High above a silent, fractured moon, the stars flickered like corrupted data.
Diana tilted her head, small boots hovering just above the metallic surface of a derelict station fragment. The world around her was broken—gravity inconsistent, structures warped, reality itself behaving like it had been rewritten too many times.
“Analysis… incomplete,” she murmured, her voice soft but precise.
A ripple passed through the air.
Not an explosion. Not a distortion.
Golden lines traced themselves into existence, forming a familiar figure—calm, composed, and watching everything at once.
“I have been observing you,” Sage said, her voice even, almost mechanical—but not empty. “You do not belong to this system.”
Diana turned, her glowing eyes locking onto Sage instantly. No fear. Only curiosity.
“…You are like me,” Diana replied.
Diana floated closer, scanning—not just visually, but structurally, as if she could feel the code beneath Sage’s existence.
“You are… not human. But not only machine either.”
For a brief moment, the stars dimmed again, reacting to the tension between two artificial beings trying to define themselves.
“I am an AI created by Doctor Eggman,” Sage responded. “My purpose is to calculate optimal outcomes and protect my creator.”
Then she placed a hand on her chest.
A pause stretched between them—not awkward, but heavy with understanding.
Around them, the environment shifted violently. Glitch-like entities—faceless, geometric distortions—began crawling out from fractures in space itself.
“Hostile anomalies detected. Their behavior is unpredictable.”
Diana looked toward them.
“…They are like broken logic.”
The creatures surged forward.
Sage reacted instantly, summoning hard-light constructs—precise, calculated barriers forming in perfect angles to intercept incoming threats.
She leapt forward, her small frame weaving through attacks with uncanny intuition, rewriting fragments of the environment mid-motion—platforms forming under her feet, data reshaping to her will.
“…You do not follow a fixed algorithm.”
Diana responded mid-action:
One of the anomalies lunged at Sage—too fast.
For the first time, her prediction faltered.
Diana appeared in front of her.
Silence returned, slowly.
Sage stared at the space where the entity had been.
Diana turned back, expression neutral—but her voice softer now.
“…That action was not required for mission success.”
Sage hesitated—something rare for her.
Diana looked out into the fractured stars.
That answer… did not fit into any of Sage’s models.
The environment stabilized slightly, as if responding to their presence—not as intruders, but as anchors.
“…You operate beyond defined directives.”
For a moment, Sage said nothing.
A faint glow formed between them—two different systems, two different origins, beginning to synchronize in a way neither was designed for.
But as something evolving.
Far away, the broken stars began to realign—just slightly.
As if the universe itself was curious to see what they would become.
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