The request was a sterile thing, a few lines of formatted text on a public archive terminal. Application for Convoy Escort Duty, EN-7 to EN-3. Designation: Long-Haul. Risk Assessment: High. It looked mundane, just another piece of the Enclave's vast, grinding bureaucracy. But to Kael, it felt like a confession. A suicide note. A prayer.
He stood beside Maya in the humming silence of the archives, the air thick with the smell of hot plastek and forgotten data. Her weight was mostly on her good leg, a subtle, constant lean that spoke more loudly than any words about the price they had already paid. They'd spent hours here, navigating the digital labyrinth of the Enclave's logistics, finding this one, single thread leading west. This one impossible chance.
"It's done," he murmured, his finger hovering over the 'Submit' contact on the screen. His own Aethel signature, a unique identifier no different from a serial number, was required to finalize it. Once he touched it, the request would be routed, flagged, and almost certainly denied.
"They'll laugh at it," Maya said, her voice a low counterpoint to the server hum. She wasn't being pessimistic; it was a simple statement of fact. "Two provisional Users with one real mission under their belts. One of us crippled, the other... a ghost. We don't have the seniority. We don't have the clearance."
"We have the debrief," Kael countered, though the words felt thin even to him. "We survived four Tier-2 Stalkers. No one's done that. They have to see the value in our methods." He was a technician trying to sell a new, untested piece of hardware. He just hoped the buyer wouldn't ask to see the burnt-out components from the last test run.
He pressed his finger to the screen. A flicker of his own Flow, a spark of Aethel energy, and the request was gone, swallowed by the machine. Now, they could only wait for the rejection.
The summons came three hours later. Not a polite message on a datapad. It was a grizzled Defense Force officer, his armor scarred from a hundred patrols in the Scar, appearing at the door of their barracks in storage bay C-4.
"Jax wants you," the man grunted, his eyes lingering on them with a mixture of curiosity and disdain. "The Forge. Now."
The walk felt like a death march. The Forge was Jax's domain, a place of pain and brutal honesty. It was where he broke things—and people—down to their essential parts. Kael felt the three warring instincts coiling in his gut: the Hound's urge to meet the threat head-on, the Scuttler's chittering panic to find a crack to hide in, and the Stalker's cold, patient desire to simply un-exist. He pushed them all down, the mental effort a familiar, nauseating strain. He was the zookeeper, and the beasts were rattling their cages.
Jax was waiting for them in the center of the vast, empty chamber. He wasn't in his armor, just simple grey fatigues that made him look less like a monolith and more like a mountain crag—older, harder, and just as unmovable. He didn't speak as they approached, his gaze a physical weight.
He held a data slate in his hand. Their request.
"This is a joke, right?" Jax's voice was a low rasp, a sound of stone grinding on stone. It wasn't a question. "The long-haul convoy to Enclave 3. That's a veteran assignment. It's for Users who've seen a dozen T-2s and lived to file the report. It's for teams that have worked together for years, not… this." He gestured vaguely at the two of them, a collection of broken pieces.
"We're qualified," Kael said, his voice steadier than he felt. He had rehearsed this. It was a diagnostic report.
Jax let out a short, harsh bark of a laugh. "Qualified? Kid, you survived one encounter that should have turned you both into a fine red mist. That doesn't make you qualified. That makes you a statistical anomaly. A fluke. Why this run? Why Enclave 3?"
His eyes, chips of cold obsidian, bored into Kael. He knew. Jax didn't know the specifics, the slate, the Sunken City, but he knew this wasn't what it seemed. A veteran mentor could smell a lie the way a Hound could smell prey.
"Our skills are uniquely suited for long-range reconnaissance in unknown territory," Maya said, her voice quiet but firm. It drew Jax's attention, giving Kael a moment to breathe. "Kael's sensory abilities combined with my Glimmer Moth Echo allow for unparalleled stealth. The convoy's primary risk is ambush. We are the countermeasure to that risk."
It was a good argument, logical and clean. It was also a complete misdirection.
"Your abilities got your leg broken," Jax shot back, his gaze snapping back to Maya. "And his 'abilities' involved a trick I still don't understand and you've both refused to explain." He tossed the data slate onto a nearby workbench with a sharp clatter. "I'm not an idiot. You want something out there. The official history of the Fall is a lie. You know it. I know you know it. And you think you'll find the truth on a supply run."
The accusation hung in the air, cold and sharp as a shard of crystal. Kael's heart hammered. This was it. The end of the road.
"Show me," Jax commanded, his voice dropping. "Show me this 'synthesis' you stumbled into. Not a story. Not a report. Show me the trick that broke a Phase Stalker. Right here. Right now."
It wasn't a request. It was a final exam.
Kael met Maya's eyes. He saw the flicker of fear, but beneath it, the same steady resolve that had held her together on a pile of rubble while monsters circled below. She gave him a single, almost imperceptible nod. We do this together.
Kael turned to face Jax. He took a breath, finding his Core, that quiet, steady hum of his own life force. He built the walls in his mind, caging the Hound, caging the Scuttler. Then he reached for the Stalker's cold, silent potential.
The world didn't just go quiet. It became a blueprint. He saw the stress fractures in the concrete floor, the faint heat signature of Jax's body, the low, powerful thrum of the veteran's Aethel Frame. He felt the heavy, dead steel of the workbench a few feet away.
He lifted a hand. He didn't channel force. He didn't project anger. He sent a command, a quiet instruction to the universe. This part of me… does not exist here.
It was like stepping into ice water. A dizzying, nauseating sense of dissociation. For a half-second, his hand flickered, becoming a translucent, ghostly thing. Then, with a grunt of immense mental effort, he stabilized it. He reached out and pushed his hand, his solid, physical-seeming hand, directly into the thick plasteel top of the workbench.
There was no sound. No impact. No displacement of matter. His arm simply… sank into it, up to the elbow, as if the bench were nothing more than a hologram. The metal around the point of entry didn't warp or glow. It was just… gone, replaced by the impossible presence of his own flesh and bone.
He held it for five seconds, sweat beading on his forehead, his entire Frame screaming in protest at the violation of physics. He could feel the dense, packed molecules of the workbench, not as a solid, but as a concept he was temporarily ignoring. Then, with the same smooth, silent motion, he pulled his arm back out.
The workbench was untouched. Unscarred. Solid.
Kael stumbled, gasping, the world rushing back in with a roar. The strain was immense, a deep, soul-crushing exhaustion.
Jax was silent. He walked over to the workbench and ran a hand over its surface, as if expecting it to be an illusion. He tapped it with his knuckles. The sound was a dull, solid thud. He looked at his own hand, then back at Kael. For the first time since Kael had met him, the veteran's grim, impassive mask had cracked. Beneath it was a look of profound, unadulterated shock. And something else. A flicker of cold, hard, tactical hunger. The look of a general who had just been shown a weapon that could make walls irrelevant.
He was silent for a long, long time. The only sound was Kael's ragged breathing.
"The convoy's lead scout is a man named Ryker," Jax said finally, his voice a low, gravelly rumble. He had made a decision. "He's ex-Enclave 3 Defense Force. Old school. He'll hate you on principle." He picked up the data slate, his expression once more unreadable. "You're assigned to his recon team. You'll be his eyes and ears. Nothing more. You will follow his orders without question. You see something you can't handle, you run. You breathe a word of… this…" he gestured to Kael's still-trembling hand, "…to anyone, and I will personally drag you back here and put you in a hole so deep you'll forget the sky exists."
He held out the slate. It was no longer a request. It was an assignment order.
"Don't make me regret this, kid," Jax said, his voice a cold warning. "I'm betting a long shot. Don't disappoint me."
Kael took the slate. It felt heavier than a gravestone. He had won. He had his path west. And he had the terrifying feeling that he had just made a promise to a devil, and the first payment was due.