"The life you live is not measured by the years you have spent, but in the scars you carry with pride. Even the smallest ones reveal the strongest memories."
The holographic map of the Nexus Space Station flickered in the centre of the Master Control Zone, a nicer representation to the chaos unfurling through its corridors. Dr. Xypha, hands clasped behind her back, radiated an unnerving calm.
"Alright then, team! Operation: 'Get The Heck Off This Rock' is a go," she announced, her playful tone a stark contrast to the grim reality. "There's an Imperial Courier-class vessel in the Supply Zone, designation The Prospect. Fast, shielded, and most importantly, fueled. It's our best shot to get you three off this station."
Kallus Eldrath, his posture as rigid and venerable as an ancient monolith, nodded slowly. "A sound plan. The Oblivion Hive's incursions are growing more frequent. This station is no longer sanctuary, it is more of a tomb now." His gaze fell upon the Voidwalker, a man still grappling with a universe far grander and more terrifying than the backwards world of Cyreth he'd been plucked from.
"You will not go unarmed," Kallus stated, his voice resonating with the quiet authority of a leader. He presented a pair of heavy, matte-black pistols from a compartment in his robes. They felt dense, cold, and powerful in the Voidwalker's hands. "Imperial Arsenal 'Meteorite' Blasters. They fire concentrated pulse energy drawn from solidified meteor fragments. They will be more than effective against the Living Darkness."
The Voidwalker gave the weapon a test heft. It was a tangible piece of this new reality, a tool for survival. He gave a single, sharp nod of gratitude.
——
The journey to the Supply Zone was a descent into a strained silence, broken only by the hum of emergency power and the distant, unsettling skittering sounds that echoed through the vents. They rounded a corner into a long causeway, and the air grew cold. Tendrils of black and dark purple energy congealed from the shadows—the Living Darkness.
Before the Voidwalker could even raise his new blasters, Artemis stepped forward. "My turn," she said, her voice dropping its casual lilt for a sharp, pragmatic tone.
She closed her eyes for a fraction of a second. Reality warped fragment-like around the approaching creatures. The metallic walls seemed to shimmer and fold, the floor buckled, and the very space the phantoms occupied twisted in on itself. It wasn't an attack; it was a relocation. The air snapped back into place with a sound like tearing fabric, leaving an empty corridor. Artemis had imprisoned them, shunting them into the liminal space of her Echo Realm.
The Voidwalker stared, the Meteorite Blaster feeling suddenly crude in his hand. He had seen power, but this was the casual rewriting of physical law. "Incredible," he breathed.
Artemis offered a faint, tired smile. "A trick my father taught me. Saves on ammunition."
The Supply Zone was a cavernous hangar, a cathedral of logistics. Crates the size of small buildings were stacked towards the vaulted ceiling, and in the centre of it all, bathed in the glow of docking lights, was the Prospect. A sleek, angular ship, it was a beacon of hope in the encroaching gloom. For a moment, relief washed over them.
The moment shattered.
The air didn't just grow cold; it was stolen from their lungs. A pressure built, a silent, deafening roar that existed only in their minds. A tear in reality ripped a deep purple, open near the ship's bow, a wound of pure Void, impossibly dark. From this tear, a creature of nightmare unfurled. It was vast, its body a constellation of roiling Aether energy, its form serpentine and winged, like the dragons of ancient myth. An Aetheron. A Void Dragon. It was the physical embodiment of the Oblivion Hive's wrath.
The ambient hum of the station was replaced by the low, guttural thrum of the dragon's dark energy. The trap was sprung.
"By… God," Kallus breathed, the scholar momentarily replaced by the warrior. His face hardened, the lines of age becoming scars of countless battles. Almost like the legendary general of the Nexium Wars was present once more.
"Artemis, evasive pattern Delta! Voidwalker, clear the spawns! Xypha, disrupt its Nex flow!" Kallus's voice was not a request, but a command that vibrated with power.
Light erupted from his outstretched hands. Not a blast, but a creation. Constructs of pure, light-blue Nex energy formed in the air—first a towering kiteshield to deflect a gout of Void-fire, then a greatsword that he swung in a shimmering arc. Spears of the same cerulean light materialized and shot towards the Aetheron, striking its hide with percussive booms that did little more than anger it.
The beast retaliated, its tail a whip of pure darkness that shattered a nearby stack of containers. Artemis was already moving. She didn't run; she blinked. One moment she was beside her father, the next she was thirty meters to the left, appearing from a shimmer of the Echo Realm just as the tail struck her former position. In her hands, whips of shimmering, white-gold energy, a magic so similar yet distinct from her father's, cracked through the air, lashing at the Aetheron's flank and leaving sizzling wounds of light. It was a dance between dimensions, one of evasion and counter-strike.
"Dev, ol' pal, time to break the game!" Dr. Xypha yelled, her playful demeanor now laced with a manic intensity. Her cyber-editing gauntlets glowed with complex code.
"Affirmative," Dev's synthesised voice replied, his facial screen shifting from an expressive face to a cascade of green and black cubes. "Initiating Cyber-Edit Mode. Protocol: 'Static Cage'."
Xypha and Dev worked in perfect sync. She jabbed commands into the air with her gauntlets while Dev projected a field from his core. The space around the Aetheron began to malfunction. The metal floor beneath it pixelated. Its movements began to stutter, frames of its existence lagging as if caught in a corrupted data stream. The dragon roared in frustration as the very fabric of its immediate reality was glitched, trapping it in a prison of quantum instability.
While the masters clashed, the Voidwalker was a whirlwind of controlled action. Smaller spawn of Living Darkness bled from the shadows, drawn to the conflict. He didn't hesitate. His mind, clearer than it had been in days, focused on the immediate threat. He remembered Kallus's instructions on weapon discipline, Artemis's lesson on controlled power. The Meteorite Blasters bucked in his hands, each shot a searing pulse that vaporised a shadow-creature. He moved with a brutal efficiency, covering his allies, ensuring the primary fight was not overwhelmed. He was the anchor in their storm of cosmic power.
The Aetheron, enraged and ensnared, thrashed violently, shaking off the last of the Kyverse glitch. It coiled, its maw glowing with a build-up of ultimate power, preparing to obliterate them all. In that moment of singular focus, its defenses were weakest. Kallus and Artemis were recovering from its last assault, Xypha and Dev struggling to maintain the cage.
The Voidwalker saw it. The opening. An instant of vulnerability. He didn't think. He acted.
He slammed the two Meteorite Blasters together, twisting a dial on their base that glowed an angry red. A high-pitched whine built, the weapons vibrating violently. Funneling every ounce of the blasters' stored energy, he pulled both triggers.
A single, continuous beam of blinding white pulse energy, thick as his arm, erupted from the combined muzzles. It wasn't a shot; it was a lance of pure force. It struck the Aetheron dead centre in its chest, at the heart of its swirling vortex of Aether. There was no explosion, only a piercing shriek of dissolving energy. The dragon's form flickered, its dark energy unraveling like thread, before it imploded into a shower of dying purple remains.
Silence fell, heavy and absolute.
Before the last remnants of the Aetheron could dissipate, two sleek, multi-jointed robotic arms arrived from somewhere. They moved with silent, fluid precision, emitting a shimmering yellow field that encapsulated the creature's remains, containing them in a Kyverse stasis bubble that resembles the holographic spherical map in the Master Control Room.
A figure descended on a grav-lift from above. He was a man of middle age with sharp, intelligent eyes, wearing a pristine researcher's coat over a frame augmented by a complex spinal mechanism from which several more robotic arms were folded.
"An impressive display," the man said, his voice calm and measured. "Though you nearly breached the containment protocols for the primary energy core."
Kallus lowered his light-construct sword, which dissolved back into the Nex. "Dr. Vanaheim."
"Mr. Vanaheim is fine, Kallus," he corrected gently. He stepped forward, his gaze sweeping over the group, lingering for a moment on the Voidwalker. "I've been… cleansing. It seems the Oblivion Hive has grown bolder than anticipated." To everyone's surprise, it was Eric Vanaheim, the station's reclusive founder, who had been systematically purging the station's lower levels.
He learned of their plan with a simple nod. "Logical. But there are matters to discuss." He gestured with one of his mechanical arms. "Kallus, Artemis, you have the expertise. Get the Prospect flight-ready. I want pre-flight diagnostics and engine warm-ups completed within the hour."
His gaze then settled on the other two. "Dr. Xypha, your application of the Kyverse in a combat scenario was… unorthodox, but effective. And you," he said, his eyes locking with the Voidwalker's, "you are an anomaly, I'm impressed. A word in my office, if you please. Both of you."