San Marino was quiet in the early morning—too quiet for a world that had survived gods, monsters, and wars it barely understood.
Jessica stood on the edge of the old stone wall overlooking the city, the wind tugging at her jacket. From here, the streets looked peaceful: narrow roads, old buildings, people starting their day as if nothing had ever tried to end everything.
Her hands flexed unconsciously.
A faint, translucent shimmer formed around her fingers—an instinctive response. She dismissed it with a breath.
She didn't need a shield right now.
Jessica's power had always been defensive, at least in theory. She could create any kind of barrier she imagined—solid, layered, curved, invisible, reflective. Energy shields, physical walls, pressure domes. If she could picture it, she could make it.
But over time, she'd learned something uncomfortable.
A shield could be a weapon.
She lifted her arm slightly. A small, razor-edged barrier flickered into existence near her wrist, spinning once before dissolving. Compact. Precise. Deadly if she let it be.
That was the part she hated.
Jessica wasn't a warrior by nature. She didn't enjoy fighting. She didn't seek conflict. And yet, the Black Serpents had found her anyway—because of the Keystone, because power always drew attention.
And because standing still was never an option.
Down below, a child laughed. A café opened its doors. Life continued.
None of them knew how many nights Jessica had spent awake, projecting silent barriers around entire streets—thin enough not to be noticed, strong enough to stop things that should never exist.
She didn't tell the government everything. She didn't tell anyone how close San Marino had come to disaster.
She told herself it was better that way.
Her communicator buzzed softly at her side.
No emergency alert. No global crisis.
Just a message she hadn't answered in days.
Varisa.
Jessica stared at the name for a moment, then closed her eyes.
Varisa had chosen movement. Action. Teams. Big Hero 6. A future that didn't involve waiting for the next attack in the same place.
Jessica had chosen to stay.
Someone had to.
The air shifted.
Jessica felt it before she saw it—a subtle pressure change, like the atmosphere itself holding its breath.
She turned sharply.
A barrier snapped into place around her without conscious thought, a curved shield of pale light forming just as something invisible struck it. The impact rippled across the surface like water.
Jessica slid back half a step, boots scraping stone.
"Show yourself," she said calmly.
Another hit—harder this time. The shield held.
Whatever it was, it wasn't brute force. It was testing her. Measuring.
Jessica exhaled and changed tactics.
Her barrier split, unfolding outward into overlapping hexagonal planes, expanding her coverage while thinning each layer. At the same time, she formed three compact shields behind her shoulder—small, dense, and sharp-edged.
They hovered, waiting.
"Last warning," she said.
The pressure vanished.
Then—movement.
A distortion flickered near the rooftops across the street, like heat haze in winter. Jessica released one of the small shields. It shot forward with surgical precision, slicing through empty air—
—and struck something solid.
A grunt echoed. A figure stumbled into visibility, tumbling backward before catching itself.
Human-shaped. Hooded. Tech-enhanced, maybe. Not Serpent. Not alien.
Someone new.
Jessica didn't advance.
Instead, she widened her stance and raised a full dome barrier, enclosing the space between them.
"Who sent you?" she asked.
The figure laughed quietly. Nervous. Not confident.
"No one," the stranger said. "That's the problem."
Jessica felt a chill that had nothing to do with the wind.
This wasn't an invasion.
This wasn't a war.
This was someone watching from the cracks left behind after one.
Jessica tightened her control, reinforcing the dome just enough to remind the intruder that escape wouldn't be easy—but not enough to provoke panic.
She was done reacting blindly.
"If you're here for the Keystone," she said, "you're already too late."
The figure tilted their head.
"We're not here for what you have," they replied. "We're here for what you can do."
Jessica's jaw tightened.
She'd heard that before.
And every time, it meant the same thing.
Trouble was coming—not loud, not cosmic, not world-ending.
Just close. Personal. And impossible to ignore.