Make Them Love Me Or They'll End The World

Inside one of Spire's countless private training halls, the smell of scorched metal and synthetic oil clung to the air like a second skin. Broken robotic targets lay scattered across the polished floor, limbs twitching as their internal circuits sparked. Training gear that most operators would only ever need, one of the bladed drones, weighted gauntlets, and plasma dummies, was tossed aside like discarded toys.

But for Velza Cain, two practice opponents weren't nearly enough.

Her breath was steady, her long dark hair slightly damp from exertion as she rolled her shoulders. The faint glow of kinetic energy still pulsed around her hands, residual from the last automated targets she'd reduced to twisted heaps of alloy. The silence that followed was oppressive, only broken by the hum of ceiling-mounted scanners recalibrating after her relentless onslaught.

Velza glanced toward the observation platform, where a young Spire technician in a black suit stood clutching a tablet, her knuckles white against the sleek metal frame.

"Send out the Nullborn," Velza said flatly, her tone not a request but an expectation.

The technician hesitated, swallowing hard. She shifted her stance nervously, the tablet trembling just enough to make the light flicker across its screen. "M-Miss Velza… Are you sure you want… more than one?"

Velza's crimson-painted lips curved into a confident smile as she adjusted her gloves.

"Please, don't trouble yourself," she said, her tone calm but edged with something lethal. "Yes, Nullborn units were banned long ago… Ethics, or so they claimed. But for me? They're more than enough to shake the rust off."

The handler across from her hesitated, fingers twitching nervously before she finally nodded. Without a word, she tapped a sequence into her sleek black tablet. Across the vast silver-metallic training chamber, several wall panels hissed and split open, expelling bursts of pale, chemical smoke that clung to the ground like fog.

Velza watched, arms crossed, as silhouettes began to emerge, small, hunched figures with glinting bone-like plating that caught the sterile lights above.

The Nullborn.

They weren't human. They weren't robotic. They were something between, spawned decades ago in Cradle's deepest black laboratories when desperation outweighed morality. Biotech constructs, gestated in fluid-filled Silence Vats, grown from harvested human neural strands and crystallised Fracture Bloom residue, the only known substance capable of nullifying Alberline anomalies.

The residue was volatile, lethal to most organisms, but under Cradle's experiments, it became a weaponised "anti-reality," fused into synthetic bone exosuits and wired with emotionless neural cores. Designed for one purpose only: to suppress, capture, and, if necessary, erase beings like Siren.

But they came with a price.

Hard to control, unpredictable, semi-sentient in ways even their creators couldn't fully grasp. The Nullborn saw the world differently: not as flesh and colour, but as warped grids of unstable reality. To them, Alberlines were like corrupted code, aberrations that had to be corrected. In the wrong conditions, they didn't just attack Alberlines… They sometimes turned on their own handlers, drawn to any flicker of emotional instability.

That unpredictability was why Cradle buried the project, sealing the Silence Vats and swearing the Nullborn would never see daylight again.

But Spire didn't care for ethics or oaths.

From the mist, the first Nullborn stepped into view, a small, five-foot figure with digitigrade legs, its body encased in pale, bone-like exoskeletal armour. Long, thin claws clicked against the metallic floor, and its head was nothing but a smooth, featureless helm split by a single, vertical red slit that glowed faintly. More followed, their movements unnervingly fluid yet jerky, like marionettes half-aware they had strings.

Velza's smile sharpened as she stretched her arm, rolling her shoulder with deliberate slowness.

"Ah… It's been too long," she said softly, her violet eyes glinting with the thrill of impending violence. "Come then, my little hounds… Show me you haven't forgotten how to hunt. She got into her stance, her smirk not wavering at the slightest.

"Once I'm ready, Siren, your next..."

*

Back aboard the Vaelion, the ship hummed softly as it glided through the night skies. Tenka and Haruka were stationed at the command deck, quietly arguing through tactical displays, piecing together a plan they'd launch the moment Kentaro opened his eyes again.

Meanwhile, in the medical bay, time felt frozen.

Serica and Yura hadn't left since they carried Kentaro in. They stood shoulder-to-shoulder, silent except for the soft beeping of the Regeneration Pod. Through its curved glass, Kentaro's body floated, fully submerged in luminous blue healing fluid. Thin cables coiled around his arms and chest like translucent vines, monitors pulsing in rhythm with his slowed heartbeat.

Even after Tenka's earlier pep talk, guilt weighed on the girls like lead chains. Neither could shake the thought that they'd failed him.

Serica especially.

She pressed her trembling hand against the glass, fingertips leaving faint streaks of moisture. Her bloodshot, swollen eyes locked onto Kentaro's closed ones. She whispered through a cracked voice:

"I'm sorry, Kentaro… Please… Just wake up. Please…"

Tears traced silently down her cheeks, dripping from her chin to the pod's base. She thought back to the day he saved her from despair, dragged her out of a nightmare she thought would never end, and now, he was fighting his own, and she couldn't lift a finger to help him.

But then…

A twitch.

Her breath caught. Kentaro's fingers jerked slightly, then again, his body stirred.

Serica leaned in closer, hands trembling. "Yura… Look!"

Kentaro's eyes shot wide open, glowing faintly as if jolted from the depths of a nightmare.

"HMMMMMMM!" His muffled cry vibrated through the fluid, loud enough to echo in the quiet room. Serica and Yura stumbled backwards, wide-eyed in relief, before bolting for the door.

"Tenka! Haruka!" Serica shouted down the corridor. "He's awake!"

Inside the pod, Kentaro groggily stirred, his mind still clouded.

"Where… am I…?"

He turned his head, trying to see, but the glass blurred everything beyond faint silhouettes. The chamber felt tight, claustrophobic; the only light came from glowing panels beneath his feet and above his head.

He looked down at himself: completely submerged, thin tubing attached to his chest and arms.

"My wound… It's gone." He dragged a hand across where a deep gash had been. Smooth. Untouched. Like it had never existed.

Through the haze, he saw two shapes pressed against the glass outside. He couldn't make out their faces, but something in his gut told him… Serica and Yura.

Suddenly, a hiss sounded from above as pressure shifted. A beam of bright white light broke through the pod, forcing Kentaro to squint. The water began draining rapidly as mechanical arms lifted him upward.

"KENTARO!!" Serica and Yura's voices rang out.

He coughed, breathing fresh air for the first time in hours, then managed a weak grin. "Hey guys… I'm back."

The pod fully lifted him out, biofluid streaming down his bare body. Only a flimsy towel covered his lower half, clinging desperately as three girls stared at him. Kentaro looked down, face turning crimson.

"Umm… Tenka… did you… by any chance… put-"

Before he could finish, a sharp voice interrupted, laced with mockery:

"Please, Kentaro. I don't want to see your three-millimetre defeater. Sorry to crush your dreams… but Serica and Yura were kind enough to get you out of those shredded clothes."

Kentaro froze, eyes darting to the two girls.

"At least… at least it was beautiful girls that undressed me," he thought desperately, trying to calm his embarrassment.

But then he noticed their expressions, no shy blushes, no flustered giggles. Just… apologetic stares.

"Oh no…" Kentaro thought, dread creeping in. "Those faces… that's not the we accidentally saw your snake look… that's the we couldn't stop it from happening look…"

The room erupted with a loud, obnoxious laugh:

"MY, MY, MY! IT WAS I, YOUR FAITHFUL SHOGO, WHO HAD THE PLEASURE OF UNDRESSING YOU!"

From the corridor swaggered Shogo, grin stretched ear to ear like a wolf announcing dinner.

"AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!" Kentaro screamed, diving toward the pod like a man trying to baptise himself into purity.

Serica and Tenka lunged, trying to pull him back. The struggle turned chaotic, grabbing, slipping, shouting, until Kentaro's wet feet betrayed him.

SLIP, BOING!

He crashed face-first into something soft, warm, and faintly scented with lavender… lavender mixed with an ominous I'm about to kill you vibe.

Kentaro slowly opened his eyes. His nose was buried deep into…

"Tenka… I'm-SORRY!"

BOOM!

A devastating gut-punch sent Kentaro careening across the room, slamming into the wall with a crash that would've impressed Shogo himself.

Tenka stood over him, fists trembling, cheeks flushed with anger. Though not the tallest, her… proportions… were still generous enough to imagine a "pillow talk" session that would now never happen.

"YOU. JACKASS!" she roared, storming out of the room in a fury.

Serica and Yura rushed over to the crumpled Kentaro, lying in a heap on the floor.

"Kentaro! Are you okay?!" they shouted together.

From the ground, Kentaro weakly raised a thumb. "Y-yeah… I'll… make it…"

Shogo sauntered over, grinning wildly, voice dripping with mock admiration.

"Hahahaha! Isn't it wonderful, dear Kentaro? The art of being smashed into tiny pieces by our glorious commander, ohhhhhh, truly marvellous!"

Kentaro groaned, pulling himself upright and brushing off fluid-soaked hair. "Sure, Shogo… whatever works for you…"

Haruka stepped into the room, adjusting her glasses with that calm, calculating manner that only made Kentaro more nervous.

"Ren," she began, voice even, "we already guessed you'd go straight back out there the moment you woke up." She tapped a digital pad, then glanced toward the hallway. "So… the Commander and I already made a plan. Please head to the main briefing room once you're-"

Her words stopped, her gaze sliding downward.

Kentaro followed her line of sight… and froze.

His towel, his only barrier between dignity and humiliation, was hanging on by a single, desperate thread.

"NGHH!" Kentaro yelped, slamming his hands to his waist, trying to hold everything together.

Haruka's lips curled into the faintest smirk, her eyes glinting behind her glasses. "Just come through once you're ready… Mr. Three-Millimeter-Defeater, Playboy Extraordinaire."

She spun on her heel and left, her calm footsteps echoing down the corridor, leaving Kentaro standing in mortified silence.

"…Did she really… put all that together…?" Kentaro muttered helplessly, face burning.

Serica suddenly stepped forward, now cheerful since Kentaro had awoken, her hands clasped behind her back. "Come on, Kentaro! Yura and I will help you get changed!" She said with a bright, innocent smile.

Kentaro's heart skipped. Yura's face flushed crimson, a knowing understanding sparking in her mind. To her and Kentaro, the words sounded like something far more intimate than they truly were.

Serica, however, remained blissfully unaware.

"NO! Serica, that's fine, I can get changed!" Kentaro stammered, flailing his hands.

"NO! Serica, that's fine, he can get changed!" Yura shouted at the same time, her voice cracking.

The two panicked voices overlapped, leaving Serica blinking in confusion. She tilted her head, her lower lip trembling in a faint pout.

"But… I wanted to choose Kentaro's outfit…" She said softly, puppy eyes shimmering.

Kentaro and Yura exchanged a glance, instantly folding under the sheer power of Serica's innocent gaze.

"Ohhh… okay… we get it," they said in unison, defeated.

*

A few minutes later, the three emerged from Kentaro's quarters. Serica and Yura stood proudly on either side of him like two designers unveiling their masterpiece.

Kentaro now wore a sleek black top with a square-patterned, red-and-black cotton shirt layered over it, the dark tones complementing his frame. Slim black trousers completed the look, and for the first time in his life, he looked… Stylish.

When they entered the main command room, Tenka sat slouched in her commander's chair, still visibly annoyed from the earlier incident. The scowl on her face, however, shifted the moment she saw him.

"Wow," she said, a smirk tugging at her lips. "Looks like Serica and Yura did you good."

Kentaro rubbed the back of his neck, chuckling nervously. "Yeah… Feels good. Different, though. Guess I'm not used to… Actually dressing up."

Tenka's stern expression cracked just slightly into a faint, approving smile. She leaned forward, voice sharpening with purpose:

"Right then… Let's begin our second attempt at saving Siren."