Nero woke to his system screaming alerts.
Not figuratively. Literally screaming. A high-pitched alarm that jolted him upright with his heart hammering.
```
<<< CRITICAL ALERT >>>
[INCOMING MESSAGE DETECTED]
[SOURCE: UNKNOWN]
[ENCRYPTION: GUILD-LEVEL]
[CONTENT FLAGGED: URGENT]
[Play message? Y/N]
```
Nero selected YES with shaking hands.
A woman's voice—Marge's voice, whispered from the notification like it was coming from everywhere and nowhere at once.
"Nero Cross. If you can hear this, run. The Arbiter isn't what you think. It's not a Debugger. It's something the System created to handle threats that even Debuggers can't manage. I've seen the files. The last Error User who faced an Arbiter... there was nothing left to bury. Not even code residue. Just... nothing."
"They're not sending it to capture you or study you. They're sending it to erase every trace that you ever existed. Your memories, your impact, your bonds—all of it will be rewritten. Your friends won't remember you. The world won't remember you. You'll be a ghost that never was."
"Run. Please. While you still can."
The message ended.
Nero sat there in the predawn darkness, his blood running cold.
```
[ARBITER CAPABILITY UPDATED]
[THREAT LEVEL: CATASTROPHIC]
[NEW INFORMATION UNLOCKED]
ARBITER UNIT - "THE ERASER"
- Does not terminate targets
- ERASES them from reality retroactively
- Rewrites timeline to remove all trace of target's existence
- Affects memories of all connected individuals
- Cannot be fought with normal combat
- Requires system-level intervention to stop
[TIME UNTIL ARRIVAL: 47 hours, 23 minutes]
[Recommended action: FLEE IMMEDIATELY]
```
His hands clenched into fists. Run. Leave Kade, Finn, Lyra behind. Save myself and let them forget I ever existed.
No!.
Absolutely not.
He stood, threw on clothes, and crossed the hall. Knocked on Kade's door.
"Mrphgle?" came the muffled response.
"Kade. Emergency meeting. Now!"
The door opened instantly. Kade stood there in sleeping clothes, hair sticking up at odd angles, but his eyes were sharp and alert. "What happened?"
"Get Finn and Lyra. Common room. Five minutes."
Kade didn't ask questions. He just nodded and moved.
Five minutes later, all four of them sat around a table in the empty common room. Nero shared Marge's message—playing it through his interface so they could all hear.
But the silence after it ended was deafening.
"Erase you from existence," Lyra said finally, her voice carefully controlled. "Not just kill you. Make it so you never existed at all."
"According to my system, yes. It would rewrite reality. You wouldn't remember me. None of this—" He gestured between them. "—would have happened."
"That's..." Finn trailed off, uncharacteristically at a loss for words. "That's worse than death."
"That's deletion in the truest sense," Kade said quietly. His hands were clenched on the table. "Like you were never here at all."
"Which is why Marge said to run," Nero continued. "Get out of the region, find somewhere to hide, hope the Arbiter loses my trail."
"Okay," Lyra said. "So we run. All of us. We leave Grayhollow, head for—"
"No."
They all looked at him.
"No?" Kade repeated.
"I'm not running. And I'm not dragging you into this." Nero met each of their eyes. "If I leave alone, maybe the Arbiter follows me. Keeps you safe. Keeps this town safe. And if it catches me... at least you won't remember to mourn."
"Are you fucking kidding me right now?" Finn's voice was sharp, actually angry. "You think we're just going to let you walk off to be erased from reality?"
"It's the smart play—"
"It's the coward's play!" Kade slammed his hand on the table, making it jump. His eyes were blazing. "You think I want to live in a world where I never met you? Where we never fought together, never became brothers? That's not saving us, Nero. That's damning us."
"Kade—"
"No! You don't get to make this decision alone! We're a party! We're FAMILY! And family doesn't abandon each other just because the odds are bad!"
Lyra's hand covered Kade's, calming him. But her eyes were just as fierce when she looked at Nero. "He's right. We've come this far together. We're not stopping now."
"But if the Arbiter erases me, you won't even know what you lost," Nero said desperately. "You'll just wake up one day and I'll be a blank space in your memories. Is that really better than—"
"Yes," all three of them said in unison.
Nero stared at them.
"Here's what I think," Finn said, leaning forward. "This Arbiter? It's designed to erase glitch users without anyone noticing. Clean system maintenance. But that only works if no one knows it's coming. We know. We're prepared. And we're not going to stand aside and let it delete you without a fight."
"Even if fighting means you might be erased too?"
"Especially then," Lyra said. "Because if we let you go alone and you're erased, we won't remember to care. But right now? Right here? We DO care. And we're choosing to fight for that."
Nero felt something break open in his chest. "You're all insane."
"Yep," Kade agreed cheerfully, though his eyes were wet. "Completely mental. Now stop trying to be noble and let's figure out how to beat this thing."
"Marge said it can't be fought with normal combat."
"Then we fight it abnormally," Finn said. "Nero, your whole thing is exploiting system weaknesses. This Arbiter is a system construct, right?"
"According to my interface, yes."
"Then it has code. And code has weaknesses." Finn's mind was clearly racing. "The question is: can you hack something designed to erase hackers?"
Nero pulled up his abilities, studying them with new intensity.
```
[GLITCH HUNTER ABILITIES]
[System Crash] - Disable enemy skills (Corruption: 5)
[Critical Exploit] - Guarantee critical hit (Corruption: 3)
[Debug Swarm] - Reveal hidden elements (Corruption: 2)
[Force Patch] - Emergency system rewrite (Corruption: 10)
[LOCKED ABILITY - AVAILABLE AT LEVEL 15]
[Rollback Protocol] - Undo reality (Corruption: 30)
```
"Rollback Protocol," Nero said slowly. "My locked ability. It lets me undo the last thirty seconds of reality. What if... Just what if I could use it to restore myself after being erased?"
"That's the most circular logic I've ever heard," Finn said. "I love it. But you'd need to be Level 15 to unlock it, and you're Level 11."
"Then I grind to fifteen," Nero said. "We have forty-seven hours. That's enough time if we're strategic."
"And suicidal," Lyra added. "The amount of combat needed to gain four levels in two days would require fighting in high-corruption dungeons. Your Corruption is already at fifty-nine percent."
"So I'm careful. Minimize glitch ability usage. Rely on normal combat."
"While also preparing a battlefield, planning our strategy, and sleeping at some point," Lyra said. "Nero, the math doesn't work."
"Then we make it work!" Nero stood, pacing. "I'm not running. I'm not letting myself be erased. And I'm not letting this thing take me without the fight of its existence. So we find a way. We always find a way."
Kade was grinning now, that manic energy back. "That's the spirit! Okay, new plan. We've got two days. Day one: grind Nero to Level 15. Day two: prepare the battlefield and finalize strategy. Forty-seven hours of controlled insanity. Who's in?"
"This is the worst plan I've ever heard," Finn said.
"Are you in?"
"Obviously. Someone has to keep you idiots alive."
Lyra stood, rolling her shoulders. "I'll scout high-density monster zones. Finn, you work on locating corruption-stable dungeons we can clear fast. Kade, you keep Nero alive while he grinds. I'll coordinate our movements and manage timings."
"And Nero," Finn added, "you focus on not dying and not hitting one hundred Corruption. Those are your only jobs."
"Sounds simple when you put it that way."
"It's not. But nothing we do is simple." Finn stood, heading for the door. "Two days. Let's make them count."
They dispersed to gather supplies and prepare. But as Nero turned to leave, Kade caught his arm.
"Hey. You were really going to leave, weren't you? Walk off alone."
Nero couldn't lie to him. "I considered it."
"Don't." Kade's grip tightened. "Don't ever do that. I meant what I said—I'd rather fight and remember you than wake up one day with a blank space where my brother should be. Promise me you won't try to protect us by leaving."
"Kade—"
"Promise."
Nero looked into those earnest eyes and felt his resolve crumble. "I promise."
"Good." Kade pulled him into a brief, crushing hug. "Now let's go be stupidly heroic together."