The hum of engines was the only sound in the cargo bay of the VTOL as it cut across the sky toward the Havenfield Rift. Thirty-three individuals sat inside, each bracing for what lay beyond the known. No one spoke. Not even Ari.
Lucian sat near the back, gloved hands clasped together, gaze fixed forward. Rowan was beside him, his fingers curled loosely around a sync tablet, though he hadn't looked at it in minutes. Elias sat diagonally across, seemingly focused on the vibration patterns beneath his boots.
Vespera stood alone, back against the bulkhead, her eyes closed in focused preparation. Her role would come later—but it would matter most when emotions began to fray.
The descent came quickly.
"Five minutes to drop zone," the pilot announced.
They all rose.
The VTOL's doors parted with a hiss, revealing the perimeter landing site: grey skies, a ground flattened by Rift radiation, and the Rift itself—still shimmering, still breathing.
The energy pulse in the air was stronger here. Tangible. The closer they approached, the more the Rift resembled an enormous vertical pool of liquid glass, suspended in midair, humming with a low frequency that resonated beneath their ribs.
"Final checks," Quinn barked.
Gear tightened. Visors activated. Sync pulses stabilized.
A deep breath.
And then—
Lucian stepped in first.
---
The world twisted.
Crossing through the Rift was like falling into a silent scream. Light bent, sound distorted, and for a moment, everyone's senses unspooled—then reformed.
They emerged onto cracked pavement.
What had once been a city surrounded them—but not their city. The layout mirrored Havenfield: same streets, same ruined outlines of familiar buildings. But everything was older, decayed, weather-beaten. The air was thick with static and the scent of scorched metal.
The sky was dark, lit by neither sun nor moon. Massive clouds twisted in slow-motion spirals overhead, flickering with iridescent lightning.
Trees—what few remained—were skeletal, their bark fused with obsidian veins. Cars sat rusted and half-sunken into cracked roads. Billboard signs twisted with unreadable glyphs, flickering like dying neon.
"It's…" Rowan murmured, stepping slowly forward. "It's us. But… ruined."
Juno adjusted her visor. "Alternate future?"
"Echo state," Vespera said quietly. "The Rift remembers. It echoes what it's touched."
They pressed forward, boots crunching against broken glass and bone-dry earth. The further in they moved, the more unnatural things became.
A statue in the middle of a plaza stared down at them—faceless, humanoid, arms outstretched. On its base was a plaque with their language, but the words constantly rearranged themselves every time they blinked.
Alexander muttered, "We're being observed."
Then came the first sound.
A skittering.
Quinn raised his fist. The team halted instantly.
From a shattered window above, a creature emerged.
It had no eyes. Its body was elongated, armored in overlapping plates of jet-black chitin. Long arms ended in jagged claws. Its mouth opened sideways, rows of thin, sharp teeth grinding together as it clicked.
A second one dropped onto a nearby ledge. Then a third. A dozen more began to crawl out of nearby ruins, converging.
"Form up!" Quinn shouted.
Guides took central positions. Espers flanked out. Rowan and Lucian instinctively drew near each other.
The creatures didn't scream. They just moved.
Fast.
Combat erupted in a blur of light and sound.
Lucian stepped forward, calm in the eye of chaos, his body a taut coil of precision. With a snap of his wrist, Psychic Control erupted outward. Invisible force twisted two of the charging creatures mid-air, holding them like marionettes in a storm. Their limbs contorted unnaturally, armor plates grinding against one another with a hideous screech, before he slammed them into the stone with bone-splintering force.
Another creature lunged, screeching.
Lucian didn't flinch. His eyes glowed a searing violet as he activated Mental Dissonance—a psychic spike driven directly into the creature's fractured mind. It stopped mid-leap, convulsing violently as conflicting impulses ripped through its nervous system. With a precise step, Lucian spun and drove an elbow into its jaw, cracking the chitin with raw force.
His combat style was controlled brutality—measured, efficient, merciless. Every motion wasted nothing. Every strike was calculated for maximum disruption. He fought like a man who had no room left for error—and no mercy left to give.
Before the stunned creature could collapse, Elias finished it with a silent wave of corrosion, reducing it to vapor. Ari moved like a shadow, dual knives flashing silver in the gloom. She darted between the creatures with deadly grace, her blades carving into joints and soft spots between their chitinous armor. Each strike was efficient, intentional—a predator in motion. Juno covered her flank, launching arcs of flame to keep the swarm at bay. Quinn held his ground, eyes glowing with calm intensity as he maintained a steady tether to Ari. His role wasn't offense—it was support. Through their tethered sync, he anchored her corruption levels and fortified her mental clarity. Every surge of power from her knives was backed by his unwavering presence, his Mental Block dulling the ambient psychic noise that could have overwhelmed her.
He remained still, a silent guardian in the storm, vulnerable but vital.
Rowan ducked low behind a crumbling barrier, one hand pressed to his sync tablet, the other raised toward the frontlines. He sent out measured, pulsing waves of guiding energy, anchoring three Espers at once. Their corruption levels, spiking under pressure, steadied with each focused burst from him. A B-class Esper staggered nearby, and Rowan reached out just in time, pulling him back from a full break with a surge of calming resonance. Every pulse he emitted calmed a flaring power, stabilized a fraying mind.
Elias moved with eerie stillness, letting the storm rage around him. His presence seeped into the battlefield like a quiet poison—corrosive mist drifting out from his fingertips, curling along the ground and melting through enemy limbs. Any creature that touched it screamed in silence before crumpling into disintegrating sludge. Any creature that touched it melted into bone and sludge, hissing as it dissolved.
And still they came.
Vespera finally stepped forward, her boots gliding soundlessly over the cracked stone. Her black and violet attire moved like ink against the war-torn backdrop, the long shawl trailing with purpose. Her steps were measured, unhurried, the kind of confidence that didn't need to announce itself.
As she walked, her thoughts stayed composed—not detached, but deliberate. Fear was loud, messy. Empathy required stillness. She felt the waves of panic, the fraying mental threads, the crushing sense of futility creeping into the Espers' minds. It didn't frighten her—it centered her.
I will carry what they can't afford to feel, she thought. That is my place here.
She passed the Espers with calm eyes, nodding once to Rowan as their paths crossed. Without hesitation, she moved directly into the heart of the formation—between those still fighting and those faltering. Her presence alone quieted some of the tremors running through the younger Guides.
Lifting both hands, she exhaled deeply. A soft, radiant pulse rippled outward—her empathetic healing field activating like a wave of warmth cutting through chaos.
The Espers who'd been flinching at shadows steadied. Fear, anxiety, disorientation—the invisible grasp of the Rift's emotional corruption—bled away like mist under sunlight. Their breathing synchronized. Their eyes cleared.
Several turned to glance at her, eyes wide. Even Ari, breath ragged and blade dripping with ichor, gave a fleeting nod of gratitude before throwing herself back into the fray with renewed purpose.
For a moment, the monsters' psychic intrusion faded into background noise, and the team remembered who they were.
For a moment, the battlefield felt like something they could win.
"Quinn's eyes darted across the twisted skyline, catching sight of a shattered bell tower in the distance—its silhouette eerily similar to Havenfield's old cathedral. He recognized it not from maps, but from fragmented memories.
The Rift mirrored places they knew. And if the cathedral stood in their world, it might offer defensible structure here too.
"Pull back into the cathedral ruins!" Quinn shouted, voice tight but steady.
Alexander surged forward, his palms igniting with shimmering blue light as he raised a protective barrier. The dome expanded outward, shielding the retreating Guides as they scrambled for cover. Energy hissed and cracked against it, but it held.
The squad fell back as ordered, but the retreat was chaos. The monsters surged faster now, sensing their intent to flee.
A B-class Esper was clipped by a talon to the side—his shield flared, then shattered. He screamed, stumbling. Rowan caught him mid-collapse, eyes burning with focus. He pushed a controlled burst of stabilizing resonance—what Guides referred to as a sync surge—into the Esper's corrupted stream. A sync surge was risky, a forceful override of a Guide's natural calming flow, but it could snap someone back from a full break when used precisely. The Esper gasped and steadied, the light returning to his eyes.
Another creature leapt from the wall toward one of the Guides—Juno spun mid-stride and shot a overwhelming burst of fire charge in midair, her fire burning it to crisp before it could strike.
The air rang with kinetic bursts, the clash of steel, and war cries. Elias held the rear line, his corrosion field hissing and melting the stone around him as the monsters disintegrated in waves.
Lucian's breath came in measured control. Psychic tendrils lashed out, yanking one creature back mid-leap and slamming it into another. But his power cost him; his corruption levels spiked violently, edging past danger thresholds. Lucian staggered for a second, breath ragged, violet energy crackling unnaturally from his fingertips.
Rowan saw the spike through his portable sync meter and swore under his breath. Lucian's corruption levels were redlining. It wasn't just dangerous—it was deadly.
Rowan didn't hesitate. He ripped open a compartment in his gear vest and pulled out the cylindrical injector—a guiding booster, pure resonance condensed into one painful dose.
He stabbed it into his chest, directly above his heart.
A jolt of icy fire exploded through his body, stealing the breath from his lungs. Guiding power concentrated around the heart—this method ensured maximum resonance efficiency, but it was agonizing. The injector hissed as it delivered its payload, and Rowan cried out, body arching from the sudden overload.
This wasn't standard practice. Booster injections weren't just discouraged—they were dangerous. Most Guides couldn't tolerate the shock. It burned through their channels like wildfire, often leaving lasting damage.
Rowan didn't care.
His knees buckled, but he caught himself, gritting his teeth. The boost overloaded his senses—amplifying his Guide signal tenfold.
Lucian faltered ahead, breathing labored, movements slowing as his power pushed him toward collapse.
"Lucian!" Rowan shouted, staggering forward.
Lucian turned, barely catching Rowan's gaze before Rowan closed the distance. With trembling hands, Rowan reached up, fingers brushing Lucian's jaw, grounding them both.
The bond between them flared—gold and violet sparking through the air.
Rowan poured the resonance into him, raw and unfiltered. Their sync locked instantly.
Lucian gasped, his shoulders snapping back as the corruption levels inside him plummeted, stabilized by Rowan's push.
They stayed like that, close, breath mingling.
Lucian's hand came up, fingers lightly catching Rowan's wrist.
"You didn't have to—"
"I did," Rowan breathed. "I always will."
A heartbeat passed. Then two.
Then reality crashed back in around them as the enemy howled again.
But Rowan staggered.
The booster's aftermath came crashing down like a wave. His vision blurred at the edges, and his pulse roared in his ears. Guiding with that much force left his limbs trembling, his chest burning beneath his armor. Every breath felt shallow, as though the air itself was struggling to reach his lungs.
Lucian caught him instinctively, one arm winding around Rowan's waist, the other bracing his back. "You idiot," he breathed, voice tight with something dangerously close to fear.
Rowan tried to smirk but winced instead.
"You're… stable now," he rasped.
Lucian stared at him, eyes searching, jaw clenched. "You could've killed yourself."
"And I'd do it again," Rowan whispered. "If it meant saving you."
The moment hung there—quiet, full of pressure, full of everything unsaid.
Lucian's grip tightened. "Don't ever make me watch you burn out."
Rowan gave a tired nod, leaning heavier into Lucian's hold.
"Then don't ever spiral so far that I have to."
Vespera's pulse rippled again. One of the A-class Espers sobbed once, then steadied, eyes sharpening as panic gave way to resolve.
They passed beneath a cracked archway—the cathedral.
But the fight didn't stop.
The creatures followed them through the ruined doors, climbing across walls and pouring through windows like floodwater.
There would be no rest yet.
The Rift wasn't just watching.
It was hunting. The Rift wasn't empty.
It was alive.
And it remembered them.