The scene erupted in chaos.
The dome's core chamber fractured as the anomaly flared to life, its form still incomplete, shifting like oil over broken glass. Screams echoed through frequencies Leon didn't know he could hear, and the walls bent under the weight of the presence pressing in from beyond reality.
"Form the line!" Echo barked. "Protect the core!"
Shapes burst from the twisting sphere, angular, flickering beings that weren't entirely solid. They moved like they were lagging behind time, each step snapping forward with violence. Clawed limbs, searing white eyes, jagged mouths that opened and closed in stutters.
Aros roared and launched forward, becoming a wall of kinetic energy. His fists met the first wave, sending two anomalies crashing into the far wall, limbs dissolving into static. Cael's drones swarmed overhead, dropping flashes of arc-light that disrupted the creatures' cohesion.
Kestra slid into cover beside Leon and threw him a low-grade pulse blade. "You hold it like this, pointy end toward the monsters."
Leon barely caught the hilt. "Right. Great."
One of the anomalies lunged at them, an erratic blur of limbs and screech. Kestra fired, the shot piercing its center. It didn't fall.
Leon's instincts took over. He stepped forward, no thought, only movement, and slashed. The blade tore through with surprising ease, like cutting through thin mist. The creature shattered into red-black fragments that vanished mid-air.
He blinked, heart hammering. "I actually hit it?"
"Don't celebrate," Kestra growled. "They don't die normal."
Across the chamber, Echo moved with surgical grace. Her weapon, an energy spear, sliced through the chaos. Each motion left behind a shimmer of afterimage, as if time respected her more than anyone else. "Cael, I need eyes!"
"I'm working on it!" Cael called, fingers flying across a wrist interface. "Their signature is unstable. Every time I get a lock, they scatter across the spectrum."
"Then stabilize them," Echo snapped.
Cael muttered something about needing a miracle.
Meanwhile, Vex, silent and ghost-like, perched high in the scaffolding. His sniper rounds lanced down in pulses of violet light, punching holes in the fabric of reality itself. Every shot was a surgical strike. Every kill precise.
Ryn knelt beside a wounded Halden, his hands glowing green as he sealed a gash in the man's side. "We need to contain the breach! The longer it stays open…"
"…the worse they get," Echo finished.
The anomaly pulsed again, sending a concussive shockwave that knocked Leon and Kestra back. Leon skidded across the floor, gasping. When he looked up, the breach had changed. The twisted sphere now showed images. Flashes of other places. Other worlds. A city burning under black suns. A battlefield littered with crystal bones. And for a moment… Earth.
Leon froze. He saw the subway station. The moment before he was pulled into Orion. The distortion in the glass. The crackle in the lights.
That was the breach.
The realization hit him like cold water. "It wasn't random. It was reaching for me."
The anomaly knew him.
And then it spoke, not in words, but in understanding. A pulse of meaning into his mind:
You are the fracture. The vessel. The key.
Leon clutched his head, staggering. "It's in my head!"
Echo was beside him in an instant, her eyes fierce. "Leon, listen to me. You're resonating with it. That's how it found you."
"Then how do we stop it?"
She didn't answer. Instead, she reached for his arm and pressed a device into his palm. "Focus. Feed your will into it. Let the world respond."
Leon stared at the device, a small crystalline shard embedded in a metal brace. It vibrated gently against his skin.
"Now!" she shouted.
He focused.
Something opened.
A deep hum surged through his chest. The shard glowed, then exploded in radiant white light. The resonance shot outward, destabilizing the anomaly's structure. The creatures faltered, some collapsing into sparks.
Echo and the others pushed forward, seizing the moment.
Aros drove his gauntlet into the breach's base. Cael activated a tether grid. Kestra laid down suppressive fire. Ryn amplified Leon's field with a wave of healing resonance that stitched him back together mid-fight.
Together, Unit Valiant broke the anomaly.
With one final surge of light and sound, the core collapsed, imploding into a singularity the size of a coin. It dropped to the floor, smoking, inert.
Silence fell.
Only their breaths and the soft whine of overtaxed gear remained.
Leon stood in the center, the shard still glowing in his hand.
"...Is it over?" he asked.
Echo exhaled. "For now."
Later
Back at Fort Veridion, the decontamination and triage went quickly. The team moved like clockwork, but the mood was heavy, no deaths, but the breach's message had shaken them.
Leon sat in a darkened debrief room when the door opened.
Commander Thorne stepped in.
This time, he didn't wear his armor. Just the sleek black uniform of command. But the gravity he carried didn't lessen.
"Sit up straight, Rivera."
Leon complied.
Thorne studied him in silence for a moment, then activated the holographic table in the room. A projection of Orion spun slowly above them.
"Orientation," Thorne said. "You've earned it."
The star map rotated, revealing a vast system of planets, moons, and artificial stations.
"You're on Orion 17," Thorne began. "One of six primary convergence points in a network built long before our records began. This planet sits at the intersection of two universal folds: one, the physical cosmos, what you'd call space. The other is Aether, raw, living energy."
Leon leaned forward.
"Those who live here are born with resonance potential. We train to wield that energy through discipline and symbiosis with the system."
He gestured, and glowing lines formed over the map, currents of energy threading between worlds.
"However, breaches happen. Places where the veil between worlds thins. That's where they come through."
Leon nodded. "The anomalies."
"They're not just creatures. They're concepts. Failed echoes of possible worlds trying to stabilize by devouring reality."
Thorne changed the display, showing images of units, cities, and combat divisions.
"Division 10, your new home, is tasked with identifying, containing, and eliminating these incursions. Our unit, Valiant, is the spearhead. We don't just fight anomalies. We learn from them. We adapt."
He tapped the table.
"One by one: Aros, our enforcer. Barrier breaker. Blunt instrument with a brain."
A 3D hologram of Aros appeared, fists raised.
"Cael. Engineer, scout, wild card. If it sparks, explodes, or thinks too hard, it's his doing."
Cael's model winked and sparked.
"Kestra. Recon, sharpshooter. Intelligence and instincts. She's survived more breach zones than any other operative alive."
Leon smiled faintly. "She's scary."
"She's precise," Thorne corrected.
"Ryn. Medic and field stabilizer. His abilities allow him to repair both people and the integrity of local Aether fields."
"Vex," Thorne said next. "Sniper. Doesn't speak unless needed. Every bullet counts."
"Halden. Logistics. Makes sure everything we do can actually happen. Unseen, but vital."
Leon nodded. "And Echo?"
Thorne hesitated.
"She is… unique. She channels more energy than most conduits. Her lineage ties back to the original founders of the Orion network. Her instincts are rarely wrong."
"And me?" Leon asked.
"You're something new," Thorne said. "Your arrival was not logged by the gates. You weren't transported by accident. You were translated. That means the system reacted to you, intentionally or not."
Leon frowned. "So I'm an anomaly?"
"No," Thorne said. "You're an answer."
He paused, then added: "Echo believes you're here because something's coming. A disruption large enough that the system pulled you across realities to act as a stabilizer. You have potential. But potential doesn't save lives."
Leon nodded. "Then train me."
Thorne tilted his head. "You don't need to ask. You're already enlisted."
A soft chime signaled the start of the next cycle.
"Orientation ends here," Thorne said. "Echo will take over from this point."
As Leon stood, Echo entered the chamber, nodding to Thorne before turning to him.
"You did good," she said. "But that was the easy part."
Leon raised a brow. "The easy part?"
Echo grinned faintly. "Surviving. Now you have to learn what it means to live here."
She walked past him, then glanced over her shoulder.
"Welcome to Orion, Leon."
Somewhere deep in the void, a breach stirred once more.
And it knew his name.