Metaverse of Mechas

📘 Chapter 44

🌀 Scene 1: The Zone of Forgotten Echoes

When Zeron sang the Second Verse backward, the sky tore like paper soaked in oil.

Not physically—but at a quantum layer beneath time itself.

A circular zone formed around him and Altherion.

A sphere of unreal space, static-filled, gray-toned, and eerily quiet.

"Zeron… where are we?" Aina's voice sounded muffled, like underwater.

"I think… we're in a memory," he replied.

But it wasn't just any memory.

It was a deleted piece of reality.

Floating inside were broken echoes:

A mecha battle that never happened.Children laughing in a school that had been bombed before they were born.A birthday Zui once had, erased from her records.

Zeron saw them all.

But most chilling of all was the final echo — a recording of his mother, Lyra.

She was standing in a hospital room, clutching an infant.

His name on her lips.

"You must hide him. If the Verse completes, he'll either save the world or destroy it…"

And behind her… stood a Mute Titan, watching.

Just watching.

👥 Scene 2: Ivy vs. Ivy

Deep inside Archive Zero, Ivy stumbled upon a secured chamber labeled: X-Parallel/Delta Sync.

She hacked the lock.

Inside stood another Ivy.

Same height.

Same features.

Same eyes.

But different.

She wore a Spiral uniform, bore scars Ivy didn't have, and held a weapon called the Verseburner.

"You're… me," Ivy said.

"No. I'm what you were supposed to become," the other Ivy replied. "Before Zeron changed everything."

They touched hands.

And the world blinked.

Suddenly Ivy saw memories she never lived — fighting alongside Zeron in the capital, kissing him, dying beside him in an explosion.

"This is a splinter," the alternate Ivy said. "A forked verse. They erased me. But you… you're the key to writing the final line."

She handed Ivy a data shard.

"Use this when the Third Verse starts. Or we all disappear."

Then she vanished.

🌑 Scene 3: The Dead Remember the Moonwreck

Zake and Rest descended into the sealed war vault of the Moonwreck Sanctuary, past the glitching mecha-crypts and ancient orbit fragments.

Inside, the Modulator pulsed — and projected a holo-record of the battle that destroyed the original Sanctuary.

Zake watched, horrified.

It wasn't the aliens who fired first.

It was Spiral.

A command to erase their own base.

"Why…?" Rest whispered.

Then the answer appeared.

A chamber deep within the base.

Holding baby Zeron.

"He was here?" Zake gasped.

"He was born here," Rest said, wide-eyed.

The war had been staged—to cover up Zeron's creation.

A voice crackled from the archive's last line:

"The Verse must be hidden. No matter the cost."

🔁 Scene 4: Aina's Time-Lost Future

Following her unstable visions, Aina traveled to a hidden cave in the Bluelight Peaks, a place where time anomalies were common.

She entered a crystalline corridor.

And in its center…

…was herself.

Older.

Tired.

Blind in one eye.

"You're real," Aina said, stunned.

"And you're early," the older Aina smiled sadly.

"What happens to me?"

"You break," Future Aina replied, "when Zeron chooses the Verse over you."

"Why would he do that?"

"Because the world will beg him to. And because you'll be the one to help him sing it."

She handed Aina a note:

"Don't let Ivy die again."

🔇 Scene 5: The Mute Strike

The Mute Titans began their assault—not on cities.

But on memories.

Hospitals.

Homes.

School archives.

All places connected to Zeron's past.

Anyone who had ever known Lyra, his mother, began disappearing—one by one.

From files.

From photos.

From the minds of people around them.

"They're erasing him retroactively," Ivy gasped.

Zui collapsed, screaming.

"Zake's gone! He—he was just here!"

For a moment… Zake didn't exist.

Until Zeron grabbed her hand and pulsed his Krono.

A verse barrier formed — locking Zake back into existence.

But not forever.

The Verse was their only weapon.

And it was incomplete.

🎼 Scene 6: The Third Verse Whispers

Inside the silent core of Altherion, Zeron heard it.

Not music.

Not song.

A question.

In a voice both ancient and young.

"Do you want to remember the truth?"

A glyph burned across his console:

Verse III — The Hymn of Birth

"Not yet," Zeron whispered.

But the core disagreed.

It opened the file.

And a sound like the first breath of the universe echoed across his mind.

🔚 Preview — Chapter 45: The Hymn of Birth

Ivy uses the Verseburner and sees the true origin of Krono.

Aina begins to fracture mentally, hearing timelines that haven't happened.

Zake attempts to confront Spiral's leaders about the Moonwreck lie.

Zui begins to dream about a future where Zeron is the enemy.

The Mute Titans gather around the capital for a full-scale erasure event.

And Zeron begins to sing the Third Verse — triggering a universal countdown…