The attack came at midday. That was the cruelty of it.
The sun was high, Eden bright and alive bioluminescent flowers blooming in waves of color, massive leaf-creatures grazing peacefully near the caravan's edge. Spirits drifted lazily through the canopy, unaware that steel and greed were descending from the sky.
We were moving through a valley when the Echo screamed. Not in sound in pressure. My chest tightened. The air went sharp. The light bent. I shouted before I fully understood why, "DOWN!" The sky split open.
The HelixCorp aircraft screamed out of the clouds, sleeker than before, darker, faster. Drones poured out like hornets, their wings slicing the air into screaming ribbons. Energy fire rained down. The ground exploded.
People scattered, screaming. Supply carts overturned. Spirits burst into sparks as nullifier pulses tore through the clearing. "DEFENSIVE FORMATION!" Zara roared. "PROTECT THE CHILDREN!"
Rangers surged forward. Mara's staff flared with golden light, throwing up a shimmering barrier that absorbed the first barrage.
Elias dropped to one knee, slamming a device into the soil, "Scrambling their targeting!" he yelled. "Won't last long!"
Jinx vanished into shadow, reappearing atop a rock outcropping, his form rippling violently as he half-shifted — claws, teeth, eyes burning copper-bright. "They're not here to wipe us out!" he snarled. "They're harvesting!"
My heart seized, "Lyra!" I shouted, "I saw her instantly, fire already blooming around her, controlled and fierce. She stood in front of a cluster of younger children, flames forming a living wall. "Stay behind me!" she yelled. "Do not move!"
A collector unit dropped directly behind her. The air collapsed. A nullifier wave hit her. Lyra screamed as her fire sputtered not extinguished, but muffled, like something choking a living thing. "No—NO!"
She turned just as light-nets erupted from the collectors' gauntlets. One net. Two. Three… Children were yanked off their feet mid-scream. "LYRA!" I ran.
Too far. Too slow. A dozen children were lifted into the air thrashing, crying, calling for parents. Lyra fought like a star going supernova. She burned through one net. Then another. Then a third wrapped around her arms and legs, glowing brighter as it drained her power.
"DAD!" she screamed. The sound of her voice tore something open inside me.
Orion broke free of my grip. I barely had time to shout his name. He planted his feet, eyes blazing, not glowing, burning and screamed. Not in fear. In rage. The air behind him ruptured.
Spirit animals erupted into existence, Not small ones. Not gentle ones. Massive spectral lions burst forth, roaring loud enough to shake leaves from the canopy. A pack of wolves followed sleek, translucent, eyes blazing silver. Huge silverback gorillas charged their loud menacing growls promising violence, above them, great winged shapes screamed into the sky, tearing drones apart in midair.
Collectors fired. The animals did not bleed. They tore through armor, snapped weapons in half, crushed drones into scrap. Orion stood at the center of it all, hands shaking violently as he commanded. "STOP THEM!" The lions slammed into collector squads bodies flung like dolls.
Wolves dragged soldiers screaming into the undergrowth. The silverback gorillas displayed a breathtaking display of violence as they snapped necks and ripped limbs.
A spirit horse formed beneath Orion's feet without him realizing it, carrying him forward at impossible speed as he chased Lyra's rising form. "ORION, STOP!" I shouted. He couldn't hear me.
He was crying and killing. The Echo howled. I felt every life blink out sharp, sudden silences in the fabric of existence. Each one hit Orion like a hammer. He screamed again, blood trickling from his nose. The spirit animals began to distort their light growing jagged, feral.
Jinx appeared beside me, eyes wide with horror. "He's losing control!" "I KNOW!" Orion reached upward, toward the aircraft. The lion leapt impossibly high, claws sinking into the hull. For a moment, just a moment, hope surged. Then the sky darkened.
A massive HelixCorp gunship descended, its hull etched with sigils and tech far beyond the others. A deep booming pulse radiated outward. Every spirit animal froze. Then shattered. Light exploded into fragments. Orion collapsed mid-run, hitting the ground hard.
The lions and silverbacks dissolved with roars that sounded like grief itself. The wolves vanished into sparks. The sky-forms screamed once then nothing.
Lyra was pulled into the gunship's open bay, her face streaked with tears and fury. Her eyes met mine. I reached for her with everything I was… The Echo. My body. My soul. Too far. The bay doors slammed shut. The aircraft rose.
The remaining collectors withdrew with brutal efficiency. They were gone within seconds. Leaving silence. Smoke. Bodies and screaming parents.
Orion lay curled in the dirt, shaking violently.
I knelt beside him, pulling him into my arms.
"I tried," he sobbed. "Dad, I tried… I hurt them… I couldn't stop…"
His voice broke into something animal.
"I killed them. I felt it."
I held him as his spirit flickered uncontrollably around us.
"You were trying to save your sister," I whispered. "That matters."
His eyes were hollow.
"She's gone."
Lyra was gone.
A dozen children gone.
The Echo around us was scarred — gaps where bright threads had been ripped away.
Jinx stood nearby, blood on his hands that wasn't his.
"They didn't just take them," he said quietly. "They marked us."
Mara approached, her face carved from stone.
"This cannot continue."
I looked at the sky — at the direction the gunship vanished.
"No," I said, voice low and steady despite the storm inside me.
"It can't."
Inside my chest, something aligned.
Grief sharpened into purpose.
And somewhere far away, deep beneath the world, something ancient and hateful stirred — drawn by death, light, and fear.
Ulgrath'Ma was coming.
And for the first time…
I knew how we might use that.