Calm down. Violet forced the thought through the noise in her skull.
A red icon still blinked in the corner of her HUD: NINA — SIGNAL LOST.
For a moment, the world came through cotton—boots on metal, distant shouting, comms chatter—all of it muffled by the pressure behind her eyes.
In. Hold. Out.
She counted her breaths until the blur sharpened. Until sounds became words again.
Commander Thompson stood near the facility entrance with a small cluster of recruits around him, a tactical overlay projected across the ground between their boots.
“—Then Anika and Violet take position in Warehouse Three,” he finished.
Violet tried to replay what he’d said before that, but only disjointed fragments surfaced: tower… tunnels… Team Eleven…
Thompson’s gaze snapped to her. He didn’t need biometrics to read it—her stillness gave her away.
“Quick recap,” he said.
“The sniper team takes the control tower. Suppress anything inbound and keep us updated on any major movement. Priority is Team Eleven—find what remains of them.”
He pointed, assigning with two fingers.
“Bonnie and I take the service tunnels to the main building. Carlos and Kanna clear Warehouses One and Two. Anika and Violet clear Warehouse Three.”
Thompson scanned the semicircle. Helmets nodded in near-unison. His eyes lingered on Violet for half a beat.
She nodded too.
“You have your orders. Move,” he barked as the formation broke into pairs, each unit peeling off in a different direction. “And remember—don’t engage unless you have to. You already know what the hostiles can do.”
— ? —
Violet followed Anika on instinct, letting training do the thinking for her.
Step. Scan. Corner. Breathe.
Each movement pulled her back into a stable rhythm—military habit forcing her mind into order.
They crossed an open stretch of yard scattered with piled-up containers and idle heavy-haul transports. Along the warehouse’s northern wall, an emergency exit stood ajar—already open.
Too easy.
They sprinted for it and slipped inside, weapons up.
The warehouse swallowed them in dull echoes and cold air. Service corridors funneled toward the main loading bay—the heart of the facility, the place they expected to find something.
“Hey, Violet,” Anika panted softly as they moved. Her muzzle never drifted. “Got any friends on Team Eleven?”
“I do.”
They stopped at the last door before the bay, tight to the frame.
“Then keep it cool,” Anika murmured, hand finding the lock panel. “Don’t falter on me.”
She overrode the lock.
The door sighed open.
They flowed in—sharp turns, controlled steps—clearing the loading bay in practiced choreography. They split behind container stacks, leaving real distance between them so a single burst couldn’t take both.
“Clear,” Anika called.
“Clear,” Violet echoed.
Nothing.
No scorch marks. No punctured walls. No dropped gear. No blood trail. Not even the stink of recently fired propellant.
“Weird,” Anika said, quiet but casual. “There hasn’t been any sound for a while.”
Violet didn’t answer. She kept her focus narrow: angles, shadows, breath.
“In position,” Asad reported over comms.
Violet expanded the map on her HUD. Asad and Elise were set atop the control tower. Carlos and Kanna were pushing into Warehouse One. Thompson and Bonnie had reached the administration offices in the main building—no confirmation yet.
Then Kanna’s voice cut in.
“Warehouse One clean. Two bodies found.”
Adrenaline sparked through Violet’s veins.
“Tags read—Gustavo Deimler and Jun Wang. Team Eleven,” Carlos added, tight. “Deceased. Last biometric record fourteen minutes ago.”
Violet exhaled—relief she didn’t deserve to feel.
Not Nina.
The breath hadn’t even finished leaving her lungs when Thompson’s icon blinked… and vanished. So did Bonnie’s.
A message slammed onto every HUD:
COMM GRID BREACH CONFIRMED.
HOSTILES HAVE GAINED ACCESS.
RADIO SILENCE. HAND SIGNS ONLY.
One by one, the rest of the team dropped off the map as squad overlays went dark.
Violet reacted instantly—killed the party feed, locked her console to local-only, and cut anything that could be spoofed.
Silence.
The loading bay suddenly felt too big.
An uneasy pressure crept up her spine.
She moved toward Anika by protocol. Frontliner lead. Stay anchored on the spearpoint.
They regrouped in a small control office with a panoramic view of the bay—eyes on each other instead of comms.
Anika signed: Move. Thompson. Bonnie. Last location.
Violet nodded.
They slipped out toward the nearest roof access. From above they could observe the main building and assess the approach—then push in fast once the path was clear.
— ? —
On the roof, Anika took a slow sweep of the yard below—angles, blind spots, lanes of fire. Then she turned toward the control tower and clicked her pointer on.
A thin IR beam pulsed through the air, coded in short bursts:
MOVING TO THE MAIN BUILDING.
A reply flashed back almost immediately:
ROGER.
Anika and Violet rappelled down the warehouse wall, lines hissing. Boots hit ground in sync.
They ran.
Close enough to cover each other. They vaulted crates, cut between transports, and kept their muzzles level as the yard opened wide around them.
Halfway across—
The air shifted.
Her HUD flickered:
EXT TEMP: 22°C → 20°C
HUMIDITY: 46% → 93%
The first droplets tapped her visor—soft, almost hesitant.
Then the drizzle thickened.
In less than a minute it became a downpour, pounding metal and concrete hard enough to blur outlines and drown out small sounds.
It shouldn’t have happened inside the Academy citadel. Environmental control didn’t forget itself.
Tonight, everything was stuttering.
By the time they reached the main building, they were soaked. Water snapped off their boots as they ran parallel to the wall, splashing across the reflective plating.
Anika spotted an entrance twenty meters ahead and signaled.
Violet nodded and followed.
The door was unlocked.
Another emergency exit.
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Inside, darkness ruled. Their visors adjusted, pulling shape out of black until corridors regained edges and depth.
They slowed.
Corner by corner, room by room, they swept forward. Outside, rain hammered the roof overhead, swallowing the smaller sounds—breath, footfalls, the soft shift of armor plates.
The main building lacked a loading bay, but it had something worse: a spacious central atrium that cut through the structure vertically, a hollow spine connecting every floor.
Violet and Anika stopped at a door leading into the central space.
It was stuck—scarred with heavy impact marks, bruised around the frame as if something had tried to force it open from either side.
Violet signed: BREACH?
Anika hesitated. Her gaze lingered on the damage.
A long second passed.
Then she nodded—reluctant, but decided.
She pulled a breaching charge and set it on the door. With one hand, she started the countdown.
Three.
Violet swapped her carbine to her sling and drew her sword, thumb hovering over ignition.
Two.
A presence brushed Violet’s senses—close. Not on the other side of the door.
Behind them.
She snapped a hand out, stopping Anika mid-count, and turned.
Carlos and Kanna emerged from the corridor’s darkness, weapons up but not aimed at them.
Anika let out a heavy sigh—silent, but obvious in the way her shoulders dropped.
Carlos signed quickly: NO BLAST. FOLLOW.
Anika and Violet traded one glance, then nodded.
Kanna took point and moved down the hall to a stairwell, climbing fast and quiet to the next floor. The rest followed.
Upstairs, they entered an open office packed with desks and terminals. The far wall was panoramic smartglass looking down into the atrium—except the panes were darkened, privacy locked, reflecting only their own shadows.
They cleared the room anyway—because that’s what you do when your map is blind.
It wasn’t until Anika touched a nearby console and killed the privacy setting that everyone froze.
The glass turned clear.
And on the other side—inside the atrium—stood a grotesque, machine-like creature, perfectly still.
Waiting.
— ? —
The creature bristled with optical sensors—dozens of glassy apertures that everyone instinctively read as eyes.
Violet studied its frame through the smartglass and caught something else: the machine was partially fused to wire harnesses that spilled from a maintenance duct beneath a small platform jutting from the north wall.
They didn’t know what the central atrium had been built for—but they all reached the same conclusion.
That thing was plugged in.
A door on the office’s right wall slid open.
Bonnie stood in the threshold, motionless, hands signing hard and clear:
DON’T MOVE.
Luckily, they were all at the right angle to see it.
Bonnie was far enough down the corridor to be outside the creature’s likely line of sight. She glanced once toward the glass, then to her wrist console. With slow, deliberate movements, she triggered the local control.
The smartglass darkened again.
The creature vanished from view.
But no one forgot it was there.
Violet’s muscles unlocked in a small, careful release—like waking from a paralysis drill. She remembered Stealth Ops training, the moments where staying still too long made motion feel illegal.
The others followed her lead.
One by one, they drifted toward Bonnie, careful with every step.
Bonnie typed a message on her small screen and held it up:
THAT THING HAS EXCELLENT SIGHT.
AND PRETTY GOOD HEARING TOO.
Then she signed: FOLLOW.
They did.
Bonnie led them to the topmost floor, where Thompson waited inside a small mess hall. Beside it sat a roofed garden—tables, planters, a thin overhang that caught the rain and turned it into constant noise.
Everyone filed out under the cover.
Thompson popped the seal on his helmet with a soft hiss, lowering it just enough to speak without a filtered voice. Bonnie did the same, motioning the rest to follow.
“We can talk because the rain’s doing us a favor,” Thompson said, low and controlled. “But keep it down.”
“Commander… what is that thing?” Anika asked. Fear showed in her eyes even through the discipline.
“Don’t know,” Thompson said. “But it took down most of Team Eleven.”
Most? Where is Nina? Violet’s patience frayed by the second.
“Yeah,” Bonnie added immediately. “Only two survived—and they’re critically injured.”
“Who?” Violet cut in, voice sharper than she intended.
Bonnie turned to her, unfazed by the interruption. “Don’t know. Why do you care?”
Violet didn’t answer.
Thompson’s eyes flicked to her—reading her too fast. Warning without words.
“They should hold until help arrives,” he said, steady, as if trying to hand her a thread of hope.
“Where are they?” Violet pressed. “How do you know?”
“Security room on the first floor,” Bonnie said. “CCTV caught two suits making it inside—last footage before the system went blind.”
Carlos clicked his tongue. “Why are we discussing downed recruits right now?”
Violet turned on him—cold, furious.
Carlos’s annoyance died in his throat. He looked away.
Thompson stepped in before it escalated. “There’s nothing wrong with caring. But we’re in serious trouble.” His gaze swept the group. “We decide now: engage that thing, or bail out.”
Violet felt an urge to bolt downstairs and tear the door open—
Thompson’s look pinned her in place.
Don’t.
She forced herself to breathe.
If she broke that room’s seal, the creature could hear it. And if Nina was inside…
No. Not like that.
Best case: they neutralized the hostile first. Then they recovered the survivors.
But with comms compromised, they had no clean way to call reinforcements or coordinate extraction.
Two options remained: wait and hope someone else found them… or strike first.
A long minute passed.
No one spoke. The decision made itself.
One by one, they tightened grips, checked safeties, raised weapons.
Thompson nodded once, reading the room.
“Engage the hostile,” he said quietly. “That’s the call.”
— ? —
The team huddled under the garden overhang and finalized the plan in quick, quiet bursts. Thompson sent a tight update to the snipers in the tower—no chatter, just enough to keep them ready in case the fight spilled outside.
“Then it’s decided,” Thompson said, giving his revolver one last check. “Frontliners—you start the fight. Hit hard with the first burst. Make it count.”
His gaze shifted.
“Carlos, you manage the explosives. Track everyone’s positions. No collateral.”
“Roger,” Carlos replied.
Thompson looked to Violet. “You hit second—right after the Frontliners. I need you to pull its attention off the team if it turns on them.”
Violet nodded.
“We still don’t know its weapons or attack patterns,” Thompson added. “Stay sharp. Trust your instincts.”
He sealed his helmet with a hiss. “Move. Quiet and decisive.”
They flowed out in a single column, leaving the roofed garden and slipping back into the building. Thompson led them into the stairwell, and they began moving down—fast, controlled, silent.
At the second-floor landing, Carlos, Anika, and Kanna peeled off into the offices with the panoramic smartglass line into the central atrium. The rest continued down to the first floor.
Once everyone reached their positions, the building seemed to hold its breath.
Heart rates climbed. Sweat beaded beneath armor and was wicked away by the suit’s membrane, leaving only heat and anticipation.
They’d marked multiple breach points during the briefing.
Two groups would breach from the first floor while the second-floor team engaged from above through the cleared window line. They had the means. What mattered was timing—one impact, all at once.
With the comm grid compromised, they kept it simple: a single local pulse—suit-to-suit only, no network—just a GO signal.
Charges set.
A full minute of stillness passed.
Violet waited behind her assigned door on the first floor, stacked close to the frame—detonator in one hand, sword hilt in the other.
On the opposite breach point—the far side of the atrium by the building’s orientation—Thompson and Bonnie held at their door, ready to punch in on the same signal.
Upstairs, Carlos, Anika, and Kanna were already in place.
Violet slipped into her ritual—fast, familiar, necessary. She didn’t have time for it, but she did it anyway. Breathing into rhythm. Thoughts stopping their skid.
She mag-locked the carbine to her back. It would only slow her when the sword came out.
Her pulse steadied.
One hand closed around the detonator.
The other rested on her sword’s hilt, ready to ignite.
Then—
It happened.
— ? —
Violet saw the incoming GO pulse flash across her HUD.
She squeezed the detonator.
The breach charge thundered. Across the atrium, a second blast answered—Thompson and Bonnie punching in from the far side at the same time. Above, rifles and launchers barked in a synchronized burst, the first volley hammering down from the second-floor offices.
Violet waited two heartbeats—just long enough for shrapnel and explosive splash to clear—then moved.
The moment she stepped into the atrium, her vision snapped wide, hunting for the target.
She found it immediately.
The mechanical monstrosity stood where it had been—still, massive, wrong—while rounds struck an invisible barrier around it and ricocheted away like hail off glass. A shield lattice flared with each impact: tiny hexagons blooming and vanishing in rapid succession, sparks cascading from every hit as if the air itself were catching fire.
A rocket slammed into the shield.
The beast flinched—then roared, an ugly blend of high and low artificial tones that rattled Violet’s teeth through the helmet.
Slowly, it detached from the wire harnesses. Mechanical tentacles unfolded from its underside, each ending in three-spiked claws that grappled the atrium’s surfaces—wall, floor, platform—pulling its bulk free like a predator unhooking itself from a feeding line.
It stumbled as it found purchase.
Then its limb tips shifted.
Metal reshaped. Joints locked. Several extremities hardened into compact barrels—familiar silhouettes, similar to the weapon modules Violet had seen in the lake fight.
The cannons fired.
Energized shots ripped across the atrium in a brutal spray, lighting up the second-floor offices as the recruits above dove for cover. Impacts flashed against railings and desks, burning holes through furniture and shattering panels.
Violet’s instincts snapped into place.
Now.
She launched forward, sword igniting into a violet blaze mid-stride, and threw herself into the air—ready to split the creature open with a wide vertical slash.
She didn’t get the hit.
An energized claw snapped up and reshaped into a short cleaver at the last instant, catching her blade with a violent clang. Recoil punched through Violet’s arms and shoulders. The clash hurled her backward, boots skidding as she recovered.
She pushed in again.
Again, the monster met her—deflecting her strikes with unnerving ease, as if it had already measured her reach, her timing, her angles.
One after another.
On the far side, Thompson fired nonstop with his revolver, shots landing with almost no visible effect against the shielded mass. Bonnie deployed two drones; they rose and opened fire, their simple rounds adding pressure while she engaged with her pistol.
Less than two minutes into the exchange, the hostile changed its mind.
It wasn’t playing anymore.
The cannons reshaped again.
Bright red cores lit inside the barrel mouths—then beams snapped outward.
Lasers.
They moved with surgical intent, not sweeping wildly but choosing paths—cutting, correcting, cutting again. Light carved through the atrium as if the air were soft.
Up above, something screamed—cut short.
Red light flashed against the second-floor windows in jagged pulses.
Violet’s HUD detonated with updates she didn’t want:
Kanna — CRITICAL.
A blink later: NO VITALS.
Another flash. A heavy impact on metal.
Anika — CRITICAL.
The icon jittered violently, then stabilized—alive, but broken.
Carlos — CRITICAL.
Then: UNCONSCIOUS.
Violet’s body started toward the stairwell on instinct—then another beam snapped past and the impulse died. No time.
She forced her focus back to the atrium.
Thompson dodged through two beams—close enough to feel heat wash across his armor.
Bonnie wasn’t as lucky. One beam pierced her left foot. She stumbled hard, caught herself on a container edge, and kept her pistol up through clenched teeth. Her drones destroyed.
And Violet—
For reasons she couldn’t understand, the enemy kept skipping her.
Shots and beams tore through everyone else, but Violet was left standing in a bubble of negation, like she wasn’t even a legitimate target.
Like she was beneath its attention.
Rage spilled into her bloodstream.
Tunnel vision followed.
She attacked in a relentless flurry—strike after strike after strike—trying to force the creature to recognize her.
At last, it did.
The fiend acknowledged her as a nuisance.
An energized claw reshaped into a sleek spear and punched into her abdomen with precise, casual brutality.
Violet’s HUD exploded in red.
ALERT: INTERNAL ORGAN DAMAGE
COMBAT CAPABILITIES: DIMINISHED
SURVIVABILITY: COMPROMISED
A visual-haptic warning hammered her senses:
DISENGAGE.
She didn’t want to.
But her body stopped responding anyway.
Pain arrived late, like a flood breaking through a dam.
Her teeth clenched. Her breath hitched. Her rage cracked—and drained.
Relief tried to rise in its place.
Then regret.
Nina…
Memories surged—warm ones, bitter ones—too vivid, too fast, as her eyelids grew heavy and time began to slow.
Thompson screamed something through gunfire and kept shooting.
Bonnie watched from behind a blast-scarred door frame, reloading with the last magazine she had.
Ah… I’m weak.
I won’t see Nina again.
An energized shot punched into Thompson’s right thigh. He buckled, caught himself on one hand—then forced his leg under him like sheer will could stitch it back together.
He almost stood.
His knee gave out. Thompson collapsed hard.
Bonnie ran out anyway—screaming as she fired at the hostile in a useless stream.
Get out. Get help.
A hot beam speared Bonnie through the shoulder.
She collapsed.
Violet closed her eyes.
No… this can’t be the end.
Not until I take it with me.
A system alert flashed behind her closed eyes, as if the suit was writing directly onto her thoughts:
KEY RESONANCE DETECTED
TRIAL SUIT LIMITERS: LIFTED
ULTRA-SURVIVAL MODE: ENABLED
OVERRIDE WINDOW REMAINING: 58s
Pain halted.
Functionality surged back into her body like a hard reset.
Energy flooded her limbs and spilled into her Fauna sword. The weapon felt subtly different—hungrier, hotter. The violet along its edge intensified, thickening into something denser than flame.
The machine reacted immediately. It released its grips, dropping heavily to the floor, then re-anchored into a lower stance. Its shield output spiked so hard the air around it warped, colors bending at the edges like heat mirage.
Some limbs became laser emitters again.
One limb reshaped into a short, heated blade.
It rocked side to side—cautious now—waiting on Violet.
“Fine,” Violet said through her helmet speakers, voice thin and metallic. “I’ll make the first move.”
She ran.
Faster than she ever had.
The hostile fired, lasers snapping across likely paths to box her in.
They missed.
Violet threaded between them, movements clean, almost elegant—like her body knew the map before it existed.
The machine swung its heated blade toward an expected landing point as Violet vaulted.
The blade met the Fauna.
A crash rang out—metal, plasma, and force colliding at speed.
Violet twisted midair and landed in a three-point crouch, left arm bracing the impact as inertia tried to tear her sideways. Then she sprang again, diagonally, clearing the creature’s core.
Lasers answered.
They missed by margins that felt impossible—but the beams burned through the reinforced glass above, punching holes in the ceiling.
Shards rained down.
And then rain followed—pouring into the atrium through fresh wounds in the structure.
Violet landed behind the monster as it turned.
She dove beneath its core and carved through three supporting limbs in a single sweeping slash. The hostile staggered, scrambling to redistribute weight.
It had nine limbs left.
Three became legs, replacing the initial four-point stance.
Violet panted. Her HUD timer flashed:
OVERRIDE WINDOW: 32s
She didn’t know exactly what the countdown meant.
But she had a terrible feeling she’d close her eyes for good when it ran out.
I can do it.
She faced the monster head-on.
Steel and plasma clashed—again and again—hundreds of strikes compressing into seconds. Violet redirected a counterattack, guiding the limb past her shoulder, then drove her blade up into the enemy’s “face,” piercing multiple optical sensors at once.
The fiend jumped backward, creating distance. Its remaining eyes flashed erratically—disoriented.
OVERRIDE WINDOW: 14s
One last attack.
Violet pulled what remained of the energy toward her sword by will alone.
The edge brightened—hotter than ever—until her signature violet was swallowed by a brilliant blue plasma flame, orange flares licking the rim like sparks caught in a furnace.
Both figures held still.
Violet lowered into a stance that promised a straight charge.
The fiend responded by reshaping most remaining limbs into blades—seven knives and cleavers ready to catch her.
OVERRIDE WINDOW: 7s
Violet launched forward, screaming as she cut through the defense.
Sparks exploded.
Her blade carved a diagonal path through the monster’s belly—deep enough to split structure and sever internal lines.
The Fauna’s light faltered.
Violet landed behind the target and stayed still, blade lowering as the glow died.
OVERRIDE WINDOW: 0s
One by one, her Trial Suit indicators dimmed and went dark.
That should be enough.
She turned—
Warmth bloomed in her chest.
A blade had struck her dead center.
Blood spilled from her mouth as breath refused to form. Her HUD didn’t respond. No warnings. No stabilizers.
Nothing.
The damaged hostile pulled its blade free and rose, still standing—wounded, stuttering, optical sensors flickering like broken signals.
Violet dropped to her knees.
She reached up and tore her helmet off, wanting to see with her own eyes.
To face death awake.
The enemy lifted its blades, as if afraid she might rise again. It prepared to cut her apart—certainty through excess.
Violet screamed, raw and furious.
“Come on! Do it already, you—!”
A slash of red-orange light split the atrium and blinded her.
When her vision cleared, the impossible had happened.
Her executioner was skewered through its core from above.
The machine convulsed, then went still.
Violet couldn’t think anymore. Pain turned distant. Interest drained out of her like blood.
A figure landed on the corpse and crushed it down, stomping until the motionless husk deformed under armored weight.
Violet tried to focus with what little she had left.
Ornamented armor. Pulsing red patterns. Dark grey plating with bronze detail.
A female voice reached her—muffled, controlled.
“Recruit… did you just resonate with your Trial Key?”
Violet’s strength finally ran out.
She closed her eyes.
