Rain poured from a sky striped in neon, streaking the skyline in violet and blue. The downpour softened nothing. In fact, it only seemed to enhance the lights—the brilliant shimmer of holograms that wrapped around skyscrapers like living snakes, the shimmering roads reflecting reds, golds, greens, all dancing with the rhythm of a never-ending festival.
Down below, at the heart of the alien megapolis, roads twisted like roots across the megastructure surface. Old names like "cars" had long vanished. They were now called Casetras—hovermobiles that glided silently on antigrav lanes. Larger units, like the G-Cytras, carried goods or military drones. Everything glowed. Everything moved.
The air shimmered with soft humming energy, alive with joy, drunkenness, indulgence.
And yet, above it all, towering in solemn silence at the city's very core, was the Central Tower. A jagged monument of white stone and polished glass that cut through the clouds like a dagger.
At its pinnacle, shielded in a glimmering manor layered in glass petals and gold-trimmed vines, stood the princess.
She hadn't aged in centuries.
Not visibly.
Her skin, smooth and pale with a soft glow beneath, remained untouched by time. Her eyes—violet, deep, once full of wonder—now bore something colder. Wiser. Heavier.
She stood alone, a thin robe clinging to her like silk in the breeze from the open glass archways. Rain traced rivulets down the clear panels. She didn't flinch from it. Instead, she stared out over the city.
Below, the aliens partied.
Six-eyed beasts laughed as their tendrils danced to music from floating speaker-drones. Bird-like humanoids flickered in and out of hologram raves. Even humans, the few who had earned citizenship, mingled in celebration.
A coronation was coming.
A new high governor was about to be named.
Another tool for the Empire.
She didn't smile.
A servant passed behind her in silence, and the only sound was the soft drip of water against metal rails.
She pressed one palm to the glass.
"So much noise," she whispered. "And still, no freedom."
Meanwhile—far below, at the edge of the Central Wall that separated the elite from the lower zones...
The rain had turned the gravel paths into quiet rivers. Mist clung to the reinforced steel wall, its height casting an oppressive shadow even amid the dancing lights beyond.
They moved like ghosts.
Black-cloaked figures darted across the alley, hunched low, sticking to the puddle-slicked wall. No words were exchanged. Every hand signal was rehearsed. Every footstep was placed with calculated discipline.
Three shapes broke off to the left.
They approached one of the towering Alien Sentinels—six meters tall, armored like obsidian statues, standing idle beside a service gate. Their reptilian faces were hidden behind heavy silver helms that pulsed with scanning light.
The rebels circled.
They moved like shadows.
One approached from behind—leaping up with a grapple blade, clamping onto the alien's upper back. Another ducked under the guard's left arm, wedging a sonic spike against the torso. The third—a small woman with blood-red warpaint under her hood—shoved a vial of pressurized nerve gas into the ventilation node on the armor's hip.
The entire takedown lasted five seconds.
The Sentinel let out a low, choking groan before collapsing with a heavy thud into the mud.
Rain covered the sound.
And it wasn't the only one.
Across the wall perimeter, other alien guards were falling the same way—three-to-one, swift, brutal, coordinated. In total silence. No screams. No resistance.
Just black shapes in the rain, one after the other.
The rebellion had arrived.
From the northeast ridge of the Central Wall, overlooking the city, a figure stood atop a narrow ledge, his black cape billowing in the storm.
He stood motionless, back straight, boots planted on soaked steel. His face was pale white, almost ghostlike, with veins like silver etching across his temples. His hair was once golden, now faded like parchment under flame—almost gray, almost gone, but not weak. Never weak.
Floch Freemaker.
Leader of the Night Echoes. The one who would break the Empire from the inside.
He looked down at the glowing world of indulgence and obedience. All this decadence, bought with centuries of blood—Earth's blood. And none of it mattered to him.
He lifted one gloved hand.
"All units, confirm silent clear on east gate," he said softly into the mic embedded in his collar.
A series of silent green lights blinked on his HUD visor in response.
Then another voice—female, harsh, urgent: "Wall charge is planted. Final sequence active. You have twenty seconds, sir."
Floch gave a quiet nod.
He turned, staring once more at the Central Tower—where he knew the princess stood, high above the city, veiled in loneliness and ancient sorrow.
He had seen her once. A decades ago. She hadn't aged. He still remembered the sadness in her eyes.
But now... she was just a symbol.
A symbol he was going to shatter.
He turned his head to the demolitionist crouched behind a terminal panel beside him.
"Detonate."
The sound came first as a pulse, low and rising.
Then—
BOOM.
The eastern wall exploded inward, not in fire but in blinding blue plasma. The explosion vaporized the steel beams, launching shrapnel and smoke into the air. The force rocked the nearby towers. A deafening crack rolled across the Central World like thunder from the gods.
Crowds screamed.
The Casetra lanes shut down, alarms echoing through the street grids.
Above, from the manor tower, the princess snapped her head toward the smoke plume spiraling into the sky.
Her hand trembled.
Not from fear.
From recognition.
"They're here," she whispered.
Below, amid the fire and chaos, Floch stepped through the breach like a wraith reborn.
Behind him, dozens of rebels in blackout armor poured through the ruins, weapons raised but not yet firing. They were not here for random blood.
They were here for something far more dangerous.
A symbol.
A message.
Floch raised his fist in the air and roared, voice amplified through his suit:
"WE ARE THE HAND THAT WILL TEAR DOWN YOUR TOWERS!"
"WE ARE EARTH!"
"AND WE HAVE COME HOME!"
---
Back to the Wasteland
The wind had long since stopped bothering Aren. After three days out in the wastes, he had become part of the silence.
Dust clung to his cloak, the fabric faded and threadbare at the edges. Cracks lined his lips. A single half-loaf of bread sat in a compartment on his belt—torn into thirds. He had eaten two bites each day. Maybe three today. Maybe not.
Hunger had become familiar, like a dull ache you stopped noticing. He'd known it as a child, and now it followed him like a shadow he no longer feared.
The Cytra hummed beneath him, rattling from exhaustion. The engine was old—taken by theft, forced to endure long desert stretches it was never meant for. Still, it flew on, hovering inches off the sand, scattering the pale dunes as it weaved between skeletal ruins.
"Fuel reserves at 18%," BP beeped beside him, its voice slightly static-ridden after the rainstorms of day two.
"I know," Aren muttered.
"You also require caloric intake."
Aren allowed himself a smirk. "You're not my mother, BP."
"I am programmed to keep you alive. That includes nutritional reminders." *Remind you that Aren can understand BP.
"Thanks," Aren said, tearing off a crumb of bread and tossing it into his mouth. He barely chewed. It had long since gone dry.
The two of them rode across a narrow ridge, the horizon shifting from broken cities into empty, sun-blasted wilderness. Somewhere behind him, beyond the cracked valleys and the Empire's long reach, lay the survivor camp. Erina. Kamaro's rule. The tent.
He hadn't been back.
He couldn't afford to be.
The Empire's "employment" unit was due— in three weeks since he left. To stop it.
Or to be stopped himself.
He shook the thought away.
Just keep moving. Just survive. Just find something.
And then...
Something shimmered on the horizon.
A mirage, maybe. Another trick of heat and desperation. But no—this had weight, a structure. A real object sitting half-buried in the sand.
Aren narrowed his eyes. The Cytra descended, dust kicking up as the vehicle settled. BP unfolded a small lens from its chassis, scanning the object.
"High alloy density. Structural degradation... 84%. This is—"
"A Flytra," Aren finished, breath catching.
It was massive.
Even after centuries of decay, the alien spacecraft towered over them—tilted on its side like a fallen beast. Its wings were swept back like razors, its hull pitted and scorched from re-entry. It looked almost insectoid, covered in overlapping plates that had once shimmered violet-blue, now rusted into slate and ash.
"From the first wave," Aren said. "When they arrived."
BP hovered closer showing status. "Abandoned likely during the first retreat. Bio signatures: zero. Power core: offline. But... systems show partial integrity. Survivable zone detected."
Aren stepped forward slowly. His boots sank into the sand with each step.
"We're not alone out here," he said quietly.
BP paused as if he said "You believe Legion is near?"
Aren nodded. "This deep into the wilds? If there's shelter, there's Legion."
The Legion
In the forgotten parts of Earth, where civilization had rotted and nature twisted into something cruel, the Legion ruled.
They were not mere animals. They were evolutions gone mad. Monsters shaped by time, war, and bio-weapons released during the earliest battles of resistance. Each region birthed its own breed—adapted, perfected, and terrifying.
In the wastelands, they came in four main forms:
Giant Centipedes, with chitinous armor and eyes that glowed blue in the dark, burrowed beneath the sand to strike with brutal speed.
Giant Scorpios, spiked and barbed, capable of leaping twice their own length, often found near dry riverbeds and broken cities.
Dry Serpents, slithering titans that hunted using vibration and could wrap entire wrecks in their coil-like bodies.
And the worst of them: Duboks—canine in shape but feline in movement, with razor claws, pitch-black fur, and intelligence beyond normal predators. Some survivors claimed they could mimic sound, even voice. No one who saw more than one lived to confirm it.
Aren had seen the marks before. Deep claw trails. Mounds. Bloodless bones.
The Legion didn't eat.
They eliminated.
He kept a hand near his pipe weapon as he stepped toward the wreck.
"Eyes open, BP. No mistakes."
BP flashed a red acknowledgment light. "Affirmative."
Inside the Flytra
The entrance was halfway buried, so Aren climbed up through a jagged tear in the lower hull, squeezing through broken supports and twisted beams. Dust rained down as he moved deeper inside.
It was cold.
Colder than it should have been.
The interior of the Flytra was vast—at least the size of a terraced home, with layers of decks and corridors spiraling around a hollow core. Alien pods, half-open, lined the walls like empty insect cocoons. Some still held fragments of gear, others dripped oil or leaked strange liquids onto the floor.
The ship moaned.
Somewhere above them, the wind had caught the wreck in just the right way to make it sing like a dying whale.
BP floated beside him, light scanning in a constant circle.
"Atmospheric analysis: stable. Radiation levels below threshold. Safe for continued exploration."
Aren ran a hand along the wall. "It's like time forgot this place."
He reached a control panel and tapped a few buttons. They sparked—then went dark again.
"No power."
He moved to another console and brushed off the dust. Alien symbols glowed faintly, then dimmed.
"Not salvageable," BP reported. "However, scanning energy residue... weapon locker nearby."
Aren's pulse spiked.
They followed the inner corridor, passing through a chamber where alien murals were etched along the walls—images of stars, conquests, perhaps even maps. It was hard to tell.
In the next chamber, something lay half-buried under debris.
Aren stepped closer, then dropped to one knee.
A blade.
Sleek. Curved. Black metal hilt fused with an energy emitter core. The blade itself was shattered—only half the plasma conduit remained, and the crystal chamber was cracked.
Still, it hummed faintly when he touched it.
"A plasma blade," he breathed. "It's real."
He turned to BP, eyes wide. "Is it fixable?"
BP scanned. "Component degradation: 67%. Crystal fracture: severe. However... modular construction suggests compatibility with modern hybrid cores. With proper parts, repair may be possible."
"Can you do it?"
"With time," BP replied. "And access to a fabrication bench."
Aren turned the broken blade in his hands. Even damaged, it felt powerful. Weighted.
"I'll take it," he muttered. "Maybe this will make a difference."
They sat in the dim glow of the blade's cracked core for a moment, listening to the silence.
Only the wind outside, and the creaks of the ship.
Aren didn't speak for a while. He thought of Erina. Of Kamaro. Of the Empire's black ships descending. He thought of the rebels, wherever they were—if they were still alive.
He thought of the future.
Then, slowly, he stood.
"Let's search the rest of the Flytra. We're not done yet."
BP floated ahead.
And in the dark belly of an alien ghost, hope sparked again.
The desert night was bitter cold, but Aren welcomed it.
Inside the belly of the broken Flytra, his small camp was barely more than a cleared floor and a dull yellow lamp flickering in the corner. The wind howled through cracks in the hull, whispering secrets of the world that used to be. The ship groaned every so often, metal expanding or shifting with the temperature drop.
But no Legion came.
Not yet.
And for now, that was enough.
Aren sat cross-legged against a bent beam, sorting through the few relics he had gathered. A cracked wrist-screen with Empire glyphs still glowing faintly. A small solar crystal. Two antique metal coins with human faces, now worth more as decoration than history.
He muttered to himself, calculating as he moved each piece into a pouch.
"Three hundred for the screen… six for the coins, maybe… two hundred for the crystal…" He paused, eyes narrowing. "One of the batteries still holds charge. Could push this haul to around two thousand Stellar."
Not enough to buy their way out.
But closer.
Excluding the plasma blade, which he wrapped carefully in cloth and tucked away inside his satchel. That was more than just value—it was a weapon. A relic of resistance. Something he might need to fight his way out when the time came.
"Beep," BP chimed softly beside him.
Aren looked over. The little droid sat with its lights dimmed, its dome-like head rotating slightly as it scanned the shadows. Ever-vigilant. Even after days without proper rest.
Aren smiled faintly. "Don't worry. No fire tonight. Don't want to invite bandits."
BP let out a low, quiet peeb, the sound like a sigh.
"Yeah," Aren agreed, laying his head back against the cold metal. "I'm tired too."
He flicked off the lamp.
For a moment, the world was swallowed in dark.
Then—
A gentle light spilled in through a gap in the hull above. Moonlight. And starlight.
The shattered top deck of the Flytra gave a perfect view of the open sky. There were no cities here, no Empire towers to pollute the stars. It was all clear. Raw. Eternal.
Aren stared up.
There they were—thousands of stars, blinking like tiny eyes in the void. Galaxies stretched like rivers of mist across the heavens.
And then—
A flash.
A star streaked across the black.
Aren blinked. "A shooting star…"
"Beep?" BP tilted upward, curious.
He smiled.
"In the old world," he began quietly, "people used to make wishes when they saw shooting stars. They thought it was lucky."
BP made a questioning chime.
"I know," Aren said, amused. "It's dumb. Just rocks burning in the atmosphere. But they believed it. Back before the invasions. Before the Empire."
Another star fell.
Then another.
They painted trails of silver across the sky.
"I read it in a relic book once. Said that when people saw those lights... they'd close their eyes and make a wish. Anything they wanted—love, peace, food, family. Sometimes they wished for someone far away to come home."
"Peeb," BP chimed again. This time, softer.
"I don't know if it works," Aren said. "But…"
He trailed off.
BP didn't press.
Aren looked back at the stars. Then, after a moment, he closed his eyes.
He wished.
He didn't say it out loud. But he saw it clearly in his mind:
> A small home, quiet and warm, nestled under the remains of an old wind turbine.
A garden patch.
A clean bed.
A table with real food—steamed bread, golden rice, warm soup with meat, sweet fruit slices on a plate.
BP charging in the corner, lights blinking peacefully.
And Erina, laughing at something dumb Aren said. Her hair tied back with a ribbon. Her eyes no longer afraid.
The Empire, far behind them.
No alarms. No patrols. No jobs. Just... quiet.
A life.
He opened his eyes.
BP was still watching the stars.
Aren reached over and gently tapped the top of the droid's dome.
"Make a wish too, BP."
"Peeb?" it chirped.
"Yeah. Why not? No rules say machines can't wish."
BP blinked, lights pulsing, and after a moment let out a very faint "Beeep…"
Aren chuckled. "Good."
---
Time passed slowly.
He laid his cloak over himself like a blanket. The cold metal beneath him was no comfort, but the silence was. Out in the open, where the Legion roamed, they might have been hunted, but in here, for now, they were safe.
The rain from the storm days ago had left moisture inside the wreck, collecting in corners and echoing in tiny drips. Occasionally, the metal groaned as if remembering pain. But otherwise, there was only the stars. Only the breathing of the dark.
Then—
A sound.
Aren froze.
His hand went to his blade hilt.
BP retracted its lights in an instant, spinning toward the entrance.
But the sound didn't come from outside.
It was inside.
A slow settling, maybe. Or…
A scraping.
No.
Just a pipe rolling from the deck above. Dislodged by wind.
Aren exhaled.
Not Legion.
Not yet.
He didn't fully relax, but he let the tension soften in his shoulders.
"Still with me?" he whispered to BP.
"Peeb," it replied confidently.
He smiled.
"You know... I was just a kid when everything changed. When the Bright Light Empire came."
He shifted, watching a new star blaze across the sky.
"Erina was a baby. Barely born. Mom was gone by then. Dad too. I raised her best I could. Took care of her. Protected her."
He fell silent.
BP didn't respond. But it stayed close.
"I don't want this life for her. Waking up scared. Counting crumbs. Hiding from patrols. We should be in a school, not stealing relics. She should be laughing, not hiding under blankets whenever a ship passes overhead."
His voice trembled—only for a second.
"She deserves more. You do too."
BP nudged his arm gently with its body.
Aren wiped at his eyes quickly. "Damn dust."
They lay there a while longer.
The stars above seemed closer than ever.
---
Hours passed.
Eventually, Aren's breathing slowed. He pulled his cloak tighter, eyes heavy.
BP remained active, watching.
In the distance, far across the dunes, something howled. Not human. Not quite animal either.
Dubok.
BP let out a low warning beep.
Aren didn't wake—but his hand moved reflexively toward his holster even in sleep.
BP remained perfectly still, listening. Then dimmed its core light completely, cloaking them in true darkness.
The Dubok's howl faded.
It did not come closer.
They were safe. For now.
---
And as the night wore on, beneath stars that remembered a better world, a boy, a droid, and a blade rested inside the skeleton of a war machine.
Waiting. Dreaming. Surviving.