You don't find Vault Zero.
It finds you.
Hidden beneath the bones of the original Widowmaker temple—long thought burned in the Valencia purge—Vault Zero was where the first sins were programmed. A ghost of data and death. Its coordinates were never written. Only remembered by those it refused to let go.
And tonight, it remembered Celeste.
—
They reached it at dawn.
A flat desert. Empty sky. Just sand and silence—until the winds peeled back the illusion and revealed a stairway made of black stone, leading down.
The air shimmered with static.
Tracy, ever the cynic, muttered, "So… hell does have a front door."
No one laughed.
Celeste clutched the Ghost Key. It pulsed in her palm—cold. Heavy. Alive.
Nathaniel stopped her at the first step.
"You don't have to do this."
She met his eyes.
"I already did. The moment I didn't kill him when I should've. The moment I let the Vault speak to me."
"You were just a girl."
"No," Celeste whispered. "I was always something else."
—
Inside.
Vault Zero wasn't built like the others.
It breathed.
Literally.
Air hissed through vents like lungs. Lights flickered like nerves. The floor trembled beneath every step, as if remembering the sins committed on it.
Alfreda stepped beside her. "This is where it began."
"What did?" Nathaniel asked.
Alfreda's voice cracked. "My mother. Celeste's mother. Tracy's sister. Even your father, Nathaniel. All of them were here—recruited, programmed, broken. This was the Widowmakers' crucible."
Tracy gasped. "Wait. My—my sister was here?"
No one answered.
But the walls did.
Screens blinked on.
One by one.
And they spoke.
—
Video Feed: 27 years ago.
The Saint. Younger. Charismatic. Poison in a suit.
Behind him—thousands of children in cells. Hooked up to machines.
"This is how you build loyalty," he said to the camera. "You start with blank slates. And burn away what makes them human."
—
Alfreda's hand trembled as her mother's voice rang out:
"Subject 03, compliant. Memory erasure complete."
—
Celeste screamed.
"Enough!"
The screen shattered as her fist flew through it.
The Vault's hum grew louder.
She lifted the Ghost Key.
Inserted it into the central core.
The lights died.
The floor opened.
And a chamber rose from beneath—twisting wires, glass tubes filled with flickering figures, half-human, half-code.
And in the center…
ZER0.
Not a person. Not just a machine.
A throne of memories. A digital god.
And it spoke in her father's voice.
"You came, daughter."
Celeste stepped forward. Alone.
"I came to end it."
ZER0 laughed.
"You can't. You are me."
—
Inside the interface.
She blinked—and was no longer in her body.
A digital realm. Endless mirrors. Every version of her—happy, broken, trained, wounded—faced her.
Her father appeared beside her, his eyes haunted.
"I tried to keep ZER0 from consuming the Widowmakers. But the Saint fed it. Used it. And now it wants you."
Celeste stared at the core.
A choice.
Become ZER0… or destroy it.
But if she destroyed it—
Every file, every secret, every memory in the Vaults…
Would vanish.
Including the blackmail keeping half the criminal world in check.
Including proof of what was done to them all.
"Burn it," her father said softly. "Free us."
—
Outside, the vaults shook.
Tracy screamed as the floor cracked. Alfreda gripped Nathaniel.
"She has to choose now."
—
Inside, again.
ZER0 whispered, "Let me show you what they really did. Your mother didn't just abandon you."
Images crashed down—Celeste's mother signing a contract. Trading her daughter. Smiling as the Saint took her away.
"She made you a weapon," ZER0 said. "Just like I would make you… a god."
Celeste's hands trembled.
Tears fell.
But she pulled the key from her pocket.
And said:
"Then let god bleed."
She slammed the key into the core.
And everything exploded.
—
Outside.
Vault Zero began to collapse.
The others ran—barely making it to the surface as fire and code erupted behind them.
Nathaniel turned—
Just in time to see Celeste walk out.
Smoke in her hair.
Eyes glowing faintly.
But still her.
Tracy ran to her. "You okay?"
Celeste stared at her hand.
Where the key once was… a scar now pulsed.
A fang.
"ZER0 is dead," she whispered. "But I'm not free."
Alfreda touched her shoulder. "We'll deal with what comes next."
Nathaniel pulled her into his arms.
"But for now," he said, "you won."
Celeste looked toward the sunrise.
"No," she whispered. "I survived. Winning comes next."