Chapter 13: Protocol Awakening

​Blue light detonated.

The moment Lya's fingertip touched the pocket watch's keyhole, the entire city erupted in an earsplitting metallic shriek. The gear-shaped halo above the altar accelerated violently, blue-white energy snaking through ground patterns like living lightning. Across the plaza, liquid metal peeled away from bronze structures, coalescing into hovering black geometries—

The Guardians had materialized.​

They were neither creatures nor machines, but pure mathematical killing tools. Dodecahedrons split and reformed midair, edges sharpened to nanometer precision; spiral shadows moved along non-Euclidean trajectories, leaving scorched trails in their wake.

"Get down!" Renée yanked Lya behind a shattered metal column. Three crimson laser beams seared overhead, carving molten trenches in the steel. The dome ceiling had transformed—hexagonal grids now spanned its expanse, each node bearing a prismatic crystal—

Laser containment matrix activated.​

"They're executing purge protocols." Lya's mechanical eye auto-focused, data streams flooding her retina:

Target identified: Unauthorized lifeforms

Sanitization protocol: Engaged

Priority level: Maximum

An icosahedron Guardian materialized to their left, its surface unfolding like a black lotus. Renée's arrow pierced through the petals—only to vaporize upon contact with its core.

"Physical attacks are useless!" Renée tore open her tactical pack, hurling an EMP grenade. "Try this—"

The explosion wreathed the Guardian in violet arcs. For three seconds the shadow staggered, its geometric surface flickering like corrupted circuitry—until self-repair mechanisms kicked in.

Lya suddenly clutched her temples. Her father's voice detonated in her skull:

"Sonic frequency 468Hz... disrupts their quantum entanglement state..."

She lunged for the control console, mechanical fingers stabbing into its interface. A holographic keyboard flared to life as she input Mayan numerical codes. Twelve tuning-fork-like structures erupted from the plaza floor, their high-frequency vibrations warping the air itself.

Guardians stuttered mid-motion, geometries distorting unnaturally. But the laser grid above pivoted—

"They're prioritizing interference elimination!" Renée shouted.

By the third tuning fork's molten demise, Lya discovered something worse: her mechanical arm convulsed uncontrollably, blue veins now flowing backward toward her heart. The console screen flashed a warning:

Protocol override detected

New directive: Assist sanitization

Synchronization forcibly elevated to 102%

"No—" Blood welled where Lya bit through her lip. With final desperate willpower, she wrenched her arm free. Blood droplets hit the keyboard—triggering a hidden protocol.

The altar's base split open, revealing a bottomless shaft. Its spiraling grooves pulsed with viscous azure fluid—liquid starlight.

Her father's hologram stood at the precipice, mechanized left hand pointing downward:

"The true control core lies below... but once you enter..." His image distorted violently. "...you'll become part of the system."

Renée's quiver suddenly blared an alarm. "More Guardians emerging from the fissures!"

A tide of black geometries poured from every crack in the plaza. Lya stared at her right arm—now metallic past the shoulder—then at the abyss.

No choice remained.

She plunged into the void.