The sky over Bhutala hung heavy, bruised with storm clouds that refused to break.
What had once been a city now lay still — rusted iron skeletons of towers, concrete split like the earth itself had sighed and given up. Wind whispered through cables and wires that swayed over alleys, carrying the low hum of something approaching.
Inside the skeletal remains of a warehouse, Aryan, Ahan, and Abhi sat around the fading glow of an aether lamp. It flickered like a dying heart.
"You hear that?" Aryan muttered, eyes narrowing toward the cracked wall.
"The ground's breathing again," Ahan replied softly.
Abhi tilted his head, a grin cutting through the tension. "Maybe the city's finally waking up to our mess."
The joke fell flat against the silence that followed. Even Abhi's smirk didn't last long. The three of them knew — this wasn't just any sound.
It was boots. Metal. Dozens. Maybe hundreds.
The Breath Before the Storm
Hours before, they had found the map fragment — charred at the edges, symbols pulsing faintly with the residue of ancient aether. Coordinates, half-erased by time. It had been enough to rekindle hope. But hope, in Bhutala, was a dangerous luxury.
They hadn't even had time to decipher it before static hissed through the air — the unmistakable tremor of incoming forces.
Ahan moved first, gathering the scrolls and burning the extra notes. Aryan sealed the remnants of the map in the hollow of his spear haft. Abhi checked his ember blade, the faint orange veins along its surface responding to his pulse.
Outside, the sky began to shimmer — faint red glows, like embers on the horizon.
"OutfitX," Ahan said under his breath.
Aryan nodded. "They found us sooner than expected."
Abhi: "Good. Saves us the trouble of finding them."
Their laughter was dry, but it was there — the last flicker of defiance before the inevitable.
Bhutala's Ruins Stir
The tremors grew stronger. Vehicles — hybrid, low-engine rovers with rotating armor plates — crawled into the outskirts. The sound of hydraulics echoed like a heartbeat through the streets. On the rooftops, faint green glints — snipers aligning.
And between them, the marching silhouettes of soldiers, clad in dull armor bearing the insignia of a serpent coiled around an eye.
OutfitX had arrived.
The trio spread out.
Aryan climbed to a broken skywalk above, his spear's tip humming faintly with blue etheric current.
Ahan took position below, near the remnants of a shattered transit line, whispering into the static — his fingers weaving invisible sigils that shimmered briefly before dissolving.
Abhi, in the center, stretched his neck, ember blade gleaming faintly red as if it recognized the blood in the air.
"Alright," Abhi exhaled, "no one dies tonight unless I say so."
Ahan smirked faintly. "You said that last time too."
"Yeah, but this time I mean it."
Above them, lightning forked through the clouds — not natural lightning, but streaks of dark violet energy.
Somewhere, in the distance, a radio crackled to life:
"Sector Three: confirmed visual on Shambhala anomalies. Execute sweep."
The Clash
The first wave hit like a storm.
Smoke bombs burst against the ground, painting the air with white haze. Shadows darted through it — but so did light. Aryan's spear spun, carving arcs through the mist, deflecting bullets with the metallic hum of controlled Aether.
Abhi surged forward — one clean motion, ember blade trailing streaks of molten air. Every swing sent shards of fire spiraling out.
Ahan's voice was low, deliberate — chanting something under his breath. Circles of faint runes appeared at his feet, pulling air inward like the city itself was inhaling.
"Push them back to the line!" Aryan shouted.
"There is no line," Abhi replied, grinning. "We make one."
The clash became chaos — noise and movement and light, too fast to separate.
For the first time in months, the trio fought not as survivors, but as warriors reborn.
Foreshadow
And then — silence.
The smoke thinned. Dozens of armored bodies lay strewn across the cracked ground.
Aryan turned toward the horizon — where the storm still gathered, pulsing faintly red at its center.
"That wasn't all of them."
"I know," Ahan whispered. "They were scouts."
Abhi looked at the distant crimson shimmer and spat. "Then the real ones are on their way."
A metallic echo followed — a deep, resonant thud that rippled through the ruins.
Something massive was moving beneath Bhutala.
Aryan's spear dimmed. The aether around Ahan flickered.
The quiet wasn't peace — it was a warning.
The City Holds Its Breath
Somewhere deep in the fog, a single distorted voice came through the comm static.
"Hold position. Reinforcements inbound. The Warlord demands live extraction. I repeat — live extraction."
The voice cut off.
A faint shimmer passed across Aryan's eyes as he exhaled, tightening his grip on the spear.
"Guess the night's not over."
The last embers of their aether light flickered — reflecting three silhouettes against the ruins of Bhutala.
And then the sound of approaching engines rose again, louder this time.
The dawn hadn't come yet.
Only ashes.