03 // SHORT STORIES // LEVIATHAN LOST 

Some legends are better off lost.

For thirty years, Lance Reyes has cultivated a quiet life on the Saskatchewan prairie, far from the neon-lit towers of Horizon City and the ghosts of a violent past. 

But when a wounded fugitive crash-lands in his fields with a dangerous secret, the peace of the farm is shattered. Now caught between a high-tech government task force and a radical cult worshiping a legendary monster, Lance must decide how much he is willing to give to help a stranger.

A 17,000 word post-superhero story, written for the Writers of the Future competition in December of 2025.

Leviathan Lost

It began when Lance Reyes was out watering his cabbages.

To call this a ’beginning’ was not entirely correct—his crop of cabbages, for instance, had experienced their own beginning a season earlier and were getting along reasonably well.

But this was the beginning of something he could never have predicted.

Lance was a man with the kind of strong posture earned through a lifetime of physical work. The unfortunate truth of age had begun to settle into him at last, but he carried himself with the stubborn solidity of someone who refused to yield to father time.

As it happened, this particular beginning started when he was watering his poor, dry cabbages.

It was a clear Sunday afternoon. The sun lay warm across his face, and the air carried the thousand sounds and scents of late summer. The sky was a single unbroken blue except for the distant silhouette of Horizon City. Out here, far enough into the prairie, the immense megacity appeared as one structure—an obelisk of metal and neon rising from Saskatchewan’s flat fields.

The only reminder that civilization had ever extended this far from the city was an old chunk of a squat concrete building; half‑collapsed into the soil and furred with moss, the ruins extended deep below the farmland.

This strange new beginning announced itself with a strange tang of ozone—a metallic, bitter taste that caught his attention. Lance paused, listening past the hum of his tractor for anything out of place. He flipped the switch on the tractor’s watering trailer, shutting off the spray, then twisted the key in the ignition. The engine rumbled to silence. Lance swung his leg over the side and stepped down into the tilled earth. The landing jarred his bad knee, and he muttered under his breath as the joint protested.

Silence settled over the field. Lance stood still, listening to the warm breeze sweeping across the plains.

Then he heard it—a distant pop, faint but sharp enough to echo across the open sky.

He turned toward Horizon City just in time to catch a flash of light blooming across its distant edge. The wind shifted suddenly, rolling toward him with a rising force that carried with it a wave of old concrete dust from the ruined building at the centre of his field.

"Is that…"

A half‑instant later, the unfinished question on Lance’s lips was answered as a man bathed in golden light tore away from Horizon City, splitting the sky in two. A powerful explosion followed, blinding white and startlingly loud. Lance stumbled back as pressure rolled outward across the fields, bending the crops low like they were bowing to a god.

Suddenly, where there had been one figure, there were now two—a woman clad in a leather jacket burst into existence mid‑air in a shard of silver light, momentum throwing her into a stumbling skid across the prairie grass. She regained her footing instantly, boots digging furrows into the earth as she sprinted, breath ragged and sharp. She flickered out again before the dust even settled—another silver flash, another impossible jump, as though the world itself couldn’t decide where to place her.

The golden streak arced downward in vicious pursuit.

The woman wasn’t fighting. She was running for her life, skipping through space in bursts that looked more like panic than strategy. Each teleport dragged her body into being half a second askew—wounded, disoriented, running on fumes.

Lance’s heartbeat pounded in his ears. He’d seen superpowered fights before—but never this close, never again, he’d promised himself.

All at once, the tide seemed to turn. The woman emerged in yet another brilliant flash of silver light, but the gold figure had grown wise to her tricks. She tried to zig‑zag, to stay unpredictable… but her jumps through space were getting shorter. Sloppier.

The golden streak dove. Faster. A hawk closing on a rabbit.

One more silver flash—and he caught her.

They shot skyward together, her scream swallowed by altitude. The woman twisted—flickered—and reappeared, clinging to her enemy’s back like a desperate shadow. A single punch, wild and terrified, spun them both in place, and the woman thrust something in her grasp against the man’s back.

And then she jumped.

For one terrible moment, Lance craned his neck, staring at the woman as she fell, arms wheeling, toward the earth. An instant later, the explosion caught them both, a blinding fireball that filled the sky with smoke and sent her careening away.

She fell fast—too fast. As Lance looked on in horror, the woman flung out a hand, silver light flaring around her fingers. She blinked out of existence just before the ground rose up to meet her, only to reappear a dozen feet above the soil, momentum barely slowed.

She hit with catastrophic force. The first impact rattled the ground and vibrated through Lance’s bones. She slammed into his field at an angle, spraying soil in every direction as she carved her way across the acreage like a thrown boulder. Each gouge in the tilled earth was larger and deeper than the last…

…and growing closer.

Acting on instincts he hadn’t used in years, Lance hit the dirt. The impact jarred through his aging frame, sending a spike of pain through his bad knee and up his spine. A rush of air followed, and the woman struck the tractor a foot from where he’d been standing—hard enough to crumple the metal cab inward—before ricocheting off like a skipping stone and disappearing over the profile of the vehicle.

Lance lay on his back in the soil, staring upward in disbelief. He’d been centimetres from death.

So why, exactly, did he stand and run toward the crash site?

He asked himself the same question as he pushed himself upright, gritting his teeth as old bones protested. Ignoring his aching joints, he sprinted toward the trail of destruction her body had carved.

Far overhead, the golden man hovered, undamaged, in the clearing smoke. He seemed to survey the land below him, hovering as though searching for his fallen opponent. It seemed he had lost track of her in the chaos of the explosion.

Lance reached the first crater, still steaming. The shallow wound in the earth reeked of ozone and blood. He pressed on, lungs burning, passing the next impact mark, then the next, until he came to the final gouge in the dirt.

This last crater was a deep furrow directly in front of his barn doors. Scattered flecks of chipped red paint mixed with fresh blood in the disturbed soil, but the fallen woman was nowhere in sight.

She had gone into his barn.

The old door creaked on rusted hinges. A thin ray of daylight spilled into the dim interior, casting a sharp line across the far wall. Lance Reyes knew this barn like the back of his hand: the dusty workbench in the corner, the stack of old tires by the broken window, the manure smell that never quite left the wood.

He also knew when something was wrong.

A pile of tools and farm equipment lay scattered across the floor, pushed aside as though someone had tried to find a place to hide. She was here. The tang of ozone clung to the air, and that spoke louder than footprints ever could.

A sudden static prickled at his spine, sharp enough to make him stiffen. The hair stood up along his arms. Whoever she was, she stood directly behind him, one finger resting against the small of his back.

He cursed himself silently. Slowing down in his old age.

“If you call for help,” she hissed, “I’ll warp your head from your shoulders.”

 Her voice was smooth—confident—but threaded with a tremor.

“I’ve been around long enough to know a bluff when I hear one,” Lance said. He lifted his hands where she could see them. “After that fall? Those injuries? You’re close to burning out.”

“Try me.” She pressed her fingernail deeper into his back. “I’m an Aberrant, old man—I’ll heal up in no time.”

“I’m not trying to con you,” he replied, tone steady. “You came in, shoved everything aside, and went straight for a hiding place. If you were strong enough for round two, you’d be out there already—and I doubt you have another explosive escape plan.”

He slowly began to turn.

"Hey!" the woman snapped. Her confident tone seemed to waver. "What do you think you're doing? You turn when I tell you to!"

He finished his turn anyway, raising his hands.

“All I want is to look at the person I’m speaking to. Is that really too much to ask?”

Standing in front of Lance was a dark-skinned woman who was easily a decade or three younger. She was bloodied, favouring one leg, her blue jeans and dark leather jacket ripped threadbare. A shock of her black hair was shaved at the sides, fashioned into a pixie cut. She fixed Lance with a look of defiance, her slate grey eyes boring through him.

She didn’t look dangerous—she looked cornered, and Lance recognized the look well.

His captor was a second‑generation Aberrant—born with her powers, not infected. No implants, no tech, just raw power coursing through a body that wasn’t built for it.

“My name is Lance Reyes,” he said evenly. “I’m not here to hurt you, and I’m not your hostage. I don’t know what happened up there, but I’ve got medical supplies—”

“Shut up,” she snarled, jabbing him in the chest with her good hand. “You think you can fool me? Get on my good side?”

His pulse hammered beneath her finger. If he didn't talk her down, and fast, things would start coming apart.

“No," he pressured, "I'm serious. Check the bottom drawer of the workbench. If you'd like, I could—”

“No!” she barked, then paused, voice softening slightly. “No.” She edged sideways toward the bench, finger still trembling in his direction. “Stay right there, old man.”

Lance gave the wounded woman a casual shrug, and a moment later the bottom drawer of the workbench slid open with a metallic hiss.

“No way,” the woman breathed. For the first time since Lance had entered the barn, she lowered her left arm to retrieve a white plastic case. As she stood again, case in hand, suspicion narrowed her eyes. “But why would you—”

“Citizen!” a voice boomed. The sound shook dust loose from the rafters. “Mister Reyes, may I please have a word?”

The woman instantly paled, raising her good arm toward the sky.

“No, no,” she whispered. “Not like this. I can’t.”

“Lance Reyes!” the voice called again. “Is the registered owner of this property present?”

Lance recognized that voice—in this day and age, everyone did. His gaze darted toward the injured Aberrant as the sunlight outside the barn shifted into a harsh golden glow.

“The tarp in the back,” he hissed. “Get behind it. The heat from the manure should scramble his thermal scans.”

She didn’t argue. Medical kit in hand, the Aberrant woman disappeared deeper into the barn. As she did, Lance stepped out into the open air.

The man floating before him hovered a meter above the ground, wreathed in radiant gold. At his core he was still human—bright green eyes, a messy shock of black hair—but everything else had been subsumed by gleaming metal. His physique was engineered, not grown; powerful plates, integrated weapon systems, and repulsion projectors that kept him weightless. A shimmering gold cape fluttered dramatically behind him.

“Hello,” Lance called, squinting into the glare. “How can I help you, Machina?”

Machina descended gently, like an archangel lowering itself to earth. Even standing in the dirt, he towered over Lance.

“My apologies for the interruption, Mister Reyes,” he announced with polished authority, “but a dangerous Aberrant has been spotted in this area.”

“Yeah,” Lance replied, jerking his thumb toward the trail of fresh craters. “I noticed.”

Machina arched one eyebrow, but pushed ahead anyway.

“The Aberrant in question is a mid‑tier threat level and a known member of the Cult of Leviathan.”

Now Lance lifted an eyebrow of his own.

“Is that so?” he said dryly. “And here I thought those misguided young folks kept to the inner city. Any particular reason you’re chasing one all the way out into the open prairies?”

“This abhorrent Aberrant has stolen something of tremendous importance to Enhanced Oversight Network,” Machina explained, “recovering it is a top priority from EON’s director herself.”

“Are you trying to ask if I’ve seen this dangerous Ab?” Lance prodded.

“Uh… yeah,” Machina concluded. He twitched, rubbing the back of his head. “Sorry. The words are right there on my suit’s visor and sometimes I get carried away, so—”

“No,” Lance interrupted. “Haven’t seen her at all. By the time I got here, the crater was empty. My best guess? She made a break back to the city.”

Machina’s sculpted features shifted into a frown. “Darn,” he muttered. “But I could have sworn my scans—”

His eyes flickered blue as his gaze swept across the property. A moment later they faded back to gold, and he sighed again.

“Man, Director Cross is gonna kill me.” Then, as if remembering the performance required of him, Machina straightened and snapped off a crisp salute. “I appreciate your cooperation, citizen! Should the Aberrant reappear, notify the authorities at once and I will return! Your safety is our highest priority, and the Cult of Leviathan is as dangerous as the Aberrant they idolize!”

“Yeah,” Lance replied. He leaned forward, placing a hand on his hip. “Okay, great. But there’s one more thing—you guys totalled my tractor.”

Machina froze, shifting his ludicrous mass awkwardly from one reinforced foot to the other.

“Uh, I think EON has jurisdiction on that,” he stammered. “Call their help line—tell them Machina sent you!”

He vaulted into the sky, unleashing a thunderous sonic boom as he shot back toward Horizon City.

Lance sighed aloud. Yes, of course—as if some worker would believe his insurance claim was personally endorsed by the word of Machina himself.

He trudged back toward the barn, shoulders heavy with defeat. Without his tractor, there was no chance of finishing the harvest in time. Even with a modest financial buffer, the repairs would take weeks.

As Lance stepped inside the barn, the injured woman emerged from behind the manure pile. Her right shoulder was splinted, and strips of bandages peeked out beneath her torn jacket and shirt. She looked different now—not desperate, but bewildered.

“You did a poor job with that shoulder,” Lance remarked, voice gruff. “I’ll fix it if you allow me.”

“Why?” she demanded. “Why… any of this? Why help me, especially after what happened outside? And you lied to an Enhanced… to Machina himself! That’s jail‑without‑parole kind of illegal!”

“Machina’s just a kid,” Lance replied. “I wouldn’t have dared when it was still Cross in that suit, but her apprentice, David Winters? He’s an EON rookie.” He shrugged. “High Enhanced, sure, but still human on the inside. He believed me because he wanted to.”

“Well, dang,” the woman muttered. She lowered herself carefully onto a discarded tire, teeth clenched against the pain. “But that still doesn’t answer my first question.”

“What was your name again?” Lance asked. “I gave you mine. Fair’s fair.”

She glared at him a moment longer before cracking.

“Kaylene Adeyemi,” she stated. “But most call me Astra, on account of the, well..." she wiggled her fingers, brilliant silver starlight dancing between them. “You get the picture.”

“Never been much a fan of codenames,” Lance responded. “But I’m happy to meet you, Kaylene.”

Kaylene frowned, but it was more confusion than anger now. “Anyone ever say you’re strange, old man?”

“Well, Kaylene,” Lance replied, sidestepping the question, “To answer your earlier remark, I helped you because you needed it. I knew you weren’t going to kill me back there, even if you were at full strength.”

“So instead, you lied to a High Enhanced and put a target on your back,” Kaylene snapped. “What kind of logic is that? Do you even know what I stole from them?”

“I don’t,” Lance admitted. “But I’d like to. Avoid smashing any more of my equipment, and in return you can hide out with me until you fully recover. Understood?”

Kaylene stared at him, weighing every option. Even injured, he knew she could overpower him and disappear into the fields before he took three steps.

But the scent of ozone was gone. Her strength was spent. Finally, she nodded.

“You’ve got yourself a deal, old man,” she smirked. She pulled herself to her feet. “But don’t say I didn’t warn you—I might be more trouble than I’m worth.”

As the pair stepped out of the barn, Lance Reyes couldn't help but feel optimistic. So much had changed in such a short time—and now, something new was beginning, right under his nose.

There had been far too many endings in his life lately.

"To be honest," he smiled, "I think I'm okay with a little trouble."

⬥ ⬥ ⬥ ⬥

“Want some milk?”

Kaylene sat at Lance’s small dinner table, though her expression was distant. Her attention drifted to the porcelain teacup before her, fingers absently tracing along the fresh bandages wrapped around her right arm.

“Don’t pick at those,” Lance chided. He leaned back in the seat across from her, trying to stretch out his knee. “I’ve only got so many, and I only go into the city once a month.”

Kaylene startled, as if snapped back into reality. “Yes please.” She straightened in her seat, withdrawing her hand.

Lance tilted the plastic pitcher and let a splash of milk swirl into the dark tea, clouds of white blossoming through the hot liquid.

Evening had settled outside. The last glow of the sun smoldered along the horizon like dying embers. Far as they were from Horizon City, the stars managed to pierce the coming dark, bright against the distant neon haze.

“It's so quiet out here,” Kaylene attempted. She glanced out the window, staring at the crumbling wreck of the old building that protruded out of the soil in the midst of Lance's field. “This place has… rustic charm.”

Lance’s kitchen was a modest, outdated thing; scratched oak cabinets, chipped countertops, and the faint scent of dust left to gather, but Kaylene didn’t seem bothered. Lance suspected that for someone like her, comfort of any kind was a rarity.

“You really don’t need to do this,” she murmured.

“Do what?” Lance replied. “Offer you tea?” He stood and padded across the kitchen, sliding the pitcher of milk back into the fridge. The door closed with a soft hiss. “You’re a guest in my home,” he continued. “Not a fugitive. You’re not forcing me to do anything—I’m offering.”

“It’s just…” she began, voice too small for her reputation.

“You don’t think you deserve it,” Lance said gently. “These small comforts. Live long enough being branded dangerous by people in charge and you start to believe it.”

Her reaction was immediate. She turned her gaze aside, jaw tightening.

“Don’t let anyone decide what you are,” Lance said. “Not even a High Enhanced. Not even the Cult of Leviathan. Your nature is a choice.”

Kaylene’s eyes snapped back to him, defensive instincts flaring. A scowl formed, though she didn’t lash out—not yet.

“I’m not…” she tried. Her voice faltered. “I’m not with the Cult. Not anymore.”

“Really?” Lance asked, lifting his cup. “And how long ago did that decision happen?”

Kaylene flinched. This time, the guilt was unmistakable.

“Today,” she admitted. “What I did—what I stole—is something they won’t forgive.”

“Decided to strike out on your own?” Lance pressed, tone edging firm. “Money better outside a cult?”

“It wasn’t the money!” Kaylene snapped. She rose from her chair, fists clenched, but froze, exhaled, and sat back down. “It was more than that. When we joined, the Cult of Leviathan was about Aberrant rights, not Aberrant supremacy—but then Charybdis was voted into power.” She spat the name like an oath, expression darkening. “We used Leviathan’s name as a symbol of rebellion against EON, but Charybdis wants to emulate him.” She sighed, leaning back in her seat. “I thought people would reject his philosophy, but most of the cult didn’t care. Half the leadership are second‑gen Abs who think their inborn powers mean superiority, and the other half are first‑gens too bitter and broken by what they lost to the virus to feel compassion for anyone who was asymptomatic.” She paused, eyes flicking toward him. “No offence.”

“Believe me, none taken,” Lance replied. He gazed at the woman across the table from him with a mixture of solemn nostalgia and a bit of pride.

What others clearly saw when they looked at Kaylene was a volatile Aberrant armed with teleportation and fuelled by rage. But Lance saw a frightened young woman grappling with a power she had never asked for, burdened by scars that ran far deeper than her skin. As a second-generation Aberrant, she was a byproduct of the Deus Virus, shaped by the flaws of a world that had been reborn long before her birth.

"Thank you, Mister Reyes," Kaylene breathed. It might have been the light, but the edges of her eyes seemed to shimmer.

"Please, call me Lance," he replied. "Now relax, enjoy some tea. Nobody's coming to get you out here."

And that was when there was a knock at the door.

"Yeah," Kaylene winced, "about that…"

Lance stared back at her for a moment, unsure of how to feel. He wasn’t angry—not truly. But the sudden knock had cracked through something soft inside him, something he hadn’t expected to feel again. Hope, maybe. And now, for all he knew, he’d been a fool to entertain it.

“Did you tell someone you were here?” he growled, his voice taking on an accusatory slant.

To his surprise, Kaylene seemed to panic, stumbling over her words. “I—well technically no, but I’m pretty sure I know—”

Lance rose from his chair and grabbed the worn old baseball bat from the umbrella stand—a relic, these days—and stalked toward the door. His heart thudded with each step; betrayal had a very particular weight to it, and it settled heavy in his chest like a stone.

Seeing the aluminum bat, Kaylene shot to her feet, helpless panic on her face.

 “You seriously don’t need that!” she called. “If it’s who I think it is, a baseball bat won’t do—”

The knock came again—three polite taps.

Lance placed his hand on the door handle, bracing himself, and pulled the door open.

Instead of a squad of Aberrant cultists or a golden government enforcer, a single woman stood on his porch—as calm as a summer breeze.

She looked barely older than Kaylene—early twenties at most—shorter, with a soft face that contrasted the sharpness of Kaylene’s features. Her dark hair was cut into a messy bob that framed her warm brown eyes, and she wore an oversized grey hoodie that had clearly seen better days. There was a gentleness to her posture, a stillness in the way she carried herself, that gave Lance an odd sense of familiarity.

“Sorry, uh,” Lance stammered, “can I help you?”

A moment passed. The woman lifted a hand and offered Lance a shy little wave. To his surprise, her hands flew into motion, signing with practiced efficiency.

Sorry to intrude. Is Kaylene here?

“I’m, uh, I’m sorry,” Lance attempted. He lowered the bat. “My sign language is a bit rusty, so—”

Behind him, a chair scraped violently against the floor.

“Aria!”

Kaylene barrelled past Lance with a speed that almost knocked him flat. The young Aberrant practically threw herself off the porch and wrapped the newcomer in a crushing hug.

Aria staggered, squeaking out a gasp—but her smile brightened into something radiant as she squeezed Kaylene back just as fiercely.

“You’re okay,” Kaylene breathed. “I thought—Aria, I’m so sorry, I shouldn’t have left you—”

Aria pulled away just enough to cup Kaylene’s cheek, her expression calm—reassuring. She signed again, her movements smooth and fluid.

You did the right thing, leading Machina away. I followed as soon as I could sense you again.

Lance stood there in the doorway, stunned. He had a thousand questions, but before he could choose one, Aria signed again—slower this time, almost apologetic.

“She’s asking if she can come in,” Kaylene translated. Her expression darkened. “She’s worried someone might have followed her.”

Lance felt his blood run cold, and he stepped aside without hesitation. “Get inside. Now.”

Aria nodded once and slipped inside with silent urgency, Kaylene trailing behind.

“Hang on,” Lance stated. He raised the bat, just enough to block Kaylene’s entry. “First, tell me how she found you.”

“I was trying to tell you before, old man,” Kaylene frowned. She pushed the bat aside with two fingers and stepped over the threshold as she spoke. “Aria is an esper. Sometimes she just knows.”

As Kaylene brushed past him, Lance let the bat drop to his side.

An esper.

The words hit like a fault line cracking open under his ribs. A sharp, unwelcome ache pulsed behind his sternum—memory, fighting to breathe. He swallowed it back, hard, forcing his jaw to unclench before either woman noticed.

He shut the door and slid the deadbolt home. It suddenly felt far too quiet in the house.

Aria hovered just inside, shoes still on the mat, wide eyes drinking in her surroundings with a look of enraptured joy. Kaylene stayed close at her side, a faint smile on her lips.

Lance cleared his throat.

“So,” he managed, trying for gruff instead of shaken. “Esper is a broad term. That means what, in her case? Telepathy? Levitation? Lottery numbers?”

Aria shot him a flat look, her hands flashing through the air.

“She’s not a vending machine of paranormal tricks, old man.” Kaylene replied. “And you can ask her yourself, she’s mute, not deaf.” Then she softened, glancing at Aria. “It’s… complicated.”

Aria signed something short and precise.

“She can sense intent,” Kaylene translated. “Danger. She can sometimes ‘touch’ someone’s mind if they’re feeling strong emotion. And if she focuses hard enough, she can project her own memories into…” Kaylene paused, searching for the right phrase, “…into someone else’s head.”

Lance stared. That sharp ache in his chest flared again.

“She’s also nearly burned herself out before,” Kaylene added quietly. “More than once.”

Lance forced a breath through his teeth. “She’s a High Aberrant, then,” he offered. “Closer to a first-gen. More power than most, but with less capacity. Small wonder Director Cross sent Machina after you.”

“What?” Kaylene frowned. “No, I didn’t steal her from EON, old man.”

“Then what did you steal?” Lance pressed.

Aria nudged Kaylene sharply. A warning.

Kaylene shifted her weight, guilt flickering across her expression before she spoke.

“Look… before we tell you anything, Aria needs to make sure you’re—” she winced. “Safe.”

Lance narrowed his eyes. “Safe, how?”

Aria took a single, silent step forward. Her hands rose, hesitant, as if asking permission.

“No.” Lance instinctively pulled back, one hand clenching around the bat again. “No one’s poking around in my head.”

Kaylene lifted both palms in surrender. “It’s not like that. She needs to know you aren’t planning to turn us in.” She swallowed, voice softer. “She’s a high-tier, old man. People look at me and see a weapon. People look at her… and see something even worse.”

“They see another Leviathan,” Lance breathed. Even speaking the name again disgusted him.

Aria kept her gaze lowered, shoulders trembling with restrained urgency.

Lance felt the weight of the moment pressing inward from all directions—two fugitives under his roof, his farm already a cratered mess, the ghost of old wounds clawing up through his ribs.

“You don’t need to be afraid of me.” He wasn’t sure who he was trying to convince.

Kaylene’s gaze sharpened. “Then prove it.”

Aria extended her hand again, and Lance stared at it for a long moment.

“Fine,” he exhaled. He set the bat aside. “Just—don’t dig deeper than you have to.”

Aria nodded, thankful.

And then her fingers brushed his.

A jolt—not electrical, not heat—but awareness rippled through him. For a single breathless instant, he wasn’t standing in his kitchen. He was seen—not his body, not his weathered expression, but the truth beneath it.

“Hello?”

Aria’s voice echoed through his mind. His breath hitched, and he found himself speaking aloud before he even knew what he was saying.

“I can’t do this.”

All at once, Aria staggered backward, clutching her temple, gasping silently. Kaylene caught her before she could fall, steadying her with both arms.

“What the hell happened?!” Kaylene demanded. “What did you do to her, old man?!”

Aria blinked the dizziness away, then signed with small, deliberate motions.

He is not our enemy.

He is hurting.

He will help us.

Lance stood in stunned silence, his pulse thundering in his ears.

“Well,” he chirped. “Now that we’ve all invaded each other’s personal space… maybe it’s time you told me what you stole from EON that was so important.”

Kaylene and Aria shared a look—fear sharpening into resolve.

Then Kaylene turned back to Lance and spoke the words that would change his life:

“We stole the cure.”

With trembling hands, she reached into her pocket and pulled forth a small case—a reinforced metal tin that was roughly the size of a cigarette carton. Gently sliding it open, she pushed aside a sheet of silicone padding and withdrew a small vial of crimson liquid.

“The… cure,” Lance repeated. He wasn’t smiling now, his gaze fixed on the vial. “The cure for… what?”

“What else?” Kaylene replied. “Aberrancy.”

⬥ ⬥ ⬥ ⬥

Night settled over the farmhouse like a heavy blanket. The porch lights cast a soft halo across the peeling paint and old wooden boards, but beyond that circle of safety, the fields dissolved into darkness. Crickets buzzed like static in the distance.

Lance sat on the top porch step, elbows on his knees. The air was crisp, the kind that made breath feel sharp in the lungs. He kept his gaze fixed outward, on that endless stretch of night, as if the stars might rearrange themselves into answers.

A cure.

Of all the things he’d seen and heard today, that was what bothered him most. If his guests were telling the truth, which he suspected they were, then everything was about to change.

The screen door creaked, and light, hesitant footsteps followed. Kaylene stepped onto the porch, hair still damp from a shower, wrapped in a faded cotton cardigan over lounge pants that didn’t quite fit—sleeves too long, waist too loose. It was old clothing, but it worked well enough.

Aria came behind her, silent as always, and set a chipped mug on the step beside him before signing something small and polite.

Kaylene translated without being asked. “She says you look like you’re going to pass out.”

Lance grunted. He hadn’t realized how tired he was. “Yeah. Well. Long day. Lots to process.”

Kaylene sat down on the step across from him, expression grim in a way that made her look older than she had any right to.

“You want to know the truth?” she asked quietly.

“Shoot. Lord knows the stars aren’t talking to me.”

Kaylene laughed softly, then sighed.

“It wasn’t just a break‑in,” she admitted. “It was a Leviathan operation. Months of planning. Training. False identities. People died to get us both inside that place.”

The plural didn’t escape Lance’s attention, and Aria’s eyes flickered—a shard of guilt, sharp and brief.

“Why you two?” he pressed. He tried his best to look past Kaylene’s new clothing, but the ache in his chest made it impossible to keep the pain entirely at bay. “You’re only…”

“Kids?” Kaylene smirked. “I’m a skilled teleporter, old man, and Aria is a brilliant esper. Who else would you send to break into an EON facility undetected?” She frowned. “Almost undetected.”

Aria signed a few stern words at her, and Kaylene nodded.

“The point is, EON created a cure, Lance,” she continued. “A real one. Not the virus suppressant they gave to first‑gens—not the one Horizon City forces into every second-gen Aberrant just to keep us from burning out at birth. This one stops aberrancy altogether. No more powers. No more burnout. No more…” She tapped two fingers against her chest. “…no more Deus in our DNA.”

Lance’s jaw tensed. “Aberrancy isn’t a disease,” he snapped. “It’s—”

“It’s killing her,” Kaylene cut in.

Aria flinched, but didn’t deny it. Her hands lifted, signing slow, ashamed.

“Her powers never turn off,” Kaylene translated. “She hears thoughts like most people hear words, and it’s taking a toll.” She turned to Lance with a look of anguish on her face. “Burnout has already taken her speech, and I won’t let it take anything else.”

Lance felt that twisting pain again, tearing him up inside. He took a sip of his tea, but the liquid seemed devoid of any taste.

Kaylene swallowed hard. “This cure—if we used it on her now, it could save her life.”

“Then why not do it?” Lance demanded.

Kaylene tapped the wooden step—once, hard, and a silver spark flickered from the tip of her nail.

“I want to,” she replied, “God knows I want to, but… it’s the only one.”

“The only one?” Lance echoed?

“EON didn’t finish the formula,” Kaylene continued. “We struck just in time to capture the very first dose, and replication without it could take years. The Cult of Leviathan wanted us to destroy it on the spot, then wreck their lab to prevent more from being made.”

“But you couldn’t do it,” Lance surmised. Aria met his gaze and nodded. “For her.”

“I don’t think Aberrancy is a disease either,” Kaylene sighed. She leaned back against the porch railing, resting her head on the painted white wood. “But some people are suffering from it more than others. People deserve a choice—to stay what they are or return to humanity.”

“Then why not leave it with EON?” Lance pressed. “Aiding Aberrants seems its intended purpose.”

“Do you really believe that, old man?” Kaylene retorted. “You know how ruthless EON’s director is—Addison Cross would’ve made the cure compulsory, spread it to every Aberrant in Horizon City with the help of her Enhanced lapdogs like Machina. That’s no aid—that’s genocide.”

“So you want the cure in trusted hands,” Lance concluded. “In Aberrant hands.”

Aria met his gaze, and for the first time since arriving, there was steel there. She signed four words that he understood with absolute clarity.

Everyone deserves a choice.

Lance whistled, long and low, as he gazed up at the night sky. His chest ached, and a million thoughts raced through his mind. He was worried he was coming apart all over again.

“You couldn’t destroy the cure for the Cult of Leviathan,” he breathed, “and you couldn’t let EON keep it. So you ran, and they sent Machina to catch you.”

“I owe you for that,” Kaylene admitted. She placed a hand over Aria’s. “We both do. Thank you, Lance.”

“But if Machina could follow you out here,” Lance pressed, “then the Cult could, too.”

Both women stiffened.

“Christ,” he whispered. “You brought a war onto my farm.”

Kaylene hit him with a flat look. “It was already on your doorstep.”

Lance rubbed his temples. Drawing himself to his feet, he backed away from the porch steps, letting the cool night air wash over him. The mug of tea had gone cold in his hands.

“This is… this is just rich,” he exclaimed. A peal of cynical laughter tore itself from his throat. “I thought sending Machina was overkill for a simple theft, but now I'm surprised all of EON isn’t already combing the prairies!”

Kaylene looked at Aria, then down at the railing. Her voice, when she found it again, carried a tinge of exhaustion.

“Look… now you know why I said I was bringing trouble.” She swallowed, forcing the words out. “We’ll be gone by morning. We just needed one night to breathe. Long enough for me to recover from…” Her hand gestured vaguely toward Lance’s demolished tractor. “All that.”

Aria’s fingers tightened around hers, before withdrawing to fold into her lap. She didn’t argue.

Kaylene stood, turning to face the elderly farmer as if bracing for impact, shoulders squared—not defiant, but ready.

“We didn’t mean to drag you into any of this,” she stated. “I’m sorry. Really.”

The apology hung in the air like smoke, thin and cloying.

Lance stared at her. At both of them. Torn clean open between the hard shell he’d built around his life and the soft, bleeding thing underneath.

He thought of a hospital room.

He thought of a small hand gripping his.

He thought of a world that could’ve saved her… if he had fought harder.

Kaylene noticed the shift in his expression immediately. “So… what now?” she asked, voice barely more than a breath. A challenge. A plea.

Lance set the mug down on the porch rail with a quiet clink.

“Now,” he echoed, jaw tightening, “we figure out how to make more of that cure before EON does.”

Kaylene blinked. “You’re… you’re helping us?”

He nodded once. Firm. Final.

“You came to the wrong farm if you were looking for someone to sit on his rear while kids fight his battles.” He dragged a hand through his hair and exhaled, weary but resolute. “This isn’t just your fight anymore.”

Aria’s breath hitched—a tiny, startled sound, and she rose to her feet, a brilliant smile on her face.

“You really mean that?” Kaylene murmured.

Lance met her gaze with fire in his eyes.

“Everyone deserves a choice,” he repeated.

Aria’s hand lifted slowly, deliberately, and swept downward from her chin.

Thank you.

But beneath the gratitude, Lance could feel the weight of what came next pressing on all of them, heavy as the night was dark.

Still, for the first time in a long time, he felt ready to bear it.

⬥ ⬥ ⬥ ⬥

Sunlight was already spilling across the fields by the time Lance tightened the last bungee cord across the pickup’s tailgate. The truck rumbled like it resented being awake; chipped paint, mismatched doors, and a bed that had more patches than original metal.

The screen door creaked open. Kaylene and Aria stepped out, wearing their same clothes from yesterday—now scrubbed clean and stitched in a few places where Lance’s sewing kit had fought the good fight.

Aria’s gaze drifted to the red fuel can Lance hoisted up into the bed. She signed in a quick, flicking motion—a question.

Kaylene translated with a squint at the truck.

“She wants to know why it runs on gas. Most civilian stuff this far out is solar these days. Also, the nearest working station is like… a hundred kilometres away.”

“I know a person who knows a person,” Lance grunted.

Kaylene blinked at him. “…that’s not an answer.”

“Never said it was.” He grabbed his bat from where it leaned against the porch steps and casually tossed it into the pile of supplies.

Kaylene raised an eyebrow. “You’re bringing the bat?”

“I always bring the bat,” Lance replied. “I hate the city.”

“What about a gun?” she pressed. “Old man like you could use it.”

Lance gave a dismissive snort. “Used to bring my shotgun. But a few months ago, someone saw fit to inform me it’s technically illegal.” He shut the tailgate with a decisive clunk.

Aria watched the exchange with a silent smile.

Kaylene sobered. “So… this doctor. The one you think can help us.”

“Dr. Saito,” Lance confirmed. “Geneticist. Brilliant one. Has his own lab in Horizon City.”

“Independent?” Kaylene prodded. Lance could see the worry in her eyes.

“He’s not EON. That’s what matters.”

Kaylene folded her arms. “How do you know him?”

Lance froze. A flicker of pain crossed his face, quick as a shutter snap.

“He tried to help someone I cared about,” he replied. “Someone who deserved more help than she got.”

Silence fell. Respectful. Heavy.

Aria stepped slightly closer to him—not touching, but offering her presence.

Lance cleared his throat and straightened. “Point is, Saito’s the only man I trust with this. He’ll know if more doses can be made here, or if we should try and risk a run across the prairies to Summit or Eclipse City.”

“And if he can’t help us?” Kaylene asked softly.

Lance opened the truck door, glancing from her to Aria. He looked older in that moment—but somehow stronger, too, than he had the day before.

“Then we’ll stock up and venture out to find someone who can.”

Kaylene breathed out—relief and fear tangled. Aria signed one word:

Together.

Lance nodded. “Darn right.” He gestured toward the truck. “C’mon. Horizon City’s waiting. I’d like to get there before every EON Enhanced or Cult of Leviathan boogeyman in the province figures out where you two went.”

Kaylene slipped into the passenger seat. Aria climbed into the back.

Lance took one last look at the quiet farm—his home, his refuge.

Then he climbed in, started the engine…

…and drove toward the storm.

⬥ ⬥ ⬥ ⬥

The prairie rolled out before them—kilometres of endless grass, wind turbines frozen like skeletons in the afternoon sun. Most signs of civilization out here had been erased by time, abandoned structures subsumed by mother nature after humankind had left them behind.

At first, Horizon City was only a mass in the distance—a solid steel tower against the sky. But kilometre by kilometre, it grew more distinct, like a pile of old steel buried in the grass. It was civilization, clustered into a single fortress. The immense city had once been a desperate pipe dream, one of the last bastions of humankind against the Deus Virus, but now it was simply another part of normal life.

The highway widened as they drew closer—battered pavement giving way to stretches of cracked blacktop, the faded remains of road markers shivering in the heat haze. Old convenience stores stood gutted by time and abandonment, their signage drooping like tired eyelids. Farmhouses sagged inward on themselves, windows boarded, weeds clawing up their sides.

But then—

People.

Closer to the edges of the city, shacks were assembled from whatever could be scavenged—torn billboard vinyl, shipping pallets, car doors; they clung to the road like barnacles on a dying whale.

And finally, the walls.

Monolithic slabs of concrete rose storeys high, topped in rusted spikes. The old Quarantine Walls—built when the virus had first ravaged humanity and triggered Aberrancy among the few survivors. Almost fifty years later, they were nothing but relics of the old world, long since left abandoned. There was no virus left to keep out, no desperate crowds to turn away. All were now welcome in Horizon City—if they could find space to live there.

“Sometimes I wonder why people don't leave,” Kaylene muttered. “More people could live like you, old man—out there, where we used to.”

“It's lonely,” Lance replied. The words left his mouth before he even knew what he was saying. “And people are still scared. They cluster together because it used to keep them safe, and they can’t let that go yet.”

Behind him, Aria signed a few words, but Lance lost them in the mirror.

“Most people were born after the virus,” Kaylene translated. “They don't remember it like you do.”

“It's not the virus they were afraid of,” Lance replied. He felt the pull of the hollow in his chest, like he was straddling a yawning sinkhole.

Aria signed again, and this time Lance knew the word instinctively.

Leviathan.

“Then what about you, old man?” Kaylene pressed. “Why aren't you afraid?”

Kaylene’s question hung in the cab like a hook waiting for something to snag on.

Lance’s fingers tightened on the wheel.

“I am,” he admitted.

Before anyone could respond, Lance nodded toward the looming structure ahead—a rusted checkpoint built into the old quarantine wall, retrofitted with modern security doors.

“Eyes up,” he called. “We’re here.”

The truck rumbled forward, slowing as the reinforced gates came into full view. Two Enhanced officers stood beside the barricade, looking bored. Lance picked them apart from a distance; their sleek armour meant they likely possessed the standard package of enhanced durability, speed and strength—the basic gear of all EON employees.

As the pickup crossed a faded white line, a wall of shimmering blue light swept out from the gate’s emitters, passing through the cab with a soft crackle.

Kaylene stiffened. Aria held her breath so tight her shoulders rose.

“It won’t ping you as Aberrants,” Lance murmured. “Only flags illegal Enhanced tech, and we’ve got none. As long as they don't recognize—”

“They won’t recognize me,” Kaylene whispered. She swallowed, glancing back at Aria. “Trust us.”

One of the officers lifted a hand, signalling them to stop, and Lance grabbed the handle for the truck's window, rolling it down.

“Welcome to Horizon City, state your business,” the officer demanded, his voice flat.

“Heading in to visit a friend,” Lance replied. He kept his expression bored, unimpressed.

“Right, right,” the officer replied.

In the rearview mirror, Lance saw Aria close her eyes.

The officer glanced at his wrist display, then back up at them. Through his visor, Lance could see the man's optic implants cycling, scanning each of their faces.

His knuckles whitened on the steering wheel.

“Well, I'll be darned,” the officer spat. He leaned forward, one eyebrow raised. “This is an old F-series! You’ve got one heck of a beauty on your hands, old man!” He thumped the side of the truck, and Lance felt the entire vehicle rock. “Be aware of the pollution tax for this old beast, okay?”

“Don't I know it,” Lance retorted. He shot the man a forced smile.

With a smile, the officer waved them through.

The second gate slid open with a grinding roar, and the truck rolled into Horizon City. Beyond the barricade, the street was empty, a wide, concrete lane that led into the city proper.

If his foot hadn't been firmly on the pedal, Lance would've slid into the footwell, so intense was the wave of relief that washed over him.

“Thank goodness,” Kaylene blurted. She thumped her fist against the roof and leaned back in her seat, laughing. “I thought you were about to have a heart attack back there, old man!”

“I had my doubts!” Lance declared. He returned Kaylene's smile. “I really did, but you were—”

Lance froze. He snapped his eyes to the rearview mirror.

Behind him, Aria was smiling—wide, triumphant, proud of herself.

Blood trailed from her nose in a thin line down to her chin.

“Aria—!” Lance braked hard and pulled the truck against the curb, nearly swerving into the tunnel wall. “Hey, hey—kid, you’re bleeding—”

Kaylene reached forward, one hand on Lance’s shoulder, the other already turning to Aria.

“It’s okay,” she said quickly. “She’s done this before.”

Aria wiped her nose with the back of her hand before signing with slow, careful motions. Kaylene translated without missing a beat.

“She says the officer recognized me,” Kaylene began, voice low. “He clocked my face from his bulletin. But she… redirected it. She swapped the feeling of recognition he had for me, for… the truck.” Kaylene gave the ancient dashboard an amused look. “Which, honestly, is kind of hilarious.”

Aria signed again—short, sharp motions.

“It’s easier than overwriting the whole memory,” Kaylene explained. “Just a nudge. A… sleight of mind. Doesn’t hurt as bad.”

Lance didn’t answer at first. He was looking at Aria—not at the blood, not at the strain—but at the competence. The instinctive control. The quiet bravery.

Something in his chest twisted, sharp and unexpected, feeling like a sinkhole threatening to collapse.

Aria noticed his stare and blinked, confused. Then she signed something small. Soft.

Kaylene’s voice gentled to match it.

“She says… you’re welcome.”

Lance swallowed. Cleared his throat. Then nodded once, not trusting himself to speak.

He put the truck back in gear, easing them into traffic again, and the truck roared out of the tunnel and into the blinding light of day.

Horizon City was, in a word, intense.

Beyond the tunnel, the city of six million rose around them in vertical layers—massive arteries of traffic weaving between titanic megastructures that glittered under the late morning sun. The air thrummed with the drone of delivery skiffs, the hiss of magnetic trams sliding along elevated rails, the distant pulse of sirens.

Digital banners rippled across entire building faces—alternating through sponsored ads, public notices and missing‑person reports—all bleeding neon into the concrete canyons below.

People flowed across walkways in dense tides—construction workers in strength harnesses, couriers zipping through the streets in speed rigs—the city didn’t feel crowded so much as compressed, every movement feeding into a machine that never stopped humming.

Traffic thickened as they pushed deeper into the urban maze. Lance merged the battered pickup into a river of gleaming vehicles, biting back his own anxious thoughts.

The city swallowed them whole.

Aria pressed a hand to the window, eyes wide. Kaylene leaned forward, tense but enthralled.

Lance drove on, jaw tight, navigating the labyrinth on muscle memory alone.

“Hang on,” he muttered, turning down a narrower avenue where sunlight barely touched the pavement. “Saito’s lab is close. It’s just… not above ground.”

He nodded toward a looming concrete structure up ahead—an ancient multi‑story parking garage grafted awkwardly between two sleek modern towers.

“Down there?” Kaylene chirped. “Here I thought the Cult of Leviathan knew all the underground secrets of this place.”

“Let's hope not,” Lance retorted. He signalled, pulling the car to one side, and turned into the shade of the decrepit structure.

Kaylene squinted in the sudden darkness, glancing over at him. “This is where your genius friend works?”

Lance grunted. “If you knew Saito, you’d understand.” He steered them down the ramp. “Bright minds rarely live in bright places.”

The world narrowed to concrete and shadow. The pickup crept through the sub‑levels, its headlights slicing across pillars stained with decades of dust. Old parking spot numbers peeled from the floor; water dripped steadily from cracked pipes, echoing into the hollow dark.

Finally, Lance killed the engine. The sudden absence of its rumble made the whole place feel even more empty.

“Let's move,” he declared.

The trio climbed out, boots crunching on scattered glass. Aria stayed close to Kaylene’s side, eyes scanning every patch of darkness. Grabbing his baseball bat from the bed of the truck and slinging it over his shoulder, Lance moved ahead, leading them toward a rust‑scarred elevator door tucked into the far wall—its call button flickering with a dying blue glow.

“This is it,” he said quietly. “Saito’s lab is here.”

“Why here?” Kaylene frowned. “This place looks like it’s one tremor away from burying us alive.”

“Saito was part of the team that worked on the cures,” Lance replied, “it was his team that prevented any new cases of the Deus Virus, and then years later he helped create the stabilizer that reduced burnout in newborn second‑gens.”

“Sounds like the kind of guy EON would want to work on the third cure,” Kaylene replied. “So why isn’t he?”

“Doctor Saito and Director Cross didn’t see eye to eye,” Lance explained. “He made enemies when he walked away from EON.” He paused. “A lot of enemies.”

“And you know this… how?” Kaylene pressed. “How do you know you can still trust—”

Aria’s hand touched her arm.

A small shake of the head was all the communication needed.

Not here. Not now.

Kaylene swallowed her next question.

The elevator shuddered, then opened with a reluctant groan. The elevator doors scraped aside, and Kaylene’s breath hitched.

There was no elevator car, just a black vertical shaft, and spanning it, a narrow steel catwalk; hastily welded beams, a grated floor and metal handrails. Harsh white light buzzed from fixtures bolted into the shaft’s concrete walls, illuminating the crossing like a surgical incision through the dark.

Beyond the catwalk lay an opening—an entire floor hollowed out and rebuilt into something impossible to mistake.

A laboratory.

Banks of equipment lined the walls, rows of glassware filled with softly glowing solutions and centrifuges spinning with a rhythmic hum.

Equipment that Kaylene couldn't even name lay before them, pristine and blinking with steady green diagnostics, and she felt a smile spread across her face.

“This is…” she breathed. “Lance, this…”

“Don't get too excited now,” Lance replied. He took the lead, crossing the elevator shaft one steady foot at a time. “You still need to convince the good doctor to help your cause—no slight of mind, or whatever Aria called it.”

Aria brought her finger to her lips, then her open palm to the flat of her fist.

Promise.

Kaylene stepped onto the bridge second, her boots ringing quietly on metal. Aria followed, fingers hovering along the rail for balance, eyes darting with the same mixture of awe and fear.

Inside the lab itself, the hum of machinery wrapped around them—steady, clinical, somehow soothing, but the emptiness of the room fought against it. No shuffling papers. No clinking glass. No quiet muttering of a scientist at work.

Just machines running themselves.

Aria’s brow furrowed. She signed something sharp, uneasy, then closed her eyes.

Kaylene translated with a swallow.

“She says something feels… wrong.”

Lance scanned the corners, hands tightening around his baseball bat. A faint chemical smell hung in the air—cleaners, disinfectants, and something metallic underneath. The lights were all on. The power was steady. The equipment was mid‑process.

Tracing a finger across a steel tray full of beakers, he came to a stop, drinking in the sounds around him.

Aria's eyes flew open, hands out, and Kaylene turned with a start, fingertips erupting with silver light.

“Old man!”

Lance swung the bat in a wide arc, stainless steel shimmering in the harsh light, and he felt it connect with something he couldn't see. The table across from Lance buckled under an impact, lab equipment scattering, and a pale young man in a leather vest blinked into existence, blood streaming from his shattered nose as he rolled off the table and onto the floor.

“You old fard!” he moaned, hand to his face. His words were comically nasal, rage tinged by an almost cartoon lisp. “You broke by dose!”

Loud, braying laughter filled the lab as Lance recoiled, stepping closer to Aria and Kaylene. Brandishing the bloodied bat, he aimed it in the direction of the booming guffaws as a man stepped out from behind a set of storage lockers, hands raised.

“Oh, no…” Kaylene hissed. “Charybdis.”

The man known as Charybdis stepped fully into the humming lab lights, and for a moment it felt like the machines themselves quieted in deference.

He was huge.

Not just tall—broad, built like someone had taken the silhouette of a powerlifter and layered even more muscle over it. His tanned arms were thick enough that the seams of his tactical vest strained with every shift of his shoulders. Scars—old, pale, and unbothered—crossed his forearms like tide lines.

When he grinned, it was all teeth—broad and uneven, some capped with reinforced plating.

“Well now,” he smiled, voice deep enough to vibrate glassware. “Look who washed up. Our little thief and her traitor girlfriend. EON reports said you managed to give Machina the slip, but I knew you'd resurface eventually, Astra.”

“I'm not letting you have the cure!” Kaylene spat.

“Good!” Charybdis replied. He raised one meaty fist toward her. “Leviathan always took what he wanted, anyway!” He tapped the pale Aberrant on the floor with one foot, sneering down at him. “Eidolon, get up!”

“He hid by node!” the invisible Aberrant moaned. He rolled to his feet, blood still pouring down his chin. “I'b godda kill hib!”

“You’re an Aberrant, you fool,” Charybdis barked. “It’ll heal soon enough!”

“We don't want any trouble, folks,” Lance attempted. “We're just looking for a friend who lived down here.”

“You mean the old doctor? Too late!”

The trio spun in place as the voice came from behind them, a mocking singsong.

From behind a row of humming centrifuges, a third Aberrant stepped into view. Clad in what appeared to be firefighter gear, a thin ribbon of flame curled lazily between her fingers, casting her face in flickering rouge. Her eyes were sharp, amused, and entirely unafraid.

“Oh, great.” Kaylene sighed knowingly. “The psycho flaming bit—”

“—it’s good to see you too, Kay,” the woman smiled. Her grin faded. “Aria.”

“Friend of yours?” Lance guessed. “Old flame?”

“She calls herself Pyrausta,” Kaylene retorted. “And, unfortunately, yes.”

“You’re too late,” Pyrausta continued. “EON dragged the old doctor out of here hours ago. After the cure was stolen, they cracked down on known potential sympathizers.” She tilted her head, studying Kaylene with a sly, knowing smile.

Charybdis’ rumbling laugh rolled through the lab.

“See, Astra?” he called, spreading his arms in a mock welcome. “I knew you’d come sniffing around any lab EON kept off their books. You’re predictable like that.”

He flexed his fingers, the joints cracking like distant thunder.

“So, I put eyes here, and in every other forgotten basement, abandoned clinic, or empty university wing you could’ve crawled off to. You want to replicate a cure? Then you need three things: equipment, privacy, and somebody who actually knows what they’re doing.” He smirked. “And guess what? This big old city only has maybe a dozen people outside of EON who fit that bill.”

He paced a slow semicircle around the trio, keeping his distance.

“You think it was hard? We just watched where EON was watching. When they pulled their pet doctor out of here—your mystery man—you think we didn’t notice? Big federal team, all hush‑hush, busting doors in the dead of night? Please. They might as well have put out a press release.” He tapped the nearest workstation with a heavy finger. “That metal merc they call Machina’ll deliver him to EON’s stuffy old Director soon enough.”

“And once EON was gone?” Pyrausta’s grin widened. “Didn’t have to chase you. Didn’t have to track you. We just had to let you walk right through the door.”

Eidolon wiped blood from his lip with the back of his hand, then bared stained teeth.

“And dow you’re ours.”

Lance stepped forward, baseball bat in hand, and approached Charybdis, one careful step at a time.

“Please don't make me do this,” he sighed.

“Make you?” Charybdis laughed. “Just leave, old man. You got a lucky shot on Eidolon, but I'm not about to—”

The bat connected with the bottom of his chin, snapping his head to one side. The giant of a man recoiled like he'd been slapped, but as Lance pulled the bat away… he found it bent.

“This… is why I used to bring the shotgun.”

Charybdis' fist fell like a toppled oak.

In the next second, Lance found himself three metres to the left, still in one piece, as the giant's fist cratered the tile. Clutching his hand, Kaylene stared back at him, eyes wide.

“Stay down, old man!” she barked.

“Rip them apart!” Charybdis roared.

The first to move was Eidolon—the young Aberrant charged forward, slipping from view like a mirage.

Lance raised his bat, readying the damaged weapon, but Kaylene was faster, pushing him to the side. Catching a nearby cart, she pulled it between workstations.

“Aria!” she exclaimed.

The young esper extended a hand and the cart seemed to buckle, accelerating in an instant. Lance couldn't see the result, but a shouted curse and the sound of shattering glass told him that Aria's attack had been successful.

“Time to pay the piper, Astra!” Charybdis roared.

The immense Aberrant rushed Kaylene with the abandon of an enraged bull, tossing the cart aside with a single strike. Spinning on his heel, Lance swung the bat, trying to catch him in the knees, but the attack struck only empty air.

Kaylene moved in a flash, warping from the floor to the top of a table in a burst of silver light.

“My name,” she roared, “is Kaylene!” Lashing out, she kicked a beaker into Charybdis' face, making him howl in agony. Partially blinded, he lashed out, palm open, and Kaylene was too slow—even a glancing strike was enough to send her spiralling off the table and flat onto the tiles.

Aria leapt in, palms extended, and Charybdis' scream faded to a strangled choke as he clutched at his skull, staggering like he'd been concussed.

Across the room, the woman in fire gear, Pyrausta, lashed out, flames spewing from her palms as she pressed in on an injured Kaylene. The jet of flame completely immolated a row of shelves, sending glass crashing to the floor. Flames clung to the ceiling and walls now, and a thick, choking smoke began to fill the space.

Kaylene rolled to one side, glass shards raw slivers of pain in her shoulder and palms, and leapt forward through space and time, her flashbang of an attack enough to stun Pyrausta. Spinning low, she lashed out, catching the pyromaniac's ankle with a sweeping kick.

The sound of crunching glass brought Lance back to the present moment, and he spun in place just in time to see the blade of a knife flash through the smoke, tracing a crimson line across his chest. The weapon vanished before it had even finished its strike, leaving Lance dazed and confused.

The familiar agony made the pain in his arms vanish in a heartbeat, and Lance lashed out, kicking at the glass on the floor. To his delight, he watched as the shimmering fragments struck empty air and stopped, shimmering against an invisible obstacle.

“Sorry about the nose!” he barked. Slinging the bat, he released the handle as he swung, sending it hurtling through the air. The crack of metal on bone told him all he needed to know, and moments later Eidolon appeared, going down hard against the broken glass as the bat clattered to the tile.

Across the room, Kaylene had Pyrausta by the insulated arm, legs locked around her neck as the two writhed on the ground. A burst of flame nearly erased half of her hair, but Kaylene pivoted on the point where their limbs met, rolling her leg over the woman's arm over her own and trapping it.

“Stand… down!” Kaylene barked. “I'm trying to help people!”

“Not… ever!” Pyrausta hissed. Her simmering palm slowly began to rotate, approaching Kaylene’s chest. “If you’re helping them cure any of us, you can all… burn!”

With a roar of effort, Kaylene vanished, reappearing a meter off the ground with Pyrausta still firmly in her grasp. The two fell, and with a loud crack they struck the tile once more, leaving the hot-headed Aberrant gasping in dislocated agony.

“Get… out… of my head!” Charybdis roared. With a scream of pain, he spun in place, completely upending a steel table. Arms extended, Aria's powers moved for her, catching the thrown furniture, but it was far too late.

Free from her influence, Charybdis lashed out, striking the hovering table with one meaty foot and sending it, and Aria, crashing to the floor.

Aria hit the floor with a sharp, startled cry—more shock than pain, but enough to freeze Lance in place.

“Aria—!” he choked.

For one awful heartbeat, the whole world narrowed to the small, crumpled shape of the girl trying—and failing—to push herself back up. His pulse thundered in his ears, drowning out the roar of the flames and the grinding of glass under Charybdis’ boots. The old man's throat closed, and the edges of his vision tunnelled.

By the time he'd returned to himself, Kaylene was already moving.

Silver light flared—and she was suddenly perched on Charybdis’ shoulders, knees locked around his neck, fists raised.

“Heard you… tried this one with Machina!” the giant exclaimed. He staggered as she drove one fist against the base of his skull, but, impossibly, stayed standing. “Too bad… you're out… of explosives!”

In one sickening moment, Charybdis surged backward with terrifying speed, slamming Kaylene into the wall.

The impact knocked the breath from her body. She folded to the floor, eyes unfocused, one hand weakly scraping against tile and the other clutching her ribs.

As if summoned, the small red vial clattered across the floor at her feet, shimmering in the harsh halogen lights.

Lance didn’t even remember deciding to move.

His legs were already stepping forward, boots crunching across broken glass. His arms felt like lead, but his hands curled anyway, fists tightening, and he seized the cure from the ground, clutching it tightly in his fist.

Charybdis turned toward him, massive shoulders rising and falling with each thunderous breath. The firelight gleamed along sweat and scorch marks, outlining the beast of a man who had just flattened two kids like they were nothing.

Lance stared up at him… and thought of his daughter.

Thought of her small, warm hand wrapped around his finger. Thought of the promise he’d made her, whispered at her hospital bedside. Thought of every moment she believed he was strong enough to protect her. And, finally, he said what he was truly thinking.

“You'll never be Leviathan.”

Charybdis' grin was monstrous, angled teeth stained red by blood and firelight, and he took another step forward, staring the old man down.

“And how would you know, old man?” he guffawed. “Why are you even here? You're exactly the type of bleeding heart Leviathan would've hated!”

Lance felt that hollow in his chest spilling over, a sinkhole on the verge of collapse, ready to swallow him whole. He was coming apart. He was twenty years old and infected and thirty and scared and forty and in that hospital and all at once he was eighty and here, staring up at a legacy he'd never wanted.

“Good,” he replied. “I hate Leviathan too.”

And, finally, for a fraction of a second, he let that hollow consume him.

Nothing.

Between the molecules, between the atoms, between every mote of matter to ever exist, there was an infinite nothing. It spanned all, linking the world like a lattice.

And Lance seized that lattice and pulled, the very fibres of reality fraying like old rope in his clenched fist.

The nothing that made up Charybdis expanded on itself, unravelling the man as it hungrily devoured the space around him, and around that, expanding ever outward until—

“Enough!” he screamed.

All at once the world was as it was, and Lance felt his ears ache as the space around them seemed to inhale, a vacuum of nothing suddenly filled by air and life and reality. The shockwave pop snapped him back to focus as Charybdis collapsed, rivulets of blood pouring from his lips.

In the centre of the floor between them was a perfectly circular divot, as if a cubic metre of tile and lab equipment had simply ceased to be.

Lance remembered himself moving. The fire was spreading now, and he acted on instinct alone. With a strength he hadn't felt in years, he found himself hauling Aria to her feet and seizing a winded Kaylene by the hand, dragging the girls out through the elevator shaft. Thick black smoke filled the parking garage and billowed into the cabin of his truck as he threw them both into the back seat, coughing violently as he did so.

What scared him the most wasn't the fact that he'd lost control—it was the look in Charybdis' eyes.

Recognition.

⬥ ⬥ ⬥ ⬥

The truck ate up asphalt as Horizon City shrank in the rearview, the skyline carved into silhouette by the sinking sun. Smoke clung to them—hair, clothes, skin—refusing to be left behind.

Aria lay slumped against the rear door, eyelids fluttering, her breathing thin and uneven. Every pothole made her wince. Kaylene worked in the dim light, hands quick but shaking as she wrapped gauze around her own ribs before turning to press another strip gently against Aria’s temple.

Lance kept his hands on the wheel, knuckles white. In the cupholder, the glass vial caught the last of the daylight, throwing a thin line of gold across his dashboard each time the truck hit a bend. He kept glancing down at it, then forcing his eyes back to the road.

“She’s close to burning out,” Kaylene murmured, not looking up from Aria. “I’ve never seen her this bad—slowing Charybdis must have pushed her limits.”

Lance swallowed, trying to keep his voice steady. “Cover her eyes and ears,” he instructed. “The less sensory input she gets, the faster she’ll come down.”

“That’s… awfully specific,” Kaylene said slowly.

“It’s common sense,” he tried, the words stiff and brittle.

“No,” she retorted, “It isn’t.” Her tone wasn’t angry—worse, it was steady. Certain. “Lance… the cut on your chest is already closed. Who are you really?”

Lance glanced down at his bisected shirt; the narrow slash had faded to a dull scar.

From the back seat, Aria shifted. Kaylene gently laid a folded jacket across her face to dim the light, but as she moved to cover the girl’s ears, Aria brushed her away. She lifted a trembling hand, placing it on her chest and moving in a small circle.

Please.

The sun vanished behind the edge of a low bluff, the cab dipping into cool blue shadow. The road stretched ahead in a long, empty ribbon, offering no escape.

Lance exhaled—slow, defeated—and began to speak.

“Mira Reyes was born on the ninth of April,” he began. “She was only three kilograms.” He laughed softly. “I don't know how so much can come from so little. But she was mine, and she was beautiful.” He swallowed. “She was the one of the first second-generation Aberrants to ever grace this world with her light.”

Kaylene met his gaze in the mirror, her expression softening.

“And her Aberrancy,” she breathed. “They didn't have the stabilizer back then, did they? They’d only just cured the virus itself.”

“They did not,” Lance replied. He fought back against the hollow in his chest with all his might, each word spoken a battle won. “Mira was… she was an esper too. A powerful one. She was sensitive from birth, and… it tore her up.”

“What did you do?” Kaylene breathed.

“Everything I could,” Lance admitted. “Back then I… I had people in EON I trusted. Doctor Saito and his assistant, Addison, when the Enhanced program was just an idea.”

Kaylene blinked hard. “Wait. Addison Cross? As in, Director Cross?”

“Back then, she wasn’t EON’s director,” Lance murmured. “She was just… Addison, head of cybertechnology. She and Saito were old friends, and they founded EON together.” His expression went distant, somewhere between fond and haunted. “They were studying Aberrancy at a site out in the prairies. A research facility for first‑generation cases.” His tone darkened. “Saito called it Area Leviathan.”

At the mention of the word, Lance saw the colour leave Kaylene's cheeks. He forced himself to meet her gaze—the young woman was owed the truth.

“Area… Leviathan?” she repeated, as if testing out the words.

Lance scoffed. “Saito had a habit of giving his projects dramatic codenames,” he explained. “Said the first-gen Aberrants behaved ‘like sea monsters dragged onto land’—unpredictable, thrashing, and dangerous because no one understood them. The name stuck.”

“And you took your daughter there to try and save her?” Kaylene pressed.

Lance nodded grimly. “The doctor tried his hardest to help her,” he continued. “But it wasn’t enough.” He drew a slow, shaking breath. “It was only after she… after…” He pressed a hand to his mouth, steadying himself. “Saito came to me and told me what they’d figured out—the early stabilization drugs weren’t stabilizing anything. They’d only accelerated her decline.”

Kaylene’s eyes softened. “So they—”

“They didn’t know,” Lance said quickly. Firmly. “None of them did. The science was new, untested. Everyone at that site was scrambling, terrified, trying anything that might buy Mira and the other second-gens some time.” His voice cracked. “They were good people. But I was… I was out of my mind with grief.” He shut his eyes. “And in that moment, I blamed all of them.”

The truck hit a pothole and rattled loudly, jarring the trio. Lance's teeth incised into his tongue, but he hardly felt the pain.

“My Aberrant power is bond manipulation,” Lance admitted. “It was never that powerful—I could weaken objects or strengthen them, make machines stall or reinforce a fencepost so it wouldn’t budge. Compared to most first-gens, it was harmless. Until… that day.” The blood in his mouth tasted bitter. “Something inside of me caved in that day, and my Aberrancy responded in kind. I tore that facility apart.”

Kaylene’s voice came out small. “Lance… what are you saying?”

He swallowed hard. “The farm I've been living on wasn't always empty land—the old building you said had… rustic charm?” His breath shuddered. “It wasn’t an old-world structure. It wasn’t an accident. It wasn’t time.”

Aria extended one shaking finger, pointing in his direction.

It was you.

For a moment, the only sound was the rumble of the truck and the faint rattle of Aria’s breath.

“When I snapped, only Addison tried to stay,” Lance continued. “She begged me to stop. She even put on EON’s first prototype exosuit—before Machina was ever a name—just to try to contain me.”

He exhaled, slow and ragged.

“Doctor Saito made it out alive because of her. She saved lives I was too far gone to see. And… I think that’s why she stayed in the Machina armour for decades.” His fingers tightened on the wheel. “To make sure no one ever has to face someone like me again.”

Kaylene stared, horrified, but unable to look away. “So then… Leviathan…”

“I was out of my mind with grief,” Lance murmured, “lashing out at anyone who tried to pull me back.” His jaw clenched. “And when I finally stopped… when I came to… the world had a name for the monster I’d become.”

He forced himself to say it. To let the truth out.

“I am Leviathan.”

Kaylene’s spine pressed back against the door, as if the truck suddenly shrank around her. Aria didn’t move—but the soft, shaky exhale beneath the blindfold said she’d heard every word.

Lance kept talking. He had to, now that the dam had cracked.

“EON buried the truth,” he said. “They hid Mira’s death. Hid their mistakes. Hid the fact that their earliest experiments had failed, had killed second-gen Aberrants who wanted nothing more than a chance to live.” His throat tightened. “And they hid me. No official record of my name. Of my daughter’s name. Of what they’d done to her. They let the myth of Leviathan—this great and terrible titan—spread through the prairies to justify the creation of the Enhanced.”

Kaylene whispered, “And the Cult…”

“Worships a ghost,” Lance replied, exhausted. “A rumour. A tragedy they reinvented as a prophecy.” He rubbed a trembling hand across his mouth. “Every awful thing they’ve done… every innocent kid they’ve radicalized… every person they’ve hurt… it was all in Leviathan’s name.”

“In your name,” Kaylene said, astonished.

“No.” Lance shook his head, eyes burning. “In the name of the thing I became. The thing I couldn’t control. The thing I’ll spend my whole life trying to atone for.”

For a long moment, none of them spoke.

Wind buffeted the truck. The prairie rolled out across the horizon like an endless dark ocean. In the rear mirror, Aria’s hand drifted up from beneath the jacket, shaking, reaching toward nothing.

Kaylene’s voice finally broke the stillness.

“Why did you stop?”

Lance laughed, but it contained no shred of mirth.

“That’s the worst part of all,” he replied. “The end was… mundane. Even Addison at her best couldn’t stop me, EON couldn’t slow me down, but… one day I woke up and realized I was tired. So I made a deal with her and her alone—one final battle, and Leviathan would disappear forever. I was given a clean slate and a plot of land in the prairies, and in turn, I would never use my powers again.” Lance sighed, his voice taking on a sardonic edge. “For the average person, the great Machina vanquished the monster of Horizon City for good, and that was it.” he shrugged. “EON won… and Leviathan lost.”

“At the lab,” Kaylene breathed. “That was the first time you’ve used your Aberrant powers—”

“—in decades,” Lance finished. “Yes. And my worst fears have come to pass—I’m certain that sadist, Charybdis, recognized it.” His grip tightened on the wheel. “He saw what I did to him. And if he lives long enough to reach anyone else in the cult…” He stared into the gathering dark. “They’ll know Leviathan is still alive. And so will EON.”

Kaylene’s breath hitched.

“They’ll come back to the farm,” she whispered. “For the cure—and for you.”

“They will,” Lance said. “Every one of them. The cult. EON. The Enhanced. Machina… Addison. Anyone who still fears Leviathan—or worships him.”

His eyes flicked to the cure in the cupholder. The vial glinted in the last sliver of dying sunlight.

“And I don’t know which of us they’re coming for.”

“How long do you think we have?” Kaylene pressed. She leaned forward in her seat now, furtively glancing in the rearview mirror.

“Not long,” Lance replied. “Not long at all.”

Pressing his foot down on the pedal, the truck roared across the prairies as they raced the dying light of day.

⬥ ⬥ ⬥ ⬥

Night had fully claimed the prairies by the time they reached the farmstead. The house—normally quiet, unremarkable—felt like it was holding its breath. For the last hour they’d worked in grim silence, locking windows, bracing doors, dragging old furniture into makeshift barricades. Every distant rustle of the wind sounded like footsteps.

Aria, pale as she’d ever looked, lay curled on the couch beneath a thick blanket, her breathing thin and uneven. Her eyes were still covered by the blindfold, but her expression was tight with agony and sweat dampened her hairline.

Lance knelt beside the couch, ignoring the protests of his aching knee, and withdrew the battered shotgun he’d previously neglected. His hands were steady, but only just.

Before he could stand, Aria’s hand shot out and seized his wrist.

Lance froze, expecting a surge of mental energy, but Aria wasn’t using her powers. Releasing her grip, she signed toward him, slow but deliberate. Concentrating, he did his best to understand her message.

Give it to you. End it. Leviathan dies.

Lance’s face crumpled.

“Aria… no.” He shook his head fiercely. “That cure should be yours. You need it far more than—”

She interrupted him with another sharp gesture, even more frantic this time.

You. Take it. Leviathan won’t be a symbol anymore.

Lance swallowed hard, throat working, as he fought against the growing hollow in his chest. “You’re not thinking clearly—you’re burning out, kid. You take the dose, and that’s final.”

Footsteps sounded in the doorway.

Kaylene stood there, arms crossed tight to her chest, expression carved from equal parts fear and stubborn resolve.

“She’s right,” Kaylene announced. “But not about giving it to you. She’s right that we need to talk about Leviathan.” She jabbed a finger at him. “But nobody is taking that cure until we’re all in agreement.”

Aria made a small, frustrated exhale, sinking back into the couch. Kaylene moved to her side, laying a gentle hand on her shoulder.

“We’re not doing the self‑sacrifice thing tonight,” Kaylene said softly. “Not you, and definitely not the old m—Lance.” She turned back to him, her eyes fierce. “We stick together. No splitting up, no martyr plays, no deciding who deserves to live more. Not after everything we’ve seen. We are all staying alive, and that cure will be used to help people.”

“I love your optimism,” Lance offered, “but I don’t see us, or this cure, leaving the house of our own accord.”

To his astonishment, Kaylene only smiled in response. “That’s the thing, Lance,” she replied. “The one thing this whole awful adventure has given me… is a little bit of hope. If the great and terrible Leviathan can change… maybe we’ve all got a chance.” She glanced toward the distant city outside. “Maybe they do, too.”

The room went quiet, save for the low hum of the old farmhouse heater and Aria’s unsteady breaths.

Outside, the din of the summer night was loud, the songs of crickets filling the endless grass, but then Lance heard it—a distant pop, faint but sharp enough to echo across the open sky.

“Stay inside,” he commanded. Slinging the shotgun’s strap over his shoulder, he marched toward the front door. “Keep that vial safe.”

“You’re going out there?” Kaylene exclaimed.

“It’s my farm,” Lance shot back. “Someone has to greet the guests.”

Pushing through the front door, Lance Reyes stepped outside.

He turned toward Horizon City, the great tower of steel, just in time to catch a flash of light blooming across its distant edge. The wind shifted suddenly, rolling toward him with a rising force that carried with it a wave of old concrete dust from the ruined building at the centre of his field.

The first thing Lance saw was the light—a glowing golden star swept across the sky, arcing over the city and out into the plains. He could hear it now, the hum of engines on open road, rolling toward him like distant thunder.

Then came the rest.

A sharp whir overhead, followed by a mechanical chirp. A line of drones swept in from the south, their floodlights snapping on in perfect synchrony. Cold white beams carved across the prairie and fixed on his farmhouse, bleaching the grass in harsh light.

Vehicles followed—armoured carriers cutting across the gravel driveway. Their tires spat dust as they fanned out, forming a semicircle at the edge of his field. Doors slammed open. The heavy boots of Enhanced hit the earth one after another.

Lance felt the ground vibrate beneath him—faint, but unmistakable. He stumbled back as pressure rolled outward across the fields, bending the crops low like they were bowing to a god. A brilliant figure touched down in the field, leaving ripples of displaced air in their wake.

Machina had returned at last.

A familiar voice echoed over the din, volume modulated.

“Lance Reyes.”

The name hit the prairie like a verdict.

Lance stared up at the Enhanced before him, and, to his surprise, found he couldn’t help but smile.

“Hello, Addison.”

Director Addison Cross didn’t wear a cape or hover like the young David Winters. She didn’t need the theatrics. Instead, as EON’s leader touched down on freshly tilled soil, the Machina armour carried her with a deliberate, grounded weight, each step pressing faint craters into the dirt. Her armour was older than Winters’—less ornamental, more industrial—built in the days when the suit was meant to save lives, not impress cameras. Unlike Winters’ gold radiance, Addison’s light was slightly colder, steadier—like the rest of her gear, it was functional, not decorative.

As she approached Lance, her sharp, tired eyes met his and the hollow in his chest only grew. Her hair was like brushed silver—had it always been so grey?

Addison raised an arm, and the rest of the Enhanced soldiers froze where they stood—waiting for her command.

“You know why I’m here, Lance,” she declared. It wasn’t a question.

Lance exhaled once through his nose, slow and steady. He stared straight at the woman in the armour.

“Yeah,” he murmured. “I know.”

The floodlights tightened around him, pinning him in a ring of light. Lance could see the glow of their mounted cameras—the capture of Leviathan would be broadcast to the whole city.

Addison took a step forward. The air around her hummed with the quiet resonance of repulsion fields, subtle but unmistakable—Machina’s presence was never silent.

“EON intercepted a flagged Cult communication two hours ago,” she stated. “A widespread transmission. About you.”

The muscles in Lance’s jaw twitched.

“So that’s it?” he asked. “You heard a rumour and sprinted halfway across the province?”

“No,” Addison replied. “The old lab had CCTV. Half my task force is putting down Aberrant riots in Horizon City because of what you did in that video. The entire city knows who you are.”

Addison took another step forward, her boots pressing small craters into the dirt.

“You have two other Aberrants inside,” she declared. “Kaylene Adeyami and Aria Voss. They’re unregistered, unstable, and in possession of vital EON property.” Her voice dropped. “I need all three of you to come out peacefully.”

Lance barked a humourless laugh. “You know that’s not happening.”

“Don’t make me force it,” Addison warned.

The hollow in Lance’s chest deepened—any further and he was afraid things would start to fall apart.

“You’re not taking them,” Lance hissed. “They’re only kids. They want to help people.”

“So did you, once,” she murmured.

That stopped him cold.

A floodlight swept across Lance’s face, catching the grief carved into his features.

He took a slow, deliberate breath.

“Addison… this isn’t the way. Erasing Aberrancy isn’t a path forward—it’s a rejection of everything we’ve learned. Don’t let my mistakes force your hand.”

Addison Cross said nothing for a long moment, but Lance saw her expression darken.

“I’m not,” she shot back.

The farmhouse door creaked.

Kaylene stepped out onto the porch, arms held high—but not in surrender. In pleading.

“Wait,” she called. “Please. Just—wait.”

Immediately, half a dozen Enhanced swung their weapons toward her. Addison raised a single hand, halting them.

Kaylene’s voice trembled but didn’t break. “Nobody in that house is your enemy. But you can’t force this.” Her gaze swept across the line of Enhanced, then landed squarely on Addison. “The cure isn’t a cure unless people choose to accept it.”

Addison didn’t budge. “You know the problem better than anyone—from the footage in the lab, your friend Aria is a High Aberrant, isn’t she? She’s a danger to herself.” She took another step forward. “Aberrancy is dangerous—it’s not part of the natural order.”

“Neither is surgery,” Kaylene shot back. “Neither is chemo. Neither is any treatment in the world that’s ever saved a life. But people still get to choose those. You can’t take something that’s supposed to help people and turn it into a weapon for compliance.” She stepped off the porch, hands still raised. “You don’t get to decide who someone is without their permission.”

Addison’s jaw tightened, the subtle shift barely visible through the armour’s framing.

Kaylene kept going.

“You say we’re unstable. That we’re risks. But that’s exactly why forcing the cure will backfire—people don’t trust you. They trust each other. They trust someone standing beside them, not above them.” Her voice grew stronger, steadier. “If you mandate this, Aberrants will hide. They’ll run. And the Cult will be waiting with open arms.”

A flicker passed over Addison’s eyes—fear, or recognition?

Kaylene lowered her arms—slowly, deliberately.

“Let people choose, Director. Let us choose. Or you’ll turn Leviathan into a prophecy all over again—this time because you made it true.”

Addison’s reply was soft. Final.

“I’m sorry, child.”

Lance stepped between them.

“Addison,” he pressed, quiet and shaking, “don’t do this.”

She stiffened. Just slightly.

“This is bigger than us,” she murmured.

“No,” he whispered. “It was always us.” he pointed one shaking hand at the farmhouse. “That girl in there, Aria, is refusing to take the cure at her own peril, only to ensure it gets distributed by people who care. If Mira had grown up to be half as brave and selfless—”

“Don’t you dare bring our daughter into this!” Addison snapped. It was only a moment later that she realized what she’d said.

Kaylene froze. Enhanced turned their heads, military rigour momentarily forgotten. Even the wind seemed to still.

Lance’s heart plummeted. He stared at Addison, the air between them suddenly too thin to breathe.

“Addison,” he pleaded, voice breaking like dried earth, “don’t take them from me. I can’t lose them too.”

“It’s about far more than you,” Machina spat, “Leviathan.”

Lance wilted at the name. The camera drones fixed on him, and a world’s worth of judgment pressed against the hollow beneath his ribs. Around him, the dirt shifted, the very soil beginning to tear itself apart under his influence.

“Addison,” he whispered. “Please.”

Her gaze didn’t waver. If anything, she looked inches away from giving the order.

“I have no choice.”

Kaylene stepped backward instinctively, fingers flaring with silver light. She could see Addison’s stance shifting—feet planting, shoulders squaring, the hum of her armour intensifying.

Kaylene’s lips parted.

“No—”

The farmhouse door exploded open.

Aria Voss staggered out, blanket half‑slipped from her shoulders, blindfold still on, one hand braced against the doorframe. Her breath rasped in the cold air, her skin flushed with fever. But her other hand—shaking violently—reached out.

For Lance.

“Aria—!” Kaylene darted toward her. “You can’t!”

But Aria’s grip tightened around Lance’s forearm, fingernails digging in like anchors, and in his mind, he heard her speak.

“Everyone deserves a choice.”

Her legs buckled, and Lance staggered, clinging to the frail young woman as she struggled to stand. Kaylene met Lance’s desperate gaze, tears in her eyes, and then pressed against them both, keeping Aria from falling.

Extending her other hand, Aria reached.

Not physically.

Not toward one mind.

Toward all of them.

An intangible pressure rolled outward, subtle at first, like air thickening before a storm. Floodlights flickered. Drones stuttered mid‑hover. Enhanced flinched as an invisible thread brushed their consciousness.

Aria leaned her forehead against Lance’s shoulder, breath stuttering, and Lance felt the hollow in his chest vanish.

For the first time in thirty years… he didn’t push anyone away.

A cascade of images ruptured across the field—projected not into the air, but into memory.

Mira’s laugh, small and bright.

Her worsening symptoms.

Doctors promising solutions that never came.

Addison screaming at a boardroom full of men who refused to fund long‑term care.

Lance holding Mira’s hand, wishing she wouldn’t sleep for fear of not waking up.

The night she didn’t.

The moment his grief tipped into something catastrophic.

The surge—bright, blinding, uncontrolled.

Area Leviathan collapsing inwards like a dying star.

Addison pulling survivors from the rubble until her hands bled.

Lance wandering the prairies, drowning in the silence of everything he’d destroyed.

The great Machina, merely a shining illusion.

The terrible Leviathan, little more than a blinded act.

Her years alone.

His years alone.

And then it ended.

Aria swayed, knees buckling. She was grey and sweaty, one breath from collapsing entirely. Kaylene caught her—but only barely.

Addison stood utterly still. The Machina armour’s light—usually unwavering, almost arrogant in its certainty—now flickered with a faint instability. Her voice, when it finally emerged, was rough. Older. Human.

“…You were so angry,” she murmured.

Lance bowed his head. “Deep down… some days I still am.”

Addison stepped forward once, the soil crunching under her boots. Her eyes never left him.

“I always knew,” she said quietly, “that you turned your pain outward because you couldn’t stand it. Because you needed someone to blame.”

Lance’s breath hitched. He didn’t deny it.

“But I never understood,” Addison continued, “how much of it was fear, not hatred.” She swallowed, and for the first time her voice cracked. “You were terrified of losing everything we had left.”

Lance looked up, eyes hollow and shining. “I was. And then my actions caused it anyway.”

“And I—” Addison hesitated, jaw tightening the way it always had when she fought emotion with logic. “I didn’t explode. I folded inward. Took everything I felt and built walls around it.” She gestured to the armour encasing her. “Around me.”

Kaylene watched her, stunned, as she held Aria tightly.

“Lance…” Addison exhaled. “I wasn’t blind to your grief. Or mine. I knew exactly what it did to us.” Her gaze drifted to the broken earth, then back to him. “I thought control was the only way forward. That if I could force order on the world, it wouldn’t be able to take anything from me again.”

She stepped closer.

“But seeing all that—seeing—” She shook her head. “I didn’t realize how much of that need for control was just… running. How much of Machina was built to keep me from falling apart.”

Lance’s throat worked. “Addison…”

She lifted her chin, meeting his eyes with a steadiness that wasn’t armour-deep, but bone‑deep.

“You gave your grief a shape,” she said. “A monstrous one. And I gave mine a mission.” Her eyes softened around the edges—just barely. “Neither of us were right. And neither of us are the enemy.”

Another silence followed, but it was steadier than the last, more tentative.

“I don’t know if we can forgive each other,” Addison admitted. “Not yet. Maybe not ever.” She took a breath. “But I can stop fighting you. I can stop fighting them.”

She nodded toward Kaylene and the barely conscious Aria.

“And I can choose a path that isn’t control for control’s sake.” Her shoulders sagged, the armour seeming suddenly too heavy. “Everyone deserves the choice,” she concluded, “to stop being defined by the worst day of our lives.”

Addison’s words hung in the air, and for a long, fragile moment, no one moved.

Then she slowly turned her head toward the Enhanced lining the field. Her voice, when it came, was steady—but stripped bare.

“Stand down.”

The line of armoured silhouettes faltered, weapons lowering one by one. Floodlights dimmed. Only the camera drones kept recording.

Addison glanced at them—those hovering glass eyes pointed at the group—and something in her expression hardened with decision.

“To the citizens of Horizon City,” she declared, raising her voice enough for the transmitters to catch it. “In the following weeks, I will tender my resignation as Director of EON.”

Murmurs erupted across the Enhanced ranks. Lance’s breath caught in his throat.

“The cure for second-gen Aberrancy will not be mandated,” Addison continued. “Its use will remain voluntary and free, and those Aberrants who do wish to take it will be protected from prejudice by the full force of the law.” She drew a slow, shaking breath. “And that promise begins with me.”

“Lance! Someone, please!” Kaylene cried. “I need help!”

The urgency snapped through the air like a whip.

Addison spun toward the duo instantly. Whatever conflict lingered between her and Lance evaporated under the sight of Aria’s limp form.

Kaylene was crouched in the dirt now, struggling to hold Aria upright. Aria’s breaths came shallow and irregular, her skin cold despite the feverish flush beneath it. The blindfold had slipped, half‑revealing unfocused eyes that didn’t seem to see anything at all.

Lance dropped beside them, hands shaking. “She’s burning out. We’re out of time!”

Addison knelt opposite him, gauntleted fingers already moving to check Aria’s pulse with superhuman precision.

“Her vitals are collapsing,” she muttered. “That projection took everything she had left.”

“Can you stabilize her?” Kaylene asked, voice raw with fear.

“Not with what I have on me,” Addison replied. “But… you can. Do you have the cure?”

Kaylene’s breath hitched. “But Aria—she said it wasn’t for her. That others needed—”

“It was the only full, purified dose EON has,” Addison cut in gently. “Yes. And she made the choice to protect it. But things have changed. I’m still Director for now, and that means I can put everything into making more.” She met Kaylene’s eyes, unarmoured by certainty for the first time in years. “You have my word that we’ll quickly synthesize more. Enough for everyone.”

Lance swallowed hard. “Will it save her?”

“It isn’t magic,” Addison said carefully. “This isn’t a miracle. The burnout damage is real, and this dose can’t restore her speech. But it will stop the progression. It will stabilize her, and cut off the powers she was born with, permanently.” She looked down at Aria’s still form, voice softening. “It gives her a chance. And right now… she doesn’t have another.”

Kaylene stared at Aria—at the girl who had dragged herself to her feet to show the world the truth, who had nearly died doing what no one else could.

“She deserves that chance,” Kaylene whispered.

Lance nodded, jaw tight. “She does.”

Aria’s mouth shaped words—silent, intangible—but Lance understood her perfectly.

“My choice.”

Kaylene pulled the vial free from her pocket with shaking fingers. At long last, the bottle’s seal cracked with a soft, crystalline sound, the fluid inside catching the light like liquid sunrise.

⬥ ⬥ ⬥ ⬥

The afternoon sun hung low over the prairies, thick and golden. Heat shimmered above the fields, blurring the horizon into a wavering mirage. Lance Reyes stood at the open hood of his tractor, sleeves rolled to his elbows, grease streaked up both arms. The engine coughed once as he adjusted a stubborn belt, then fell quiet again. One bolt—the last one—refused to seat properly. He leaned in with a grunt, twisting the wrench until his shoulder ached.

The tool slipped, leaping from his grasp, and he bit back a curse as it clattered into the open engine—and reappeared in a flash of silver light, held a centimetre above his outstretched hand.

“I could’ve reached that,” he announced.

Kaylene dropped the wrench into his open hand, one eyebrow raised, silver light still fading from the air around her. “Right, of course,” she smirked. “Got time for a break?”

“Almost,” he replied. Fixing the wrench around the bolt, he pulled once more, and the stubborn hardware gave in, locking into place. “Thanks to your help these past few weeks, I’m finished in half the time.”

“I’d hurry nonetheless.” Kaylene glanced back toward the house. “Aria’s up and about again. She’s making lunch. I tried to tell her she needed to rest, but after three weeks I think she’s had enough sleep.”

“Good.” Lance set the wrench against the tractor’s wheel. “Glad to hear she’s got more energy—she put up a heck of a fight to pull through.”

Kaylene nodded, an absent smile on her face. “It’s still weird, you know—the quiet.”

“You’ll get used to it,” Lance replied. He chuckled softly. “I sure did.”

For a moment, they stood in the rustling silence of the fields.

Then Kaylene spoke, hesitant. “The news said your sentence was finalized. You were home so late last night that I didn’t even think to ask.”

Lance shrugged. “Suspended.” His eyes softened. “Given how packed the court was, it’s better than I deserved.”

“You’re not Leviathan anymore,” Kaylene murmured.

“I try to tell myself that every day.” He wiped his hands on a rag, then moved toward the cab of the tractor.

Kaylene nudged his shoulder lightly. “You’re doing better now.”

“Trying.” He paused with one foot on the tractor’s first step, glancing toward the road. “Sounds like the rest of the city is, too.”

Kaylene’s grin warmed. “The Cult’s falling apart. Leviathan is just some sad old man, so they’ve got no mythic martyr left to cling to. Half quit or signed on to EON’s new initiative, and the others are infighting.” She crossed her arms. “Second‑gen mortality has dropped, too. People trust the cure now that it’s not being shoved down their throats.”

“Good,” Lance murmured. He pulled himself into the driver’s seat. “That’s good. What’s happening at EON?”

Kaylene perked a little. “Acting Director Winters announced full transparency protocols yesterday, in accordance with the Aberrant rights movement. He retired the Machina suit, too. Said we don’t need symbols—just people doing the work.” She smirked. “He was surprisingly forgiving about that bomb I used on him.”

“Yeah, that tracks.” Lance chuckled under his breath. “And… Addison?”

Kaylene’s expression shifted—soft, fond in a way she probably wouldn’t admit. “Last I heard, she crossed the provincial border heading east toward Manitoba. No armour. No convoy. Just a backpack.” Her eyes drifted over the endless fields.

Lance swallowed, gaze distant. “She’ll like it out there.”

Kaylene studied him for a moment. “You miss her.”

“I miss who she was,” he admitted. “Who we both were. But for the first time… I’m not angry about it.”

Sliding the keys into the ignition, Lance twisted. The old tractor rattled for a moment, new parts corresponding with the old, before finally sputtering to life.

“Well, I’ll be darned, old man!” Kaylene exclaimed. She smiled up at him from the ground below, hands on her hips. “After the force I hit that thing with, I didn’t think it would ever start!”

Lance let the engine settle into a steady rumble, then pulled the keys from the ignition, drinking in the sudden silence.

“Turns out,” he replied, “some things don’t stay broken forever.”