Zenithar - Restricted Military Zone
Silence.
Perfect, absolute silence.
It wasn't just quiet. It was the kind of silence that ate sound, that erased motion, that twisted the senses until even time itself felt like it had stopped.
Raiga was gone.
Not dead.
Not hidden.
Gone.
The Reality Scrambler had activated.
The world blinked—
and in the space between heartbeats, he ceased to exist.
1 second.
A burst of plasma fire exploded across the rooftop where he had just been.
Too late.
Raiga was already airborne, leaping from the edge of the high-rise, his body slicing through the rain like a black arrow. Wind tore at his coat as he twisted midair—
2 seconds.
He kicked off a rusted billboard, flipped sideways, and vanished behind two ventilation units in a flash of motion. His boots struck the side of a maintenance tower.
3 seconds.
He climbed—fluid, silent, relentless.
One arm, then the other, his body rippling with muscle memory, pain ignored, mind focused. He reached a narrow vent opening and rolled in, pressing his back to the metal wall.
4 seconds.
Outside, a drone hovered.
Red light pulsed.
Its scanners moved left—right—
Then paused.
Raiga didn't breathe.
He didn't even blink.
5 seconds.
The glow flickered—
—and the world came rushing back.
Sound. Gravity. Pain.
His vision snapped into clarity.
The drone spun toward the vent.
Raiga dropped out the other side.
Slid across a rain-slick pipe.
Disappeared into shadow.
⸻
"OH MY GOD—"
Liara's voice exploded into his comm, so loud he almost flinched.
"It WORKED! It freaking worked! Holy crap, Raiga, did you see that? Wait—no, of course you didn't because you didn't EXIST, but damn that was INSANE!"
Raiga crouched in a narrow passage between two walls, catching his breath.
"Liara."
"You phased out completely. No heat trace. No signal echo. You were gone."
"Liara."
"That was not supposed to work that perfectly. I was only 98% sure—"
"WHAT?!"
"I SAID IT'S FINE! You're alive. It's fine."
Raiga groaned, shaking his head.
"You're lucky I don't believe in ghosts, because I was about to become one."
"Relax, shadow-boy. You were beautiful. Like a glitch in reality. God, I love this tech—"
"Focus."
He peeked out of the alley, scanning the perimeter.
"Those drones—way too sharp. They adjusted almost instantly. Not standard Dominion."
Liara's voice lost its gleeful pitch.
"Cyber Legion models. Modified. They react to neural stimuli. Pattern-based. Adaptive."
"You're saying they think?"
"I'm saying they hunt."
That silenced them both for a second.
Then Liara spoke again, softer.
"Okay… back to the mission. The prototype's inside that third vehicle. Upper-tier lock. Remote kill switch. You'll have to tag it for drone pickup."
Raiga nodded to himself, preparing to move again.
But then—
Liara fell silent.
Too silent.
"Liara?"
Nothing.
"Liara, talk to me."
"…Raiga. Look at the feed."
He pulled up the secondary visual stream on his visor.
And everything stopped.
It wasn't tech.
It wasn't a weapon.
It was people.
Dozens of them.
Civilians—
shackled, bloodied, barely conscious.
They were being pulled from the rear of the convoy by Dominion soldiers. One man—his leg twisted at an unnatural angle—was thrown like trash onto the wet concrete.
A teenage girl stumbled toward him, trying to help.
She didn't make it.
A steel boot slammed into her ribs.
She folded like paper, coughing blood onto the pavement.
A soldier laughed.
Raiga's heart stuttered.
The blue glow in his eyes flared.
"What the hell is this…?"
"They're not prisoners," Liara whispered. Her voice trembled.
Raiga's fists clenched.
"What do you mean they're not prisoners?"
"They're test subjects."
Silence.
Not the kind from before.
This one burned.
"The Cyber Legion has been running fusion trials—cybernetics. Trying to perfect the merge between man and machine. But the rejection rate's sky-high."
"So they use people."
"Yeah," she said, barely audible. "And the Dominion… sells them the bodies."
Raiga's chest rose and fell like a beast struggling to stay in its cage.
"Liara…"
"I know what you're feeling. Please, listen to me—"
"No."
"We can't help them. Not now. We don't have the numbers, we don't have the firepower—"
"Liara—"
"You have to fall back. We'll get the prototype. We'll expose this. But not tonight. Please."
He wasn't listening anymore.
His eyes were locked on the girl.
She was trying to crawl away, one arm cradling her broken side, the other dragging uselessly behind her. She gasped. Coughed. Shivered in the cold.
Then a soldier grabbed another prisoner.
Lifted him by the collar like he weighed nothing.
The man didn't resist.
He was already dying.
"MOVE, you worthless trash!"
A punch. A crack. Blood on the ground.
Raiga's vision blurred at the edges.
The hum in his ears grew louder.
A war inside him. One he'd fought before.
One he'd always lost.
"Raiga…" Liara's voice broke. "This isn't the mission."
He didn't move.
Then—
He smiled.
Cold.
Sharp.
Unforgiving.
"Let's see if they like it…"
His hand gripped the hilt of his sword.
"…when someone fights back."
⸻
[To be continued.]