"Sniper," Jonas hissed, grabbing her hand. "We're getting ghosted out here!"
Without hesitation, his eyes glowed—irises blooming with prismatic shimmer—and the air around them bent like heatwaves.
Light diffraction. Aeon-type crest.
They vanished.
A few minutes in, Luan and I stopped by a jagged rock, red veins running through it like lightning scars.
"So, quick pop quiz," she said, pulling out her collector. "Echoes, aberrants, titans... what else?"
"Parasites," I said, bending to scan the soil. "And the Diavolo."
"The what?"
"Variant classification. Echoes are the low-level drones. Aberrants are smarter, sentient. Titans are huge and usually territorial. Parasites, well... they hijack other living things. Turn 'em into puppets."
"And Diavolo?"
I paused. "Nobody really knows. Top-tier variant. Smart, powerful. Rarest of the rare."
Luan shivered slightly. "Charming."
She moved ahead to scan the next formation, glancing at me sideways. "I still think it's dumb you don't have a crest."
"I don't think about it."
"You totally think about it."
"I do."
"called it."
Somewhere far off, the sound of a collector unit whirred.
"Anyway, you're welcome," Luan said casually. "My crest's a shard type. You're synced to one of the rarest classes. I expect a thank-you coffee."
"I'll even pretend to listen while you drink it."
We shared a grin. It lasted four seconds.
Then the transmission hit.
"All teams." Riva's voice cracked across our earpieces. "We've got a situation."
The hologram of the space shimmered mid-air, forming a portal window—through it, we saw Jonas holding a bleeding Marlo in his arms, crouched behind a jagged rock. His eyes were frantic.
"I've got a sniper on us!" Jonas barked. "I went invisible but the blasts are still tagging near us—they've got some kind of impact crest!"
Marlo groaned, clutching her ear.
"Sniper?" Willy's voice came over the comms. "This was supposed to be dead space!"
"No joke, dude!" Jonas ducked another round. A flash lit the side of the portal, and an explosion blew debris into the air. "This isn't a joke round! It's live!"
Riva's voice was firm. "All groups converge on Jonas and Marlo's signal. I'm porting to their location now. Eyes sharp, no hero moves."
As the portal shimmered shut, Luan turned to me.
"You're freakishly calm right now."
"Isn't that what's expected from someone crestless?" I replied, brushing dust off my sleeve.
Meanwhile—across the ridge—hidden within the warped skeleton of a derelict variant hive, a man adjusted his rifle.
He had jet black gloves, a grey and red undersuit, and messy auburn hair tied back into a loose knot. A scar danced across the corner of his mouth like it wasn't sure if it wanted to be a smile.
He didn't look like a toppler. He didn't move like one either.
But when his eyes narrowed, and the wind pulsed around the barrel of the gun—that's when you saw it.
He pressed his hand against the side of the weapon. A low hum buzzed through the air. The bullet inside the chamber flickered red. The kinetic energy in the shell magnified.
The next shot he took cracked a boulder clean in half fifty meters away.
"Luigi," he muttered to himself, reloading. "Better they say my name than forget it."
A soft glow shimmered along his spine. His symbiont crest signature activated.
Kinetic manipulation. Not just speed. He could store momentum, redirect it. Amplify it. A bullet fired from his rifle didn't just travel faster—it exploded with compressed force, detonating on contact.
And worst of all... he could slow it down. Curve it. Make it chase.
"Let's see what these kids are made of," he murmured, raising his rifle again.
And then he smiled.
The air cracked.
A streak of heat tore through the red-tinged sky, detonating just meters from where Jonas and Marlo had taken cover.
Jonas ducked behind the warped stone outcrop, sweat dripping into his eyes as he clutched Marlo tighter. Her breathing was shallow, her ear still bleeding from the earlier shot. Her shard crest—Zig—had retreated into dormancy, pulsing faintly against her chest.
He cursed under his breath. "Of all people, I had to get paired with the sniper magnet."
Another shot whizzed by. Jonas winced, forced his head up just long enough to get a glimpse of a flicker—light distorting unnaturally about eighty meters northeast. He narrowed his eyes. A shimmer in the air. The bastard was still out there.
"Alright. Light tricks it is."
He breathed in.
His fingers flexed, eyes glowing faintly. With a whisper of motion, the air around Jonas shimmered. He bent the light—not to hide, but to twist. He turned the curve into a flash, scattering photons in a sharp refraction. A microflare, right where the shimmer was.
A grunt. The glint of a rifle shifting position.
Jonas smirked. "Got you."
Marlo groaned, just barely conscious. Her hand twitched, and Zig stirred—its form crackling like sharpened shadow. "Z-Zig… The Hand..."
The shard creature responded immediately, stretching like an elastic claw and slamming into the ground beneath the sniper's position. With a low crack, the earth split and tilted.
A black boot skidded into view. A silhouette slipped out of hiding—tall, cloaked in a weathered coat, his rifle casually cradled like a paintbrush.
Jonas' smirk faded.
"Not great."
The man lifted the gun again. A shot thundered from the barrel, but this time, it wasn't just speed—it whined, like something cutting through reality itself. It shimmered with kinetic buildup, bending space before impact.
Jonas clenched his jaw and shielded Marlo's body. "Zig—!"
Too late.
The air exploded—
—but space twisted first.
A portal cracked into existence mid-blast, swallowing the bullet whole and spitting it into a distant hilltop.
Riva stepped through the shimmer like she'd been waiting her whole life to make an entrance.
"Luigi, what are you doing here."
The man adjusted his coat. He had the kind of face you'd forget until he smiled—then it stayed with you. The smile was there now, lazily curling beneath a rough stubble and framed by a sharp jaw. His eyes gleamed like molten iron. And he was holding that rifle like it was part of him.
"Was wondering when you'd show."
Jonas blinked. "They know each other?"
Riva's stance didn't waver. "You used the students as bait."
"Correct."
"And you came here—for me?"
"Correct again."
He flicked a switch on his rifle, reloading with fluid grace. "Don't act like you didn't see this coming. Everyone pays, Riva. Even sellouts."
"You mean ex-partners."
"You say 'ex' like it means 'done.'"
He pulled the trigger.
Bang—Bang—Bang—
Riva spun, her portals flaring like shards of broken mirrors. Each bullet vanished before it hit her, reappearing in midair and slamming into the dirt around Luigi's feet. But his expression barely twitched—he waved his hand, and the bullets slowed mid-flight, shifting direction. One slammed into a tree, another skipped across the ground like a pebble, exploding ten feet away.
The students scattered.
Khadija shouted, "What the hell is happening?!"
Milo yanked her behind a ridge. "Symbiont crest. Kinetic type! He's manipulating energy flow, speed, force—he's weaponizing physics!"
Huey arrived in silence, sliding in beside Luan, his eyes tracking every movement. She noticed the quiet burn behind them.
"Shouldn't we… do something?" she whispered.
Huey didn't answer.
He was watching. Measuring. Staring.
The wind shifted.