"Alright, kiddo, imagine the world is like a giant school. But the principal is really, really mean, and he makes everyone follow unfair rules. Now, some kids? They're different. They have special minds that let them talk without speaking. They don't need phones, don't need words. They just think—and suddenly, they understand each other."

"One of these special kids is Lupa. She doesn't just see the world—she sees the patterns underneath it. The math, the rules, the hidden structure that makes everything work. And if something doesn't fit? She fixes it. But a long time ago, an alien named B.O.R.I.S. came to Earth searching for something special. Music. More specifically, one voice. Nina Simone."

"But when he got here, he did more than just listen. He changed things. And by accident? He changed everything."

"Now, a powerful woman named Feast—who comes from a place where people guard the universe's biggest secrets—tells Lupa just how special she is. So special that she can solve the most impossible math problem in existence. And guess what? She does. But then—POOF! Hermes, the guy who makes bad jokes at the worst times, disappears into a tiny black hole."

"And just when things couldn't get crazier, another girl, Alphabela, shows up. But wait—there's two of her. Lupa didn't just copy her. She split her. Into what, exactly? No one knows yet."

"That's where the story leaves off. And trust me—it's only going to get crazier from here."

D_Remo took the child.

A couple of minutes before...

The Approach – A War Without a Battle

The ocean boiled, sending steam into the suffocating sky.

Hottest Beach lived up to its name—its waves, thick with the residue of industrial runoff, radiated unnatural heat. But it wasn't the sun that made the water seethe.

It was Titi.

She glided beneath the surface, an ancient biomechanical god clad in plated alloys that pulsed with cooling agents.

Without her armor of frost, she would have melted in these poisoned waters.

Her crew rode inside her belly, waiting.

This tale has been unlawfully obtained from Royal Road. If you discover it on Amazon, kindly report it.

Waiting for the right moment to descend upon No Nation like a mathematical inevitability.

The Drop – APDS Lands on No Nation Soil

The hiss of compressed air.

The snap of gravity realigning.

Titi's upper vents burst open, releasing five warriors into the sky like falling stars.

Romulus landed first.

A meteor of muscle and force, his three instances merged into a singular, colossal being—the absolute limit of his abilities.

His boots struck sand, and the shockwave carved a crater into the coastline, sending dust and debris into the air.

Remo was already moving.

He phased out midair, his duplicates spreading through the city before his real body even touched the ground.

By the time his boots met pavement, A through Z were in position.

Lupa descended next, flanked by her golden-eyed council, each one a fragment of her vast, calculating mind.

Numbers burned in their eyes.

Reality shifted.

Hermes arrived last, landing with a casual roll and stretch, his duplicate standing beside him.

"I could get used to this."

"That makes one of us."

Noise watched from above.

Her fleet of biomechanical whales circled like sentinels, their sleek bodies barely visible against the glare of the artificial sun.

This was not an invasion.

This was a seizure.

The city was already theirs.

They just had to claim it.

Inside Y-Tower – The T.I.C.K.L.E. Children React

The T.I.C.K.L.E. Children saw everything.

They were born for this, molded for this.

Their minds processed threats at speeds human generals could only dream of.

Within seconds, they ran thousands of possible outcomes.

In all of them—they won.

The Y-Tower loomed before the APDS, an obsidian blade piercing the city skyline.

Inside, a boy no older than ten lifted a hand.

The city's entire power grid responded.

Buildings pulsed with raw energy.

The roads beneath APDS' feet twisted, warping into an unnatural maze.

The sky turned against them.

Lupa's eyes narrowed.

She took one step forward.

And rearranged reality.

The maze collapsed.

The energy twisted.

The laws of physics bowed to her will.

For the first time in their engineered lives, the T.I.C.K.L.E. Children hesitated.

Inside the Tower – The End of Y

Boris was already there.

Not in body.

Not in voice.

But in signal.

He whispered through the fiber-optic veins of the city, his presence sliding between lines of code, unraveling the very foundation of No Nation's power.

At the top of Y-Tower, the billionaire staggered.

Y gripped the edges of his throne-like desk, his breath ragged.

"No."

His voice was small.

Boris smiled from every screen, his face fractured into a thousand flickering versions of itself.

"Yes."

Y convulsed.

His flesh rippled.

The thing inside him crawled beneath his skin.

The T.I.C.K.L.E. Children felt it.

A disruption.

A void where control once existed.

And for the first time—

They felt fear.

Noise Watches the Collapse

From above, Noise exhaled.

"He's doing it."

Below, Y's body twisted, spasmed, collapsed.

Boris took his place.

The screens across No Nation flickered.

Boris' new eyes opened.

And No Nation fell.