The Bigshot's Superstar Wife

Athena couldn't shake the heaviness lingering in her chest. Her mind was spinning with everything she had come to learn—each memory felt like a dagger slowly pressing deeper into her flesh. Jericho, the man she had once called her enemy, now stood as the only person who truly understood her origin. And Xavier… the man she had journeyed with, fought beside, survived countless horrors with—was nothing more than a mirror of a past she had been forced to forget. It was almost cruel, the way fate tied them together in this mess of synthetic identities, hidden programs, and blood-soaked missions. But even in the middle of all this, Athena knew she couldn't stop. The war wasn't over, and they were far from safe.

The landscape around them was eerily silent as the wind cut through the ruins of the northern territory. The sky hung heavy with ash, and in the distance, flashes of red lightning streaked across the horizon, the sign of another breach. With the clone facility now destroyed and the core system files buried, Xavier had lost his ability to reset. The end of the puppet replication program was the final nail in the coffin of their engineered legacy. No more replicas. No more endless cycles. But it also meant they were truly vulnerable now—for the first time, death was permanent. And that truth followed them like a ghost.

Athena tightened the straps of her gear as she walked beside Jericho, her boots crunching on shards of glass and old concrete. He was quiet, his eyes surveying the terrain, always alert, always prepared. She wondered if he too had felt the hollowness of Xavier's absence. Whether they admitted it or not, Xavier had been a part of their bond—an anchor of confusion, strength, and pain. "Do you think he'll return?" Athena asked softly, barely above a whisper. Jericho didn't answer immediately. He glanced toward the horizon, as if expecting Xavier to emerge from the shadows with that mocking smirk of his. "If he does, it won't be as our ally," Jericho finally said, his voice gravelly with weariness. "The code is gone. And with it… the man we knew."

It was a strange comfort and curse, knowing that they had cut the cycle at its root. Still, Athena felt the shadow of Xavier's laughter in her ear, like a ghost that would never rest. They reached the remains of an old tower, half-buried in the sand. It had once been a surveillance post for the resistance, now nothing more than a broken husk. But Jericho insisted they investigate. Inside, they found scraps of old communication logs and a half-powered server still blinking dimly. Jericho connected a portable power cell, and within moments, the screen flared to life. Athena leaned in beside him, her eyes scanning the decrypted logs.

There were reports—dozens of them—detailing sightings of foreign organisms not registered in any Earth-based database. Their anatomy was nothing like the Zergs, and their behavior was far too calculated to be considered purely animalistic. The logs referenced them as "Echo Species," theorized to have originated from the same dimension where the original puppet code was first crafted. Athena's heart froze. If that was true, then whatever force was behind their creation had found a way to pierce through Earth's reality again. The sword she wielded, the dimension of Sinalta, the fragments of her past—they weren't just echoes of memories. They were warnings.

Jericho stiffened beside her, reading the last entry aloud: "Subject-004's soul resonance is active. The gate will open once the last seal breaks. We are out of time." Subject-004. That was her. Athena didn't know how she knew, but she felt it down to her bones. "What seal?" she asked, confused. Jericho stared at the screen, a flicker of recognition in his eyes. "There were five soul keys created to suppress your root programming. You're remembering because those seals are breaking, one by one." She blinked, stunned. "But… if all of them break—" Jericho nodded grimly. "You'll awaken completely. Not just your memories, but everything. Power, code access, dimensional traversal—everything they buried inside you."

Athena stepped back, shaken. She remembered the dream—the white door, the long-haired man, the hut surrounded by strange weather, the monster battles, the red-glowing butterflies. It wasn't fantasy. It was training. It was her real life, hidden under layers of synthetic identity. "Then we need to find the last seal," she said with renewed resolve. Jericho nodded. "It won't be easy. If the Echo Species are involved, they won't let you reach it. Not without a fight." A sharp, mechanical beeping filled the room. The tower's perimeter sensors had activated. Something was approaching. Jericho bolted to the window and peered outside. Athena followed. In the distance, cutting across the gray fog, were silhouettes—tall, thin, and unnaturally graceful. They moved like shadows but pulsed with a crimson glow.

Athena felt a strange resonance in her chest, her sword reacting inside her space. The creatures weren't just dangerous—they were part of her. Or perhaps, they were made to oppose her. "Get ready," Jericho said, drawing his weapon. Athena summoned her sword. As the first Echo reached the boundary of the tower, the air around them warped. The walls trembled. It wasn't a simple fight—they were about to enter another threshold, one that transcended mere survival. The Echo leapt forward, and the battle began.

Athena struck fast, her blade singing through the air and cutting the creature across the chest. But unlike the Zergs, it didn't scream. Instead, it turned its head, tilted with eerie calm, and regenerated the wound within seconds. Jericho's bullets barely slowed them. They were adaptive, intelligent. They fought like machines with organic speed. But Athena's sword—imbued with her awakening power—began to glow brighter with each clash. Every slash that met flesh left behind a trail of butterflies, just like in her dreams, and slowly the Echoes began to falter. The tower shook, debris falling from above, and Jericho shouted, "We can't hold this position!"

Together, they fought their way to the back exit, the creatures hissing and snapping at their heels. Athena's breath burned in her chest, but she didn't stop. She knew now—this fight wasn't just about survival. It was about awakening. As they burst into the open, Athena saw the fifth seal in her mind's eye. A location. A place buried deep beneath the earth, where crystal walls guarded the final fragment of her true identity. She had to get there. Because the moment she did, everything would change.

And the real war would finally begin.