The dead village lay shrouded in a thick, heavy mist, shrouding broken ruins and twisted trees like a veil of oblivion. It was as if time had stood still there, as if the land had been cursed to live eternally in silence. No bird calls, no rustle of leaves. Only the muffled murmur of the wind dragging between the ancient buildings. The humidity penetrated to the bone, mingling the smell of wet earth with the faint stench of decay escaping from the basement.
Inside the village's largest house, partially collapsed, Elysian moved with surgical precision. Every gesture, every step, was studied. Drones emerged from the hidden compartments of his overcoat like an extension of his own body, flying like silent insects, buzzing in organized patterns. They scanned, cleaned, and rebuilt. Cracks in the walls disappeared beneath living black resin. Broken windows were replaced by transparent panels that reacted to the movement of energy. Holograms floated from the floor and walls, painting the house in shades of blue and green with graphs, data, and encrypted signals.
"Alternative neural network stabilization complete," Elysian murmured, not taking her eyes off the screens. "Underground signal pickup: thirty percent. Still insufficient for in-depth analysis."
Echo watched everything from a reconstructed window ledge, her legs dangling over the edge. Her lilac eyes followed the mist with an expression of boredom mixed with unease. She whistled a nameless tune, the sweet sound contrasting with the gloomy atmosphere.
"You know it's scary, right?" she said suddenly, without looking away from the mist. "Rebuilding an entire house in eleven minutes... without breaking a sweat. Doesn't that scare you into becoming a real machine?"
Elysian didn't answer immediately. She continued manipulating the holograms with her fingers wrapped in metal gauntlets. "No more than you being able to track heartbeats from a mile away, in terms of frightening abilities, we're about even." She finally replied dryly.
"Slovil." She turned her head, smiling at the corner of her mouth. "But you know what scares and intrigues me even more?" They both fell silent. "The way you treat Phina." Elysian stopped typing. Her fingers hung in midair for a moment. That was all. Then she returned to her work without comment.
"You get... weird around her," Echo continued, pulling her knees up and hugging her legs. "Seriously, Ely. You talk to her differently. With all of us, you seem like a lab AI, except for Avelar, of course. But with her, you seem... like a human trying to hide their feelings."
"Echo..." Elysian murmured, trying to silence her, but Echo continued. "I mean, you were the one who called her to the Remnants, right? You yourself. The great Elysian, who doesn't talk to anyone, personally went after the chaotic redhead with the bright eyes. Don't tell me that was just strategy. Because, look... it seems more like—"
"Shut up," he grumbled, showing that she was bothering him. "No, no. Listen to me. You two are like... the perfect definition of a doomsday couple. She's the spark, you're the abyss. Seraphina and Elysian. I already named her: Elyphina. You should thank me. It's a great ship name."
Elysian turned slowly, her face impassive, but her eyes, cold, piercing, bored into her with an intensity that would chill even the hottest air. "I said... shut up."
But Echo just held up her hands, as if accepting the challenge. She had that provocative smile on her face. The one she used when she wanted to dig deep.
"Come on, Ely. Everyone notices. The way you analyze everything... except her. The way your voice changes. How you get irritated when people call you unstable. It's kind of sweet. Kind of tragic. You guys should hold hands and watch the end of the world together, cuddled together. I bet she feels the same way. She trusts you. Too much. It's obvious you two—"
"BANG!" The sound of a pistol shot cut through the air like a blade. It was so fast that Echo only realized it when she felt the hot sting graze her cheek. The bullet grazed her, opening a thin, deep gash. Blood flowed immediately.
Elysian still held the pistol tightly, her arm outstretched, her eyes ablaze with suppressed mortality. "I TOLD YOU TO SHUT THE FUCK UP." The silence was absolute.
Echo didn't move for a few seconds. Her smile had faded. She slowly raised her hand to her cheek, touching the dripping blood. For the first time in a long time, her eyes were wide, empty of mockery. She said nothing. Not even a weak joke escaped.
"Okay…" she murmured, her voice much lower. "Okay. That went too far. Sorry. I was just… joking."
Elysian lowered the gun slowly, never taking her eyes off her. Her expression returned to its usual neutrality, but something in the air indicated the tension hadn't yet dissipated. Echo, for her part, remained silent for several long minutes. She wiped the blood away with the back of her hand and flinched slightly, hesitant for the first time.
It wasn't easy to make her back down. But in that moment, she understood that Elysian did have limits. And that crossing them wasn't just dangerous. It was deadly.
Some time later, as if to bury the incident, she stood up and placed her palms on the ground, taking a deep breath.
"I found something," she said, her voice lower than usual. "Ground rupture. Seven hundred meters to the north. Hidden structure, underground base. The vibration returned... distorted. Something absorbed part of it."
Elysian merely nodded. She activated a hologram that synchronized with Echo's readings and revealed a metallic structure hidden underground, with signs of sonic absorption coating and piezoresistive material.
"No passwords," Echo added, slowly returning to her previous tone. "No visible traps. Either they were overconfident... or they're all dead. Or both."
She glanced at him sideways. For a second, she considered making another joke, but held back. Not out of fear—she wasn't the type of person to fear those close to her—but out of respect. A strange, new respect. "Shall we go on foot or glamour?"
"Portal. No trace," he replied, still focused on the hologram. Echo snapped his fingers. A circle of vibrational energy began to spin before them. The portal trembled slightly, wavering from atmospheric interference. "This fog will still mess with my dimensional calibration. If we show up naked in the middle of New York, it's your fault."
"If that happens, you're the one who asked for it. Fog like this won't bother you at all, now concentrate," Elysian ordered. She obeyed him silently. A rare silence for her.
The portal swallowed them in the blink of an eye, and the fog was replaced by another scene: a dark, scorched hillside covered in dead trees and hardened soil. The smell of burning ozone and old rust permeated the air.
Elysian activated his eye mask. "Opening just ahead. Temperature below average. Confirm your detection." They advanced in silence. The tension between them lingered, no longer like a thread about to snap, but like an uncomfortable veil neither dared to break.
The vegetation gave way to a rock covered in roots and moss, and soon they found the entrance, a metal door encrusted with dirt and rust. The panel beside it was ancient, analog.
"Too easy," Elysian commented, connecting a metal cylinder. The panel glowed red for a second, then emitted a sharp sound and unlocked.
The door creaked, revealing a dark, stuffy corridor, the smell of mold and old oil escaping like a sigh from the past.
Echo took a deep breath. "Ah... the smell of dead ideology. It reminds me of you." Elysian didn't respond. They both walked through the door and disappeared into the darkness of the base.
The door closed behind them with a muffled metallic thud, sealing them inside the hidden base. The corridor ahead was narrow and gloomy, the metal walls covered in moss and traces of water infiltration. The air was thick, heavy, laden with damp and ancient rust. A faint, constant hissing filled the silence, perhaps from still-live cables or the structure itself struggling to remain standing.
Elysian walked ahead, her steps measured and silent. The activated eye mask projected a spectrum of thermal variations, mapping the curves of the environment. Echo walked close behind, more restrained than usual. The cut on her cheek still hurt, throbbing beneath the skin like a recent memory. But it wasn't just the physical pain that bothered her; it was the atmosphere between them.
The base seemed to be dormant, like a beast hidden underground, waiting to be awakened. Bioluminescent fungi dimly illuminated the corners of the walls, casting a greenish glow over the path. Old pipes dripped. The occasional exposed wire sparkled at the ceiling joints.
"Everything's... rotten in here," Echo murmured, breaking the silence with a low voice. "Seriously, if this were a place in my heart, it would be your emotional side, Ely. Damp, silent, and abandoned." Elysian didn't respond. She kept walking, without even looking back.
"Are you still mad at me?" she tried, a little softer, yet cautious. "It was just a joke. Okay... a bad joke. But you know how I am. We tease each other. You're all... closed off. I'm the escape valve. There has to be balance."
"You crossed a line," he replied finally, without pausing. "And it wasn't because of the joke. It was because of what you tried to insinuate." Echo took a step closer, aligning herself with him. "About Phina?"
"About using her as a joke to destabilize me," he murmured, still with that cold, deadly look. She was silent for a few moments.
"I didn't mean to, Ely," he said sincerely. "I like her. And I like you too, as much as you irritate me. I just... I thought it would be funny to see you react to something. You live with the look of someone who's already dead inside. But when I mentioned her, your eyes... twitched."
Elysian paused for a second and turned abruptly. "You want me to care about this? To explain myself to you? We're not friends, Echo. We're not confidants. We're operatives. Agents of a cause. And that's exactly what we're going to keep."
She raised an eyebrow. "You can deny it, Ely. You can even hide behind logic and efficiency. But even a sociopath like you feels something. Even if it's just anger."
Elysian arched an annoyed brow and replied, "I don't. And you don't understand."
"I understand more than you know," she murmured, resuming her walk. "But unlike you, I don't try to erase everything I feel like a virus in the system."
Elysian then looked at her with a repressed expression and corrected her. "AND WHO SAID I ERASED MY MEMORIES?! I KEEP RUNNING OVER THEM ALL NIGHT, UNDERSTAND?... That way I can keep them ingrained in my brain every day."
Echo was shocked and then couldn't say anything else. They both remained silent for several minutes, advancing through corridors that branched off into narrow, rickety paths. Broken doors revealed empty rooms, old equipment, cracked monitors, and scraps of documents scattered across the floor. It seemed as if everything there had been hastily evacuated, as if the occupants had fled from something, or someone.
Suddenly, Elysian stopped and raised her hand. Echo froze instantly, her vibrational senses picking up the same as he did: footsteps. Three pairs. Heavy, rhythmic. And then, muffled but audible voices.
"We need to beef up security. The last data packet was leaked due to human error," said an authoritative male voice. "Command is furious. And Cinder Knight... he's even worse."
Echo closed her eyes for a moment. That voice, that name, that tone. Cinder Knight. A name that carried a shadow. A symbol of the rot behind the Heroes' Alliance facade.
She whispered to Elysian, "This is the same one... from Vasquez's report, isn't it?"
"Yes," Elysian replied, retreating back into the shadows of the metal pipes. "The same one who provided the Initiative with data on our movements. The link between the clandestine labs and the corrupt heroes. An institutional manipulator."
Three figures approached in the corridor ahead. Two soldiers wore the standard Alliance tactical uniform, light but effective armor with blue and silver accents. The third was impossible to miss, a full suit of platinum armor, designed with noble, elegant lines. His helmet covered his entire face, but his eyes, bright as liquid silver, gleamed behind the visor. Cinder Knight. Hero Rank 57th.
He walked with a straight, proud posture, but his fists clenched. Frustrated. Angry. On his chest, the Alliance emblem, already almost a hypocritical symbol, seemed to mock everything the Remnants denounced.
Suddenly, he stopped in the middle of the corridor. His silver eyes glowed brighter. His body went still. "I feel something," he said softly. "An EVP oscillation. Faint. But unnatural."
Elysian immediately held her breath and closed all her internal meridians. Echo did the same, activating her vibrational dome that silenced her heartbeat and any resonant pulse. For a moment, the two became ghosts, static, invisible even to the most advanced sensors.
One of the soldiers approached the console nearby. "Probably interference from the old equipment in this base. The systems were never reliable."
Cinder Knight stood there for a few more seconds. Her eyes swiveled slowly, as if scanning the environment around her. Then she took a slight step back and muttered, "Perhaps... but I want a new scan. Today. I don't trust faulty sensors."
"Yes, sir," the other soldier replied. The three figures continued down the corridor, disappearing around the bend ahead. As soon as silence returned, Elysian moved, subtle as a shadow. From the hidden pocket of her overcoat, she withdrew small drones the size of grains of rice. With deft movements, she inserted each one into the cracks in the wall, between cables and panels.
"Thermal camouflage surveillance cameras. Disguised as bioluminescent fungal colonies. Low signal output, but sufficient for constant monitoring." Echo, recovering some of her humor, observed curiously. "Lethal little spies. I bet they explode."
Elysian, positioning the drones, replied calmly. "They explode with directional precision if detected. Yes." She smiled, murmuring. "Ah, now yes. Our Elysian's personal touch." He ignored the comment and positioned the last drone. "We're done here. We need to leave before the sweep begins."
Echo nodded, realizing that staying there any longer would be dangerous. "Back to the village base?" Elysian replied calmly after arranging everything. "Yes. Silent portal. No expansive vibration."
With his hands moving, Echo opened a new portal in the shadows, this time smaller and more contained. The energy rings spun silently, and they both stepped through.
Back in the village, the air felt lighter. Echo dropped the vibrational shield and threw himself onto the sofa with an exaggerated sigh. "Phew... fresh air. Or less rotten. That's progress."
Elysian was already typing frantically on the holographic screens, transferring the captured data to an encrypted Remnant server. Echo watched him, throwing his legs over the backrest. "Don't you ever get tired of being the brains behind everything?"
"No," Elysian replied dryly and calmly. "Or being a robot?" she added. "No," Elysian replied with a cold, empty look. She smiled, but her tone was lighter. "Even with all this chaos... I still enjoy being in the field with you, Ely."
He didn't answer right away. When he did, his voice was cold, but not quite cutting. "You still irritate more than you help." She chuckled and turned away. "And you only function properly when you're irritated." A comfortable, yet tense, silence settled between them.
On the screen in front of Elysian, images appeared, Cinder Knight holding documents. Encoded data. Initiative seals. Clandestine bases. Dark connections. This was just beginning.