Smoke curled into the sky from the blackened crater that used to be the Arbalest Landcrawler.
"My car," Sai whispered, staring at the twisted metal. "I didn't even get to test the heated seats."
There's someone up there!" Drex shouted, looking up at the wall.
A figure stood on the edge of the parapet, fifty feet above them. He didn't climb down. He stepped off.
The man fell like a stone, hitting the pavement with a heavy thud that cracked the concrete. But he didn't roll. He didn't buckle. He simply straightened his knees and brushed a speck of dust off his pristine, white-and-gold officer's armor.
He looked at the burning wreck, then at the three travelers. A pleasant, easygoing smile spread across his face.
"Ah, sorry about that," the man said, rubbing the back of his neck. "We forgot to turn off the automated defense system. It gets a bit twitchy."
Sai stared at him. "You 'forgot'?"
"Wait, what?" Drex said, confused by the lack of aggression. "You just tried to vaporize us!"
"Minor oversight," the man said with a shrug.
Lucianna stepped forward, her hands squeezed tightly. "Identify yourself. And explain why the main blast doors of a Bastion City are wide open.
The man blinked, looking at the massive open gates behind him. He looked at them with genuine curiosity, as if noticing them for the first time.
"Oh, those?" He chuckled. "Well, to be honest... we can't really seem to remember why they exist."
The air went cold.
"You don't remember... why the walls exist?" Lucianna asked slowly.
"I mean, look at them," the man gestured to the hundred-foot steel barricades. "They block the view. They block the breeze. Seems rather silly to keep the doors shut when we can't recall what we're trying to keep out. Right?"
He offered that same nonchalant, empty smile.
"Is that all the questions you have? Well then, I'll let you get to it. Welcome to Alpha Delma."
Before they could answer, the man turned and walked away, strolling down the street as if he hadn't just admitted to dismantling the city's most basic defense strategy.
"What..." Drex whispered, "even is happening here?"
Sai walked over to the burning wreckage. He reached into the fire, grabbed a heavy strap, and heaved.
He pulled the Great Lance free. The heat hadn't scratched it. The blue mana pulsed softly, pushing away the flames. He tossed it to Lucianna.
"Gear up," Sai said, his voice serious.
"This isn't just incompetence. That man... his eyes were empty."
Lucianna caught the heavy weapon, strapping it to her back. "The Awakened Dispatch Office is close. It's the central hub for all city operations. If anyone knows what is going on, it's them."
They moved into the city streets.
If the open gate was strange, the inside of Alpha Delma was a nightmare.
It wasn't a war zone. There was no blood, no rubble. But it was wrong.
They passed a bakery. The door was wide open. The baker was standing outside, holding a tray of unbaked dough, staring at the sun as if he had forgotten what an oven was.
Further down, a luxury sedan was parked diagonally across the sidewalk, its front bumper smashed into a lamppost. The driver was still inside, just sitting there, hands folded in his lap, staring forward.
"Look at that," Drex whispered, pointing to a shopfront.
A woman was standing before a locked glass door. She held a ring of keys in her hand. She was fumbling with them, jamming the blunt end of a key into the wood of the doorframe, scraping it against the glass, trying to shove it into the handle.
She started to cry. Soft, frustrated sobs.
"It doesn't work," she muttered to herself. "Why doesn't it open? I... I don't remember how to open it."
"This is insane," Drex said, sticking close to Sai. "It's like their brains are lagging."
"There," Lucianna pointed.
Ahead of them sat a massive, dome-shaped building. The Awakened Dispatch Office. It was the heart of the city's military and mercenary coordination.
They pushed through the revolving doors.
The lobby was expansive, with marble floors and high ceilings. But like the streets, it was eerily quiet. Phones were ringing off the hook, echoing in the silence, but no one was answering them.
At the main desk, a receptionist with a perfectly pressed uniform sat staring at a blank computer screen.
Lucianna marched up to the desk, her boots clicking loudly on the marble.
"Excuse me," Lucianna said sharply.
The receptionist blinked. She looked up slowly, a polite, customer-service smile plastering onto her face.
"Welcome to the Alpha Delma Dispatch Office," she said. Her voice was pleasant, melodic, and completely hollow. "How may I help you?"
"I am Captain Lucianna of the Arbalest Family," Lucianna declared. "This is Sai and Drex. What's going on here?"
"The Arbalest Family..." The receptionist tilted her head. "Ah, yes. The rural estate to the south."
"We have been sending distress signals for weeks," Lucianna said, her voice rising. "We used Curio flares. We used emergency channels. We begged for reinforcement against a Rift. Why did no one answer?"
The receptionist kept smiling. She didn't check a file. She didn't type on her keyboard.
"Oh, that," she said lightly. "Yes, we saw the lights. We heard the messages."
"Then why didn't you send help?" Lucianna slammed her hands on the desk. "My father died! My knights died! Why did the Bastion ignore us?"
The receptionist shrugged, a gesture so casual it was insulting.
"We forgot."
Lucianna froze. "You... what?"
"We forgot to send anyone," the woman said, her smile never wavering. "We got the message, and then... well, it just slipped our minds. And then we forgot who the Arbalest family was. And then we forgot why we needed to send soldiers at all."
She giggled softly.
"It's hard to keep track of things lately."
"You forgot?" Lucianna's voice shook with pure, unadulterated rage. Mana flared around her body, turning her blonde hair wild. "You let them die because you forgot?"
A hand clamped down on Lucianna's shoulder. It wasn't rough, but it was immovable.
"Lucianna, stop," Sai said. His voice was low, cutting through her rage.
"Let go of me, Sai!" Lucianna struggled, tears stinging her eyes. "She's mocking us! She's mocking his sacrifice!"
"She isn't mocking you," Sai said, pulling her back. He looked at the receptionist, who was still smiling that vacuous, empty smile, completely unphased by the woman trying to kill her.
"Look at her eyes," Sai whispered. "She doesn't even understand why you're angry."