Well, hell no I am not going into that gate.
Without a second thought, I slung the Prism over my shoulder and started for the container path, boots splashing through rainwater, "Ignore that. We are leaving."
Kael didn't move. He was staring at the empty air where the courier had been, where the briefcase had folded in on itself like it had never existed. Only the shimmer from the card in his fist proved otherwise. It throbbed faintly, pulsing with each beat as if it were alive.
"Leaving?" His grin was faint, strained at the edges. "What do you think it is in it, Vyn? When we are one step into the swamp."
I didn't slow, "Then we don't give them the chance. We're not walking into some out-of-nowhere hole just because your cursed coupon's hungry."
The air behind us shifted. The world's breath being pulled through a thin seam, itching to cut whatever in between. My HUD flickered in warning:
[UNAUTHORIZED ENTRY—PENDING]
[ACCESS: FORCED]
[POINT DRAIN: ACTIVE]
Another fifty chaos points bled off me in real time. My gut clenched.
Kael chuckled softly. He shrugged off without a care and held the card with triumph. "Looks like it's already decided."
I spun on him, "Then drop the card."
He held it up between two fingers. Rain traced its edges but didn't touch the shimmer inside. "You think it'll just stop if I let go? This thing's not asking for anyone's permission."
The pier creaked. The air around the containers warped, shadows bending at angles that shouldn't exist. A crack ran down the length of the dock, and yes, in the overlay itself, splitting the System's interface like shattered glass.
Amaya's voice tore through comms, panicked and raw.
"Vyn, Kael. Stop moving. Do you hear me? I don't know the heck is happening there, but we can do both."
Kael tilted his head, eyes narrowing at the fracture spreading across reality. He glanced at the matte card in his hand, rain dripping off his wrist. Silence stretched, filled with drizzle that fogged the view.
I tightened my grip on the Prism, even though I knew a bullet meant nothing here. My instincts, my rationality screamed run, but the gate didn't care. The world was bending, dragging, like a tide pulling at my bones.
"Kael," I muttered, throat dry. "We have to do both. In and out of the gate... alive and, preferably in full pieces."
He chuckled, shook his head, exhaled sharply, then looked past me with that ridiculous grin, "Sorry about getting hooked, Vyn. At least the wings made it.."
I turned, and sure enough, some poor delivery drone was trundling through the mist, box steaming with garlic and barbeque. At a heartbeat, all I could do was sigh and wonder why fate decided so, if everything was laid before written.
The electricity in the area went out. Low hue of the crack widened, spilling through like molten glass. A gate remains still, with my points continuing to drain, more than I had, but surged back from a transfer.
"Amaya, was it your points?" I whispered low to the comms, looking at Kael tore open the box, wings in hand, grinning like a kid at a festival.
Static hissed, her voice breaking. "…Don't worry about me. Just don't let it take you whole."
Kael gnawed on a garlic wing, grease dripping down his fingers like none of this mattered. The crack pulsed behind him, widening with each heartbeat.
I crouched near the split, Prism resting against my knee, and extended a shard from it, just close enough to feel the air. It cracked. The space ahead felt thin, slick, like pressing against a membrane stretched to tearing. The drizzle didn't pass through; it slid sideways, vanishing into the fracture like water on oiled glass.
[Side Mission 22:]
[Chaos Potential: Excellent]
[Observation Rate: 23%]
My HUD spat static, then stuttered alive. New readouts blinked, half-formed:
[ENVIRONMENT: UNMAPPED]
[OBSERVATION RATE: 23%—22%—21%]
[CAUTION: EXPOSURE UNSAFE]
"Bad idea," I muttered. The shard burst into pieces when pulled back.
Kael licked sauce off his thumb, grinning wide. "Bad idea's the only kind that works often, partner."
"It was a good try, I managed to collect some data when the shards's in it," Amaya sounded cheerful when the mechanical noise on the other side got louder.
Kael was still laughing around a chicken wing when the shimmer in his pocket suddenly whined. A keening sound that goes loud and static, shaking the pier's metals.
The gate ahead of us shuddered, collapsed in on itself like glass imploding in reverse.
"What the—" For one heartbeat, I thought we were free.
Then the deck groaned beneath us.
The pier split open under our boots. The glow wasn't in front of us anymore. It was underneath.
Kael stumbled, wings scattering into the rain. "Oh, come on!"
He whooped. Of course he did.
The world tilted, sucking down. My HUD lost all footing, numbers free-falling across the overlay. Of course, this was too sudden. If the System wanted us gone, it wouldn't leave a margin of error. Which meant this wasn't all System. I highly doubt that the card had any sense or responsibility for all of these.
Amaya's voice clawed through static in my ear. "V—listen—don't just fall. Catch something. Anchor your trace, I'm losing both of yo—"
Her urgency hit harder than Kael's laughter. My body reacted before my thoughts lined up. I slammed the Prism's buttstock into the pier, spiking it through fractured light. The coil bit into raw whatever near like a nail pinning paper.
The pull yanked my stomach into my throat. Kael vanished first, dragged down in a smear of rain and glow. Wings scattered after him, white boxes vanishing into the glow. My grip slid. The Prism's glass spirals screamed, fracturing.
My mind tore through inventory. I caught the slack that kept Norse's head on the edge of my sight. Fingers snapped a shard loose from the Prism and drove it clean through the bindings. The shard flared, wire-thin threads of light spooling out like a spider's anchor line.
The shard split into pieces the moment it kissed the surface, locking onto the bag's stench till it jerked, nearly ripped from its straps yet still held. The Norse head inside shifted, a muffled clunk like old bone protesting its fate.
I looked once more at the city. With cranes dripping, neon stuttering, Amaya's voice breaking into raw silence. Then the anchor tore loose, but not before my HUD spat one last scrap:
[ENTRY—LOGGED]
Caught the barest flash of the bag vanishing into the glow with me.
Then nothing but the fall. Hah.