---
Zane dropped into the sewage tunnel with a splash that made his dignity file for divorce.
"This is fine," he muttered, wiping sludge off his face. "Totally normal Tuesday. Just breaking into a mega-corp death vault with a talking toaster strapped to my chest."
The toaster beeped indignantly.
> "Correction: I'm your emotionally unstable kitchen appliance with sibling memories and a hatred for gluten-free bread."
Zane sighed. "Yeah. That's worse."
---
Scene 1 – Tunnel of Nightmares
The tunnel walls pulsed faintly with corrupted data veins—black threads of malware creeping through the infrastructure like digital mold.
The toaster's voice dropped an octave. "I don't like this. Something's wrong. The network here is… sick."
Zane paused. "Define sick."
> [System Scan:
Detected – Obsidian Loop Corruption
Status – Echo Entity Detected Nearby
Recommendation: Run. Or don't. You're gonna do something dumb either way.]
Zane flicked on his stealth cloak. "We keep moving. If an echo entity shows up, we improvise."
Suddenly, lights flickered.
A voice echoed through the tunnel.
Low. Inhuman. And very much not thrilled to see them.
"Zane Kross… you brought a toaster to a soul heist?"
He froze. "...Who the hell are you?"
From the shadows emerged a figure clad in black, face flickering like a glitch. Half-machine, half-nightmare, with a NEUREX badge burned into its chest.
It smiled. Or tried to. "I'm your backup plan."
The toaster shrieked.
> [Combat Initiated:
Boss Fight – Echo_ZK.OBSIDIAN]
[Weakness: Bad puns, emotional trauma, unstable code blocks.]
---
Scene 2 – Fight Like a Kettle
Zane dove behind a busted pipe as laser pulses ripped through the tunnel.
The toaster flailed. "I'm not rated for combat! I'm barely rated for waffles!"
Zane pulled the gravity gun from his belt. "Then distract it with your charming personality."
He popped out, fired a blast—slammed the echo into a ceiling pipe.
The echo laughed. "Oh good. You fight like your mom's coding: unpredictable and held together with duct tape."
Zane flinched. "Leave my mother's spaghetti code out of this."
The fight turned brutal. The echo split into three shadow-clones. Zane barely dodged.
The toaster blinked blue.
"Zane, do you trust me?"
"Not even a little."
"Too bad."
It ejected a flaming piece of bread—straight into the enemy's face.
> [Critical Hit – Ego Damage Inflicted]
The echo reeled back, screeching. "You insolent kitchen appliance!"
Zane tackled it, jammed a code spike into its chest, and screamed:
"TOAST THIS!"
The echo exploded in a burst of corrupted light.
---
Scene 3 – Core Access Room
They stumbled into the Core Nexus. A massive chamber of glowing servers shaped like a cathedral built by angry nerds and very dramatic architects.
In the center: a crystal-like memory core, pulsing in rhythm with Zane's chest.
> [Core Identified: ZK_SOULNODE_00]
[Connection Viable. Begin Integration?]
[Warning: Full memory restoration will overwrite safety barriers.]
Zane hesitated. The toaster was silent. The System pinged.
> "This is it, Zane. Once you go through, you'll know everything. But you might not like what you find."
He reached out… touched the node…
The world shattered.
---
Flashback Sequence – Truth.exe
Zane saw everything at once.
He was a child again—laughing with Sera in the labs.
He saw NEUREX scientists installing failsafe protocols into orphaned children—building "living chain keys" for future system control.
He was Subject KROSS_Z_00.
A weapon.
A backup.
And Sera had broken protocol to save him.
She uploaded her consciousness into the only thing left—a toaster bot from the break room—and wiped his memories to keep him safe.
Tears streamed down Zane's face as the truth downloaded into his soul like a broken update patch.
---
Scene 4 – Vault Omega Alarm Panic
The core snapped offline. The room went red.
Sirens blared.
Turrets deployed.
Drones swarmed in like angry Wi-Fi routers.
The toaster rebooted.
"I remember everything now," it said, voice calm. "I'm Sera. And we need to blow this place to hell."
Zane nodded. "Now that's a sister I remember."
They rigged the core with Prophet's failsafe bombs. Zane strapped the toaster to his back this time.
"Hold tight."
"I'm a toaster, not a jetpack—WAIT NO DON'T YOLO THIS—"
Zane sprinted, dodged drones, surfed down a collapsing data bridge, punched a mech in the throat, and dove out just as the entire core room erupted in a digital fireball.
---
Final Scene – Rooftop Extraction
Prophet's ship hovered overhead.
Zane climbed aboard, coughing, bruised, but grinning.
Prophet looked him over. "You look like you lost a fight with a blender."
"Close. It was a corporate war crime and a haunted toaster."
The toaster beeped softly.
> [Soul Sync – 98% Complete]
[New Memory Unlocked – Project OBELISK Objective: Reboot the Chain… or destroy it.]
Zane slumped into a chair.
"Guess I know what I'm doing next."
Prophet raised a brow. "Oh? And what's that?"
Zane smirked.
"…I'm gonna finish what she started."
The toaster lit up.
"And maybe make pancakes."