[FLASHBACK]
In the land of Kareth, every child knew the day would come.
It was spoken of in lullabies, cited in murals on temple walls, and whispered in trembling tones by those who had seen what failure looked like. At the tender age of ten, each child was called into the Groove of Souls, a sacred place said to be the heart of the world itself. There, they would face the Trial of Taming. There, their beast would come.
In Kareth, strength did not come from bloodline, birthright, or even training; it came from the beast you tamed.
These beasts were no mere animals. Known as Serena, they were spirit creatures born from the very essence of a child's soul, wild, dangerous, and unique to each person. They mirrored the darkness, the light, the rage, the fear, and the hidden dreams of their would-be tamer. Some children bonded with soaring flame birds, some with serpents made of lightning, others with silent shadow wolves or beasts of stone and root.
But not everyone succeeded.
The rite was not a ceremony; it was a battle. You tamed your beast, or it devoured your mind, soul, or body.
Twelve children stood in a circle, dressed in white robes, their bare feet touching the moss- grown earth. Among them was Athan, a complex minded boy with a sense of mission in the world, he held a secret too deep for his age, an awareness picked right from three years. Unlike the others, he was not excited. He was afraid of the mission he would have to undertake.
The wind whispered through the sacred grove, carrying the scent of wildflowers and distant storms. A stone obelisk rose from the center, glowing faintly blue with the energy of a thousand past bondings. One by one, the children were called by name. One by one, they stepped forward, vanished into light, and were taken into the spirit realm for their trial.
"Athan of the Windhollow," the priest intoned at last.
Athan's legs felt like reeds in a storm. He took a breath, stepped forward, and the world disappeared in a wash of silver flame.
---
When he opened his eyes, he stood in a world that looked like a dream gone wrong.
The sky was cracked like glass, bleeding colors no human tongue could name. The ground was a shifting blend of sand, ash, and bone. Athan knew this place from the stories: the Mirror Wild—a realm shaped by the soul of the one who entered. It was his inner world laid bare.
And then he heard it—a snarl.
It came from the darkness, low and guttural. Athan turned slowly and saw it emerge.
The beast was massive. Its body was formed of twisted obsidian and flame, eyes glowing with violet fury. Horns curled back from its skull, and its breath melted the ground. It was not like the others he had seen or heard described.
This was not a flamebird or a shadowcat. This was a Wrathbeast—a creature whispered in ancient myths, born only from those whose souls were broken or burning.
And yet, Athan did not run.
He remembered the words of his grandmother, long before she passed. "The beast is not your enemy, child. It is you. If you flee from it, you will be fleeing from yourself forever."
The Wrathbeast lunged.
Athan barely rolled away, the claws tearing a crater where he had stood. He scrambled back, chest heaving. The beast roared, shaking the very air. But Athan didn't draw a weapon—there was none to draw. You faced the beast with only your voice, your will, your truth.
"I'm not afraid of you," Athan shouted.
The Wrathbeast stopped.
A lie. It could sense the lie.
Athan fell to his knees. "I am afraid," he said, breathless. "Afraid of the pain. Of the things I've done. Of the rage that burns in me all the time. But I won't run from it anymore."
The Fury beast tilted its head.
"I know what you are," Athan whispered. "You're me. The part I buried when my father died. When the raiders came. When I wanted to scream and burn everything, but didn't. You are my fire. My fury. My strength."
The Fury beast stepped closer, no longer growling.
His past flashed in his mind as he sat, thinking of how to capture the Triarchs, to win in his mission, he had to remember the past, what he had inside of him to lead this mission. He had almost seen himself as a mere human trying to endanger himself by fighting what was greater than him.
Just suddenly, he recalled he had a beast inside of him to which he had forgotten.
From his past, his foresight switched mode, going straight into the future.
[FUTURE, YEAR 2037]
They came like falling stars—burning through Earth's atmosphere in trails of violet fire. The first impact shook every major continent. Within hours, power grids failed, skies darkened, and communication with satellites vanished. They weren't just the third set of aliens to invade the earth.
They were Lythrons—engineered weapons of chaos, bred in the voids of a dead galaxy and sent to Earth for one purpose: destruction.
And humans were completely unprepared, they were already focused on the previous species thinking no other one would come. They were trying to fight the Zaryans and the Triarchs when this species dropped from space seeking to reclaim the Earth.
The year is 2037. Earth is fractured. Governments have collapsed. Survivors live in ruins or underground bunkers, hunted by the Lythrons—titanic, bio-mechanical beasts with minds linked by a hive-like psychic network. They don't eat. They don't sleep. They hunt anything with a pulse.
But not all hope is lost.
Dr. Athan Riven, a former xenobiologist turned resistance leader, now 30 years old, discovers something impossible: a wounded Lythron pup, separated from the hive. Weak, confused and curious. Against orders, Athan traps it, studies it, and eventually makes a breakthrough.
The creature responds to emotion.
Not commands. Not force. But raw, unfiltered human emotion. At least, with this, they were different.
Over weeks, Athan uses empathy, music, and memory-sharing neural technology to communicate with the young Lythron, naming it Solis. Against all odds, Solis begins to protect Athan and his team from other Lythrons, even fighting its own kind.
The experiment becomes a mission: if one Lythron can be tamed, maybe more can be turned.
The resistance launches Operation Rebirth. A select group of handlers known as Tamers are trained to connect with Lythrons through neural sync. Each Tamer is matched with a Lythron pup, trying to overwrite its destructive programming with human will.
But the Hive Queen, an ancient Lythron who ceased communication on Earth in an abandoned moon ship, detects the changes. She adapts. Sends more evolved versions, Alpha Lythrons, to crush the defectors.
Athan realizes time is running out.
To tame the Lythrons, they must reach the Queen and overwrite the source code at its core.
But that means going into orbit, into her domain.
With Solis leading the charge, Athan and the Tamers board a stolen alien transport and blast into space. The Queen's ship is a living nightmare of shifting walls and anti-gravity traps. The final battle isn't fought with weapons alone but with minds clashing in the psychic realm.
Athan faces the Queen in a mental duel, his memories versus hers, love versus destruction, choice versus programming. With Solis sacrificing itself to bridge the connection, Athan seizes control of the Queen's neural core and rewrites it.
The Lythrons stop.
Earth is silent.
If this mission is successful, the time frame given would only be a year and humanity would begin to rebuild. Tamed Lythrons would walk beside humans, helping transform ruined lands and guard cities against the other Alien species already inhabitant on Earth. They would not just be weapons anymore, they would be partners to fight the destructive aliens on Earth.
Athan realized he can't do it all alone with only human assistance. He wanted to use the Zaryans but their power seemed to be far behind the formidable Triarchs.
He visits a monument in Solis' honor. His voice cracks.
"They came to destroy us but we gave them something they never expected—a reason to choose something else."