The engineering district of Heaven looked exactly like what would happen if a mad scientist's laboratory collided with a cosmic forge at light speed. Massive crystalline structures hummed with energies that made Matta's fur stand on end, while beings of pure mathematics worked at stations that defied both physics and common sense.
AQL: Pomni! Got a customer for you!
A figure turned from what appeared to be a workbench made of crystallized time. She was tall, built like someone who'd spent eternity lifting things that technically shouldn't be liftable, with wings that looked more functional than decorative folded against her broad shoulders.
POM: Aki. What've you brought me this time? Please tell me it's not another 'minor adjustment' that requires rebuilding the fundamental constants of reality.
AQL: Just a simple upgrade. Meet Matta. She needs her suit enhanced to handle interdimensional pursuit at speeds that would make light jealous.
Pomni's eyes - a shade of gold that seemed to contain actual starlight - focused on Matta with professional interest. She circled her slowly, muttering to herself in what sounded like a combination of ancient Aramaic and quantum mathematics.
POM: Hmm. Good bone structure, excellent muscle density, neural pathways optimized for split-second decisions. The existing suit is decent work, but it's built for terrestrial speeds.
MTA: Terrestrial?
POM: Anything under the speed of causality. Where you're going, you'll need protection from temporal displacement, dimensional friction, and the occasional existential crisis that comes with moving faster than your own thoughts.
MTA: Big words...
She gestured toward a platform surrounded by tools that looked like they'd been designed by beings who had never heard of Euclidean geometry.
POM: Step up there, and try not to move. This is delicate work.
Matta climbed onto the platform, feeling the surface adjust itself to perfectly match her proportions. The moment she settled, Pomni's hands began to glow with a light that was somehow both brilliant and completely non-blinding.
POM: Now, your current suit channels speed through bio-electrical enhancement. Functional, but limited. What I'm adding will let you tap directly into the quantum foam that underlies reality itself.
Her fingers worked with impossible precision, the glowing circuits in her suit beginning to evolve before her eyes. New pathways of light spread across the material - not just along her arms and legs, but creating complex geometric patterns that seemed to shift and flow like living constellations.
POM: These new pathways will let you borrow speed from versions of yourself across time. Every step you take, every movement you make, will be enhanced by the accumulated velocity of infinite possibilities.
MTA: That sounds... intense.
POM: It is. Fair warning - the first few steps might feel like your consciousness is being stretched across seventeen dimensions. That's normal.
AQL: Define normal.
POM: Well, no one's died from it yet.
AQL: How many people have tried it?
POM: You're looking at her.
The upgrade process continued, Pomni adding what looked like micro-engines at key stress points, reinforcing areas that would bear the brunt of impossible accelerations, weaving protection into the very fabric of the suit that would shield Matta from forces that could tear reality apart.
POM: There. How does it feel?
Matta took a tentative step and immediately understood what he meant about consciousness stretching. For a fraction of a second, she was aware of infinite versions of herself - Mattas who had chosen different paths, different speeds, different destinies. Their combined potential flowed into her like a river of liquid lightning.
MTA: That's... actually incredible.
POM: Just remember - this suit will let you move fast enough to catch things that exist between moments. But at those speeds, the line between motion and transformation becomes very thin. Don't lose yourself in the velocity.
AQL: Wise words. Ready to go?
They left Pomni to her work and walked toward what Aquila called the Gates - though they looked less like gates and more like the edge of existence itself. Beyond them lay not empty space but the fundamental structure of reality, visible as streams of light and probability that connected all things.
AQL: The Tear is currently moving through the Andromeda sector. By the time you reach normal space, it should be passing through the Veil Nebula. That's your intercept point.
MTA: And if I miss it?
AQL: Then we try again with whatever's left of the universe. No pressure.
They reached the edge of the platform, where the soft cloud-ground of Heaven gave way to infinite possibility. Matta could feel the upgraded suit humming against her fur, eager to test its new capabilities against the cosmic void.
AQL: Matta.
MTA: Yeah?
AQL: For what it's worth, I think you're fast enough. The question isn't whether you can catch it - it's whether you can hold onto yourself while doing it.
MTA: Encouraging.
AQL: I try.
Matta moved to the very edge of the platform, her paws finding purchase on crystallized starlight. She settled into the sprint stance that had carried her across worlds - weight forward, muscles coiled, every fiber of her being focused on the moment of explosive release. Behind her, she could hear Aquila's voice, warm with something that might have been affection.
AQL: Good luck, rabbit. Try not to break the universe on your way out.
MTA: No promises.
She took one deep breath, feeling the enhanced suit synchronize with her heartbeat, her metabolism, the very rhythm of her existence. The infinite versions of herself across the multiverse leaned forward in perfect unity, ready to lend their speed to this singular moment.
Then she ran.
The first step took her beyond Heaven's boundaries. The second carried her past the world. The third launched her into the cosmic void itself, her form becoming a streak of silver and lightning that carved through the fundamental forces of existence like a blade through silk. Behind her, Heaven shrank to a point of light, then disappeared entirely. Ahead lay the vast darkness between galaxies, and somewhere in that darkness, a thing that moved too fast for reality to contain. The hunt had begun.