Dr. Faris leaned over Hans, his eyes wide and unblinking behind his spectacles. In his hand was a long, pressurized needle filled with a blue fluid.
"Now, Hans, hold still. This might feel like a thousand frozen needles, but it's much better than your internal organs crystallizing, wouldn't you agree? Yes, of course you would!"
"Just get it over with, Doc," Hans grunted, his face pale from the strain of his previous combat.
Just as Faris was about to plunge the needle, a sharp, frantic beeping erupted from Naomi's comms device.
Faris flinched, his hand jerking sideways. The needle slid off course, grazing Hans's shoulder and injecting a small burst of the cold-stimulant directly into the muscle tissue.
"OW! Dammit, Faris!" Hans barked, his eyes snapping open as a frost-pattern bloomed on his skin.
"Oh, suck it up, Hans! A little frostbite builds character!" Faris said, already spinning around to face Naomi. "What is it? What's the noise? Is it a breakthrough? A breakdown? Give me the data!"
Naomi's face went white as she read the scrolling text. "It's a priority message from Commander Sola. It's... it's bad, Doctor."
She began to read out loud. "Sarina is critically wounded. Spinal trauma and severe energy depletion. She needs immediate extraction to the high command facility for stabilization. Sola is requesting a medical containment unit for Sarina."
"Sarina," he whispered.
Then, he moved. He didn't walk; he blurred toward his tactical rig.
"Naomi, stay here and monitor the base," Faris commanded, his voice suddenly sharp and authoritative. "I'm going. Don't even think about arguing. She is my daughter."
Before Naomi could even open her mouth, Faris had vaulted over a medical cart and sprinted out the door, the sound of his boots echoing like gunfire down the hall.
Hans lay back on the table, staring at the ceiling and wincing as the medicine finally hit his bloodstream. He looked over at Naomi and sighed.
"Can you believe that guy...?"
***
The Weaver was a broken thing. Its glass body was dull, leaking a thick, violet fluid, touching the pavement. It stared at Kenzo with its remaining eyes, the light in its chest flickering like a dying bulb. It was no longer a predator
Kenzo took a step forward, his boots crushing the glass shards on the road. The purple distortion around his reconstructed arm was screaming, a high-frequency that made the air itself seem to peel back.
He raised his arm, his fingers elongated and sharp, and slammed it down toward the Weaver's core.
THWACK.
The asphalt shattered, but the Weaver was gone. It had used the last of its energy to "glitch" through space, reappearing fifty yards away in the center of the crowded plaza.
A chorus of blood-curdling screams erupted. The monster wasn't fighting anymore—it was feeding. It lunged toward a group of civilians, its glass limbs outstretched to harvest their life force to rebuild its shattered head.
"No!" Kenzo roared. He coiled his legs, ready to launch himself into the crowd to tear the monster apart.
But he didn't move. A heavy weight blocked his path. Sola had slammed the handle of her crescent axe into the ground directly in front of him, the shockwave of the impact forcing Kenzo to a dead stop.
"What are you doing?!" Kenzo yelled, his dual-layered voice sounding like tearing metal. "Are you just going to let it go? It's going to kill them!"
Sola didn't flinch. She stepped into his personal space, using the flat of her axe to push him back. The sheer density of her energy felt like a mountain pressing against his chest, making him stumble.
"And just what do you think you're going to do?" Sola's voice was like ice, cutting through the static of his mind. "Look at yourself. Look at your energy."
Kenzo looked down. The purple aura wasn't just glowing; it was radiating outward in jagged, uncontrollable spikes. Small objects near his feet were being unmade—turned into fine black dust before they even touched him.
"One attack," Sola said, her eyes boring into his. "You lunge in there with that level of instability, and you won't just hit the Remnant. You'll erase thirty innocent lives in the crossfire. Is that the kind of hero you came here to be?"
Kenzo froze. His mind was a battlefield. The boy who wanted to help people, was screaming in horror at the thought. But underneath it, the hunger was boiling. The drive to kill, to delete the threat, was overtaking his empathy. His vision began to tint purple.
"They are obstacles," a thought hissed in the back of his mind. "The target is all that matters."
"I... I can't just watch," Kenzo whispered, his hands trembling.
Sola gripped her axe tighter, her gaze shifting to the Weaver, which was seconds away from reaching the first civilian. "Then let the professionals handle the precision. You stay here and hold that monster inside you down."
But the voice within Kenzo didn't care about rank or precision. It felt the Weaver's weakening signal, and it wanted the kill.
"If nobody else will do it," the voice in Kenzo's head spoke, echoing with a chilling finality, "then I will."
Kenzo didn't argue. He didn't have the chance.
His legs moved with a violent, spring-like force, propelling him high over Sola's head. He soared through the air, a streak of jagged purple lightning against the grey skyline. Below him, the plaza was a sea of panicked faces, but the Echo was piloting his body with terrifying, cold-blooded precision.
What are you doing?! Kenzo screamed internally. I can't move my body, yet I'm still moving! Stop!
"Don't act surprised now," the voice replied back, echoing in the hollows of his skull. "You gave me the wheel to save your home. Once I end that Remnant's life, you'll get your body back. Now shut up and watch."
Kenzo hit the pavement in a dead sprint. He moved like a glitch in a video game—his figure flickering as he wove through the screaming civilians.
He didn't touch a single person. He was a ghost of static, dodging every frantic pedestrian with accuracy.
"What is that!?"
"Is that another monster!?"
"Everyone get away! Run!"
The Weaver reached the center of the plaza, but it knew it couldn't outrun the thing chasing it. In a final, desperate act of survival, it lashed out. Its glass limb coiled around a man in a business suit, hoisting him off the ground. The creature's other arm, sharpened into a jagged crystalline blade, pressed firmly against the man's throat.
The Weaver stopped.
Shit, what do I do now? Kenzo's mind raced. I don't even have control over my own body, and to make it worse, that thing is going to kill him if I move another inch!
The Echo paused Kenzo's body twenty feet away. The purple static around his hands pulsated, hungry for the kill, but even the Remnant knew that a strike at this range would vaporize the hostage along with the target.
The standoff lasted for only a heartbeat.
Suddenly, a sound like a shearing jet engine tore through the air from behind Kenzo.
WHIRR-WHIRR-WHIRR.
A flash of blue and black light, quicker than a human blink, spun past Kenzo's ear.
It was Sola's axe. The massive weapon didn't just fly; it manipulated the gravity around it, pulling the air inward as it rotated.
THWACK.
The axe buried itself deep into the Weaver's chest. The impact was so heavy that it didn't just cut, it anchored. The Weaver was slammed backward, the force of the throw pinning it against a concrete pillar with such power that the man it was holding was jerked free.
The Weaver was failing.
Its glass body had begun to "leak" out into the air, dissolving into a fine, violet mist. The screeching had stopped, replaced by a wet, rhythmic clicking as the light in its chest sputtered like a dying candle.
Sola walked through the clearing crowd, her boots echoing with a steady, haunting finality. She reached the pillar and ripped her crescent axe from the Weaver's torso. The monster slumped, its weight held up only by the jagged remains of its limbs.
But Sola didn't look at the dying Remnant.
She turned on her heel, the blade of her axe still dripping with purple ichor, and leveled it directly at Kenzo's throat.
The air between them went cold.
"This is as far as you are going," Sola said. Her voice was devoid of the warmth she had shown Sarina.
Kenzo tried to speak, but his throat felt like it was filled with ground glass. His dual-layered voice cracked. "I... I tried to save them."
"You did," Sola replied, her grip on the axe tightening. "But you are a violation of every law we serve to protect. You are a bridge between our reality and the void that eats it. I cannot allow such a creature to exist, Kenzo. Not for the safety of this city. Not for the safety of the world."
The silence that followed Sola's declaration was deafening.
Kenzo stared at the tip of the axe. He could see his own reflection in the obsidian-blue metal—a boy with glowing purple eyes and the face of someone who had seen the end of the world.
"Sola, wait—" Kenzo started, his voice finally returning to a single, shaky human tone.
But Sola didn't wait. She didn't hesitate.
She stepped back, her white scarf snapping as she pivoted her entire body weight. With a grunt of effort, she didn't just swing—she launched.
She threw her massive crescent blade directly at Kenzo's chest.
Kenzo's eyes widened. Time slowed to a crawl. He saw the rotation of the blade, the jagged sparks of energy, and the cold, unwavering resolve in Sola's eyes.