Scene 1: Flashback — The Promise
Rain dripped from the cracked tin roof in Droplin.
The world was already dying, but up here the night was quiet.
Kaila sat cross-legged beside little Xin, her arm around his shoulders. He was only seven. She was barely ten. Both of them were staring at the faint glow of city lights far below.
Xin's fists were clenched. His parents had been gone for a week. No word. Just gone.
Kaila leaned down and whispered, "You're gonna be okay."
He didn't look at her. "You're lying."
She tightened her arm around him. "Then I'll be okay for both of us."
The boy finally turned. "What if you're not here one day?"
Kaila stared out at the city. Her eyes were wet but she smiled anyway.
"If I ever disappear," she said, "if I'm ever somewhere you can't reach, you return the favor. The way I did for you. You help me. You don't let me die alone."
Xin swallowed. "Promise?"
"Promise."
Scene 2: Xin's Missing Timeline
The image of Kaila faded.
Xin blinked and was back in the present — kneeling in a ruin, holding her torn remains.
He heard nothing but her voice in his head: "Return the favor."
His grip tightened on the necklace.
Then everything went black, and the memories rushed in.
Scene 2A: Training Under Tara
Months earlier.
Xin stood in an abandoned warehouse on the outskirts of the dead city. Tara Isolde, the sharpshooter and resistance leader, circled him with a practice blade.
"You've got speed," she said. "But speed without control is just running in circles."
Xin lunged. She sidestepped and cracked him across the ribs. He hit the floor hard.
"Again," Tara said.
He stood, panting, fists raised.
She made him drill for hours.
Force Push.
Phenom Force.
Del Technique.
He practiced storing kinetic energy in his shoulders and arms until his joints screamed, then releasing it in explosive bursts that could launch a man twice his size into a wall. He learned to amplify his strikes fivefold with Phenom Force, a style of redirection that didn't block attacks — it reversed them.
Tara hammered the lessons into him like nails.
"You're not strong enough to win fights," she told him. "You're strong enough to outlast them."
At night, when he lay on the cold concrete floor, Xin thought of Kaila. Of her smile. Of the day she promised him he wouldn't be alone. It was the only thing that kept him moving.
Scene 2B: Raids
Dive patrols swept the outer ruins at night.
Xin and Tara ambushed them with hit-and-run tactics, slowly crippling their supply lines.
Sometimes the monsters came too — twisted Dive experiments, half-human, half-insect, dripping flesh from open seams. Xin learned to fight them with his bare hands.
By the fifth raid, he could punch through a Spinat soldier's chestplate in one blow.
By the tenth, he was hurling wrecked drones like toys.
Each fight left him bleeding. Each fight hardened him more.
Scene 2C: Cassius Appears
On the twelfth raid, they weren't alone.
Cassius Devereaux appeared like a shadow. Dive's elite assassin. Twin energy blades flickering in the dark. A Spinat-enhanced predator whose only job was to hunt anomalies.
Tara saw him first. "Move!" she shouted.
Cassius lunged, slicing through three resistance fighters before they even raised their rifles. He moved like smoke. His blades cut air and left burning trails.
Xin grabbed a metal bar, charged, and swung. Cassius parried effortlessly and slammed his elbow into Xin's face. Blood spurted from Xin's nose.
"You're the Stonen boy," Cassius said coldly. "The one who ran. You should have stayed gone."
Tara fired, forcing Cassius back. Xin wiped blood from his face and roared.
Scene 2D: Xin vs. Cassius – First Round
Xin engaged him head-on, fists glowing with stored kinetic force.
Cassius was faster. Every slash burned across Xin's arms, slicing skin, tearing clothes. He redirected what he could with Phenom Force, but each counter left his muscles screaming.
Cassius stabbed. Xin spun, redirected, slammed his shoulder forward with Force Push. Cassius flew back into a wall, cracking it. He grinned, unfazed.
"You hit harder than you look," Cassius sneered.
Xin charged again. Cassius caught him with a knee to the ribs, then slashed across his back. Blood sprayed. Xin nearly dropped.
Tara shot at Cassius, distracting him for a heartbeat.
Xin stored everything he had left, every ounce of power, into his arms.
"Force Push!" he shouted, and slammed both palms into Cassius's chest.
The explosion of energy launched Cassius through three concrete pillars. Dust and debris filled the room.
Cassius stumbled out, coughing blood. For the first time, he looked rattled.
He withdrew.
"This isn't over," he hissed.
Xin collapsed, barely breathing.
Tara knelt beside him, pressing a bandage to his side. "You almost died," she said.
"Didn't," he muttered.
"Why fight him like that?"
Xin stared at the ceiling.
"Because I have to be ready for what's coming."
Scene 2E: Xin Alone
Weeks passed.
More raids. More training. More blood.
Xin's hands were scarred. His knuckles cracked with every punch. His reflexes sharpened. He could now break a Spinat soldier's spine with one strike, leap two stories in a single bound, and sense incoming attacks like a sixth sense.
But he still felt behind.
Every night he saw Kaila in his dreams. She was always reaching for him.
And every morning he woke up alone.
Scene 3: The Call
Then it came.
A broken signal over a stolen Dive frequency.
Dive was moving on Kaila's location.
Xin was already running before the message ended.
Scene 4: The Battle Back
They tried to stop him.
Twenty Spinat-enhanced soldiers blocked his path through the ruins. Each one as strong as hundred men, their skin hardened with Dive's newest tech. They moved like wolves in formation.
Xin hit the first one like a truck, breaking the soldier's jaw and slamming him through a wall. Two more charged. He dodged a blade, redirected a punch, and snapped a neck with a counterstrike.
A third swung a hammer-sized weapon. Xin caught it mid-swing, twisted, and threw the man into a burning vehicle.
He moved like lightning.
One soldier tried to shoot him at point blank. Xin snatched the rifle, bent it, and smashed the soldier in the face with his own weapon.
By the tenth kill, his knuckles were bleeding. By the fifteenth, his ribs were bruised. By the twentieth, his shirt was soaked through with blood but his eyes were still burning.
He didn't stop.
He couldn't.
Not until he got back.
Scene 5: The Return
Xin stumbled into the outskirts of the museum just as Dive's assault began.
The sky was fire.
Explosions rocked the ground.
The Black Bloom pulsed like a dying star.
He sprinted toward the main hall, lungs burning.
Then he saw it.
The broken walls. The blood. The empty corridors.
And then, at the end of the hall, lying in a puddle of red water, a necklace. Her necklace. Next to a severed arm and leg.
Kaila was gone.
Scene 6: The Current Timeline
Dive soldiers were still inside, firing at Harper and the survivors. Xin picked up a dropped blade and cut them down one by one, silent and merciless, until the hall was quiet.
Then he dropped to his knees in the blood, holding the necklace and the limbs like a child holding broken toys.
For a long time, he didn't move.
The war outside raged on, but inside, something in Xin cracked.
He whispered, "I promised you."
And the whisper turned into a scream that shook the walls.