Her fists came in first, tight, trained strikes. She'd always been sharper up close. I danced backward, dodging, sliding. Threw a low kick, followed by a heel feint . Crack, it caught her side. She winced, backed up.
"You hit much faster now," she muttered.
"maybe you just got slower."
We clashed again. She caught me with a knee and swept my foot mid-spin. I almost hit the floor, but twisted and launched a two-footed mule kick that sent her stumbling back.
And then she changed.
Her eyes went pitch black, glowing golden rings flaring across her irises. Her Crest Mark, shaped like an owl, burned bright on her collarbone. A yellow light staff materialized in her hands, bending like heated glass.
"Still feeling confident?" she asked.
"Depends," I said, raising a brow. "Did your Crest get stronger or just flashier?"
She struck.
The staff arced, light extending mid-swing, barely missing my temple. I ducked under, spinning left, but my foot caught something.
The space near the floor.
It had hardened.
"She's shaping light now?" I whispered.
"Gotcha," she smirked, staff raised.
I dropped my weight back, skidding, and whispered,
"i'll let you keep on believing that."
My irises glowed blue.
From the air beside me, a plasma Echo emerged with a low hum. Josephine flinched, barely dodging its lunge. Her staff shattered it with a swipe.
"Really?" she snapped. "that easy?"
I smiled.
Then three more formed.
"Huey!"
"you know I've always been a guy who goes for quantity over quality" I said, sidestepping
She spun, light flashing as she fought them, quick jabs, sharp blocks. But they surrounded her, relentless.
"Huey, this isn't fair!"
"Neither is life."
Abuelo let out a short scoff.
Then he laughed.
The Echoes dissipated. She stood panting, arms spread, hair a mess.
We both dropped our Crests. The glow faded from our eyes.
Abuelo clapped slowly, like a coach who'd seen two rookies become monsters.
"You've both grown," he said. "Josephine — shaping light into weapons? Formidable. Huey, the sheer number of constructs… unexpected."
I brushed dust from my sleeves.
"To me, they're more for scouting. But if I make enough…"
"lemme guess, they carry," she muttered, wiping sweat from her jaw.
"Power-wise," I shrugged, "you've still got the upper hand. I'm barely Level 1. You're Level 3, with potential to hit 5."
She leaned on her staff, nodding.
"Yeah, but… no one would believe you've only had your Crest for a few months."
That hit different.
My eyes lowered to my glove, the blue tiger emblem still faintly glowing on the leather.
I remembered things I didn't want to.
"Huey," Abuelo said quietly, "how is Atticus"
"the same state I left him in months ago", I said as tilted my head to the sky and let my mind slip into my memories.....
The Cross estate looked the same.
Broad gates. White stone pillars wrapped in faint golden ivy. Motion lights tucked discreetly beneath hedges.
Too clean, still.
I stepped through the foyer with my hands in my pockets, white shirt collar turned up. The marble caught my footsteps with a soft clap-clap like it wanted to remind me how rich this place sounded.
Inside, the lights were warm. Familiar. There were still family photos on the walls, me, my sisters, and brother, everyone younger. My dad hadn't changed anything.
I found him in the kitchen.
The man stood by the counter in his dark green scrubs, sleeves rolled to the forearms, a glass of something amber in his hand.
His face lit up just slightly when he saw me.
"Didn't expect you home this early."
"well I do live here."
"Still allergic to walls, huh?"
"Only when they come with expectations."
He gave a soft chuckle and nodded toward the fridge.
"You eating or just brooding?"
"Thought I'd mix it up."
We didn't hug. We rarely did. But the silence between us wasn't cold. Just old.
I leaned against the counter and pulled out my holo-tab, fingers already swiping through layers of data. Frequencies. Rifts. Reports.
"You're still on that case," he said after a beat. "The one that I'm sure, doesn't even concern you."
"just leave me alone" I murmured, in a hused tone.
His eyes softened, but there was something else beneath it. Worry, maybe.
"Huey…"
I didn't look up.
"Don't. I know what you're going to say."
"Then let me say it."
"Why?"
"Because you're not listening."
He stepped closer, voice quiet.
"You're brilliant. Smarter than I'll ever be. But this path you're chasing… it's dangerous. Too dangerous."
I didn't reply. Just stared at my tablet. The signal graphs were dancing. Something was off near the Goretti district again.
"you're disabled, And this is not an insult, just the reality youre trying to ignore."
I exhaled slowly through my nose.
"You think I don't know that?"
"I think you forget it when you're trying to solve a nearly century old puzzle."
I turned, jaw tight.
"I'm not forgetting. I'm trying to prove it doesn't matter."
"But," he went silent for a minute.
"What If it does"
The air thickened between us.
I slid the holo-tab shut and shoved it into my bag.
"Thanks for the drink."
I didn't give him a chance to respond.
The Goretti Fringe was quiet.
Too quiet.
Buildings sagged from decades of heat. Burned-out drones hung from tangled wires like metal vultures.
Nothing here, just me and the buzz of my interceptor scraping through encrypted frequencies.
I crouched near the cratered wall of a collapsed factory, adjusting the cracked dial.
Something was here.
Slippery, wild, wrong.
"Come on… show me something. Something real."
The scanner ticked.
Then I heard him.
"You dig well."
I turned sharply.
The man was leaning on a steel beam. No footsteps. No warning. Just there.
Mid-forties maybe. Sharp jaw, graying hair slicked back like a film noir villain. All black coat. Black gloves. Dark smile.
"I'm not from around here," I said slowly.
> "Neither am I" he said with a soft Italian lilt. "But at least we both have a reason to be."
"Name?"
"you can call me Raphael." He let know without even having to ask.
"No last name?"
"Do I need one?"
He walked closer, boots crunching ash and dust.
"What does Kaiser want".
He smiled at the name.
"Kaiser, many things. Mostly the expensive ones."
He pulled something from his coat.
It looked like a coin. Glowed like an omen.
He let it drop to the ground.
The thing that rose from it wasn't human.
screamed without sound. A blue plasma shape, jagged, limbless, shifting like liquid heat. An Echoe.
The lowest level of genetic anomalies born from rifts.
The moment it screeched, I bolted.
I leapt over a broken beam, heartbeat rattling in my throat.
Then a voice behind me:
"Huey!"
I whipped around.
Him.
He was panting, eyes wide with fear, and anger.
"You followed me?"
"Of course I followed you!"
"I'm sure you can see it for yourself now, that I was right!!!" I screamed at the top of my voice, emotions between longing for recognition and content.
The Echo shrieked again, leaping toward us like a bullet of light and rage.
"Run!" my father said springing foward
But I didn't. Not fast enough.
It lunged.
And in a blur of motion, he slammed into me, shoving me aside.
We crashed behind a wall. I heard it grunt. Felt the heat.
My vision spun. Blood in my mouth. Dust in my nose.
We stumbled, arms dragging, legs limp. Made it a few feet before the air warped,
Boom.
The blast threw us like paper dolls.
I landed hard.
And saw him slump, chest rising too slow.
"No no no—" I crawled toward him, grabbing his coat, pulling him, dragging.
Another shriek.
The Echo loomed again.
I slumped to the ground myself in defeat.
No strength left.
Just breath.
Fading.
"This is it," I thought. "I killed us."
I closed my eyes.
The light came.
And then,
> "Are you afraid of death?"
Last thing I heard before...
I gasped awake.
Sheets clinging to my chest.
Sweat down my back.
The world was quiet again.
Except for one voice still echoing in my mind.