The room pulsed.
Once.
Twice.
Then...
Everything stopped.
No flickering.
No sparks.
No movement.
Just...
Stillness.
Lyra's voice came low.
"…Nobody move."
Elric didn't need the warning.
He was already frozen.
"…I didn't do anything," he said quietly.
Pix didn't respond.
Her eyes were locked on the screen.
The text...
Still incomplete...
Still shifting...
But slower now.
Like it was… thinking.
Sera stepped back slightly.
"…It didn't stop when you did."
That landed.
Mii blinked.
"…Wait... what?"
Kaida-9's voice confirmed it.
"…No input detected from Elric."
Elric raised a hand slightly.
"…See? Not me."
Pix whispered...
"…Not anymore."
The lights flickered again.
Not violently.
But… deliberately.
One by one...
The dead consoles around the room lit up.
A soft hum filled the space.
Old systems.
Disconnected systems.
Systems that should not be working...
Powered on.
Mii slowly turned in a circle.
"…Okay, I officially hate this place."
Lyra scanned the room.
"…This isn't location-based."
Sera nodded.
"…No."
A beat.
"…It's propagating."
Elric frowned.
"…That sounds like a bad word."
Pix stood slowly.
"…It means it's spreading."
Right on cue...
A cable snapped loose from the ceiling...
Not falling...
Moving.
Just slightly.
Like it had direction.
Mii pointed immediately.
"NOPE."
Kaida-9 stepped forward, grabbing the cable mid-motion.
It went still in her hand.
"…Movement detected," she said.
Pix laughed softly.
Not loud.
Not wild.
But… fascinated.
"…It's not just systems anymore."
Elric stared at the cable.
"…Yeah, that's worse."
The screens flickered again.
All of them now.
And this time...
They showed the same thing.
Not static.
Not text.
A symbol.
Broken.
Glitching.
Incomplete.
But consistent.
Sera stepped closer to one.
"…It's replicating a pattern."
Lyra's voice sharpened.
"…From where?"
Silence.
Then...
All eyes slowly turned...
Toward Elric.
"…Oh come on," he muttered.
Pix grinned slightly.
"…You're trending."
Mii smacked his arm lightly.
"This is NOT the time for jokes!"
Elric rubbed his arm.
"…Ow. Also fair."
The symbol flickered again.
For a split second...
It aligned.
Clear.
A distorted shape...
Almost like a word...
But not readable.
Elen spoke softly.
"…It's trying to stabilize."
Sera nodded.
"…Yes."
A beat.
"…And it's succeeding."
That was new.
Elric frowned.
"…Wait, I thought this was random chaos."
Pix shook her head slowly.
"…No."
A pause.
"…This is structured."
Silence.
That word hit different.
Lyra stepped back slightly.
"…Then this isn't just a glitch."
Sera finished the thought.
"…It's a process."
The room pulsed again.
Stronger this time.
One of the consoles sparked...
Then...
Projected something into the air.
A hologram.
Flickering.
Unstable.
But forming.
Mii grabbed Elric again.
"…Why is it getting worse?!"
Elric didn't answer.
He was staring at the hologram.
Because...
It wasn't random.
It was forming around him.
Centering on him.
Tracking him...
Without scanning.
"…Okay," he said slowly.
"…that's new."
Pix stepped closer.
Eyes wide.
"…No," she whispered.
A grin spread.
"…That's BIG."
Lyra's voice cut sharply.
"…Pix."
Pix didn't stop.
"…It's not reacting to you anymore," she said.
She pointed at the hologram.
"…It's building from you."
Silence.
The symbol flickered again...
Then...
Shifted.
Closer.
Clearer.
Almost...
Recognizable.
Sera's voice dropped.
"…It's not spreading randomly."
A pause.
"…It's rewriting the environment to match a reference."
Elric blinked.
"…A reference of what?"
No one answered.
Because...
They all knew.
The hologram pulsed again.
And this time...
It didn't glitch.
It held.
For one full second.
Before collapsing again.
But that one second...
Was enough.
Mii whispered...
"…That looked like…"
She didn't finish.
Pix did.
"…a system tag."
Silence.
Kaida-9's voice lowered.
"…Classification in progress."
Lyra stepped back.
"…No."
A pause.
"…We stop this now."
Elric looked at her.
"…How?"
She didn't answer.
Because...
The systems answered first.
Every screen...
Every panel...
Every flicker of light...
Turned toward him.
At once.