Part I: Echoes
The silence in the holding cell was suffocating.
Reika's body lay limp on the med-slab, still bandaged and hooked to slow-drip IVs. Her breathing was shallow, her skin pale under the dull orange lights.
But in her mind, the past clawed its way back to the surface.
---
**Screaming. Explosions.**
The sound of metal tearing and fire eating through oxygen. Her visor cracked, her HUD glitching violently.
> *"Hold formation—Echo pattern—!"*
The voice of her squad leader cut through the chaos. But it didn't matter.
The Overseers had come.
Not in droves. Just a few.
But *they knew*.
They had eyes where they shouldn't. Weapons that bent the rules of physics. And just when Neon Starlight needed backup the most…
**Obsidian Guardians went silent.**
Their emergency beacons blinked endlessly into a void. Their distress calls answered only by static.
Then came the man.
Reika remembered his face only in shards—scarred, blood dripping from his brow, one eye clouded. He'd dragged her from the wreckage, thrown her into a broken mech shell barely holding together.
> "They left us," he muttered bitterly, pressing coordinates into the suit's tracking system with shaking hands. "But *you*—you survive."
> "Why?"
> "Because someone has to remember what they did."
She tried to speak, but her jaw wouldn't move. He gave her a faint smile—one that broke apart before her eyes.
> "Don't come back for me."
Then darkness.
---
Reika jerked awake, heart racing.
The sterile ceiling loomed above her, unfamiliar. Her throat was dry, and for a moment, she panicked—were they watching? Was she still being tested?
Then a shadow moved near the ceiling vent.
A soft *click*.
Reika's head turned just in time to see a sleek figure drop into the room like a whisper. Black armor. Short-cut dark hair. Fierce eyes that shimmered in the low light.
*Tasmia.*
Reika's breath caught.
Tasmia rushed forward and pressed a gloved finger to her lips. "Shh."
The lights blinked once overhead.
Neo had just looped the cameras.
Tasmia leaned in close, her voice barely audible.
"I'm getting you out of here."