the prey.
But the victory came at a price. Mei slumped back into her wheelchair, her nose bleeding, her small frame trembling from the sheer volume of data she had processed. The violet glow in her skin dimmed to a soft flicker.
"I... I bought us an opening," she gasped, her voice barely a whisper. "But they'll reboot the systems soon. We have to go."
Jin forced himself up, his ivory arm still thrumming with residual power. He looked at Seraphina, who was already gathering the few supplies they had. They were no longer just orphans in the slums; they were the most wanted fugitives on the planet.
"We go to the Sky-Docks," Jin said, his voice firming. "We find the pilot the Architect mentioned. If we stay on the ground, they'll eventually just drop a bunker-buster on this coordinate."
As they stepped out of the unit into the smoke-filled hallway, Jin looked back at the rusted pod that had been his only escape for so long. He knew he wasn't coming back. The slow grind of their journey had finally moved from the shadows of the game into the searing light of the real world.