Xavier jolted upright in his bunk, his chest heaving as if a weight were crushing his lungs. His skin was slick with a cold, oily sweat, and the darkness of the room felt like it was closing in. He scrambled down from the top bunk, his legs feeling like jelly, and stumbled into the kitchen.
He fumbled for a glass, the tap water splashing over his hands as he drank with a desperate, shaky thirst. He gripped the edge of the sink with both hands, staring down into the drain. For the first time in weeks, there was no violet screen to tell him his heart rate, no comforting stats to remind him he was strong. He felt hollow. Raw.
"Am I just a ghost again?" he whispered to the empty room.
BRAAAA-RRRRR!
The base alarm tore through the silence, red rotating lights painting the walls in rhythmic, bloody streaks. Xavier jumped, his heart hammering against his ribs.
"Move it, Reyes!" Spector's voice boomed as he sprinted past the kitchen door, already pulling his tactical vest tight. "Commander wants a briefing in the hangar. Thirty seconds!"
Xavier splashed cold water on his face, trying to drown the panic, and ran.
The hangar was a hive of controlled aggression. Will Rogers stood on a raised platform, silhouetted against the massive, looming shapes of the Titans. His shadow stretched long and jagged across the floor. When the team assembled, his voice dropped into a low, gravelly register—the tone he used when things were about to get ugly.
"In the year 2000, when the first Gate opened, it wasn't a diplomatic visit," Will began, his eyes scanning the recruits. "Alien life arrived to eradicate us. In forty days, five nations vanished. Millions died. We didn't win with hope; we won because we evolved. We turned mana into the ultimate weapon of mass destruction."
He slapped a holographic map onto the main screen. A pulsing red dot sat on the coast of the East Asian Sector.
"HQ just handed us a hot one. A Level 5 breach. Get your gear ready—we're heading East."
"East Asia?" Xavier muttered, his mind racing. Level 5 was a significant jump from the localized breach they had faced in the wasteland.
Mikhail leaned closer as they pulled on their cargo pants and gym shirts. "Xavier... are we actually going to survive this? A Level 5 is... it's a death trap."
Xavier looked at his hands. Without the System's "Success Probability" window, he felt like he was flying blind. "I don't know, Mik," he said honestly. "Just don't leave my back."
The hangar roof retracted with a heavy, mechanical groan, revealing a stormy grey sky. Three massive heavy-lift helicopters descended, their rotors kicking up a hurricane of dust. Two were dedicated to the Titans, their massive steel cables ready to hoist the mechs like puppets. The third was for the crew.
The flight was hours of vibrating metal and silence. When they finally touched down in the East Asian ruins, the air was thick with the smell of salt and ozone.
Xavier stepped off the ramp and immediately doubled over, retching into the dirt.
THWACK.
A heavy hand smacked his back. Will Rogers stood over him. "You air-sick, kid? Or is the 10% output finally catching up to your nervous system?"
"It's... it's a panic attack," Xavier choked out, wiping his mouth.
Will didn't offer a hand. He just looked toward the horizon. "Then get your shit together. This is a joint mission. You're here to represent the Blood Hounds. Don't let the high-rises look down on the scrap heap."
"Joint mission?" Xavier looked up, and his blood went cold.
Standing a hundred yards away was a formation of sleek, gold-and-white transports. Emblazoned on their sides was the lion crest of the 2nd Garrison: Kingdom Come.
A woman in pristine white military fatigues walked toward them, followed by her staff. Will stepped forward, a smirk playing on his scarred lips.
"Hey, hey. Look what the cat dragged in," Will called out.
The woman—the Commander of the 2nd—stopped and sighed. "You must be the 'cat' in this scenario, Will. Still as unrefined as ever."
"Did you miss me, lovely?" Will teased.
She blushed slightly, though her expression remained sharp. "Please. Why would I miss a muscle-headed relic like you? Give me the status."
"Level 5 Gate," she continued, her professional mask sliding back on. "Targets unknown, but the Red Army is thickening. Let's get to it. I assume you brought your best?"
"I brought my 2nd and Trevor," Will said, gesturing behind him. "And these are my wonder kids: Reyes and Petrov."
The woman's eyes swept over Xavier. She didn't look impressed. "Let's skip the formalities, Will. I'd hate to spend too much time on a 'little' matter. Let's finish this."
"Suit up!"
Xavier activated his red-and-black glove. The nanotech crawled over him, but without the System's status bars, he felt strangely naked inside the armor. He boarded Ghost, the 70-foot black-and-white Titan. As the neural links plugged into his spine, he felt a momentary spike of vertigo.
Connection: Stable. Sync: 78%. It was lower than usual. His anxiety was interfering with the mana-bridge.
"Listen up!" the 2nd Garrison Commander's voice rang over the comms. "High-ranking officials will lead the main thrust. Trevor, you're taking the newbies. You go right, we go left. Move out!"
"She said 'men,' how rude," Will muttered over a private channel. "Sorry boys, you're with the babysitter."
The teams split. Trevor in Bolt, Kiko in her white-and-gold female-build Titan, Finn in his knight-like bulky mech, and the two Blood Hound recruits headed into the dense ruins of the coastal city.
"Nice toy you've got there, Zero," Kiko's voice crackled over the radio. Her mech, Astra, carried a massive long-handled axe that gleamed even in the grey light.
Finn laughed. "State-of-the-art upgrades, Reyes. We may have started with the same base models, but our mechs are superior in every metric. Ours are Ferraris. Yours is a tractor."
Xavier gripped the controls, his knuckles white. "Big man with a big gun, Finn. It's easy to talk shit when you're hiding behind a million-dollar blaster. Take that away, and you're just a loudmouth in a tin can."
The comms went silent. The tension was thick enough to choke on.
Suddenly, Trevor's Titan, Bolt, came to a dead halt. He raised a massive yellow hand. "Bogies ahead. Get ready. Wait for my—"
WHOOSH.
Kiko didn't wait. Astra's thrusters flared, sending her screaming forward. She was a golden blur. In a display of terrifying speed, she swung her axe in a wide, circular arc.
SLASH. CRUNCH. BOOM.
Five 65-foot Red Army Kaiju—lumbering reptilian beasts—were decapitated before they could even roar. Their massive heads hit the pavement like falling boulders. Kiko stood among the corpses, casually flicking the black blood off her axe blade.
Trevor let out a low whistle. "A confident one, I see. Me and you are gonna get along just fine, kid."
He straightened Bolt up. "Reyes, you and this little lady upfront now. Finn, Petrov, cover our six. Stay sharp, people. We're in the belly of the beast now."
Xavier moved Ghost forward, his red visor scanning the shadows of the skyscrapers. He felt the 10.5% mana output humming in his limbs, but without the System to guide the flow, he had to rely on his own raw instinct.
Somewhere in the ruins ahead, something much bigger than a Kaiju let out a low, vibrating growl that shook the glass out of the surrounding windows.