arynowl

Мне нравится, что нейросеть умеет создавать кадры из фильма, которых не было)

Let me clarify right away that I didn't take the episode with Vector's photo seriously at the time, since he couldn't have been born yet. For me, the canon remains the first film, where everything, even beyond his childish features, points to Vector's youth, showing that they are from different generations of villains.

"He's here" — a voice came through the telephone receiver in Mr. Perkins's office, the director, and a real commotion began at the Bank of Evil. Gru himself — a legend in the villainous community — had finally decided to pay them a visit. Mr. Perkins had long dreamed of getting such a famous client. The whole world trembled at his audacious crimes; his photo had not left the covers of "Villain News" for a long time. If this man became their client, their institution's reputation would soar to the skies.

But no one awaited the appearance of the legendary villain more than Victor — the nine-year-old son of the head of the Bank of Evil. He remembered the first time he saw an article about Gru in the newspaper his father was reading. "The world is cruel, and people are mostly greedy and mean, Victor," Mr. Perkins had said. "That's why being a villain in this world means challenging this injustice. But even among villains, few truly deserve that title. Here's one of them."

Victor hopped onto his father's lap and stared at the newspaper. A serious, bald man with a long nose looked back at him. He wasn't handsome, quite the opposite, but his entire demeanor radiated a kind of ominous dignity; he was both frightening and admirable. Every day, Victor waited in the reception area until his dad finished work and saw many villains, but none of them could compare to this one. Then Victor wanted to learn more about the famous Gru's exploits and began following his career, collecting newspaper clippings and asking the villains in the reception about him. They knew Victor was the bank head's son and condescendingly tolerated his pestering. Victor didn't go to school; his dad hid him from the world, so these little chats with bank visitors were little Victor's only chance for live interaction with anyone other than his father and the artificial intelligence "Ivel" in his home, which replaced his mother.

The visitors in the Bank of Evil's reception area froze in fear and awe when Gru — this legend of the villainous world — swept them with a brief, indifferent glance. "Who's last?"he asked, but no answer came. One shouldn't keep him waiting. He had already taken a step towards Mr. Perkins's office when something blocked his path, fearlessly squeaking a loud "hello." It was nine-year-old Victor. The villains in the reception gasped, waiting to see what would happen next. Gru was known for his dislike of small children and never missed a chance to play a harsh joke on them. He liked how their naive faces changed when their expectations were shattered in an instant. When Gru himself was a child, he constantly endured ridicule, especially from his mother. The world had been cruel to him, and now he was ready to repay it in kind.

"When I grow up, I'll be a great villain too. Like you," Victor said, looking up at his idol with eyes full of admiration.

Gru slowly lowered his gaze. This was unthinkable. A child. A child in the Bank of Evil. A child daring to declare such a thing — that he would become like him, as if it were as simple as wanting to be a doctor or a policeman.

"I have something for you," Victor continued and began frantically searching in his huge backpack. "Where did it go?" he muttered under his nose, spreading out the numerous contents of his backpack right on the floor — a plush toy, notebooks, wires, batteries, blueprints, even a soldering iron, and lots of different sweets. Gru watched this scene with bewilderment, then carefully stepped over the obstacle and moved towards the door again. Suddenly, he heard a joyful "Found it!" What Victor had been searching for so long was in the front pocket of his jeans jacket — a neatly folded sheet of paper. He handed it to Gru. Gru took the sheet and unfolded it. It was a child's drawing of Gru in a spaceship holding the globe. "It's you.And you stole the whole world. Cool, right? Sign it for me!" A sinister smile slowly began to spread across Gru's face,but for Victor, it was just a smile. "Sure." Gru began slowly crumpling the drawing until it turned into a small ball.Then he swung and threw it to the other end of the hall. "Oops,dropped it," he said with feigned regret. "Won't you fetch it?" Gru already imagined that stupid smile fading from the child's face,replaced by confusion and then tears. But it didn't happen. "Sure!"Victor chirped joyfully and ran off to search, as if nothing had happened.

When he returned with the ball in his hand, Gru was already gone. From then on, Victor waited every time for Gru to come again for a loan. Gru simultaneously despised these encounters and anticipated them. This child was different from the others, those who became victims of his jokes — he seemed not to understand that Gru was mocking him. That idiotic little smile never left his face, only giving way to disappointment. For Gru, this was a challenge.

"Remove this," Gru demanded, summoning the cleaning lady when, during another visit, Victor again asked him to sign a drawing. "Sorry,sir, but I just cleaned here," the cleaning lady says, puzzled. "I mean this,"Gru points at Victor. The cleaning lady,understanding the matter, grabs Victor by the hand and leads him away. "Didn't your dad tell you not to bother the visitors,Victor?" "But it's Gru!The great Gru!" "All the more reason."

"I built a prototype of a flying ship based on yours," Victor chirps joyfully, holding a small joystick. Right in front of Gru's nose, something resembling a small fan flies back and forth, buzzing.

"Oops, broke it," Gru says with the same feigned regret, grabbing and forcefully smashing the toy on the floor. "It's okay,I'll fix it," Victor says calmly and gets to work.

When the next time the buzzing toy appears in front of Gru's face, grabbing it isn't so easy; the little ship has become faster and more elusive. Gru even has to stand up to finally catch it. "Oops,broke it," he says again, looking into Victor's face, which still shows not a hint of offense, only a new goal.

When one day the toy, after hitting the floor, takes off again, Gru, enraged that he couldn't handle the improved prototype, snatches the remote control from Victor and stomps on it with his foot. Gru had set himself the goal of making this child lose his temper. In the end, it was Gru himself who lost his temper. The last straw was an outrageous violation of personal boundaries. For Victor, it was common to climb onto someone's lap, hug them, or take a personal item without asking from some villain client, even if he was seeing them for the first time. Perhaps because his dad almost never hugged him, and he desperately needed attention. For a moment,the annoying child disappeared from Gru's field of vision; he almost sighed with relief when he realized what had happened. He lowered his gaze to his villainous plan and saw a head in front of him, a tiny hand resting on his knee — Victor was also studying his plan, pressing against him and hugging him with one arm.

A wave of disgust, bewilderment, and anger washed over Gru. He roughly shoved the child away, grabbing him by the hood, and rushed into Perkins's office, kicking the door open. Mr.Perkins flinched at such a loud intrusion. "One more time,"Gru hissed, "one more time I see that vile creature here, and I will never come to this bank again!" "Mr.Gru," Perkins began, his voice full of confusion, "What are you talking about? What vile creature?" "A child!"Gru shouted, "The ugliest, most insolent, and stupid of all I've ever seen! Clings to me as if I'm some Santa Claus. Is this the Bank of Evil or a kindergarten for backward children?!" Realization and horror reflected on Perkins's face. "Mr.Gru, you know how much we value our cooperation with you. A monstrous misunderstanding has occurred. That child must be — the cleaning lady's son. I've warned her many times not to bring her child to work." He picked up the receiver and ordered the cleaning lady to be called. The woman entered the office. "You're fired!"Perkins barked at the bewildered woman. "I warned you, no children in the reception!" "But it's…"the cleaning lady began to justify herself, but a firm "Out!" made her fall silent and leave. "I'm sorry,Mr. Gru, you will never see him again. And for the inconvenience, our bank is ready to offer you more favorable terms…"

"Do you even understand how valuable Mr. Gru is to our bank?!" Perkins shouted furiously at his son after what happened. "Didn't I warn you not to approach him? That man hates children, and here he had to tolerate a child in such a respectable place as the Bank of Evil, and a child like you at that! What will he think of us?!" Victor stood dejected;shouting was the only thing that scared him and made him nervous. "You will never wait for me in the reception again!I forbid you! Children have no place here!" — these words from his father wounded Victor to the core. The bank's clients were his only window to the world, the only people he could talk to. For Victor,this was a blow, but also a goal. He listened to his father's reproaches and imagined that one day he himself would become a great villain, like Gru, and his dad would be proud that Victor was his son, boasting to colleagues about his achievements. That the great Gru would finally say "hello" to him.

While the whole world is discussing the crime of the century—the theft of the Great Pyramid of Giza—and speculating about the dastardly villain behind it, Victor is in the bathroom of the Bank of Evil, rehearsing a pre-written speech in front of the mirror. After all these years, he finally has another chance to meet his idol. But now he's grown up, now he's a villain too, and now his achievement is being talked about in every headline. So why is he so nervous?

Over the years, Gru's villainy had dwindled to petty thefts—he wasn't the same anymore. But for some reason, it was precisely Gru's recognition that Vector so desperately wanted.

"Tell him it was me who stole the pyramid," he begs his dad.

He needs to show Gru that he, too, is now a real villain—his equal, confident. He kept his promise, and now Gru has to notice him.

The screen went dark. Vector, unable to bear the weight of their gazes, silently slipped into the far corner of the capsule and curled up there, trying to become invisible.

It was then that Margo broke free from Gru's embrace. She pointed a finger in Vector's direction, and her voice, trembling with unchildlike fury, cut through the silence:

"Is all this… because of him?"

The question sounded like a verdict. And the ready answer, convenient and simple, immediately flared up in Gru's mind. Yes. Just one word. One nod. And their story would have a clear, distinct villain—Vector, the madman who destroyed the world. And he, Gru, would remain the hero, the father who tried his hardest to stop him. So tempting. He could go further. Get rid of him. Of this living, trembling witness that everything is more complicated. Bury the terrible truth along with him.

But the thought immediately hit an impenetrable wall. Billions of victims on his conscience. No. Enough. He wouldn't add one more to them. That's what Gru the villain, the man he once was, would have done. But now he was a father. Sooner or later, the girls would grow up, put the facts together. Ask Ivel about the Moon theft. The truth would surface anyway, becoming a thousand times more terrible after years of lies. No. His girls deserved the truth. Right now. Whatever it was.

Gru slowly exhaled, gathering his courage. His gaze met Vector's tearful eyes, in which fear and expectation of a new blow were frozen.

"No," Gru said firmly and clearly, and bewilderment flickered across Vector's face. "It's not because of him."

He knelt down to be at eye level with his daughters and took Margo's hand. His voice, usually so confident, now sounded strained.

"It was… a monstrous accident. But it happened because of me. Only because of me." He saw their eyes widen with incomprehension.

"I… I've been chasing the wrong things all my life. Wanted fame. Wanted to be feared and respected as a great villain. I thought that was important. But what's truly important… I only understood when I met you." He looked at all three of them—Margo, Edith, Agnes clutching a unicorn to her chest. "But I understood it too late. I made a terrible mistake, the price of which is the whole world. I deprived you of a home, a future, a normal life. Forgive me. Forgive me," his voice broke, and his mighty shoulders shuddered. He, the great Gru, was kneeling before them, crushed by the burden of guilt, and tears, which he hadn't shed even in the most brutal fights, now rolled down his cheeks.

Agnes moved first. She dropped her toy and threw herself at him, wrapping her little arms around his neck. "Don't cry, daddy!" After a moment's hesitation, Edith stepped forward, pressing against his shoulder. And finally, Margo. Her face softened. Childhood fury gave way to complex, bitter understanding. She didn't hug him, but placed her palm on top of his large, clenched fist.

"You are our world now," Margo said quietly, and there was no former anger in her voice, only weary, adult resolve. "And we are yours. And that… that will have to be enough."

Gru closed his eyes, feeling their warmth, the forgiveness he didn't deserve.

Vector sat in the corner, pressed against the cold wall. His world had collapsed as definitively and irrevocably as the one they had just left. Everything he had strived for—his father's recognition, greatness, proof of his worth—had turned to dust. Dad was gone. He had disappeared without even hearing him out.

Watching the touching scene between Gru and the girls, Vector suddenly understood with painful clarity the senselessness of his own race. These girls didn't need to steal the Moon or prove anything. Gru loved them simply for being them.

He remembered how Gru, without a shadow of a doubt, gave him the Moon. The dream of a lifetime, the greatest trophy—and he gave it up for these three girls who weren't even his biological children.

His own father would have given him, Vector, away for the Moon, not the other way around.

He watched this strange but so close-knit family and thought how lucky they were. He would have given everything—his inventions, his home, everything he had—for his father to look at him just once the way Gru looked at them. Not appraisingly, not coldly, but with that unconditional, all-consuming love.

And he understood another terrible thing. If he were in their place… if he were part of something so real, he would be happy. Even here, in this capsule, carrying them away from the ruins of the world. To hell with the end of the world.

But he wasn't in their place. He was alone, among people who despised him, an extra, inconvenient passenger in his own capsule. And all that was left for him was to watch from afar the happy, normal family he had always, so desperately and hopelessly, dreamed of, the family he would never have.

Several hours had passed since the catastrophe. The girls had fallen into a restless sleep, huddled together on the couch. Gru stood by the main porthole. Beyond the glass hung impenetrable, starless darkness. A perfect backdrop for his thoughts.

He looked at his reflection, vague and blurred against the backdrop of space, and saw not a great villain, but a fool. The greatness he had sought all his life had turned out to be emptiness—literally.

He had dreamed of becoming the greatest villain in history. Dreamed that his name would inspire awe. That his deeds—no, crimes—would be grand, unimaginable. He had quite a few accomplishments to his name, like stealing the English Queen's crown. It wasn't enough for him. He wanted to steal the Moon. And now? Now there was no one left to fear. No one left to tremble. There would be no books, movies, legends about the terrible Gru. No one to remember his greatest villainy. Because there was no one left to remember. He had wiped his audience off the face of the earth. He had achieved absolute, unconditional triumph—and that triumph was equal to zero. To the complete, perfect silence beyond the porthole.

A voice surfaced in his memory. Cold, even, always doubting.

"Calling to congratulate you on the pyramid theft, or was it not you, but a real villain?"

Gru's lips twitched in something remotely resembling a grimace.

"Are you proud of me now, Mom?" he whispered to the glass, his voice hoarse from suppressed tears. "Am I a real villain now? I erased an entire world, and you along with it."

A quiet, creaky sigh sounded behind him. Gru didn't turn around. He knew that walk.

"It's not only your fault, Gru," said Nefario, and in his usually monotonous voice, an uncharacteristic weariness broke through. "My share in this is perhaps even greater. I am a scientist. I should have studied the shrink ray technology. Conducted simulations, analyzed all the risks. Or better yet—talked you out of this insane idea from the very beginning." With a gesture full of strange, almost painful admiration, he looked around the interior of the Ivel.

"Look at this. A high-tech spaceship. Autonomous, with advanced artificial intelligence. If you were going to steal the Moon…" he paused, and bitter regret hung in that pause, "…then on this. Not on that… junk we built. This thing might have had a chance to return it on time. We didn't. We had only arrogance and ambition."

Gru slowly nodded, not taking his eyes off the darkness.

"I… I didn't even think," he whispered. "Not for a second. I was obsessed. With one thought—to surpass them all. Especially that… squeaking idiot. To prove to Mom…" his voice broke. "To prove to Mom I'm not a failure. To Mom, whom I just killed. Along with everyone else." He clenched his fists so hard his knuckles cracked. "And now I've realized what's truly important. And I realized it too late. Congratulate me, Nef. Without a doubt, I am the greatest villain in human history." His voice held a chilling, self-destructive irony.

He finally turned to his friend. His face, usually so expressive, was a mask of tortured despair.

"What do I do now, Nef? How… how do I live with this? With this burden?"

Nefario looked at him with his intelligent, tired eyes. He took off his glasses, wiped the lenses with the edge of his lab coat—a mechanical gesture behind which heavy thinking was hidden.

"There is only one goal now, Gru. To ensure survival. Of those who remain." He glanced at the sleeping girls, "even if there are only three of them—" then, pausing, at the dark corner from where muffled sobs came. "Four. And him, too…."

Gru followed his gaze. His lips tightened.

"He… is with us now?" he asked hollowly, nodding towards Vector.

"Obviously, yes," Nefario replied simply.

"I thought about killing him," Gru admitted, and there was no malice or threat in his voice, only a weary statement of fact.

"Seven billion," Nefario said quietly. He wasn't looking at Gru. He was looking at the same black emptiness. "Billions. And now—four." He slowly turned his head. His gaze held no condemnation, only an icy, relentless statement. "This is no longer villainy, Gru. This is… disappearance. Erasure of the last traces. Killing now is not a crime. It's the end of a biological species."

Gru froze. Nefario's words struck deeper than any moral admonition. It wasn't about right or guilt. It was about a simple, monstrous fact. They weren't just survivors. They were the last ones.

Each of them was a carrier of something that would never be repeated. A spark they could not afford to extinguish.

"He kidnapped my girls," Gru said, but it was no longer an argument. It was a weak, almost childish babble against the backdrop of cosmic silence.

"And therefore they are alive," Nefario retorted mercilessly. "Didn't you do the same, illegally adopting them to use against an enemy? You didn't care about their safety until you got to know them better and they gave you what you so lacked—acceptance and love. The consequences of our actions have stripped us of the right to judge anyone for anything."

Nefario stepped closer, lowering his voice to a sharp, clear whisper.

"The feud is over. It was washed away along with everything else. There are only six people in a tin can. And if we start settling scores, we'll only hasten what has almost already happened. Our own disappearance. Do you want that? To be the last executioner of your own kind?"

Gru closed his eyes. The last wall inside him collapsed. Nefario was right. Absolutely, unbearably right. Everything that came before had lost its meaning.

Then his gaze went back to the blackness beyond the porthole, but now he didn't see emptiness.

He saw the lights of billions of lives that had gone out. He saw his mother's face. He saw the scale. And then he understood. Finally.

"I became him, Nef," he whispered, and his whisper was like a last breath. "The greatest villain in history. Just as I dreamed." He slowly sank to the floor, his back against the wall, and stared into the space before him.

"I always thought it meant fame, fear, legends. And this… this means knowing that you destroyed even the very ground on which your legend could have grown. No one left to fear. No one to be great for. You've reached the peak, and around you—only vacuum. And silence. And five witnesses who are now—your only universe, your last and most terrible duty. Because if they disappear… everything disappears. Forever. Here it is, the true peak. Absolute loneliness at the summit of all existence."

"Whoa!" exclaimed Edith, pointing a finger at the chaos. "Is that a new end-of-the-world movie?"

"That's not a movie, Edith," Margo said quietly but very clearly, looking at her sister.

Her words hung in the air as Gru, as if waking from a nightmare, lunged towards the open airlock.

"NEFARIO!" he roared, leaning out of the opening and seeing the ship below, still connected by the cable. "THE SHRINK RAY! WE NEED THE SHRINK RAY URGENTLY!"

From below, from the ship's deck, the pale, horror-distorted face of the scientist looked up. He was looking not at Gru, but at the horizon, where one could already see with the naked eye the clouds distorted by gravity and the ominous gray spot at the epicenter of destruction.

"It won't work!" Nefario shouted back, his voice breaking with despair. "The Shrink Ray doesn't work on an object that's already been shrunk!"

"No, no, no!" Gru struck the airlock frame with his fist in desperation. "How do we stop it?! There must be a way!" Nefario slowly, with bitter defeat in his eyes, shook his head.

"No way. Its mass is returning, and nothing in the Universe can stop it. It's... it's over."

Gru slowly looked away from Nefario's pale face. His gaze slid over the faces of his daughters—frightened Margo, Edith not yet fully comprehending, and little Agnes, who just hugged his leg tighter. He saw them, these three, for whom he was ready to do anything. And now their world was crumbling before their eyes.

He shifted his gaze to Vector. He was frantically working at the communicator, trying to call his father.

"Vector, what is happening..." came the familiar cold voice, but it immediately turned into a sharp screech. "Dad!" Vector shouted, but in response, there was only silence. "Ivel! Show father's location! Immediately!" The main screen displayed a map. Where the business district should have been, a monstrous crater gaped, at the bottom of which that same gray matter churned. That part of the city no longer existed. Vector froze, staring at the void where his father had just been.

"Vector," Gru's voice was quiet but cut through the system's hum like a knife. There was no fury, no reproach in it. Only cold, desperate resolve. "This thing... your Ivel. Can it really save us? Can it fly away from here?"

Vector flinched as if struck. He swallowed and nodded, his fingers nervously running over the control panel.

"Yes..." his voice dropped to a whisper. "It's... designed for autonomous existence. Crew—up to ten people. Supplies and energy... for about two hundred years of travel. Approximately." The words hung in the air. Ten people. Two hundred years.

"Then listen to me," Gru spoke quickly and clearly, like a field commander. "Pick up Nefario and the minions. Dock with the ship or fly close. Fast!"

Vector, paralyzed by his own grief, froze for a second, but then his fingers habitually slid across the panel. The Evil smoothly approached Gru's ship. There was a screech of metal on metal as the magnetic docking claws engaged. A frantic evacuation began through the open airlock.

Nefario entered first, followed by the yellow minions, pushing and shoving, chattering fearfully in their gibberish. As soon as the last minion crossed into the capsule, the magnetic clamps disengaged.

Gru's ship, left without control, slowly and awkwardly turned its nose towards Earth and began to fall, quickly disappearing into the churning clouds below.

"Gravitational anomalies have reached critical threshold. Emergency orbital departure protocol activated," Evill reported impassively.

The capsule shot upward. Pressure pressed everyone into their seats. After a few minutes, when the vibration subsided, deafening silence reigned. A huge screen displayed Earth. But it was not the blue pearl they knew. The planet was covered by a giant gray scar, from which dark cracks radiated in all directions. The atmosphere churned with dirty vortices, and the continents slowly but irrevocably changed their outlines.

The silence in the capsule was broken only by the steady hum of life support systems and Vector's muffled sobs.

Gru, Nefario, and the girls stood by the large porthole, beyond which hung starless blackness, unable to tear their eyes from the main screen. On it, as if on a giant tombstone, a live broadcast of the Apocalypse continued. Earth was in its death throes. The gray sphere, once the Moon, now looked like a monstrous cancerous tumor devouring the planet. But this was not the only horror. As tectonic plates deformed and all systems failed, humanity's last arguments were automatically activated—nuclear arsenals. One after another, across the surface of the dying sphere, familiar mushroom clouds erupted. They were eerily, distortedly similar to the Ivel capsule they were in.

"Enough," Gru's voice sounded. He gently but firmly turned Margo, Edith, and Agnes away from the screen, pulling them to himself. His gaze met Nefario's. The scientist looked like a ghost, his usually animated face frozen in a mask of shock.

"Daddy? Are all the people there... are they going to die?" little Agnes asked quietly, looking at Gru with her huge eyes.

An alternate ending to the first film, in which Gru fully realizes the consequences of stealing the moon.

part 1 One Monstrous Accident That Changed Everything.

The escape capsule was hurtling confidently towards Vector's secret base. The Moon rested on a mug with a ridiculous "I love Evil" inscription, or rather, its shrunken copy the size of a grapefruit.

"Father…" he whispered, unable to tear his admiring gaze from the trophy. "Wait just a little longer. I'll prove it… I'll prove it to everyone."

His gaze slid to the large glass sphere built into the capsule wall. Three girls sat inside. They weren't crying; they were looking at him with silent, soul-chilling condemnation. But Vector ignored them. They were merely bargaining chips, bait. The main prize was on his table.

It was at that precise moment that the world outside roared. A deafening screech of metal on metal rang out, and the capsule braked sharply, with such force that Vector was nearly thrown from his seat.

From the open airlock came the whistle of air being sliced and the clang of a grappling hook. A harpoon. Clutching the rope, Gru was approaching his capsule. Icy terror pierced Vector to the core. He lunged for the control panel to slam the airlock shut, but it was too late.

And then, as if the Universe itself decided to mock Vector, the Moon grew to the size of a basketball, fell, crushing the mug, and rolled straight towards Vector. "Ahhh!" he squealed, not even having time to understand what was happening. The heavy ball slammed into him, knocked him down like a bowling pin, and rolled out through the open airlock to plummet ignominiously down to the ground below.

"OH NO! MY MOON!" Vector howled, stretching a helpless hand towards the abyss. His dream, his triumph, his justification—all of it had fallen and was lost somewhere down there.

But he wasn't given time to mourn the loss. Gru rose before him. His face was twisted with pure, uncontrolled rage.

"You…" Gru hissed. He leaned down, and his huge hand grabbed Vector by the jumpsuit, lifting him like a rag doll. His other hand clenched into a fist. Vector understood—the time for the pain Gru had promised him when he refused to return the girls had come.

Vector squeezed his eyes shut, raised his hands, covering his face with his palms, expecting a crushing blow. He let out a pitiful, squeaky whimper.

But the blow didn't come. An eternity passed. Vector saw through his lashes how the rage on Gru's face was replaced first by bewilderment, and then… contempt. He saw not a formidable rival, but a scrawny kid trembling with fear.

Gru didn't hit him; he simply threw Vector across the entire capsule. He hit the wall with a dull thud and slid helplessly to the floor.

"Let them out. Now," ordered Gru, his voice low and authoritative again, but now without blind fury.

Wordlessly, without raising his eyes, Vector crawled to the control panel. He pressed a button. The glass sphere opened with a hissing sound.

"DADDY!" Three small figures flew out of it and rushed towards Gru. Margo, Edith, and Agnes. They hugged his legs, his waist, clinging to him as if they never wanted to let go. Gru knelt down, embracing all three, pressing them to himself. His fierce face melted into a smile full of such relief and love that Vector could only read about in books.

"Gru!" came Nefario's voice from outside. "The Moon! We need to find the Moon!"

At that moment, the lighting inside the capsule changed to a pulsating red. The air filled with a low, rising hum.

"Ark Protocol activated," a pleasant female voice announced. "Planetary-scale existential threat detected. Evacuation preparation commencing."

"What?" Vector exhaled, his eyes wide. He ran to the nearest screen. "No! Evil, cancel! It's a mistake!"

Gru, still holding Agnes, frowned. "What is it? Did your toy break?" he barked.

"I don't know!" Vector nearly squealed, poking uselessly at the touchscreen. "Evil, what's happening? Is it a war?"

"Threat identified. Visualizing from satellites and seismographs."

The screen displayed an apocalypse. The landscape at the epicenter was no longer flat—it was sagging, forming a giant bowl into which entire cities were sliding and collapsing. Gravity, distorted to incredible magnitudes, was sucking everything into this funnel: concrete structures, steel beams, layers of soil and water. The ocean, torn from its familiar shores, churned with poisonous white foam, crashing onto land with tsunamis that wiped away everything in their path. And in the very center of this global collapse, pulsating and growing, was the familiar gray sphere.

Gru froze. He looked at the screen, and his brain, accustomed to large-scale villainy, for a second refused to comprehend the scale of the catastrophe.

The cold was biting into his bones. His legs refused to obey, just like his wings, tired from the long flight. He landed beside a river, trying to find shelter from the wind and cold. The river was small, but the water seemed black and deep.

He looked at his reflection in the water. A graceful silhouette, white feathers, like snow, shone dazzlingly against the dark water. His eyes, bright blue, the kind that barn owls don't have, like two drops of sky - a legacy from his mother. But they held no warmth, only icy despair.

He realized he hated this beauty. Because it was his curse.

Он вспомнил себя в гнезде филина, как они замерли от ужаса, увидев его, хотя филин больше и сильнее любого Тито. Он хотел согреться, попросить о помощи, но они приняли его за мать, за Ныру. Он кричал им, что он не она, что он не причинит им вреда. Но они ему не верили. Даже имя у него было - Nyroc. Почти как у нее.

Он больше не хотел быть Чистым. Он больше никогда не назовет себя Nyroc.

Не в силах больше сдерживать свои эмоции, он бросился в грязь, желая избавиться от проклятой белизны. Он не хотел быть таким, как она. Он не хотел быть Nyroc.

The fire was still smoldering in the forest, and ash settled on Nyra's feathers, a reminder of loss. She returned to Metal Beak's body, to take one more look at her husband, her king. But she didn't see him.

It was Kludd. The owlet who secretly loved her. She knew, and his silly crush sometimes amused her, but she liked his devotion to her and the cause of the Pure Ones. He lay at her husband's feet, with a broken wing, like a frozen shadow.

He wasn't strong. He wasn't worthy of her attention. But in his eyes, she saw pain, a reflection of her own.

He was visibly delighted to see her. Hope sparkled in his eyes. He stood up, walked towards her, and did something inexplicable - he pressed his face against hers, as if seeking comfort in her feathers.

Nyra was unfamiliar with such displays of affection. But she didn't push him away. He was so miserable that she felt sorry for him.

"Not everything is lost yet, Kludd," she whispered, covering him with her wing. "We lost the battle, but we won't lose the war. We will have our revenge."