ZZZ:Through the Frosted Mirror-Chapter 68 - 65: A LONG ONE

(Word count: 5580. I'm so proud of myself I'm never doing this again(what's that smell?))

The sky was bruised in hues of violet and ash, the sun lost somewhere behind the smog-tinged clouds that forever hovered over the Hollow zones. Ellen lay atop Empress's back as the massive beast soared through the Ether-scarred skies, wings slicing through the wind with quiet grace. Below them stretched the endless scars of the world — broken buildings swallowed by wild Ether blooms, fissures in the ground where time itself seemed to flicker.

In the distance, the great silhouette of New Eridu rose like a lighthouse in the Void. But Ellen wasn't in a rush to return.

She had just finished a job — not for credits or power, but for a dying man.

A Hollow Investigator, long since written off by his peers, had sought one final request. His body was failing. The familiar creeping horror of E.A.R.S. had taken root in his blood, his Ether slowly turning against him. His skin had begun to pale, his limbs trembled constantly, and his voice shook like leaves in a storm. But his mind... his mind remained sharp.

"I need to see the Black Wall one more time," he had told Ellen. "Record it. Prove to myself that even in my last days... I was useful... in humanity's survival."

And Ellen, whose very name BLACK SUN haunted the most secure wanted lists of New Eridu, didn't hesitate. She didn't care that he had nothing to pay her with. She saw something familiar in his eyes — the same hollow weight she saw in her reflection.

The recording had been easy. Empress made sure of that. But what happened after... stayed with her.

They'd landed on a cliff that overlooked the shifting black horizon of Hollow Zero — where reality folded like broken glass, where Ethereal storms danced in the sky like gods in mourning.

"If there was a cure," she had said quietly, not sure why she said it. "And I knew where to get one. If I brought it to you... would you take it?"

The old man smiled — not bitterly, but gently. Like someone who had already made peace with time.

"No. But I'd give it to someone else. Someone who still has something left to lose."

Then he leaned back, eyes fixed on the Void that had defined his life.

And after awhile he stopped breathing.

Ellen didn't mourn. She didn't know how anymore.

But she dug a grave — not with her powers, but with her own hands. Dirt beneath her nails, wind biting at her skin. She laid him to rest beside the only thing he ever truly chased: the truth.

Atop the grave, she placed a single marker. No name. Just a phrase burned into the stone:

"HE SAW WHAT FEW ELSE WOULD DARE TO LOOK AT."

And with a quiet whistle, Empress lowered her massive body, allowing Ellen to climb atop her back.

Now they flew in silence, the wind rustling Ellen's coat. Her hair whipped behind her, her eyes distant.

New Eridu loomed ahead. Something shifts behind those walls.

Because she could feel it — a ripple in the aether. A disturbance in the pattern of things.

Someone had seen her. And something was about to break.

The sky was smeared in fading amber, a dull haze bleeding through the Hollow-choked air.

Ellen lay draped across the back of Empress, the great wyvern flying in slow, calculated arcs above the ruined outskirts. Her eyes, half-open, stared blankly at the horizon. The last commission already felt distant — another task completed, another anomaly buried.

Her phone buzzed.

She lifted it without urgency. The screen blinked:

[INCOMING CALL – UNKNOWN NUMBER]

She answered.

"Ellen."

It was Lycaon. His voice carried a trace of warmth.

"Status check. You still breathing out there?"

A pause.

"Yes," Ellen replied flatly. "Job is done."

"Where were you this time?" he asked.

"North quadrant. Doesn't matter."

"Right... figures."

Lycaon filled the silence — reporting on Victoria Housekeeping. Rina's usual tinkering. Corin breaking things in increasingly creative ways. The twins still being... twins.

Ellen listened, but didn't comment. Not out of rudeness. There was simply nothing in her to react with.

After a moment, she spoke, tone unchanged.

"Have you found anything on the Doctor."

No rise. No tension. Just data collection.

Lycaon's voice lost its playfulness.

"Told the Mayor. He's activated his network. There's movement in Ballet Twins Road District — something strange. Might be connected."

"Send the location. Clear the district."

"Already on it. But Ellen... we don't know what we're dealing with yet. This could be one of his traps. Whatever's there... be cautious. Please."

Another pause. Ellen stared ahead, unmoved.

"Caution is for people who have something to lose," she said. "I don't."

There was no mockery. No pride. Just a flat declaration of fact.

"But he should be cautious. I will be there soon."

Lycaon hesitated. Then ended the call.

Ellen pocketed the phone. Her fingers lingered over the edge of the device, as if playing through the memory of his concern — but her face didn't change.

She gave Empress a single signal tap.

The wyvern didn't need instruction. It released a powerful roar and folded its wings, diving like a missile through the wind.

Ballet Twins Road was coming into view — soon to be cleared, soon to be silent.

Ellen sat forward, eyes narrowing just slightly.

"If you're there... Doctor..."

"You will not leave alive."

------------------------------------------

The sound of sirens and engine growls filled the air as Zhu Yuan's cruiser tore down the sealed-off avenue toward Ballet Twins District.

Rain smeared the windshield. Grey clouds clung low, thick and heavy — like the sky itself was holding its breath.

In the passenger seat sat Qingyi, impossibly composed, sipping tea from a thermos lid like they weren't barreling toward a potentially apocalyptic threat.

"You know, Zhu Yuan," Qingyi said, her tone light. "We rarely get called in this far ahead of the Defense Force. Either they're slow... or we're about to see something historic."

Zhu Yuan checked her HUD, then her sidearm. She glanced over, annoyed but unsurprised.

"Could you not treat this like a tea party?"

"I'm simply optimizing processing cycles," Qingyi replied, slinging her Peace Bringer across her back. "Stress is inefficient."

They pulled into the chaos.

PubSec was everywhere — flashing lights, hover drones, and officers barking orders. Uniformed personnel corralled panicked civilians while Defense Force squads dropped in from transports like iron rain, establishing layered perimeter lines: 100 meters for PubSec, 50 and under for the military.

An old woman resisted, clutching a photo frame. A young couple screamed they'd lost their child. Zhu Yuan's heart pounded behind her badge as she joined the fray.

Then—Her walkie sparked.

"All units: BLACK SUN approaching Ballet Twins Hollow. ETA — thirty seconds. OBAL Squad en route. Priority Alpha alert."

Zhu Yuan's eyes snapped up.

A roar shattered the sky.

Everyone froze.

The clouds split as Empress descended — a streak of onyx and gold tearing across the heavens. The wyvern soared above the hollow, circling like a predator drawn to old blood.

And then—A figure dropped from its back.

A girl.

Ellen.

As her feet touched the hollow's edge, the space rippled like a pond beneath a bomb. The Ballet Twins Hollow convulsed, then expanded violently — tripling in size in an instant.

People screamed. Ethereal wind howled. Reality warped.

The world blinked.

Zhu Yuan grabbed two elders without hesitation. Qingyi mirrored her, lifting them with inhuman grace. They sprinted for the car—Too late.

The hollow swallowed them whole.

Then...

Silence.

For a split second, everything turned white. No sound. No color. Just static. Zhu Yuan's vision blurred — the ground beneath her was white like paper, endless and flat. Strange black lines of code shimmered across it like veins, pulsing like a heartbeat.

Her breath caught.

What is this place...?

Then — without warning — she and the others were teleported out.

Zhu Yuan staggered, gasping as her boots hit solid pavement again. Around her, civilians blinked and stumbled, disoriented but unharmed. Even Qingyi looked momentarily surprised, adjusting her grip on the elder she carried.

Her walkie buzzed again:

"Update: Hollow has expanded x3. Civilians and agents forcibly transported outside rather than trapped inside. Repeat — they were ejected."

"Mayor has issued secondary evacuation of surrounding zones. Dragon confirmed airborne above Hollow — currently patrolling. No sign of aggression."

"WARNING: DO NOT ENGAGE BLACK SUN OR THE ENTITY."

Zhu Yuan clenched her jaw, eyes locked on the horizon. The hollow loomed, unnatural, pulsing like a dark heart at the center of the district. The dragon circled above — not attacking, not moving to land. Just... watching.

Qingyi tilted her head.

"That was... curious."

"No kidding," Zhu Yuan muttered. "This is the only time where I think we're doing things way above pay grade..."

They both stared at the center of the anomaly.This is going to be a long day.

--------------------------------------------

Inside a military VTOL, the hum of engines was drowned by the rising tension.

Section 6 sat in silence—each member bracing for what could be their last mission.

The quietest buzz came from the back seat, where Soukaku huddled over a bento box and bags of snacks. She nibbled calmly, eyes distant, as if the rhythmic act of chewing was a kind of anchor.

"Can't fight on an empty stomach," she murmured to herself. "Especially in a place like that..."

Her food wrapper rustled softly, the sound feeling bizarrely loud in the cabin.

Opposite her, Harumasa methodically inspected his gear. He ran his fingers over the smooth shaft of each arrow, double-checking the string tension of his longbow, counting silently.

Twenty arrows. Maybe enough. Maybe not.

Toward the front, Yanagi scrolled through her tablet. A detailed scan of the Ballet Twins Hollow dominated the screen — now a massive, living scar in the city. Buildings on the edge appeared color-drained, glitching in strange visual fragments.

At the center of the screen, a live feed captured the Empress Wyvern circling high above like a silent sentinel. A system-generated tag hovered beside it:

[Non-Hostile] – Patrolling Perimeter⚠ WARNING: DO NOT ENGAGE FOR ANY REASON.

Her brows furrowed.

"A creature that big... just watching? There obviously more things at play."

She searched for more anomalies, flicking through radiation scans, ether activity, and waveform data. The hollow wasn't just larger—it was shifting, alive in ways physics shouldn't allow.

Alone near the rear hatch sat Miyabi.

Her odachi, partially unsheathed, sat across her lap.

She stared into the steel.

But it wasn't her reflection that stared back.

It was an eye—red, lidless, brimming with judgment. Red cracks spiderwebbed from it like burning veins, whispering from a place deeper than memory.

The Tailless had returned.

"You're going to face her again," they hissed.

"The one who left you behind."

"Still weaker. Still slower. Still a failure."

Red flames began to flicker around the blade's edge, subtle at first, but growing, licking the air like hungry tongues. Hands—dark and semi-formed—pressed outward from the metal, reaching for her face, her thoughts.

"Give in. You'll never catch her by staying human. Let us in. Let us elevate you—"

CLACK.

The odachi slammed shut in its sheath. The flames vanished. The hands withdrew.Silence returned.

"Not yet," she muttered, under her breath.

Miyabi didn't look up as Yanagi approached her.

"We're five minutes out," Yanagi said, keeping her tone casual but alert. "You ready?"

Miyabi stood without hesitation, nodding once.

"Always."

She walked to the front, joining the rest of the team as they began gathering around a projected map. Even now, despite the uncertainty, each of them settled into formation, falling into the natural rhythm of practiced professionals.

A heavy mechanical clunk echoed through the hull as the VTOL doors began to unlock.

Drop point in 4 minutes...

--------------------------------------------

Inside the Ballet Twins Hollow, the world had been utterly erased.

No buildings.No color.No sky.

Everything was white—an infinite void, as if reality had been wiped clean and rebuilt using raw, unfinished code. Black lines, shifting and reconfiguring like living syntax, crawled across every surface in rhythmic patterns. They pulsed softly, like the beat of a vast and distant heart.

Ellen walked silently through it, her boots making no sound against the nonexistent ground. The world here bent to her presence, but she wasn't paying attention to the visual decay or spatial distortion.

She could feel it now.That presence.

It sat like pressure on her chest.Heavy.Intelligent.Hungry.

The only being she knew that could generate such suffocating cognitive weight was him—the Doctor. But now, he wasn't just a man. He was an Emanator—a force, a wielder of forbidden knowledge.

And she remembered his words:

"When you ask a scientist if they believe in God... they rarely answer directly... I felt the gaze of something greater. And when I gazed back, I did not see divinity. I saw something... hungry. A god of erudition."

Her eyes narrowed.

She didn't view him as a god.Not even a man anymore.Just another anomaly to be erased from her world.

He doesn't belong here.

And all she needed now... was to find him.

A soft, disembodied voice echoed across the endless expanse.

"You never disappoint, Ellen."

She stopped.

"Even now, with no humanity left in you, you went out of your way to evacuate every last civilian and military operative. How thoughtful. How... utterly boring."

His voice was calm, mocking. A tone she remembered too well.

"But it wasn't a total waste. I prepared... a surprise for you. Something that should feel eerily familiar."

From nowhere, a melody began to play.Slow. Haunting. A creeping waltz of strings and distant piano.

"Dance of Death"

Ellen raised her head just as she descended from a ledge into an empty, whitewashed street—an imitation of the old Ballet Twins District, now colorless and eerily silent. Her heels clicked on the sterile surface.

Then—two portals of cascading code blinked into existence ahead of her.

Two blurs burst forth—one black, one white, spinning violently through the air like broken dolls on strings. As they slowed, they began to dance in a slow orbit around Ellen, long legs slicing the air with surgical precision.

Then they came into view.

The Twin Marionettes – Recoded

Once elegant ballerinas twisted by digital madness, now they were perfected grotesqueries of their former selves:

Black Marionette: Wore a cracked onyx corset, spiderwebbed with white energy lines and jagged glass-like shards jutting from her arms and legs. Her tutu was now tattered silk, floating like shrouds in zero-gravity. Her face was a porcelain mask, one half burned away, revealing a black void filled with turning gears and a constantly moving eye.

White Marionette: Adorned in a pure alabaster leotard, overlaid with shimmering script—code that looped across her skin like enchanted tattoos. Her skirt resembled folded origami, razor-edged and unnaturally sharp. Her mask was split vertically, one side showing a cracked ballerina's smile, the other—blank and expressionless.

They danced in perfect synchronicity, pirouetting around Ellen with gravity-defying grace.

And then—they stopped.

Facing each other.

They reached out, hands clasped, and slowly turned toward Ellen.

In unison, they extended a hand.

An invitation.

Ellen stared.

Expressionless.

Then, she gave a small, curt bow and extended her own hand.

"Fine," she said, voice flat, hollow. "Let's dance."

The twin marionettes giggled, the sound glitchy and warped, like corrupted audio echoing in a dead hallway.

And then—

They moved.

A double-bladed kick came from both sides, their sickle-sharp legs slicing through the air.

CLANG.

A black scythe blocked the strike mid-air—its curved blade glowing faintly against the white void.

Ellen stood between them, unmoved, scythe held high in one hand.

The twins flipped backward and landed with supernatural poise, preparing for their next movement.

And thus began their symphony of violence.

The dance had begun.

In the lifeless white void of the corrupted Ballet Twins Hollow, the melody of "Dance of Death" echoed like a forgotten lullaby. The Twin Marionettes stood poised, hands entwined in the center of the street, their glitching visages locked onto Ellen. The frost-wielding executioner held her scythe aloft, emotionless, her four arms adjusting their grip with mechanical precision.

Ellen made the first move.

With a faint glint of pale blue light, ice bloomed from her feet, sliding her forward with unnatural smoothness. As she skated low across the ground, one hand pulled her scythe backward while two others summoned glacial shivs, spinning them between her fingers. The final hand extended outward, casting a wave of frost that painted the colorless street in shimmering blue veins.

The Twin Marionettes responded in kind.

Black Marionette surged forward, her body engulfed in crimson flames, each twirl of her blade-tipped leg trailing sparks that hissed against the ice. She spun through the air like a blazing star, pirouetting into a heel drop. The frost cracked under her impact but reformed instantly as Ellen skated backward, leading the tempo.

White Marionette, in contrast, leapt skyward, electric threads of pale violet energy weaving through her limbs. Her movements were erratic, like a marionette cut from her strings yet still dancing. She extended her arms, casting bolts of static downward in elegant, deliberate arcs. They struck the ground, rippling through Ellen's frost like lightning dancing on water.

Ellen didn't flinch.

She twisted, body low, scythe behind her in a sweeping motion. Her upper arms tossed the shivs upward, impaling the sky with icy daggers. As they fell, they splintered mid-air into a shower of razor-thin ice shards, falling like snow.

The Marionettes leapt into each other.

Their forms twisted together mid-air, spinning rapidly as if caught in a cyclone. When they separated, they had switched elements:

Black Marionette now cloaked in violet electricity, zipping in flickering pulses.

White Marionette burning with cold flames, frostbitten but burning bright.

The street twisted.

Reality bent.

Behind Ellen, a building surged from the ground, warping into existence like a jagged memory. It formed mid-spin, rising sideways before snapping into place. The windows shimmered with binary code, the bricks embedded with corrupted ballet posters.

The Doctor was watching. Manipulating.

Ellen launched herself off the building's side as it solidified, sliding along its vertical face with a trail of frost beneath her. One arm extended forward and froze the air itself, creating a horizontal ramp that wrapped back toward the ground like a spiral staircase.

She leapt. Spun. Landed.

A single stomp. Frozen shockwave. The entire street shattered outward in a fractal pattern.

The Marionettes came again.

Black Marionette's movements flickered violently; she teleported short bursts with every step, leaving afterimages in her wake. Her kicks blurred through dimensions, slicing buildings in half as they spawned.

White Marionette dropped from above, spinning in an elegant dive, blades forming around her like a tutu of mirrored knives. She shrieked—a glitchy, warbled scream—as she collided with Ellen.

Ellen caught her.

Two hands locked on White's wrists. A third on her waist. The fourth plunged her scythe into the ground, sending an eruption of frozen pillars skyward, impaling the Black marionette.

She lifted White Marionette and threw her into a building that hadn't existed five seconds ago. It crumbled.

Black Marionette shrieked and spun toward Ellen, rage dancing in violet arcs.

Ellen caught her ankle with one hand and flung her across the street, where the Doctor spawned a train, which roared past in midair—twisting through a loop before crashing into the Black marionette into a spinning tower.

The landscape fractured again.

Buildings bloomed and bent sideways. Roads twisted into Mobius strips. The hollow itself warped into a recursive ballroom made of mirrors and windows.

Yet Ellen remained unmoved.

She began to hum. Just slightly. As if remembering an old tune. Her frost coalesced into ice roses, spinning around her like petals in a storm.

The Marionettes regrouped. Bruised, damaged, but beautiful in their horror. They circled her again, in a perfect waltz.

Ellen raised her scythe.

Her expression hadn't changed. But now, the cold radiating from her began to bite into the hollow itself. The Doctor's manipulations slowed, as if even his power was meeting a wall.

This was her dance now.

And the Marionettes were her partners.

The scythe hissed as Ellen spun it in a perfect arc, the black metal singing through the hollowed air. Her eyes tracked the twin blurs darting around her—White in front, Black circling behind, both in perfect, impossible synchronization.

The Twin Marionettes moved like dancers on an invisible stage. Their bladed legs left streaks of light, the rhythm of their assault a masterclass in motion and lethal grace.

White lunged first—her legs crackling with purple lightning, twisting into a spiral kick.

Ellen ducked, the kick flashing over her head with a pop of static discharge. The moment her boots hit the ground, Black was already there—bringing down a blazing crimson axe-kick wrapped in coiling fire.

Ellen raised her scythe vertically.

CLANG.

The weapon absorbed the impact—flames splashed across her shoulders but fizzled harmlessly against her cold aura. With a twist, she shoved Black off balance and spun, the shark tail trailing from her back sweeping out like a tidal whip.

CRACK!

It smashed into White, flinging her across the white void into a code-glitched streetlamp, which shattered on impact. Sparks rained. The Marionette tumbled—but landed in a flawless ballet pose, one leg raised high, toe pointed.

"Heeheehee..." the glitchy laugh echoed.

Then they continued to dance.

Black Marionette thrust her hands into the air. The crimson fire bent unnaturally—converging into a swirling spear of flame. With a sweeping gesture, she hurled it toward Ellen.

Mid-throw, White snapped her fingers—the flame hissed and crackled as it was laced with purple arcs, becoming a volatile hybrid of plasma.

Ellen didn't flinch.

She spun the scythe, caught the burning spear mid-air, and snapped it in two, the energy bursting behind her in a quiet explosion of white light.

But the twins weren't done.

Black leapt high, flipping over a twisted building frame and kicked it mid-air. The entire top half of a four-story structure cracked from its moorings and hurled toward Ellen like a collapsing monument.

White followed—hands raised, lightning lashing across her fingertips, electrifying the building mid-flight.

The building became a thunder-charged missile.

Ellen exhaled through her nose.

With one foot forward, she braced. Her tail curled low, anchored like a spring-loaded piston.

Then—BOOM.

She punched the structure.

Her tail uncoiled behind the blow, turning her entire body into a battering ram.

The electrified wreckage shattered like glass, shards raining around her.

The dust hadn't even settled when Black appeared out of the smoke, both legs spinning in a hurricane of kicks—each limb coated in swirling red fire.

Ellen blocked one. Dodged two. Parried three. On the fourth, she caught the leg under her arm and slammed the Marionette to the ground.

Without pause, White pounced, arms outstretched like wings, lightning webbing between her fingers. She clapped her hands—

FLASH.

A burst of purple light exploded. Ellen staggered—not from the damage, but from the deafening data-scream encoded in the attack. The Marionettes were learning. Adapting. Merging their elemental styles with psychological warfare.

Ellen blinked once, resetting her balance. Her expression never changed.

"You're getting clever," she said flatly.

Black twisted beneath her, wrapping burning limbs around Ellen's arm to try and trap her.

White lunged in from above, claws like spears.

Ellen let go of her scythe.

The weapon fell—she spun without it, letting Black's momentum guide the twist of her motion.

And with her shark tail, she vaulted upward, tail slamming into White's gut mid-air like a freight train.

White tumbled backward, twitching from her own lightning, until she slammed into a code wall and disappeared into it, temporarily knocked offline.

Black staggered up—only for Ellen to drop back down like a guillotine, reclaiming her scythe mid-fall.

She landed on top of Black, pinning her to the ground with a heel to the chest.

"Out of rhythm," she said quietly.

The Black marionette hissed and tried to lash out.

Ellen's tail whipped forward and speared through her midsection, pinning her to the ground in a burst of glitchy flame.

White reappeared moments later, sparking wildly—her sister's energy flooding back into her. The element swapped again—now White was burning with crimson fire, eyes flickering like dying stars.

Ellen turned, dragging her scythe behind her in the dirt. Sparks trailed in her wake.

"One more verse?" she asked.

The Marionettes raised their arms in unison, posed in a classical ballet stance—bodies cracked and twitching but still dancing.

The void around them bent and shimmered.

The dance is almost over.

And Ellen was still leading.

"Dance Concluded"

The white world twisted under the strain. Buildings half-glitched. The sky bent like parchment under a flame. The Twin Marionettes stood together, scorched, frayed at the edges, but not yet broken.

They attacked in silence.

In a synchronized pirouette, they spun forward—White, wreathed in crimson fire; Black, cloaked in crackling violet arcs. Their blades sliced in perfect harmony. They hurled beams of lightning from fractured windows, kicked flaming rubble into Ellen's path, igniting every crumbling structure into a deathtrap.

And still—none of it mattered.

A bolt of pure electricity punched through Ellen's chest.A blade of fire slashed across her back.Chunks of searing metal collided against her head and shoulders.

But Ellen didn't bleed.

Didn't stagger.

Didn't care.

She stood amid the maelstrom as if time were nothing but a curtain around her. The attacks phased through her—not incorporeally, but irrelevantly. Her flesh absorbed force like a black hole devouring light. It was not resistance; it was indifference made manifest.

"You poor little puppets," she whispered.

Then she moved.

She didn't lunge. She didn't dash. She simply appeared.

Like a misfired frame in a broken film reel, Ellen was suddenly there—in front of them. Her form blurred for only a fraction of a second, the afterimage a ghost of menace.

Two of her arms—black as the deep trench of the world's soul—pierced through the Marionettes' torsos, entering with a cold, clinical snap. The other two caught them by the heads, fingers wrapping around delicate synthetic skulls.

She slammed them into the ground.

The impact shook the district. A crater split through the ground like a gaping mouth. Cracks spiderwebbed outward, pixelated fissures dancing through the glitch-white landscape. The twins twitched once. Then, stillness.

Ellen rose slowly, pulling her arms free.

Error messages began to crawl across their broken forms.

ERROR: DATA NOT FOUNDFILE CORRUPTION DETECTEDSYSTEM REWRITE FAILURE

They didn't heal.

Ellen looked down, her voice void of tension.

"I've seen enough," she murmured. "Time to see him."

She turned her back to them.

But the Twin Marionettes—shattered, yet clinging to some last instinct—rose again.

Not together this time. Clumsily. Desperately. Their bodies flickered, one arm hanging useless, faces cracked but filled with something raw. They rushed toward her one final time—

And Ellen turned her head.

Not quickly. Not in alarm.Just... turned.

Her voice followed, now carrying the deep hum of the abyss.

"Enough."

And the world broke.

It was not a blast of power.It was not an attack.It was revelation.

The air stopped moving.Sound curled into itself.Time warped—became a reflection of itself—then stopped pretending to exist at all.

Then came the fracture. freewebnσvel.cøm

The sky froze.Not with cold—but with meaninglessness.Shards of light—no, of reality—shattered and fell like glass.

The Marionettes stumbled.The buildings began to weep violet frost.Gravity felt optional.

And still Ellen stood, now dragging her scythe—a blade not forged of steel, but of negation. The hum of it against the ground didn't echo in the ear—it echoed in the soul.

She wasn't wielding a weapon.

She was wielding absence.

Symbols—half-forgotten, celestial, wrong—spread across the ground in spirals. Briefly glowing. Then fading to ash.

The Marionettes stared.

And their vision fractured.

One blink—they saw Ellen.

The next—they saw through her eyes, staring at their own trembling forms.Then memories that weren't theirs—regrets, incompleteness, things they had never been, yet always could've been—wrapped around them like spectral silk.

Ellen's eyes leaked void.

Her presence became more than terror—it became a denial of identity.

"There is no meaning to your struggle," she said, as if reading aloud the world's final page."Only silence. Only the pathless rain."

The Marionettes fell to their knees, clutching each other. For the first time, not in synchrony, but in shared terror. Names faded.Purpose dissolved.They couldn't even remember why they wanted to fight.

They heard the echoes of stars dying.They felt the burial of gods beneath forgotten thoughts.

And as her aura pulsed one final time, the Nihility symbols flared once more—

—then vanished.

Ellen approached.

The Marionettes could no longer speak. Could barely breathe. But they clung to one another like children in a void.

She crouched, two arms extended, not in violence—but in claiming.

Gently, coldly, she placed her hands atop their bowed heads.

"You're mine," she said, voice echoing through the broken lattice of what once was real.

Ellen stood silent, her four arms still resting gently on the bowed heads of the Twin Marionettes. Her touch was not cruel—there was no malice, no rage.

The twins trembled beneath her. Their corrupted souls, tangled with redacted lines and erratic error codes, pulsed dimly like wounded animals. She reached inward. And with that, the real reprogramming began.

With clinical precision—and something eerily close to grace—Ellen grasped their souls.

The moment her void-infused essence touched them, waves of distortion rippled out. The corrupted data hissed and curled like burning paper. Red lines blinked and vanished. "ERROR: UNAUTHORIZED ACCESS" tried to scream across their cores, but Ellen silenced it with a thought.

She wasn't just altering code.She was healing them.And binding them.

She reached into the wound left by the Doctor's vile programming, like a god sculpting creation back into meaning.

Suddenly—

Their memories flooded into view.

The hollow whiteness around them twisted, warping into a grand ballroom theater—its velvet curtains faded, its walls cracked with time, yet radiant with haunting nostalgia. The stage glowed with warm lights. Standing upon it:

Two human girls. Blonde. Innocent. Graceful.

They wore white ballerina dresses, eyes tired but focused, bodies still with poise. Their movements—elegant, synchronized—spoke not only of talent but devotion. They danced as one, like mirrors given breath.

The crowd below them was shrouded in black silhouettes, impossible to identify. Yet their mouths curled into crooked smiles, and their voices—man and woman—spoke with too-sweet praise:

"So elegant... Truly divine...""I hope this show never ends."

In the shadows of their compliments, the girls whispered:

"Is the dance almost over?""Not until the curtain falls... But even then... there's always another audience...""But... we love dancing, don't we?""Yes. But... when was the last time we danced for ourselves?"

"...I don't remember."

And then came the collapse.

Ether crystals exploded from the theater walls and ceiling, jagged and glowing. The smiling audience began to scream—not in terror, but as if something inside them was clawing to get out. Small ether shards burst through their flesh. In a nightmarish flash, they all became Ethereals—distorted, violent, wrong.

Still, the ballerinas danced.

Their forms glitched—a flicker of limbs, joints twisting, strings snapping—and they became the Marionettes, pirouetting through chaos. Crimson flames and violet electricity rippled behind every motion, every twirl. And still, they danced.

The haunting melody—"Dance of Death"—played once more. Their final song.

They cut down the ethereals as they danced, and once the last note rang out... they bowed.

Before a single figure in the empty audience:

Ellen.

She sat with her legs crossed, hands folded in her lap. She clapped slowly, echoing through the dead theater.

"Your dance was wonderful," she said. "Truly... beautiful."

Ellen rose. Her footsteps echoed like a funeral bell as she approached. The Marionettes—back in their human forms—remained bowed, awaiting a final verdict.

She stood before them.

Two hands still resting on their heads.

Two others reached forward.

"Your story," Ellen said, "is a tragic one.Two of the best ballerinas—known across the land. Consumed by a Hollow. Warped by what you loved most.""Even as you became monsters, that same melody—the last song you danced to—haunted you.""Even now, you perform for an audience that isn't there. A stage without a curtain."

She knelt down, tilting their heads upward.

"But the truth is... you already got what you wanted.You danced not for them.Not for the crowd.Not for fame.But for yourselves."

She paused. Her voice softened—not with warmth, but with honesty.

"Even if you weren't aware I won't hold it against you.So I ask you now, dancers of a fallen stage..."

Her void-filled eyes peered into theirs.

"Are you satisfied with your performance?"

Silence.

"If given the chance... would you like to do it again?Not as weapons. Not as ghosts. But as my servants.You'll work for me.But this time—for yourselves, too."

She gestured to a rift opening behind her.

"If not... the door is right there."

The twins looked at one another. For the first time in decades, their faces softened. One of them asked, her voice the voice of the little girl from before:

"If we follow you... will we be free from the stage? Can we go where we want... when we're not dancing?"

Ellen nodded.

And they smiled.

The pact was sealed.