Then, a pulse.
It started at Nyanners' feet—a ripple of light that crawled up her body like liquid glass. Her pink hair lifted, suspended in an unseen current as the translucent shell encased her completely. For a heartbeat, she was frozen there, a statue of gleaming rose quartz, her expression still caught in that familiar, mischievous smirk.
Then—crack.
The casing shattered.
Where the playful, chaotic VTuber had stood now loomed Nyanners—taller, she stood like a paradox carved from starlight and shadow, her silver hair a waterfall of moonlight framing eyes like molten gold—sharp, unblinking. Feline ears flicked atop her head, attuned to whispers beyond mortal hearing, while the gemstone between them throbbed with a rhythm that echoed the void itself. Her form was sheathed not in cloth, but in rippling violet tendrils that danced like captive nebulae, constellations writhing across her skin
The air around her warped, reality itself bending subtly under her presence.
"Oh, Astro," she sighed, her voice layered—both the Nyanners they knew and something else, something vast and humming with power. "You really thought punching me would work?"
Tricky didn't wait for an answer. With a screech, she lunged, flames wreathing her claws—
—and passed straight through Nyanners as if she were made of smoke.
"Cute." Nyanners flicked her wrist.
Tricky jerked midair, her wings locking as if caught in an invisible grip. Her pupils dilated, her breath coming in sharp, panicked gasps. She then got thrown through buildings with ease.
"Tricky?!" Astro moved to help—
"Ah-ah." Nyanners's finger wagged, and Astro's body froze, his muscles locking under an unseen force. "No interrupting her epiphany."
Tricky's claws dug into her own arms, her voice a rasp. "I—I can see it—"
Nyanners smiled. "Sanity's such a fragile thing, isn't it?"
Korone snarled, her fur bristling—then flinched, her ears flattening as a shudder ran through her. "Okayu, I—" Her voice wavered. "The voices—"
Okayu's tail lashed. "Korone?!"
Nyanners laughed, the sound like wind chimes in a graveyard. "Oh, this is fun."
Astro gritted his teeth, fighting against the invisible hold. His vision swam—but for a split second, he saw it. The ley lines around them weren't just dying.
They were fleeing from her.
The second pulse hit like a silent thunderclap.
One moment, Nyanners hovered above Luminous City's central plaza, her new form radiating an eerie luminescence against the artificial twilight. The next—
—the entire city shuddered.
Astro felt it before he saw it. The hair on his arms stood on end as the air itself thickened, charged with something wrong. Below them, the neon-lit streets of Luminous City flickered like a failing screen.
Then the screaming started.
Street Level – Commercial District
Filian's ears twitched violently as the noodle vendor she'd been chatting with changed.
His cheerful grin stretched too wide, his fingers twitching as he clutched his head. "The lights—the lights are talking to me!"
She barely had time to recoil before—
—a shop window exploded outward, the glass freezing mid-air into perfect pink crystals.
—a child pointed at the now-fracturing sky, giggling about "the pretty cracks"
At the gate of Luminous city
Fuwawa Abyssgard stopped mid-step, her claws flexing as her pupils dilated to black pools.
Mococo grabbed her sister's arm. "Fuwa—?"
"Don't you see?" Fuwawa whispered, her voice giddy. "She's everywhere now."
Above them, the city's protective dome shimmered—not with its usual aurora-like glow, but with jagged, pulsing veins of pink.
Central Plaza Skyscraper
Astro's group burst onto the plaza just in time to see the second pulse rip outward from Nyanners's hovering form.
Tricky recovered from the insanity because of her dragon sense.
Tricky snarled, her wings flaring. "We need to—"
Her words cut off as her body locked up, her feathers standing on end. When she spoke again, her voice was hollow:
"...she's inside the systems."
Nyana cursed, her dagger already drawn. "Of course. She's not just in the city—she's rewriting it."
Below them, entire sectors of Luminous City were glitching—buildings flickering between solid and transparent, streets folding in on themselves in impossible angles. The bioluminescent trees lining the avenues pulsed like frantic heartbeats.
Korone pressed her hands against her ears. "Make it stop make it stop make it—"
Okayu's tail puffed to twice its size as she steadied her partner. "Focus on my voice."
Nyanners's laugh rang out across the city, perfectly clear despite the distance.
"Aw, you guys are adorable when you panic!" Her voice echoed from every speaker system, every comm device. "But hey—look on the bright side!"
A third pulse.
This time, Astro saw it—the way the light bent around her, the way reality itself stuttered in her wake.
"Now everyone gets to play!"
The third pulse hit like a dying star.
Astro's knees buckled as the observation deck's glass panels shattered outward in perfect crystalline fractals. He caught himself on the railing just in time to see it—the city's central AI core, a massive orb of blue light housed in the adjacent tower, flickering violently.
Then a voice that wasn't a voice thrummed through his bones:
"ANCHOR IDENTIFIED."
The core lurched, tendrils of light lashing out like desperate hands—
—and wrapped around Astro's chest.
One moment he was choking on ozone, the next—
—he stood in a white void, facing himself.
Or almost himself. The figure wore Astro's face, but older, wearier, clad in armor that shimmered like compressed starlight.
"Took you long enough," the Anchor sighed.
Astro's mouth moved before his brain caught up. "You're—"
"The original. The template." The Anchor gestured vaguely. "They built your VTuber persona from my legend. Cute, right?"
Beyond them, the void rippled with memories:
—A younger Nyanners, weeping as past elites chained her to the city's core.
—The Anchor pressing his hands to her forehead, sealing her power away.
—His body dissolving into the very ley lines Astro now stood upon.
"Wait." Astro's throat tightened. "If you're me, then—"
The Anchor grinned, sharp and sad. "Yep. You're the reboot. And guess what?" He leaned in. "She remembers."
The sirens died as suddenly as they'd begun.
For three heartbeats, Luminous City held its breath—the glitching streets frozen mid-fracture, Nyanderthel's hovering form caught in a shaft of artificial moonlight. Then, from every speaker in the city, a voice crackled to life:
"Heyyyyy."
Ame's voice.
But not Ame's voice—the tones were hers, but layered with something mechanical, something older.
Nyanners's head snapped toward the central spire. "Oh come on—"
The city's lights flared blue.
The sirens died with a sound like a universe exhaling.
Then—
Light.
Not from the city, not from Nyanners—but from the space between spaces. A vertical slash of reality peeled open like a lover's lips before a whisper, and she stepped through.
Ame.
But not their Ame.
This Ame's hair cascaded in impossible gradients—lavender bleeding into peach-pink at the tips, styled with soft waves and a side bang, long hair flowing down her back, as if someone had painted dawn across twilight. Her oversized jacket swallowed her frame, sleeves dangling past fingertips that crackled with unstable energy. When she moved, the scarf around her neck (too thick for Luminous City's climate) rippled like it existed in a different wind.
Nyanners stopped mid-taunt. Her fractal eyes narrowed.
"Oh." A smile crept across her face. "You're not my Ame."
The new Ame tilted her head. Her eyes—both pulsing violet now—flickered to Astro.
"Not yours either," she said softly. "But I'm here to help."
Luminous City had gone mad.
The air itself screamed with Nyanderthel's laughter as chaos erupted in every district.
Korone, her golden brown eyes black with corruption, lunged at Okayu with bared fangs—
"Okayu...you taste like lies—"
—only for Okayu to sidestep with unnatural grace, her own pupils slit with rage. "You bit me last week too, Korone." Her claws glowed purple. "This time, I'm biting back."
Fuwawa had Mococo pinned against a flickering neon sign, her claws digging into her sister's shoulders as she giggled. "We should always be this close, Bau Bau~"
Filian barely dodged a pink crystalline shard—"WHAT THE FRICK, SHOPKEEP?!"—as the once-friendly vendor hurled more with manic glee.
And Nyanners, hovering above it all, spread her arms as dozens of clones peeled off her body, each one a perfect, grinning replica.
"Tag in, babey~"
Astro's Group - Central Plaza Skyscraper
Nyana was already moving, her dagger replaced by a swirling orb of solar energy.
"Solar Flare Burst!"
The blast incinerated three clones in a flash of white heat—but ten more took their place.
Tricky screeched, her wings sending a vortex of black sand spiraling around them.
"Cursed Sandstorm!"
The granules burrowed into clone after clone, dissolving them from the inside out—but Nyanderthel just yawned.
"Boring! Try this!"
A pulse of pink light—
—and the sand turned to glitter, harmless and stupid.
Astro ducked a clone's swipe, his fists wreathed in galactic energy.
"Nova Strike!"
His punch connected, sending the clone flying—only for it to laugh mid-air, its body reforming before it hit the ground.
"Persistent, aren't you?" Nyanderthel mused, watching from above.
Then—
Ame stepped forward, her eyes both burning violet.
"Enough."
The scarf around her neck unwound, stretching into a river of shimmering code.
"Reality Rewrite: System Reboot."
The world glitched—