I took a breath and flexed my fingers, doing everything I could to calm myself. Or at least to steady myself. I wasn't scared, not exactly. Maybe a little. But mostly, I was just bracing myself.

  You don't go through a war against machines and monsters and come out with blind faith in glowing ravens that speak in riddles.

  Still, it was GamaGen. If you were going to bet on something weird, he was it.

  "Alright," I said, standing tall. "Let's proceed. I trust you."

  I did. More than I wanted to admit out loud. My voice came out even, which was a small miracle. I'd take it, given what had already transpired. We were going to get Diantha and little Denji back.

  GamaGen looked at me, those silver eyes all storm and mystery, then unfurled his wings and muttered, "Forgive me, Lord Abeion."

  The chant began again, low and rhythmic. It was the same language fluency he still hadn't gotten around to teaching me.

  Before I could ask what Abeion was supposed to forgive, the air shifted.

  Symbols spun through the air like they were being written mid-sentence and then forgotten. I recognized some of them—old rebel glyphs, the kind we used to tag safehouses—but most weren't human at all.

  They hummed with the kind of power that frays your thoughts if you stare too long. My sigil lit up on my head, pulsing with the same ghost-light and it felt like burning firecrackers between my brows. I winced, biting down on the inside of my cheek to stay grounded.

  Then came the pull as light wrapped around me. I braced myself.

  Goodness, I hated the pull. It wasn't like falling, or drowning, or anything poetic.

  It was just wrong. Like being yanked backward through your own skin, or like someone tried to delete you but the program glitched. I felt myself come apart in little pieces, similar to when a memory goes fuzzy and you know you're forgetting something important.

  I tried to resist, but resistance was pointless. My whole body felt like it was unraveling. Then the light was gone.

  "I've done my part, KiAera," GamaGen's voice rang out. "The rest is up to you."

  Of course it was. And just like that, I wasn't there anymore.

  Wherever I was, it wasn't the real world. It wasn't even close. Somehow, I knew I was inside my own mind—though what part of me thought wandering around my own psyche during a magical transition was a good idea, I'll never know.

  The place looked like a surrealist painting come to life: fractured skies, ground that bent inward, colors that shouldn't have existed. Geometry had just stopped trying.

  And floating in the middle of it all—because of course it was floating—was a massive crystal.

  It glowed from the inside, lit up in soft blues and dangerous reds, and when I got closer, I saw her—me. My human body. Suspended inside it like some sleeping beauty.

  I didn't get it. How the hell could my body be here? I mean, logically I knew it wasn't my body-body. That had been left behind when the space station collapsed. But seeing it there, so still, like a butterfly in amber—it did something to my chest. I felt hollow. And the longer I stood there, the worse it got. Like the place itself was trying to erase me. One pixel at a time.

  And that was my hand—finger-tips first.

  I moved. Fast. Before any serious damage could've been done.

  I lifted my hand—paw, technically—and pressed it against the crystal's surface.

  The second I made contact, it was like someone detonated a sun. Light swallowed everything, fierce and blinding, burning away thought, time, maybe even pain. And then… it all went calm.

  I was lying in a sun-drenched forest clearing, warmth brushing against my face, grass cool beneath my fingers. Fingers. I bolted upright and stared at my hands.

  Human. Skin and nails. No claws, no fur, no twisted talon of a curse clinging to my form. My chest tightened.

  "Am I back? Is this… real?"

  I gave my status a quick look.

  ???

  [Status] KiAera's

  Age: 50 Cycles (25)

  Species: Human-Merecrit

  Dominions: [Revise] [Virtuoso]

  APeX: [55,980 Units]

  Power Limit Cap (APeX): [168,750 Units]

  Attributes: [Fire] [Beast]

  Evolution Stage: [Emergent]

  Current Variant Grade: [Uncommon] (51%)

  The tale has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the violation.

  ???

  Then a voice. Familiar. So painfully familiar it hurt.

  "This is what you want, isn't it?"

  I turned, and there she was.

  Emma. My goodness. Emma.

  She stood there like nothing had changed—except everything had. Her eyes were still that deep hazel I remembered, gentle and sharp all at once. But her arm remained metal, gleaming under her cloak—told the real story. She'd kept fighting after I left. Just like she always did.

  "Emma…" I barely breathed it. My voice cracked. "I didn't think I'd see you again."

  She smiled, stepping closer, the way she always did when I doubted myself. Her voice was low, steady, full of warmth. "You've come so far, Aera."

  "I have," I said, though the words came out like a confession. A small smile tugged at my lips. "I didn't think I would."

  "And you didn't lose yourself. Even when the world begged you to," she said, brushing my shoulder with her prosthetic hand, and winked. "That earned you a medal."

  That hit harder than it should have. Because there were nights when I really did feel like I'd lost myself. Replaced piece by piece with someone angrier, sharper, colder. But hearing it from her? It made it real.

  "I try," I said softly. "I really do. But sometimes the that world feels... fake. Off. Like I woke up in someone else's nightmare."

  "I know. But you're not alone, not anymore. You have people now. Let them in, Aera. You don't have to carry this alone."

  The tears came, hot and unrelenting. I didn't fight them.

  "I'll try," I promised. "I will. For you."

  The clearing started to blur, edges fraying like an old photograph. Emma's form began to shimmer, fading with the wind, light catching in the cracks of her illusion.

  "You're stronger than you know, Aera," she said, her voice now only a whisper. "Trust in that strength. You'll be alright."

  And then she shattered—gone in a storm of soft, flickering light. The clearing dissolved with her. Everything started folding inward, collapsing into black. A suffocating dark, thick like smoke, swallowed me whole. But deep inside, her words burned like a beacon.

  I wasn't done yet.

  Not by a long shot.

  Whatever peace I'd felt in the clearing had been snatched away like a dropped match in the wind. Now, I stood beneath a roiling, bruised sky, staring across a lifeless expanse of ash and bone-dry earth. A distant forest loomed ahead—dark and warped, like it had clawed its way out of a nightmare. Its trees weren't trees at all, not really. They looked too still. Too sharp. Like they were watching me right back.

  I pulled my coat tighter around me and took one cautious step forward. Then the rain began.

  It wasn't normal rain. Not the kind that slicks your hair and smells like petrichor. No, this rain shimmered, and each drop a prismatic flicker of unnatural purple. Not quite liquid, not quite light.

  As it hit the ground, the soil hissed, steaming like it had been insulted. I reached out and caught a droplet on the back of my hand.

  It was cold. Not ice-cold—wrong-cold.

  My instincts flared. I shifted my weight, glanced to my left, and something moved.

  For half a breath, I saw it—really saw it: a mass of tentacles, shadows woven into something enormous, impossibly silent, impossibly close. Its form bent the air around it, rippling the edges of my reality like heat over asphalt. Eyes—or something like eyes—glinted across its surface. And then, in a blink, it vanished.

  Gone. Like it had never been there at all.

  I stood frozen, hand still outstretched, heart pounding. "Nope," I muttered aloud, exhaling through my nose. "Definitely imagined that."

  Didn't I?

  I kept walking, forcing my body to move even as my thoughts whirled. My boots crunched over glassy gravel, each step sending up tiny clouds of shiny dust. The whole place reeked of danger disguised as beauty. Like a flower blooming in a nuclear zone.

  The forest crept closer with every step. No wind stirred its branches—if they were branches. No animal sounds, either. Just the quiet hiss of that strange rain and the thrum of my own heartbeat. The deeper I stared into it, the more I felt the weight behind its silence. Like it was waiting.

  But waiting for what?

  A gust of cold, sour wind swept through the wasteland, tugging my hair into my face. I paused, shielding my eyes, and that's when it hit me—someone was watching.

  Not a feeling. I didn't mean that metaphorically either. I knew it. The way you know when someone's reading your texts over your shoulder.

  Something intelligent. Patient. Familiar with the game of fear.

  I scanned the horizon. Nothing. Not even a shift in the shadows.

  Still, the weight on my spine wouldn't lift. Whatever had been out there earlier, whether real or imagined, it hadn't left. It was just better at hiding than I was at looking.

  Great.

  I exhaled slowly, grounding myself. I'd been through worse. I'd fought through broken cities, walked minefields laced with reality-warping hexes, and watched people I loved fall to things I still couldn't name. This? This was just a new flavor of the same damn fight.

  My eyes flicked back to the forest. My gut twisted.

  I knew the exit had to be close. The Rite had rules—even if they were unwritten. Rites always had rules. GamaGen hadn't sent me into this madness for fun—there was purpose buried in this nightmare.

  And every instinct I had screamed that the answer was in that forest.

  Which meant I shouldn't go in.

  Not if I had a choice.

  I turned slightly, scanning the land to either side. No alternate paths. No ruined bridges, no ancient doors. Just me, the bleeding sky, the hissing rain, and that forest like a throat waiting to swallow me.

  I didn't like it. But I didn't run from things just because they scared me.

  Still, I hesitated.

  "Maybe I'll circle around it. Give myself time to think."

  But even as I said it, I knew I wasn't buying my own excuse.

  I started walking again, skirting the edge of the forest at a cautious distance, trying not to look too long into its twisted depths. Behind me, unseen, something shifted. And the watching never stopped.

  I didn't make it ten steps before the forest stopped pretending.

  One of the not-trees shifted.

  Just slightly. Enough to let me know it had bones. Not metaphorical ones. Actual structure underneath all that bark-and-shadow disguise.

  My fight instincts readied in alarm. I steadied my breath. More like the breath you hold when you're trying not to step on a landmine.

  I didn't slow down though. Slowing down was how you got cataloged. I kept walking the perimeter, boots crunching through the dirt-glass underfoot, blue coat dragging slightly in the wind.

  Something snapped behind me. I didn't flinch. That was the trick—act like the noise meant nothing. Like it was expected. Like you're the one being watched because you chose to be.

  But my fingers flexed, ready. My left shoulder ached from where the old rifle strap used to sit, like it missed the weight. I did too, honestly.

  I glanced sideways. The forest just sat there, all hush and menace and angles that wouldn't exist in any sane ecosystem. I could almost hear it breathing. The kind of silence you only find before something ancient decides you're worth the effort.

  I resumed walking.

  Still no exit.

  I hated this part. The middle of a Rite, when the rules stop being metaphors and start being weapons. When the magic forgets it was ever interested in poetry and starts chewing with its teeth.

  But then came the light.

  Not much. Just a flicker. Low and amber, pulsing through the tree line like someone messing with a switch, slow and steady. It wasn't there a moment ago. Definitely hadn't been when I scanned the edge.

  Which meant it was new.

  Which meant it wanted me to see it.

  Which meant I had a choice: go toward the obvious trap or keep circling the edge like a coward with too much common sense.

  I stopped walking. Rolled my neck until it cracked.

  Then I made the worst choice.

  I turned toward the light.