Setting: Ruins of Echo Base, outskirts of Neo-City
POV: Arin (the reckless one)
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The sky was bleeding.
Flashes of violet lightning split the clouds, revealing silhouettes of twisted towers in the distance. Ash fell like snow, coating the earth in silent decay.
Arin stepped onto the broken steel of the Echo Base ruins, his boots crunching glass and rust. His synthetic arm whirred, scanning the area.
"Clear. For now."
Behind him, Kaela leapt down from a bent support beam. She landed like a whisper, twin sabers humming to life at her sides. Her silver hair, streaked with crimson, danced in the static wind.
She didn't speak, but her eyes swept everything like a soldier born in war.
And last came Riven, wrapped in a cloak of shifting blue nanoweave. No face was visible beneath his hood, only the faint white glow of a core embedded in his chest.
He held up a palm—then pointed ahead.
"Movement," Riven's voice was synthesized, calm and inhuman. "Three signatures. Not human."
"Already?" Arin grinned. "I was hoping we'd get to stretch a bit."
Kaela didn't smile. "Focus, Arin. This isn't training."
From the shadows of the base ruins, creatures emerged—twisted things born from what looked like armor fused with bone, metal wired into their spines. Echo's broken tech, remade into monsters.
Kaela stepped forward, sabers igniting in twin arcs of light.
Riven's fingers extended into plasma threads.
Arin cracked his knuckles—and the synthetic arm unfolded, transforming into a shock gauntlet.
The battle began.
Flashes of light lit the ruins. Roars echoed through the broken halls. Kaela danced like her mother once had—precise, deadly, silent. Arin blasted enemies through walls with one punch and a mad laugh.
But it was Riven who stood eerily still—until one of the creatures lunged and was torn apart mid-air, unraveled by threads of light.
Minutes passed. Then silence returned.
The team stood, breathing hard.
Kaela wiped blood from her cheek. "That's three recon teams gone. We're the only ones left."
Riven turned his head toward the sky. "They're gathering for something. Bigger. Maybe… a summoning."
"A summoning?" Arin raised a brow. "Of what?"
Kaela stared at the dark clouds.
"I don't know. But this all started the moment the legends vanished."
They stood in the shadow of the old Echo tower.
Its door cracked open.
A voice whispered through the static wind:
"They're not gone. Just sleeping."