July, 1098 — Ascarat

The unfiltered wind of the open deployment bay whips across the reinforced deck, but my chest is entirely insulated by a thick, buzzing layer of pure anticipation.

Today is finally the day. The 1st of July.

After days of meticulously pouring over topographical maps in the Archives with Miss Adele and Mint, and submitting an endless mountain of requisition forms, we are officially deploying. I stand near the edge of the hydraulic ramp, adjusting the straps of my crossbody bag.

I look around at my team. Everyone is buzzing with that same underlying thrill of a genuine expedition.

Lisa stands a few paces away as she performs a final check on her own equipment. Her staff rests comfortably in her grip, the top intricately forged into a beautiful, star-like geometric halo. Beside her, Podenco is adjusting the bright yellow ribbon tied neatly at the collar of her deep teal-green jacket, her mechanical staff capped with its striking circular focal point resting against her shoulder.

Miss Susie is carefully inspecting her own Arts Unit; a long, technical staff topped with a glowing, specialized glass dome and sharp, scissor-like drones that occasionally crackle with a faint, restrained spark of pink static electricity. Miss Adele is adjusting the strap of her bag, her dark, twisted staff held loosely but confidently in her hand.

And finally, Mint is meticulously checking the bindings of her geology book, her hair fluttering in the morning breeze.

We are ready.

But before we can take a single step toward the ramp, mom steps right into my line of sight.

"Let me see your pack, Lethe.”

She reaches out, gently but firmly unzipping the side compartment of my bag. Her fingers expertly sift through the contents. "Filtered water bottle is secure. Thermal blanket is packed tight," she lists off, nodding in satisfaction as she zips the compartment back up. She looks at me, her eyes scanning my face.

Then an authoritative click of boots against the floor breaks the warmth.

Ms. Dobermann marches toward our gathered group. Her presence hits me immediately; a taste of cracked black pepper, stiffly pressed canvas, and pitch-black, entirely unsweetened espresso. I instinctively straighten my spine, my hands gripping my black staff a little tighter.

Ms. Dobermann stops a few paces away, her sharp eyes sweeping over our roster.

"Listen closely," Ms. Dobermann commands, her voice cracking like a whip across the open deck. "Logistics is unable to provide a tracked transport vehicle for this specific route. The terrain in County Ascarat is unsuitable for our heavy rovers, with our forces tied up around Londinium, we cannot risk drawing the attention of military patrols with a mechanized footprint."

She crosses her arms behind her back, her posture rigid and completely unyielding.

"This will be a walking route. You are scheduled for a two-week expedition. You will chart the geological anomalies, catalog the required flora, and meet the landship at the newly designated extraction coordinates on the 24th." Ms. Dobermann's gaze narrows just a fraction, locking onto Miss Adele and Miss Susie. "If your supplies run low, you are authorized to engage local Victorian cities to resupply. Maintain a low profile. Do not invite conflict."

"Understood, Dobermann," Miss Adele replies.

Ms. Dobermann gives a single, crisp nod. She turns on her heel and marches back toward the administrative elevators, leaving us to our departure.

A few paces away, the comforting scent of warm lavender and steeped chamomile washes over the deck. Miss Lena is standing with Lisa and Podenco. She gently reaches out, adjusting the collar of Podenco's jacket, before resting her hands warmly on Lisa's shoulders. "Be mindful of the soil acidity, Podenco," Miss Lena states softly, offering them both a flawless smile. "And Lisa, make sure you all stay close together when it gets dark. Look after one another."

"We will, Miss Lena!" Lisa promises.

I turn back to mom. The sharp, tactical edges of the deployment bay completely melt away as she steps forward, closing the final gap between us. She drops to one knee right there on the cold steel floor, bringing herself perfectly to my eye level. She wraps her arms securely around my shoulders and pulls me into a massive, crushing hug. I bury my face into her shoulder, inhaling the comforting, honeyed feeling.

"You listen to Eyjafjalla and Goldenglow, you hear me?" mom declares fiercely into my hair. "And you make sure you eat properly. No skipping meals just to look at rocks."

"I promise, mom," I squeeze her back just as tightly.

She pulls back, keeping her hands firmly on my shoulders.

"Ready, Lethe?" mom asks.

I take a deep breath. I look past the edge of the ramp, out toward the sprawling, untamed horizon of Terra.

I give her a firm, unwavering nod.

"Ready!"

I offer mom and Miss Lena one last, energetic wave before the doors of the elevator slide shut. The thick steel panels seal with a definitive clank, completely severing the bustling noise of the deployment deck from our small group.

The descent to the ground level is a long, steady ride. The hum of the elevator vibrates through the floor.

The elevator eventually comes to a smooth halt. The doors hiss apart, opening directly onto the lower ramp. We walk slowly down the metal treads until my padded sneakers finally hit the actual dirt.

The transition is immediate. The sterile, filtered oxygen of the landship is instantly swallowed by the untamed air of the plains. It smells of wild, crushed grass, chilling wind, and dry earth. I look out over the sprawling landscape stretching out before us. It is vast and rolling, painted in muted greens and browns beneath a clear sky. But my eyes are immediately drawn to the jagged, unmistakable silhouettes dotting the distant horizon. Massive shards of black Originium jut violently from the earth, pulsing with a faint, sickly light.

"Well, let’s get walking, girls," Miss Adele orders. Her voice is soft and carrying its usual airy melody, but it is anchored by an entirely focused, unyielding academic determination.

Beside her, Miss Susie raises her arms high above her head, giving a massive, contented stretch. The faint, pink static electricity crackling in her emotional resonance pops like sweet popping candy against the back of my tongue, layered perfectly over the cozy taste of toasted sugar and warm milk. "I don’t get too many opportunities to leave the landship," Miss Susie sighs, lowering her arms with a bright, relaxed smile.

"This is nice to have some real countryside air."

A few paces ahead, Lisa looks around the vast, empty plains, her eyes wide with wonder. "This is really quiet," Lisa observes, her voice echoing gently across the plains.

"It is nice."

I keep my eyes focused on the horizon. I reach into my bag, my fingers brushing against the aluminum chassis of my slate. I don't remember the details myself, but the meticulously curated notes in my My Life folder dictate my history. Apparently, I went to the barrens of Columbia and the freezing mountains of Kjerag. But in those distilled paragraphs, I had specifically written down notes about tracked rovers, armored transports, and VTOLs.

I look down at my sneakers, and then up at the seemingly endless expanse. "Miss Adele?" I ask, my brow furrowing in genuine confusion as I grip my staff. "In my notes… apparently I went to Columbia and Kjerag before. But we had vehicles for those. Why couldn't we get one this time?"

Miss Adele pauses, adjusting the strap of her satchel. She turns to look at me, her expression softening into a patient, educational focus.

"It is complicated, Lethe," Miss Adele explains, her voice dropping into a quiet, serious cadence. "Columbia doesn’t care what companies, like us, do, as long as the payments and paperworks are correct. And the Kjerag wilds are almost unnavigable without proper, specialized vehicles."

She turns her head, her eyes sweeping over the quiet, grassy hills and the distant, dark shards of Originium. "But here… like Dobermann said during our briefing. Victoria is currently very unstable." Miss Adele looks back at me. "If we drive a heavily militarised Rhodes Island vehicle or fly a VTOL through a Grand Duke’s territory, they might just see it as a declaration of war."

"But!" Mint suddenly chimes in, practically bouncing on her heels. "Counties like this are super safe! The Victorian army actively secures the train tracks, the transport routes, and the paths for the nomadic cities. There are no mercenary bands or scavengers out here!"

"But we should still avoid them," Miss Susie adds quickly, her voice dropping its cheerful lilt. She folds her arms over her apron, and the soft, toasted sugar of her presence is momentarily pierced by a sharp, anxious crackle of pink static. She looks out over the plains, her eyes narrowing slightly. "You never know how they treat the Infected."

The harsh reality of her words settles over the group. If a Victorian patrol catches sight of my horns, or the Oripathy monitors locked around our throats, the safe county could turn hostile in a heartbeat.

"Let’s focus on trekking," Lisa declares, her bright voice effortlessly cutting through the sudden tension. She claps her hands together.

"Yeah, Lisa’s right. There are so many greenies!" Podenco cheers, entirely caught up in her own botanical excitement. She spins around, her eyes wide as she takes in the sprawling, untamed vegetation blanketing the rolling hills. She pulls an empty glass vial from the lining of her jacket, holding it up to the sky. "There are not going to be enough terrariums in entire Terra for all the samples I want to take!"

"Not to mention the rocks!" Mint agrees enthusiastically, completely matching the Perro's manic energy. She points a finger toward a distant ridge rising in the east. "The lakes and rivers here create incredibly unique geological formations. And there are quite a lot of caves to explore!"

We slowly continue our march across the sprawling, undulating hills. The terrain is relatively flat, but even the gentle inclines are enough to remind me of my absolutely abysmal physical endurance score.

I come to a brief halt, my sneakers sinking slightly into the soft, untamed grass. I unscrew the cap of my filtered bottle and take a heavy, desperate gulp of water. The crisp, cool liquid washes down my throat, offering a brief, merciful reprieve from the dry wind. I lower the canteen, wiping my mouth with the back of my sleeve, and look around at our small expedition team.

A few paces to my left, Miss Adele and Miss Susie are walking shoulder-to-shoulder, deep in a hushed, earnest conversation. They are discussing the meticulous, agonizing effort of controlling their Arts. I can hear fragments of Miss Adele offering advice on how to safely vent excess thermal energy, while Miss Susie nods attentively, her ears twitching as she explains the sudden, involuntary sparks that jump from her fingertips when she gets too stressed.

A little further up the path, Podenco has completely surrendered to her botanical obsession. She is practically darting from one patch of greenery to the next, entirely ignoring the designated walking path. She holds her communicator up, snapping rapid- fire pictures of every single foreign sprout, serrated leaf, and wild bloom she can find.

And then, there is Lisa.

My best friend is walking near the front of our formation. She looks exactly like a carefree girl enjoying a countryside stroll, a light smile painted across her face. But she cannot lie to me. The moment my Arts brush against her, the truth is glaringly obvious. The blindingly bright, spun-sugar sweetness radiating from the Vulpo is pulled taut. It tastes brittle, laced with a faint, humming undercurrent of sharp peppermint. She isn't just taking a walk; her nine tails are swishing in a slow, calculated rhythm, and her eyes are constantly, subtly darting toward the distant tree lines and the rocky ridges. She is actively scanning the perimeter.

I smile softly, my eyes scanning the rest of our group to make sure we are all keeping pace.

Miss Adele. Miss Susie. Podenco. Lisa.

I blink. I stop completely in my tracks, my tail freezing mid-sway. I recount the heads bobbing against the Victorian sky. One, two, three, four.

Mint.

I spin around, my eyes frantically sweeping the grassy path behind us. The rolling hills are empty, save for a few shards of black Originium shards.

"Uhm…" I stammer, a sudden, cold spike of panic twisting in my stomach. I grip my staff tighter and raise my voice over the wind. "Where’s Mint?”

A few paces away, Miss Susie and Miss Adele instantly stop walking. The hushed, earnest conversation between them cuts off. Up ahead, Lisa freezes in her tracks. Her nine tails immediately fan out into a rigid, defensive posture, her eyes scanning the horizon for any sign of an ambush.

"Oh, stand down, everyone," a voice calls out from above.

I look up. Podenco is standing at the crest of a small, grassy hill, lowering her communicator. She points a finger down the opposite slope. "She is just down there looking at a patch of dirt."

I let out a massive, shuddering exhale, my shoulders completely slumping forward.

"Don't scare me like that," I mutter, mostly to myself, as we all change our trajectory and trudge up the grassy incline to join Podenco.

We look down into the shallow depression below. Mint is kneeling squarely in the middle of the scrubland, entirely oblivious to the minor panic attack she just induced. Her nose is practically pressed against the ground. She is completely, utterly in her own world.

We carefully make our way down the slope. The soft crunch of our shoes against the dry grass doesn't even make her flinch.

"Mint!" I call out, stopping just a few paces away.

Mint jumps. She whips her head around. The moment her eyes land on us, they light up with absolute scholarly thrill.

"Oh! Lethe! Look at this!" Mint gasps, gesturing frantically toward the ground beneath her knees. "The plants are not growing here! There must be some reason!"

I step closer, peering over her shoulder. She is right. While the rest of the rolling hills are carpeted in resilient, untamed grass and wild brush, there is a distinct circle of completely exposed, barren earth right in the middle of the depression. The dirt is dry, cracked, and discolored, taking on a strange, ashen hue.

A soft rustle of clothing sounds beside me. Miss Adele walks over, and kneels in the dirt right next to Mint.

"Fascinating," Miss Adele says. She reaches out, gently brushing her fingertips against the discolored soil. "The soil composition here is remarkably different from the surrounding loam. Look at the salinization along the cracks, Mint."

"I saw that!" Mint nods vigorously, pulling a small notebook and a pen from her pocket.

"Do you think it's a subterranean thermal vent? Or maybe a highly localized concentration of inert Originium dust altering the pH levels of the topsoil?"

"It could be a symptom of micro-fault friction," Miss Adele theorizes. "If the tectonic plates deep beneath this county are experiencing minor shear stress, it could be releasing trace gases that sterilize the surface roots."

After what feels like an eternity of intense, highly academic debate, Mint finally closes her notebook with a soft, satisfying thud. Beside her, Miss Adele carefully scoops a small sample of the ashen, discolored dirt into a glass vial, sealing it tight.

I look up from the patch of barren earth. The sky is already bruising into a deep, velvet indigo. The sun dips below the rolling hills, plunging the sprawling plains into twilight. As the daylight fades, the ethereal, silvery light of twin moons begins to bleed through the clouds, casting long, pale shadows across the untamed grass. A sharp, biting chill sweeps over the plains.

Podenco raises a hand to shield her eyes, her ears twitching as she scans the darkening horizon. "Over there," Podenco announces, pointing toward a rocky outcrop jutting out from the side of a nearby hill. "The rocks will break the wind. We can set up camp for the night around there."

"Good eye, Podenco," Miss Adele stands up and dusting off her knee-high socks. "Let's move before it gets too dark to see the terrain."

We carefully make our way toward the outcrop. The natural rock formation creates a perfect, sheltered half-circle, entirely blocking the wind that sweeps across the plains. I step into the alcove and gently lean my new Arts Unit against a sturdy boulder.

With my hands free, Mint and I get to work. We unstrap the logistics bags, pulling out a set of sturdy, collapsible chairs and a portable camping table. Mint moves with surprising, effortless strength, hauling the equipment into place while eagerly chattering to me about the potential cave systems she wants to explore tomorrow. I just nod along, happily snapping the table legs into their locked positions.

In the center of our little camp, a bright, crackling fire is quickly built, casting a warm, flickering orange glow against the rocky walls. Resting securely over the open flames on a collapsible metal grate is a small, heavy-duty blue pot, stamped proudly with the crisp white Rhodes Island rook logo.

The soft crunch of footsteps against grass announces the return of our remaining team members. Lisa and Podenco emerge from the moonlit plains, carrying insulated jugs.

"We found a stream just down the hill!" Lisa carefully sets her jug down. "We made sure to run it all through the filtration units, just like the engineering team taught us!"

"Perfect timing, girls," Miss Susie smiles warmly. She immediately takes charge of our makeshift kitchen. She pours the freshly filtered river water into the blue R.I. pot, waiting for it to reach a rolling boil before meticulously tearing open several packets of standard-issue Rhodes Island dried rations.

As she begins to slowly stir the rehydrating vegetables and cured meats into the broth, a soft, incredibly cozy humming floats from her lips. The melody is gentle and domestic, drifting beautifully into the cold night air.

I sit down on one of the folding chairs, pulling my knees up to my chest. The rich, savory aroma of the simmering stew begins to fill the sheltered outcrop. I look around the fire. Mint is showing Lisa a particularly shiny rock she found, Podenco is organizing her vials of plant cuttings.

"Ta-da!" Miss Susie announces, her voice carrying a bright, triumphant lilt over the crackling campfire.

She carefully lifts the heavy-duty pot from the metal grate, using a cloth to protect her hands, and begins ladling the thick, steaming broth into our individual camp bowls. She passes them around the circle, the rich, savory aroma immediately making my mouth water.

"I made sure to add some instant ramen blocks in there," Miss Susie explains, handing a warm bowl directly to me. "So it will be a bit more filling for the night."

The words instant ramen drop into my ears like a Catastrophe warning.

I completely freeze, my hands wrapping rigidly around the warm metal bowl. My mind instantly flashes back to the dark, deserted cafeteria on the landship; the hissing electric kettle, Doctor's defeated sigh, and the ancient, terrifying glacier of Dr. Kal'tsit materializing from the shadows to deliver a lethal, uncompromising lecture on cardiovascular health and nutritional sabotage.

I frantically whip my head around. My eyes dart past the flickering orange glow of our campfire, peering deep into the dark, encroaching shadows. I am entirely, genuinely expecting the Medical Director to seamlessly step out from the dark wilderness to confiscate our dinner and drag me back to the landship by my collar.

"Uhm…" I stammer, my tail curling nervously around the leg of my folding chair. I look up at Miss Susie. "Is… is this Medical Department approved?"

Podenco pauses with her spoon halfway to her mouth.

"Well, Lethe," Podenco points out. "You are technically the only one here who is officially part of the Medical Department. So… do you approve?"

I blink, looking down at the steaming bowl. The rich aroma of the broth, completely infused with the soft noodles and rehydrated vegetables, is absolutely intoxicating. I carefully pick up my spoon, blowing on the hot liquid before taking a small, hesitant taste.

The flavor is heavenly. The rich, savory warmth spreads down my throat, instantly chasing away the bone deep chill of the evening plains. A low, happy hum vibrates in my chest as I take another, much larger bite.

"It tastes really nice," I declare, my nervous tension melting away into a bright, completely genuine smile. I look up at the rest of the camp and give a firm, resolute nod. "I approve."

Podenco smiles. "There we go, then." she announces. "It is officially medically approved. Eat up, everyone!"

The heavy, savory warmth of Miss Susie’s fortified soup completely chasing away the damp chill of the night. I scrape the bottom of my bowl, savoring the last few noodles, before resting it on my lap.

I look past the flickering orange flames, my eyes wandering out toward the sprawling, moonlit plains. The sheer, terrifying vastness of the lands stretches out endlessly in every direction, swallowed by the dark.

"Actually…" I look around the circle at my friends. "I don’t think I ever asked this question. If all the cities move… how do they decide borders? How do they know what land belongs to who?"

"I can answer this!" Lisa sits up straighter in her folding chair.

"Nomadic cities usually move along defined borders that already have established infrastructures," Lisa explains, her tone taking on a practiced, educational lilt that sounds incredibly proud. "They have meticulously planned-out routes with known geographical features. They have to, otherwise a city's treads might sink into soft earth or get stuck in a ravine! And along those borders, the nations build stationary military bases, or sometimes even smaller, permanent towns to mark their territory."

Mint leans forward from her side of the fire, her eyes shining with academic enthusiasm.

"She’s exactly right, Lethe," Mint adds, adjusting her posture. "It is basically a measure of how far a nation can physically project their power. A border only exists if the country has the military and logistical reach to protect their nomadic cities from scavengers, mercenaries, and roaming Infected within that specific area."

I nod slowly.

"And the lands outside the reach of those cities and military bases are generally called the barrens," Miss Adele adds gently. "It is the untamed, unclaimed wilderness of Terra. Unless, of course, the land is actively being farmed, developed, and filled with train routes, much like the plains we are sitting in right now."

"I see," I thank my brilliant friends.

We carefully clean our empty bowls, using the last of the filtered river water to rinse away the savory residue of our camp dinner. We quickly filter to our tents.

Sleeping in the wild is an entirely new experience. Instead of the low, steady hum of the landship's engines and the sturdy steel floorboards beneath my mattress, there is only the sharp rustle of the wind against the synthetic fabric of the tent and the unforgiving hardness of the ground.

I wriggle into my thermal blanket, pulling the crinkly, insulated material all the way up to my chin. The tent is snug, which means we are all packed rather closely together. I am sandwiched perfectly in the middle, nestled securely between Podenco and Lisa. Mint claims the space just on the other side of Lisa, her sleeping bag rustling as she settles into the nylon flooring.

I carefully shift my weight, turning onto my side to face Podenco. It is a necessary, highly strategic maneuver; if I try to sleep on my back in such a cramped space, my spade-tipped tail will undoubtedly get pinched beneath my own weight or accidentally smothered by a restless sleeper. I pull my knees up slightly, letting my tail rest safely behind me, brushing gently against the silk of Lisa's tails. Resting just against my pillow, leaning securely against my bag, is my Arts Unit.

The tent is quiet for a few moments, save for the rhythmic, overlapping sounds of our breathing. Then, the fabric of the sleeping bag across from me shifts. Podenco turns over to face me. In the dim, moonlit shadows filtering through the tent walls, I can just make out the soft contour of her Perro ears and her bright, attentive eyes.

"How are you feeling, Lethe?" Podenco whispers. Her voice is pitched low so as not to wake Miss Susie and Miss Adele in the neighboring tent, but the ambient air ripples with a comforting wave of sun-ripened yuzu and smooth green tea.

I clutch the edge of my thermal blanket, my focus dropping to the narrow space between our sleeping mats. I take a slow, shaky breath, the cold air stinging the back of my throat.

"I am kind of nervous, to be honest," I admit. I look back up at her. "There is no landship out here. No armored walls… and no Elite Ops to protect us."

We don't have Ms. Blaze's roaring chainsaw or Rosmontis's telekinetic fortresses to hide behind. It is just the open plains, stretching out endlessly into the dark.

"Don't worry, Lethe," Podenco promises. "If anything even thinks about getting close to our tent, they will get a face full of neurotoxins before they can take another step."

A soft, shuffling sound comes from right behind my back.

"And my Foxfire will slow them down!" Lisa adds in, her hushed whisper ringing with fierce, unyielding optimism. "And if anyone gets a scrape, my Arts will heal the wounds so you don't even have to worry about pulling the pain away, Lethe!"

From the far side of the tent, another voice joins our midnight tactical planning.

"And I can use my vortex Arts to pull people together!" Mint adds enthusiastically, her silhouette shifting as she props herself up on one elbow. "I can draw the bad guys into a single spot so Podenco's vials can hit all of them at once!"

I look at Podenco, then Lisa, and finally Mint. We are definitely not helpless.

I pull the thermal blanket a little tighter around my shoulders, my tail giving a soft, happy thump against the sleeping mat as I drift into a comforting sleep.

"Lethe. Wake up. It is our shift now."

The soft whisper cuts through the warm, insulated cocoon of my sleeping bag. A gentle hand rhythmically rocks my shoulder.

I let out a quiet groan. I slowly blink my eyes open, the dim interior of the tent slowly coming into focus. Mint is kneeling beside my mat, her eyes catching the faint moonlight bleeding through the canvas.

I sit up, rubbing the lingering sleep from my eyes. Across the small tent, Podenco lets out a long, exaggerated yawn, stretching her arms high above her head until her shoulders pop. She and Lisa have just finished the first watch of the night.

"Good luck out there," Podenco murmurs, her voice thick and raspy with exhaustion as she crawls back onto her sleeping mat. Beside her, Lisa is already burying herself deep into her blankets.

"Rest well, you two," I whisper back.

I reach out, my fingers wrapping securely around the black shaft of my Arts Unit. The liquid suspended within the halos hums with a quiet, steady rhythm, anchoring my groggy mind as I push myself up. I pull my oversized Rhodes Island jacket over my shoulders, wrapping a woolen scarf tightly around my neck to guard against the chill, and follow Mint out through the tent flaps.

The moment I step outside, the unfiltered air of the wilderness hits my cheeks. But the cold is instantly forgotten the absolute second I look up.

The night sky is breathtaking. Without the suffocating smog of the mobile cities to pollute the view, the heavens are a sprawling, endless canvas of velvet indigo. Millions of brilliant, diamond-like stars dot the expanse, glittering furiously in the atmosphere.

Hovering majestically over the distant, rolling plains are the twin moons, casting long, ethereal silver shadows across the untamed grasslands.

"It is beautiful, Mint," I breathe out, my voice forming a tiny, awe-struck cloud of mist in the freezing air.

Mint steps up beside me, pulling her own coat tighter around her frame.

"This is one of the best parts of geological surveys," Mint sighs happily, her eyes reflecting the starlight as she gazes up at the cosmos. "You get to see the world exactly as it is, entirely untouched by the cities."

I look at her, taking in her starry-eyed distraction. I know exactly how intensely focused my Feline friend can get when something catches her academic interest.

"Just… please don't wander off, Mint," I warn, tilting my head to fix her with a stern, highly practiced look that I definitely learned directly from watching mom. "No matter how shiny or geologically fascinating the rock is in the dark."

Mint blinks, a faint, prickly flush of embarrassment warming her cheeks. Offering me a sheepish, incredibly guilty smile.

"I… I will try," she mumbles, her voice lacking any real, convincing conviction.

I let out a long, heavy sigh. My Feline geologist friend is truly, entirely hopeless sometimes when it comes to her own well-being.

My mind flashes back to a few weeks ago on the landship. I had walked into the Archives for my afternoon study session with Miss Adele, only to find Mint’s usual chair empty. When we went looking for her, we eventually tracked her down in the deepest, most neglected aisle of the library. She had literally lived in the Archives for three days straight, completely losing track of the daylight cycles and her own meals. Miss Adele and I had found her completely passed out on the floor, buried underneath a towering, precarious avalanche of geopolitical textbooks and obscure rock-formation journals, snoring softly.

If I don't keep a close eye on her tonight, she is definitively going to trip over a slumbering beast just to inspect a pebble.

I grip my staff with both hands and step closer to the dying embers of our campfire, pulling my scarf up to my chin. I am officially on duty, entirely ready to be the responsible one for the night.

I spend the next hour of the nightwatch ensuring my focus remains entirely, stubbornly fixed on Mint. The chilling wind howls softly across the open plains, but the glowing embers of our campfire manage to keep the absolute worst of the chill at bay. I sit with my knees pulled up to my chest, my Arts Unit resting securely across my lap.

While I try my absolute best to keep an eye out for roaming sandbeasts or scavengers, Mint is completely lost in her own world. She paces the very edge of our small campsite, her head swiveling constantly as she peers into the dark, desperately trying to analyze the topographical landscape by moonlight alone.

Suddenly, her pacing stops. Mint's ears give a sharp, erratic twitch. She stands up completely straight, leaning forward to peer intently into the sprawling, pitch-black shadows just beyond the glow of our dying fire.

"What’s that?" Mint whispers. She takes a deliberate, eager step toward the untamed dark.

I don't even hesitate. I drop my staff onto my folding chair and lunge.

I grab her jacket with both hands, digging my sneakers into the dirt to physically anchor the incredibly distracted geologist.

"Please, Mint," I plead, my voice a frantic, desperate whisper that echoes in the quiet camp. "We can check it out in the morning when the sun is actually up! It's pitch black out there!"

I reach into my pocket with one hand, quickly pulling out my PRTS communicator. The screen flashes a crisp, glaring white against the darkness. 0430.

"Look," I tell her, holding the screen up so the numbers illuminate her face. "It's four- thirty. The sun will be up soon. Not much longer now. We just have to wait."

Mint freezes. The sudden, eager tension bleeds out of her shoulders as she looks at the bright digital clock, and then down at my white-knuckled grip on her coat. The crisp, sweet mint flavor of her emotional resonance instantly spikes with a frantic burst of sheepish embarrassment.

"Whoopsie daisy," Mint mumbles. She takes a very quick, very compliant step backward, retreating safely into the illuminated boundary of our camp. "I will wait, Lethe. Sorry. It just looked like a really unique basalt formation…"

I let out a massive sigh, finally releasing my death grip on her jacket. I cross my arms, and fix my Feline friend with my absolute fiercest, most authoritative glare.

"If you wander off into the dark," I warn her, pitching my voice to sound exactly like a strict instructor, "Miss Susie is going to use her Arts to permanently style your hair into a static-charged puffball. And then, Miss Adele is going to make you calculate the tectonic shear stress of the entire Empire of Ursus by hand. Without a calculator."

Mint’s jaw drops. Her eyes blow completely wide in absolute, unadulterated horror.

"Okay! Okay!" Mint yelps, frantically waving her hands in surrender. She immediately scurries back to her folding chair, practically throwing herself into the seat. She rips a small notebook from her pocket, holding it up in front of her face like a physical shield.

"I will read my notes! Don’t worry, Lethe! I'm not moving!"

I watch her bury her face entirely behind the pages, the frantic, panicked rustle of paper filling the quiet campsite. A soft, victorious smile stretches across my face. I pick my Arts Unit back up, settling comfortably back into my chair, successfully keeping our little expedition perfectly safe until the sun finally breaks over the horizon.

The agonizingly slow crawl of the night watch finally begins to yield. I sit huddled in my folding chair. The biting wind of the plains softens just a fraction as the pitch-black sky begins to shift.

The velvet indigo slowly bruises into a brilliant, sweeping gradient of soft peach, vibrant gold, and deep, blooming violet. The ethereal silver glow of twin moons gently fades away, surrendering to the creeping warmth of dawn. The rolling, untamed grass catches the first rays of light, sparkling with a pristine layer of morning frost.

I reach out, gently tugging at the sleeve of Mint's oversized jacket.

"Woah. Mint, look!" My voice forming a tiny, awestruck cloud in the freezing air.

Mint finally lowers her notebook. She blinks. The frantic, scholarly tension in her shoulders completely melts away as she takes in the breathtaking view.

"That's pretty!" Mint breathes out, her voice ringing with pure, unadulterated wonder.

The quiet serenity of the morning is interrupted by the loud rasp of a zipper. The flaps of the neighboring tent part, and Miss Adele and Miss Susie step out into the crisp morning air. Miss Susie raises her arms high above her head, giving a massive, luxurious stretch.

"Anyone needs help on keeping their sleeping hair in check?" Miss Susie asks, letting out a soft yawn that echoes across the quiet campsite.

Right on cue, the zipper of my own tent descends. Lisa shuffles out into the cold. She looks incredibly sleepy, her eyes half-closed and her usually immaculate hair sticking up in several chaotic, static-charged directions. Her tails drag lazily behind her, completely tangled from a long night of acting as a makeshift blanket.

"If you don't mind, Miss Susie," Lisa asks, her voice groggy.

Miss Susie’s sleepy demeanor instantly vanishes, replaced by the bright, welcoming energy of the landship's best barber. "Of course not," Miss Susie smiles, patting the empty folding chair beside her. "Come here."

"Thank you!" Lisa hums happily, shuffling over to sink into the chair and surrender to Miss Susie’s expert hands.

As the sun climbs higher, illuminating the sprawling hills and casting sharp, distinct shadows across the plains, the landscape is fully revealed. A few hundred meters away, jutting aggressively out of the rolling hills, is a cluster of striated rock.

"Miss Eyjafjalla! Look at the rock formations over there!" Mint points excitedly. Entirely forgetting the strict lecture I had given her during the night watch, she doesn't even wait for a response. She immediately starts marching off toward the distant ridges.

I gasp, my hands instantly flying to my Arts Unit as I prepare to scramble out of my chair and chase her down before she trips into a ravine.

But Miss Adele just covers her mouth with her hand, a soft chuckle escaping her lips.

"I will keep an eye on her," Miss Adele turns her head back toward the camp, offering a trusting smile. "Lethe and Podenco, if you don't mind, please get breakfast ready."

The flaps of the tent rustle one last time as Podenco steps out, already tying the bright yellow ribbon at her collar.

"Okay!" Podenco and I declare in perfect, cheerful unison, entirely ready to conquer the camp stove.

It has been exactly three days since our expedition into the Victorian plains officially began. The crisp, untamed wind of the wilderness has become a familiar, welcome companion, carrying the clean, icy scent of the nearby river that gently guides our trekking route.

Ahead of us, dominating the sprawling horizon, is a massive Victorian steam-based mobile city. Its towering buildings and heavy, reinforced plating gleam proudly under the morning sun. It is completely stationary at the moment, resting peacefully against the rolling green hills like a sleeping giant.

The atmosphere within our small group is absolutely infectious. Podenco and Mint are practically vibrating with uncontainable excitement. A few paces ahead, Mint is holding her notebook open, eagerly showing a sprawling page of newly recorded topographical notes to Miss Adele as we walk alongside the babbling water.

Right beside me, Podenco is crouched in the dirt, her tail wagging in a frantic blur as she excitedly explains the cellular structure of a rare patch of riverbank moss to Lisa.

The young Vulpo leans in closely, her eyes wide with absolute wonder.

I walk quietly behind them, it is a beautiful, peaceful day.

Until Miss Adele suddenly stops dead in her tracks.

The ambient flavor bleeding off my Leithanian tutor shifts instantly. The warm, comforting hearth fire and roasted chestnuts don't extinguish, but they rapidly compress, sharpening into a concentrated, hyper-focused heat that makes the hair on the back of my neck stand up.

"What's wrong, Miss Eyjafjalla?" Mint asks as she lowers her notebook.

Miss Adele doesn't answer immediately. Her soft, kind eyes are entirely devoid of their usual gentleness. She closes her eyes, tilting her head slightly as if listening to a terrifying frequency the rest of us cannot catch.

"The earth…" Miss Adele murmurs, her voice dropping into a hushed, deadly serious whisper. "The air…"

She reaches into her satchel and pulls out a highly specialized, heavy-duty sensor.

Everyone completely stops. Podenco rises slowly from the patch of moss, the bright yuzu and green tea flavor of her presence souring with a sudden spike of nervous apprehension. Lisa steps closer to my side, her hands gripping her Arts Unit tightly, ready at a moment’s notice.

Miss Adele walks in a slow, deliberate circle. She holds the sensor up, her eyes darting between the fluctuating digital readouts and the sprawling, unblemished horizon. She looks out over the plains, her gaze locking directly onto the nomadic city in the distance. The air around her grows incredibly heavy, thick with the crushing weight of a tragedy she alone can see coming.

"A Catastrophe is forming," Miss Adele declares.

The words drop into the crisp riverside air like an executioner's blade. The blood completely drains from my face.

"Oh no," Miss Susie gasps. The cozy, toasted-sugar warmth of her emotional resonance instantly explodes into a frantic, terrified crackle of static. She takes a desperate step forward, pointing a trembling finger toward the colossal, unmoving silhouette on the horizon. "The city. That’s Porte-Léon, right? Why isn't it moving?"

Miss Adele lowers the sensor, her expression carving into a mask of aching sorrow.

"The atmospheric pressure changes are incredibly subtle right now, masked by the river's microclimate," she explains, her voice trembling just a fraction under the immense burden of her knowledge. "The Catastrophe Messengers in the city must have not realized it yet."

I stare at the spiralling city of Porte-Léon in the distance. There are tens of thousands of people in there. Men, women, and children living their lives, completely unaware that the sky is quietly preparing to crush them into the dirt. I swallow hard.

"If they don't move soon," I ask, my voice fracturing into a tiny, terrified whisper over the rushing water of the river, "would it be too late?"

Miss Adele turns her head to look at me. The absolute, unyielding truth in her eyes is devastating.

"More than likely."

"We need to warn them," Miss Adele says.

Her voice rings with a fierce, uncompromising clarity. The comforting, dormant hearth fire of her presence flares, transforming into a concentrated, volcanic resolve that leaves absolutely no room for hesitation. She is no longer just a gentle researcher; she is a Catastrophe Messenger.

Without waiting for a response, Miss Adele kneels into the tall grass. She reaches down toward her left ankle, her fingers finding the black band of her Rhodes Island infection monitor. With a sharp click, she disengages the locking mechanism. She pulls the device off, carefully tucking it deep into the hidden compartments of her satchel.

I reach up, my fingers brushing against the high collar of my jacket where my own monitor rests.

This is an infiltration.

"Mint," Miss Adele commands, standing back up and looking directly at her Feline junior.

"Come with me. The rest of you, please wait here."

Mint doesn't hesitate. "Yes, Miss Eyjafjalla," Mint replies firmly. She immediately reaches up to her neck, unclipping her own infection monitor and shoving it into her pocket.

As the two researchers turn to march directly toward the looming, steel-plated walls of the mobile city, the terrifying reality of our situation finally crashes down on the rest of the group.

The ambient air beside me violently ruptures. The cozy, toasted-sugar and warm-milk flavor of Miss Susie’s presence is instantaneously incinerated by a blindingly sharp, acidic spike of pure terror.

"Calm down. Susie. Breathe," Miss Susie whispers frantically to herself. She wraps her arms tightly around her own torso, squeezing her eyes shut.

But her body is completely betraying her. The sharp, crackling fizz of static electricity erupts into the air. It arcs violently off her clothes and dances across the tips of her fluffy pink hair. The smell of scorched ozone and burnt sugar floods my senses, making the back of my tongue tingle painfully. Her Originium Arts are misfiring, spiraling completely out of control under the crushing weight of her panic. I grip the black shaft of my Arts Unit, the liquid within the magnetic halos swirling erratically as I desperately try to figure out how to push a calming emotion into the chaotic storm.

But before I can even open my empathic channel, a blur of auburn steps smoothly into the crackling, electrified air.

Lisa moves right next to the trembling Feline barber. Her nine tails fan out in a wide, majestic arc, and her staff begins to glow with a soft, ethereal light. A localized field of her Foxfire Arts washes over us.

It is absolutely breathtaking. The moment the field expands, the harsh wind of the wilderness is completely neutralized. A massive, overwhelming wave of pure, crystallized sugar and blindingly warm light floods my senses. It doesn't just push the fear away; it wraps around us like a thick, physical blanket woven from absolute safety and unconditional love. It feels incredibly comforting, soothing the frantic, hammering rhythm of my own heart in an instant.

"Miss Susie," Lisa says. Her voice is a bright, steady chime that echoes beautifully within the glowing field of her Arts. She reaches out, gently resting her hands over Miss Susie's trembling arms. "Everything will be okay."

The effect is miraculous. The violent, erratic sparks of pink electricity dancing across Miss Susie's hair immediately sputter and die out. The heavy stench of scorched ozone dissolves, washed away by Lisa's radiant sweetness.

Miss Susie lets out a long, ragged exhale, her tense shoulders completely slumping forward. She opens her eyes, the sheer, paralyzing terror melting into a pool of exhausted, profound relief. The cozy, toasted-sugar warmth slowly begins to return, steadying itself beneath Lisa's protective Foxfire.

"Thank… thank you, Suzuran," Miss Susie breathes out, offering the young Vulpo a fragile, watery smile.

I loosen my grip on my Arts Unit. I look at Lisa, standing tall and brave in the untamed wilderness, using her light to guide our friends out of the dark.

I need to learn more from her.

With the immediate, suffocating panic finally ebbing away, Lisa gently tugs on Miss Susie’s sleeve. She carefully guides the trembling Feline barber down to the soft, untamed grass of the riverbank.

They sit close together, side-by-side. The brilliant, ethereal glow of Lisa's Foxfire slowly fades into the natural afternoon sunlight, leaving behind a quiet, comforting bubble of spun-sugar and warm, sun-dried linens. They don't speak. They just sit there, letting the rhythmic, rushing melody of the nearby river wash over them, actively using the soothing sound of the water to drown out the shadow of the nomadic city looming on the horizon.

A few paces away, Podenco has already thrown herself back into her meticulous work. She crouches near the water's edge, carefully dipping a series of glass vials into the rushing current to gather samples of the water itself for later ecological analysis.

I stand near the riverbank, and look down at the crystal-clear water cutting through the plains. I recall dipping my hands into the freezing, pristine current of a stream when Podenco and I made dinner yesterday morning, the slight chill feeling so incredibly grounding against my skin. It had felt so good to touch the untamed world.

"Can I step in the river?" I ask, my voice soft over the rushing water.

Podenco doesn't look up from her glass vials. She meticulously seals a stopper with a soft, satisfying pop. "Not unless you want to walk around with wet stockings for the rest of the expedition, Lethe," Podenco points out.

I look down at my thick, insulated dark stockings and my white sneakers. "Oh, right," a sudden, defiant spark of freedom bubbles up in my chest. "I will take them off then."

I carefully step away from the immediate edge of the water and lean my Arts Unit against a sturdy, moss-covered boulder. I sit down on a dry patch of grass and get to work.

I untie my sneakers, slipping them off and setting them neatly aside. Then, I carefully roll down the beautiful, light blue knitted leg warmers, placing them safely in my shoes so they don't touch the dirt. Finally, I peel off the insulated stockings.

The transition is startling. The unblemished air of the wilderness immediately sweeps over my bare legs. I curl my toes, feeling the soft, untamed grass tickle against my bare skin. It is a strange, exhilarating sensation of absolute freedom.

I push myself back up to my feet, reaching out to retrieve my staff from the boulder.

"Just be careful to not get cut by the rocks, Lethe," Podenco warns without turning around as she carefully packs her filled water samples into a padded containment case.

"The current smooths most of the riverbed out, but a shard of flint or a stray piece of Originium in the water will absolutely ruin our day."

I look down at the clear, babbling water, offering her a firm, appreciative nod. "I will be careful, Podenco."

I carefully step down the grassy bank and dip my toes into the rushing river. The icy chill of the water bites immediately, sending a sharp, waking shiver straight up my legs. But it feels incredibly, infinitely grounding. The smooth, polished pebbles of the riverbed slide beneath my feet, and the rhythmic, rushing current washes away the lingering, stagnant dread of watching Miss Adele and Mint disappear into the shadow of the Victorian mobile city.

I wade out just a little further, letting the cold water lap at my ankles. I need a distraction. I turn my head, looking back at the bank where Lisa, Miss Susie, and Podenco are gathered.

"We actually haven't gotten to roast any marshmallows yet," I point out, pitching my voice to carry over the babbling stream. "Weren't we supposed to do that?"

Podenco looks up from her containment case, a soft, amused huff escaping her lips.

"To be fair, Lethe," Podenco replies, securing the final latch on her glass vials. "For the past few days, we have all just kind of crashed into the tent the absolute second we finish eating dinner, haven't we? Trekking across the plains is exhausting."

Lisa giggles from her spot beside Miss Susie on the grass. "Well, we still have ten days left on our expedition!" Lisa adds, her tails swishing happily against the dirt. "That is plenty of time to build a proper campfire and roast them.”

Miss Susie leans forward slightly. "Actually, Lethe," Miss Susie asks, "have you ever even had a marshmallow before?"

I slowly shake my head. "No," I admit softly. "I haven't."

"What?!" Lisa gasps.

She doesn't waste a single second. She scrambles over to her canvas bag resting on the grass, her hands frantically digging through the compartments. With a triumphant cheer, she pulls out a large, crinkling plastic bag. Inside are dozens of plump, pure-white cylinders, dusted lightly in a fine coat of powdered sugar. They look incredibly soft.

Lisa pops the seal on the bag, pulls one out, and walks over to the river's edge. She stretches her arm out, offering the pillowy treat to me. "You have to try it right now!"

"Thank you, Lisa," I say, carefully wading back toward the bank. I reach out with a hand, gently taking the marshmallow from her fingers. It feels impossibly squishy and light.

I bring it to my lips and take a cautious bite. The texture is entirely unique; it is incredibly spongy and resilient for a fraction of a second before it instantly begins to dissolve directly on my tongue. A wave of pure, concentrated vanilla and delicate, airy sugar completely floods my mouth. The sweetness is absolute, uncomplicated, and perfectly comforting.

I blink. A massive, radiant smile breaks across my face, entirely wiping away the shadows of the looming Catastrophe. My tail instantly snaps out of the freezing water, wagging in a frantic, joyous blur.

"It's so fluffy!" I beam, eagerly popping the rest of the sweet treat into my mouth.

I carefully step out of the rushing current, my bare feet sinking into the soft grass of the riverbank. The freezing air immediately bites at my wet skin, but I don't mind. I shuffle over to the small circle my friends have formed, taking a seat beside Podenco. I gently lean the sleek black shaft of my Arts Unit against my knees, watching the misty liquid swirl and settle into a quiet, steady hum as I stretch my legs out to let the brisk wind dry my toes.

"Here, Lethe! Time for real lunch." Lisa reaches into her bag and pulls out a neat stack of packed sandwiches wrapped in sealed plastics. She passes them around the group.

"Thank you, Lisa," I murmur, taking one. I bite into it, the savory taste of cold cuts, cheese, and crisp lettuce acting as a perfect, grounding follow-up to the sugary rush of the marshmallow. We eat in a comfortable, companionable silence, the gentle rushing of the river serving as our background music.

But as the afternoon wears on, we are running out of small talks.

Then the serene atmosphere slowly begins to curdle.

The sun is already beginning its slow dip toward the horizon. I look up. Far in the distance, looming far in the distance away from the city, the sky is actively bruising.

Thick, unnatural storm cells are rapidly forming, churning with a sickly, bruised purple and heavy, ash-grey clouds.

My tail drops completely dead against the grass. A cold knot of dread tightens in my stomach.

"Should we move?" I ask, my voice fracturing the quiet of our camp. I look nervously between Podenco, Lisa, and Miss Susie, my fingers tightening around the dark chassis of my staff. "We don’t want to be caught in the middle of a Catastrophe if that storm breaks…"

"We can't, Lethe," Podenco says, her attention fixed entirely on the darkening horizon.

"Miss Adele specifically told us to wait right here. If we move the camp, they won't know where to find us when they get out."

"But why isn't the city moving?" I plead, as I gesture frantically toward the sprawling skyline in the distance. The colossal treads beneath the city remain entirely still. "It has been almost half a day since Miss Adele and Mint went in to warn them. They should be driving away by now!"

Miss Susie pulls her knees tightly to her chest, wrapping her arms around her legs. "The aristocrats… the ruling bodies," Miss Susie whispers, her voice trembling with a deep, bitter resignation that tastes like scorched sugar. "They are incredibly proud, Lethe.

They probably just looked at a Leithanian researcher and entirely refused to believe her."

She squeezes her eyes shut, a stray spark of pink static electricity arcing faintly across the tips of her hair as her worry spikes. "They probably didn't believe Eyjafjalla…

hopefully they are safe in there."

I stare at the city, the terrifying weight of Miss Susie's words sinking into my chest.

Then, finally. The suffocating, agonizing silence is violently shattered.

It starts as a low, subterranean rumble that vibrates directly through the soles of my feet and hums against the bases of my horns. Then, the deafening sirens ring out. The apocalyptic, mechanical wail echoes across the sprawling plains, a terrifying chorus that instantly drowns out the gentle babbling of the river.

I whip my head around, looking toward the horizon. The colossal, steel-plated silhouette of the mobile city is no longer a dormant, looming shadow. It is tearing itself apart. The massive municipal plates begin to separate, the grinding screech of millions of tons of shifting metal tearing through the air as the city blocks slowly, desperately begin to move, mobilizing to outrun the wrath of the earth.

But the earth is already waking up.

I look up. The sky, which had been a clear, bruised twilight just hours ago, is entirely gone. A Catastrophe is slowly forming, rolling over the land with a heavy, unnaturally violent storm. The clouds are a thick, suffocating maelstrom of sickly purples and pitch- black greys, churning with an oppressive, atmospheric weight that makes it physically hard to draw breath. The wind completely changes direction, howling across the grass and carrying the sharp, acidic stench of raw ozone and sulfur.

Around us, the very ground reacts. The muted Originium shards scattered in the countryside, the inert rocks we had carefully tiptoed around all day, suddenly awaken.

They light up, a sickly, pulsing yellowish glow bleeding out from under their black crystalline structures as they resonate with the catastrophic atmospheric pressure forming above us.

"We are too close," I gasp out.

The words tumble from my lips as Miss Adele’s hushed, intensive lectures in the Archives flash through my mind.

Originium pressure triggers. Atmospheric resonance.

The air itself is turning into a toxic, volatile conductor. "We need to move!" I yell over the howling wind.

The ambient air on the riverbank instantly erupts. The cozy, toasted-sugar flavor of Miss Susie’s presence violently detonates into a frantic, terrified crackle. Lisa's blindingly bright sugar emotional resonance pulls terrifyingly taut, tasting brittle and frayed, while Podenco's citrusy yuzu completely sours with sharp, spiking panic.

I don't waste a single second. I scramble away from the water's edge, my hands frantically grabbing my thick, insulated dark stockings and my white sneakers. I quickly dress back up, shoving my freezing toes into the fabric with clumsy, trembling fingers.

"Which way?!" Podenco shouts, her voice barely carrying over the roar of the wind as she hastily slings her containment case over her shoulder.

"That way!" I point my staff toward the horizon, tracking the massive, retreating silhouettes of the mobile platforms. "Heading the same direction that the city blocks are heading! They have Catastrophe Messengers; they know the safest route out of the impact zone!"

We turn, bracing ourselves against the debris-filled gale, completely prepared to run for our lives.

"Lethe! Podenco! Suzuran! Miss Goldenglow!"

The voice slices through the roaring storm, desperate and breathless. I freeze, whipping my head toward a distant hill. Mint suddenly calls out from afar. The Feline researcher is sprinting down the rocky incline toward us, her jacket billowing wildly in the Catastrophe winds.

"There’s a cave nearby!" Mint screams, waving her arm frantically toward a dark fissure.

"Let’s hide there!"

We just run.

I force my legs to move, my sneakers slipping and sliding against the grass as we scramble up the rocky incline.

The wind is deafening, a physical wall of freezing, debris-laced air that threatens to push us backward with every step. Behind us, the horrific, metallic shrieking of the mobile city tearing itself apart echoes across the plains, completely eclipsed by the suffocating, unnatural darkness rolling in from the sky.

"In here! Hurry!" Mint shouts, waving us frantically toward the fissure hidden perfectly behind a cluster of massive boulders.

Lisa darts in first, followed closely by Podenco. I stumble over a loose rock, nearly dropping to my knees, but Miss Susie’s hand shoots out. She grabs the back of my jacket, practically hoisting me forward until we both plunge into the dark opening of the cave. Miss Adele and Mint slide in right behind us.

The transition is immediate. The deafening, apocalyptic howl of the Catastrophe is instantly muffled, reduced to a hollow, terrifying roar echoing outside the heavy stone walls.

"We are safe," Mint pants, leaning heavily against the cave wall, her chest heaving with ragged gasps. "There’s… there's no active Originium in here. Miss Eyjafjalla checked the subterranean scans earlier."

I collapse onto the hard, uneven stone floor. My lungs are burning, tasting of stale dust and sharp adrenaline. Beside me, Lisa is curled into a tight ball, her nine tails wrapping protectively around herself, while Podenco leans against her knees, trying to catch her breath.

Miss Susie doesn't waste a second. Her hands are trembling, faint sparks of static violently arcing across the tips of her fingers, but she manages to pull a standard-issue Rhodes Island ignition flare from her survival pack. With a sharp strike, she drops it onto a small pile of dry kindling Mint or Miss Adele must have gathered earlier. A bright, crackling fire springs to life, casting a warm, flickering orange glow against the jagged cave walls.

I look toward the entrance of the fissure. The bruised, twilight sky we had been standing under just minutes ago is completely gone. It is pitch black outside. The Catastrophe has entirely swallowed the sun, plunging the plains into a violent, premature night.

We slowly gather around the small fire, pulling our coats tightly around our shivering frames. The ambient air in the cave is thick with exhaustion, but the terrifying, acidic spike of immediate panic slowly begins to thaw under the warmth of the flames.

"What happened in there?" Miss Susie asks. Her voice trembles, the cozy, toasted-sugar flavor of hers completely smothered by a heavy, burnt-caramel dread. She looks across the fire at the two researchers. "Why did it take so long for them to sound the alarms?" Mint’s head snaps up. The crisp, sweet mint and parchment flavor of her presence sours. It sharpens into a bitter frost of pure, unadulterated indignation. Her hands clench into tight fists in her lap.

"They didn't believe Miss Eyjafjalla!" Mint cries out, her voice echoing sharply against the stone. Her eyes blaze with a fierce, helpless anger. "We went straight to the municipal Catastrophe Messengers. Miss Eyjafjalla showed them the exact pressure readings and the micro-fault anomalies! But they just looked at her and laughed!"

Mint throws her hands up in absolute disbelief. "They kept going on and on about how their internal sensors and municipal surveys were completely clear! They called us paranoid tourists!" she continues, her voice cracking with frustration. "I had to literally pull out my identification and tell them I am a researcher from the Victorian Institution of Higher Studies. I had to threaten to report their negligence to the aristocracy just to get them to look at the sky! And even then, they only hit the mobilization alarms at the absolute last second!"

The silence that follows Mint's outburst is suffocating.

Miss Adele sits quietly on the other side of the fire. The comforting flavor of roasted chestnuts and dormant hearth fire that usually radiates from her is entirely extinguished. In its place is a massive, crushing wave of heavy, volcanic ash and profound, suffocating sorrow. It hits the back of my throat, tasting of bitter tears and the agonizing weight of inevitability.

Miss Adele stares blankly into the flickering orange flames. "The separation sequence was initiated far too late," she whispers. She slowly lifts her eyes, looking out toward the pitch-black entrance of the cave where the storm rages.

"Some plates might be caught still," Miss Adele adds.

The words drop into the cavern like a lead weight.

I scoot slightly closer to the fire, reaching out my free hand to gently rest it over Miss Adele's trembling fingers. I squeeze her hand, pouring every bit of quiet, steadying comfort I can muster into the empathic channel between us. She had done everything she could. She had walked right into the den of arrogance to save them.

The heavy, oppressive roar of the Catastrophe outside is a terrifying, continuous rumble that shakes the very floor of the cavern. I pull my knees up tightly to my chest.

"Let’s roast some marshmallows," Miss Susie suggests, her voice cutting through the heavy gloom. She rubs her arms, a slight shiver running through her frame. "It will get cold soon. We can make some cocoa, too."

Lisa sits up, her tails giving a hesitant but hopeful sway. "I have them!" she chimes. She eagerly digs into her specialized logistics bag, producing the familiar, crinkling pouches of marshmallows and instant cocoa powder.

Podenco stands up, brushing the cave dust from her skirt. "I will help," Podenco says, as she grabs our portable Rhodes Island pot to boil the filtered water over the fire.

While the three of them busy themselves around the crackling flames, Mint is entirely unable to sit still. She begins to pace near the edges of the flickering firelight, pulling a small, heavy-duty flashlight from the deep pocket of her jacket.

The bright, stark white beam cuts through the shadows as she sweeps it across the ceiling and the uneven stone walls, her academic curiosity demanding a distraction from the terror outside.

"This looks weird," Mint observes, her voice echoing softly.

I look up from the fire. Mint has stopped dead in her tracks at the very back of the cavern, staring directly at a solid, dead-end wall of rock. She tilts her head, her brow furrowing in deep confusion as she sweeps her flashlight beam back and forth across the stone.

"Is this natural?" Mint asks aloud, leaning in closer. "The striation pattern and the mineral oxidation here completely contradict the surrounding basalt…"

She steps forward, reaching a hand out to brush against the rough surface of the rock. The absolute second her fingers make contact with the stone wall.

Crash.

The solid rock simply swallows her hand. Mint lets out a sharp, startled yelp, entirely losing her balance as her weight carries her forward. She pitches right through the stone, tumbling hard onto the unseen ground beyond with a loud, echoing clatter.

"Mint!" I gasp, my heart leaping into my throat. I scramble to my feet, my hands gripping my Arts Unit tightly as Miss Adele, Miss Susie, and the others instantly drop what they are doing.

"What…?" Mint's bewildered voice echoes from the darkness beyond the flickering false wall. "A camouflage?"

Her dropped flashlight rolls across the hidden cavern floor. The beam spins wildly for a chaotic second before coming to a rest. The white light slices through the pitch-black void, illuminating the camouflage had been designed to hide.

It isn't an empty, dead-end cavern. Stacked meticulously in the dark, stretching deep into the back of the hidden tunnel, are towering, organized rows of heavy, reinforced military-grade crates.

Painted directly onto the dark, reinforced metal is a white emblem. It is meticulously hand-drawn, its edges slightly uneven but undeniably bold. A straight, regal sword runs down the absolute center, crossed from behind by twin halberds. The weapons are entirely wrapped in an intricate, flowing crest that looks like a stylized lily.

I stare at the symbol. I completely don't recognize it. It doesn't look like the Victorian heraldry I have seen in the Archives, and it certainly isn't the Rhodes Island rook.

Mint slowly pushes herself off the dusty cavern floor, her eyes wide as she stares at the fresh paint. "Miss Eyjafjalla," Mint asks, her voice barely a whisper in the echoing dark.

"Is that symbol what I think it is?"

Miss Adele steps forward to inspect the sigil. "Gaul," Miss Adele replies. The word is soft, but it carries a heavy, historical weight.

Gaul. My mind instantly flashes back to the communication terminal in Doctor's office. I remember Ms. Closure's highly caffeinated voice barking through the speaker, bluntly declaring that the Gaulish Empire was a superpower that had been completely wiped off the map by Victoria, Ursus, and Leithanien decades ago.

Lisa steps up. She tilts her head, her eyes scanning the reinforced latches of the containers. "How?" Lisa observes, her brow furrowing. "Those crates look completely new. There isn't even any rust on the hinges. The nation fell almost seventy years ago." Miss Adele steps further into the hidden cavern. She approaches the towering stack of supplies, her hand reaching out to carefully inspect the surface of the metal. She lightly touches the edge of the white, hand-drawn emblem, analyzing the freshness of the paint.

"This could be restorationists," Miss Adele says, her tone dropping into a grave, serious octave that completely banishes her usual airy melody. She turns to look back at us, the shadows of the flashlight playing across her features. "County Ascarat… Ascarat. That sounds Gallic, this has to be assimilated Gaul territory."

Miss Susie wrapping her arms tightly around her sweater. "Recent years there have been some news on Gallic protests," Miss Susie adds, her voice tight and trembling slightly. "Whispers of people trying to rebuild what the other empires destroyed."

The freezing dread completely solidifies in my stomach. We didn't just stumble into an empty cave to hide from a Catastrophe. We just walked directly into a hidden, active supply cache belonging to a rebel army.

We are trapped between an apocalyptic storm tearing the sky apart outside, and the phantom ghost of a dead empire waiting in the dark.

"We need to take pictures," Lisa declares. Her voice cuts through the echoing gloom, trembling just a fraction but anchored by a fierce, unyielding resolve. She reaches into her bag, pulling out her communicator. The soft glow of the screen illuminates her face as she points the lens toward the stark, hand-drawn lily crests. "We have to communicate this to Dr. Kal’tsit the absolute second the Catastrophe clears and the signal returns, or this County will fall in war, too."

"Shouldn’t we tell the Duke?" Mint asks, looking between the adults. "If there is a rebellion building right under his nose, the local Victorian authorities need to know!"

"No, Mint," Miss Susie says immediately. "He won’t believe us. We are Infected, and we are trespassing. Even if he does believe us, he will just arrest us and accuse us of being foreign saboteurs planting the weapons ourselves. We cannot trust the local nobility."

I think of the ancient, freezing glacier waiting for us back on the landship. She is terrifying, but her absolute, uncompromising authority is the safest shield we have in this world.

"Dr. Kal’tsit will know how to tell them," I add, my voice steadying in the dark cavern. I look at Mint, offering a firm, resolute nod. "We just gather the intel. She always knows what to do."

"Okay," Mint whispers, nodding in agreement.

"Let’s open a crate," Podenco says.

Podenco is already crouched beside the nearest metal container, her hands expertly fidgeting with the heavy, unrusted latches.

"Wait, Podenco, be careful!" Miss Adele starts, but it is too late.

With a loud, resounding clank that echoes sharply against the stone walls, the metal lid pops loose. Podenco heaves it backward. The white beam of the dropped flashlight catches the interior of the crate, illuminating the contraband packed securely within the dense, shock-absorbent foam.

We all step closer, peering over the edge. My breath completely stalls in my throat.

The weapons inside are absolutely monstrous. They are forged from dark, pitted iron, entirely devoid of the polished brass, steam-powered mechanisms, or elegant engravings I had seen in the textbooks documenting the Victorian military. These are brutal, oversized swords with saw-toothed edges, and heavy, crude staves designed for sheer, blunt-force trauma. Woven directly into the dark metal are raw, exposed conduits of Originium. The crystals pulse with a faint, angry, blood-red luminescence, looking less like manufactured tools and more like extensions of a violent, living disease.

The mere sight of them makes the blood in my veins run completely cold, yet a strange, terrifyingly primal instinct ripples deep within my chest. They smell of scorched earth, sulfur, and old, dried blood. They are weapons built for a slaughterhouse, designed to be wielded by hands with terrifying, unnatural physical strength.

Miss Adele leans over the open crate, her eyes widening in horror. The dormant hearth fire of her presence is entirely swallowed by a wave of cold, heavy dread.

"That's not Victorian," Miss Adele whispers, her voice barely a breath against the muffled roar of the Catastrophe outside. "The craftsmanship, the raw Originium exposure… these are Sarkaz mercenary armaments. These are weapons from Kazdel."

"Oh no no no…"

A series of frantic whispers ring out.

The ambient air ruptures. The comforting, toasted-sugar and warm-milk flavor of Miss Susie’s presence is instantaneously incinerated. A blindingly sharp, acidic spike of pure terror erupts in its place. I can physically taste the scorched ozone. Sparks of bright static electricity begin to arc dangerously off the Feline barber's clothes, dancing wildly across the tips of her hair and crackling against the damp stone walls of the cave.

She takes a staggering step backward. Her breathing turns into short, hyperventilating gasps. Her Arts are spiraling completely out of control again, agitating the already volatile air.

I drop my hands from the black shaft of my Arts Unit, and rush over to her.

"Please calm down, Miss Susie," I plead, grabbing her trembling hands and squeezing them tightly. I look up into her panicked eyes. "You have to breathe. The atmospheric Originium pressure from the Catastrophe outside is already too high. Using your Arts right now is really, really bad for your Oripathy prognosis!"

Miss Susie squeezes her eyes shut. She lets out a ragged, shuddering breath, her fingers gripping mine so tightly they ache. She forces the air deep into her lungs, desperately fighting the chaotic surge of electricity under her skin.

She opens her eyes, staring down at me with an expression of absolute, unadulterated dread. "They…" Miss Susie whispers, her voice shaking violently in the dim light of the flare. "The rumors. They are true?"

"Rumors?" I ask, my grip on her hands softening just a fraction.

"In my barber sessions," Miss Susie explains, her voice dropping into a hollow, terrified murmur. "When Operators sit in my chair, they talk. I… I heard people whisper that the Military Commission of Kazdel secretly funded and armed Reunion, and Dublinn…"

The words hit me with the kinetic force of a collapsing building.

My hands go entirely numb. I let go of Miss Susie, taking a slow, shaky step backward.

It wasn't just a tragic coincidence. It wasn't just oppressed people lashing out. My people had put the swords and the Originium explosives directly into their hands.

"But why?" I look toward Miss Adele, desperately hoping the brilliant Leithanian researcher will tell me it is just a terrible, unfounded rumor. "Why would Kazdel want to burn other countries? I thought… I thought they just wanted their own home back."

Miss Adele steps past the open crate, her eyes reflecting the flickering orange flames of our campfire.

"It is highly likely to be true, Lethe," Miss Adele explains. "The Military Commission lacks the resources and the standing to fight the empires directly. But if they secretly arm radical factions… the rebellions distract and bleed the empires from the inside out."

She reaches out, her fingertips hovering just inches above the crude, brutal iron of a Kazdelian sword.

"And more importantly," Miss Adele adds quietly, "it creates chaos. When the empires are fractured by civil war and uprisings, they grow desperate. They hire mercenaries to quell the violence. It creates endless, highly lucrative mercenary contracts for the Military Commission to exploit. They get funding and military leverage from the very wars they created."

The cavern plunges into a suffocating, echoing silence. I stare at the dark metal weapons resting in the foam. The Military Commission isn't just fighting for a homeland. They are actively farming human suffering. They are planting seeds of slaughter in the world, and then charging the empires money to harvest the bodies.

And they are my bloodline.

I reach down, my trembling fingers blindly finding the black shaft of my Arts Unit. I stand in the dark of the hidden cache, listening to the muffled, apocalyptic roar of the Catastrophe outside, completely crushed by the true weight of the horns on my head.

"I… I… I…"

Hot, unbidden tears prick at the corners of my eyes, blurring the flickering orange light of the campfire. I open my mouth, entirely ready to let out a devastated sob.

Squish.

A warm, perfectly toasted marshmallow is shoved unceremoniously past my lips.

The sudden, gooey texture completely blocks the sob in my throat. I blink, my tear-filled eyes crossing slightly as I look at the Perro botanist kneeling directly in front of me.

"You are not them, Lethe," Podenco states. Her voice is fierce, unyielding, and completely absolute. She looks me dead in the eyes. "Don’t you ever think you are them."

I close my mouth, chewing the marshmallow slowly so I don’t choke. The rich, caramelized sugar and warm vanilla coat my tongue.

As the sweetness works its way down my throat, I drop my eyes. I look past the hem of my jacket to the tactical band strapped securely around my right thigh. Emblazoned in crisp white against the dark fabric is the Medic symbol. It isn't a crest of a warmongering empire or a blood-soaked Military Commission. It is a promise to heal.

I loosen my terrified grip on my Arts Unit. My fingers trace the black shaft, feeling the faint, steady mechanical hum of the magnetic halos at its crest. The misty blue liquid suspended within swirls lazily, a shield built by Ms. Closure to protect my mind, not a weapon to break others.

I swallow the sweet treat, letting out a long, shuddering exhale. I look back up at Podenco, and then over at Lisa.

"I… I am a Medic of Rhodes Island. I am Lethe."

The fierce, rigid tension in Podenco’s shoulders melts into a bright, unwavering smile.

She reaches out, giving my knee a firm, reassuring squeeze.

"Yes," Podenco affirms softly. "You are."

"Everyone, sit down and have a marshmallow and a cup of cocoa," Miss Susie says. Her voice trembles just a fraction, but she forces a gentle, comforting melody into the echoing gloom. "There’s not much else we can do."

I shuffle closer to the dying embers of the fire. I pick up the warm camping cup of cocoa and slowly sip. The rich, sweet chocolate washes over my tongue, a fragile anchor against the terrifying reality of our situation.

The Catastrophe still roars outside. The stone walls of the hidden cavern vibrate constantly with a low rumble, the sheer apocalyptic wrath of the Originium storm tearing the sky apart just beyond the entrance.

We are quiet. Huddled together in the dim, flickering orange light, the silence inside the cave is heavy and suffocating, completely overshadowed by the apocalyptic noise outside.

Then, it hits me.

The comforting scent of cocoa and the lingering smoke of the campfire are instantaneously overridden by a sudden, jarring influx of foreign emotions creeping down the dark tunnel. It tastes like chalky, damp slate and suppressed breath. But woven tightly through that stealth is a blinding, volatile spike of pure zealotry. It is a righteous fury that burns my throat like over-fermented alcohol mixed with scorching chili powder and the sharp, rusted-iron tang of absolute fanaticism.

"Everyone, there are people outside the cave," I whisper, my voice barely a breath.

Miss Adele doesn't hesitate. She reaches out, and instantly stomps on the fading embers, she smothers the campfire completely. The cavern plunges into absolute, pitch-black darkness.

"Everyone, hide in the storage room," Miss Adele commands in a hushed, urgent tone.

I grab the shaft of my Arts Unit, shielding the faintly glowing blue liquid of the focal unit against my chest, and scramble to my feet. Podenco grabs Lisa's hand, and we blindly navigate the dark, retreating deeper into the hidden cache. We press our backs flat against the cold metal crates, holding our breath in the pitch black.

Heavy footsteps echo down the tunnel, crunching loudly against the loose stone.

"Are you sure about this, Viktor? While a Catastrophe is raging?" a man's voice echoes, his tone laced with a nervous, trembling static that tastes of cold rain.

"Absolutely. There are city blocks that are stranded," Viktor replies. His voice is dripping with that scorching, fermented zealotry I can taste bleeding into the air. "Absolutely. The Duke's forces are blind in this storm. We secure the cache now, and by tomorrow morning, Ascarat will remember it belongs to Gaul, not Victoria."

Two bright, piercing beams of white light suddenly slice through the pitch-black void of the cavern. From my hiding spot behind the rusted shipping containers, I peek out. The flashlight beams sweep across the rocky walls and the dead ashes of our campfire, illuminating the two figures stepping into the room. They are Liberi men, their feathers dusted with soot and their clothes rugged and worn.

"Viktor!" The voice of the second Liberi man echoes sharply in the cavern, shattering the breathless silence. His flashlight beam jerks downward, locking directly onto the ground. "Look."

The first man, Viktor, immediately sweeps his light over to join his partner's. The twin beams of white light illuminate the dead ashes of our campfire and the discarded cups we had left behind in our frantic scramble.

"Yes, Lucas?" Viktor asks, his voice dropping into a tight, guarded whisper.

Lucas takes a hesitant step forward. He kneels down on the dusty stone floor, his hand hovering just inches above the blackened wood. "The campfire," Lucas breathes out, his head snapping up. "It is still warm."

I press my back as flat against the cold metal crates as I physically can, my heart hammering a frantic, deafening rhythm against my ribs. Beside me, I can feel Lisa trembling. The ambient air in the pitch-black void sours instantly, thick with the sharp, acidic spike of the men's sudden adrenaline.

Viktor doesn't hesitate. He swings his flashlight away from the fire, the beam sweeping erratically across the cavern walls and the rocky ceiling. The light sweeps past the stalactites and cuts directly toward the back of the cave. It stops dead on the open metal container Podenco had unlatched.

"The camouflage!" Viktor gasps, his voice pitching up in sudden, frantic alarm. "It's gone! The crate is open!"

Heavy boots pound against the stone floor as they both abandon the campfire and rush directly toward the cache. They skid to a halt right in front of the container. The blinding white light spills over the dark, crude metal of the weapons.

"Viktor…" Lucas stammers, his hand hovering over the exposed contraband. He stares down at the brutal iron. "Why do these swords look…"

"Talk later!" Viktor snaps, entirely cutting him off.

The metallic, grinding scrape of heavy iron sliding against foam rings out in the cavern. They each reach into the crate and grab one of the Kazdelian swords.

Viktor swings the heavy, terrifying blade and the blinding beam of his flashlight toward the deep shadows where we are huddled. "Come out!" he roars, the command echoing violently against the damp stone walls.

Lucas raises his own weapon, his stance wide and defensive. "Come out! We know you are here!"

There is nowhere to run. We are backed entirely against a solid, dead-end wall of rock. In the dark, Miss Adele gives a slow, resigned nod. I take a shuddering breath, the cold air stinging my lungs.

Slowly, we step out from behind the rusted shipping containers.

I raise my free hand high into the air, squinting and turning my face slightly away from the blinding glare of their flashlights. Beside me, Miss Adele, Miss Susie, Podenco, and Lisa step into the light, their hands raised in surrender.

Mint  throws her hands up, her shoulders shrinking defensively into her jacket. "We don't mean any harm!" Mint yelps, her voice a frantic, high-pitched squeak in the incredibly tense air.

"Who are you?!" Viktor shouts. His voice echoes off the damp stone walls, sharp and jagged with adrenaline. The ambient air in the cavern violently sours, hitting the back of my tongue with the foul, metallic tang of rusted iron and desperate paranoia. He points his blade toward us with a trembling hand. "What are you doing in our cache?!"

Miss Adele doesn't flinch.

"We are simply travelers seeking shelter from the Catastrophe outside," Miss Adele answers, her voice retaining its gentle, airy melody but layered with an absolute, academic firmness. She lowers one hand, pointing toward the open crate. "But perhaps you should be asking yourselves why you are here. Do you truly know what you are fighting with?"

Viktor’s eyes dart to his weapon. "Don't play games with me!" he barks, taking a threatening step forward.

"It is not a game," Miss Adele states. "That is not a Victorian blade. It is a Kazdelian weapon. The Military Commission of Kazdel is supplying you. They secretly arm radical factions and rebellions to bleed the empires from the inside out, creating endless mercenary contracts for themselves. You are not fighting a revolution for Gaul; you are just buying their weapons to slaughter yourselves."

The heavy, suffocating silence of the cave presses down on us. Beside Viktor, the second Liberi man lowers his flashlight just a fraction. His aura ripples, the sharp edge of hostility curdling into the sour, freezing taste of cold water and dawning doubt.

"Viktor…" Lucas whispers, his voice wavering. "She… she might be right. I always thought they looked weird. The top brass told us these were strictly Victorian contrabands, smuggled across the border to throw off the Duke's patrols…”

"Don't listen to her, Lucas!" Viktor snaps, whipping his head around to glare at his partner. The terrified, paranoid static bleeding off him intensifies, completely drowning out the damp scent of the cave. "She is a Caprinae! She is Leithanian! It's just venom to divide us!"

Viktor sweeps his flashlight back over our huddled group. The beam jerks past Miss Adele and locks entirely onto Mint and Miss Susie. "Look at them!" Viktor sneers, his free hand gesturing wildly. "Two Felines! They're Victorians! They are probably spies sent directly by the local Duke to sabotage our supply lines!"

Mint shrinks back against the crates, her eyes wide with terror as she clutches her book to her chest. Beside her, Miss Susie lets out a shaky breath, a faint, involuntary spark of pink static electricity arcing dangerously across the air. I immediately reach out, grabbing Miss Susie's sleeve to ground her.

"No, Viktor, think about it for a second!" Lucas argues, shaking his head. He refuses to raise his flashlight back toward us, his eyes remaining locked on the open crate. The sour taste of his doubt solidifies into a crushing, terrible realization. "This entire operation… it always felt suspicious. The armaments were sourced way too quickly. Too smoothly. We are just a small, fractured cell, and suddenly we receive a shipment with enough steel to arm an entire battalion? It doesn't make any sense."

Viktor completely freezes. He stares at the Kazdelian sword in his hand. He looks at his partner, and then he looks back at us.

The rotting, metallic tang of his desperation swells into pure, unadulterated delirium.

His wild, bloodshot eyes sweep past Miss Adele and my Feline teammates, landing squarely on me. The white beam of his flashlight illuminates my lopsided horns and the spade-tipped tail coiled defensively around my ankles.

"No… no!" Viktor stammers, his voice rising into a hysterical, ragged shriek. He points his trembling blade directly at my chest. "It's her! The Sarkaz devil!"

I flinch, my breath catching painfully in my throat. I instinctively press the black shaft of my Arts Unit tighter against my chest.

"She is using witchcraft!" Viktor screams, his panic echoing deafeningly against the stone walls. "They are manipulating us! That devil is mind-controlling us right now! We are just hallucinating the weapons!"

"Viktor! Please!" Lucas yells, his voice cracking with desperate, raw frustration. He hoists the Kazdelian sword. He holds the crude weapon up, practically shoving it toward his partner. "Feel the weight of the blade, Viktor! Look at it! It is heavy and crude! It is not Victorian!"

Lucas’s hands tremble under the sheer, unrefined bulk of the weapon. The ambient flavor bleeding off him is a frantic, suffocating wave of cold sweat and absolute terror.

"Stop!" Lucas pleads, staring at his friend with wide, begging eyes. "We have to stop before we die for someone else's war!"

The words hit Viktor like a physical blow. The hysterical, delusional panic instantly shatters, incinerated by a sudden, blinding geyser of pure, agonizing rage. It tastes like scorching battery acid and boiling copper, thick and choking in the humid air of the cavern.

"Someone else's war?!" Viktor roars, the sound tearing out of his throat in a ragged, deafening scream. He violently shoves the sword away, the flat of the blade smacking against the stone wall. "Someone else?!"

He whips his head around, his chest heaving with jagged, furious breaths. The white beam of his flashlight slashes through the dark, pointing aggressively back toward Miss Susie and Mint huddled against the crates.

"How dare you say that!" Viktor screams, his free hand trembling violently as he points at the two terrified Felines. "The Victorians! They drafted my two brothers! They dragged them from our home and forced them to fight their war in Londinium!"

The absolute, devastating grief behind his rage floods my senses. It is a sorrow so profound and rotting that my stomach violently heaves. I tighten my grip on the black shaft of my Arts Unit, my knuckles turning bone-white, desperately trying to keep the toxic emotions from entirely hollow-out my own chest.

"Both of them died!" Viktor cries out, his voice fracturing into a broken, wet sob that echoes terribly against the cold stone. Tears carve tracks through the soot on his cheeks. "And what did my family get?! What did we get for giving them everything?!"

He grips the hilt of his blade so tightly his skin stretches tight. "Two letters and a few pounds! That’s it! We didn't even get bodies to bury!"

"Viktor, please stop!" Lucas begs, his voice cracking into a pathetic, desperate whine.

The heavy Kazdelian sword dips in his trembling hands, the tip scraping against the stone floor. "I know… I know what they did to your brothers. Because… because I was drafted into the exact same wave, Viktor."

Viktor freezes, his bloodshot eyes darting to his partner.

"I was supposed to be there in Londinium with them," Lucas chokes out, tears tracking through the dirt on his face. "But I deserted. I ran. I couldn't face the artillery and the mercenaries. I'm sorry, Viktor. I'm so sorry."

The fragile, splintering remnants of Viktor’s sanity completely shatter. The heavy, rotting grief in the air doesn't soften; it violently combusts into absolute, blinding fanaticism. The ambient flavor turns to deafening, scorching static, entirely devoid of reason. He is simply no longer listening.

His wild, frantic eyes snap away from Lucas and lock directly onto me, brimming with absolute, unadulterated madness.

"It's her fault! I will just have to kill the devil!" Viktor screams.

He drops his short blade. With a sudden, terrifying surge of adrenaline-fueled strength, he heaves the heavy Kazdelian sword. He hoists the crude, jagged iron high into the air and lunges straight at me.

I squeeze my eyes shut, bracing for the horrific impact of the iron.

"Viktor, no!"

The scream tears through the cavern, desperate and raw.

I hear the heavy, rushing whoosh of the blade cutting through the damp air, followed instantly by a frantic blur of motion. A sickening, wet thud echoes against the stone.

Something warm and wet splatters across the side of my face. A splash of crimson.

I snap my eyes open. I haven't been hit.

Standing right in front of me, entirely shielding my frame, is Lucas. The heavy, jagged blade is lodged deep into his shoulder, cleaving brutally through his thick winter cloak and biting straight into the bone. The sheer force of the blow has nearly split him in half. Blood pours freely from the horrific wound, staining the crude iron and dripping onto the cavern floor in thick, heavy drops.

Viktor completely stops. The absolute, blinding fanaticism in his eyes vanishes, instantly replaced by a hollow, uncomprehending shock. He lets go of the hilt, his hands trembling violently.

Without the rebel's grip to support the weight of the massive weapon, Lucas's legs give out. He drops limply onto the ground, collapsing in a heap of blood and tattered fabric right at my feet.

The cavern plunges into a ringing, suffocating silence, broken only by the howling of the Catastrophe outside. The scorching static in the air plummets to absolute zero, replaced by the freezing, metallic tang of sheer, unfiltered horror.

Viktor falls to his knees, his hands hovering helplessly over his bleeding partner.

"Lucas?!" Viktor gasps, his voice fracturing into a breathless wheeze. He scrambles closer, his hands frantically gripping the fabric of his friend's blood-soaked cloak.

"Lucas?! Lucas?!"

Mom… Dr. Kal’tsit… Dr. Warfarin… Miss Lena… Miss Sussurro… Hibiscus…

I stare at the dark pooling blood soaking into the dusty stone, my entire frame trembling violently beneath my Rhodes Island jacket.

I need to be brave. I need to be brave.

People are dying right in front of me.

I wear the black and white Medic cross strapped securely to my thigh.

We save them.

We do not leave people to bleed out in the dark, no matter who they are or what they've done.

We are Rhodes Island.

"Mom… watch me." I whisper, drawing on the memory of her fierce, unwavering honey- sweet presence to anchor my shivering spine.

The paralyzing ice in my veins shatters. I grip the black shaft of my Arts Unit with both hands. The liquid suspended within the matte black halos hums to life.

I spin around, my voice slicing cleanly through the echoing horror of the cavern.

"Miss Adele! Mint! Keep Miss Susie stable!" I command, projecting the absolute, uncompromising authority I had learned directly from watching Dr. Kal'tsit. Miss Susie is still shivering against the metal crates, the static electricity of her misfiring Arts dangerously volatile in the enclosed space. Mint snaps to attention, dropping her book and immediately grabbing the Feline barber's trembling hands to ground her. Miss Adele nods and comforts the two shivering Felines.

I turn my focus back to the bleeding men. "Podenco! Lisa!" I shout over the muffled howling of the Catastrophe outside. "You two know healing Arts! Try to stabilize Lucas! His empathic channel is still there! He is still with us!"

Podenco doesn't hesitate. She scrambles across the dirt, ripping sterile bandages and coagulant vials from her logistics pack. Lisa drops to her knees right beside her, the blindingly pure, ethereal glow of her Foxfire illuminating the dark cave as she casts her Arts over the horrific wound, desperately trying to knit the torn flesh and stall the catastrophic bleeding.

With Lucas in their hands, I turn to the other casualty. The one whose mind is actively tearing itself to shreds.

I run to Viktor. I drop to my knees on the cold, blood-stained stone right beside him. He is entirely unresponsive to the physical world, trapped in a suffocating, pitch-black abyss of his own horrific guilt and despair. The ambient flavor bleeding off him is violently toxic; a choking, acidic smog of rusted iron, rotting meat, and freezing, absolute panic.

I throw the channels completely open. I press my hands firmly against the shaft of my staff, letting the artificial data swirling in the liquid act as my mental shield, taking the brunt of the Oripathy’s burn. I reach directly into his shattered mind.

I plunge into the drowning ocean of his trauma, wrapping my empathic Arts tightly around the fraying, splintered edges of his sanity. I refuse to let the darkness swallow him.

"Viktor," I project my voice, speaking not just into the damp cavern, but directly into the freezing void of his consciousness. I pour every bit of my steady, unwavering resolve into the tether. "Viktor, you have to come back to us."

I force myself to swallow the rotting, acidic tang of his panic, and in return, I project the rich, caramelized sugar and warm vanilla of the roasted marshmallow. I force that sweet, domestic safety directly into the freezing abyss of his mind, desperately hoping him to hold onto it.

But as I pour my energy into stabilizing him, I feel it.

A tether abruptly snaps. The faint, flickering ember of emotion that had been struggling against the dark just moments ago is instantly extinguished. Where a living person used to be, there is now… emptiness.

I keep my hands firmly on my staff to maintain Viktor's fragile baseline, but I slowly turn my head around.

In the dim shadows near the crates, Miss Adele is standing tall, her arms wrapped protectively around Mint to physically shield the younger Feline from the gruesome sight, while Mint continues to gently stroke Miss Susie’s trembling shoulders to keep the barber grounded.

But on the blood-stained stone, the frantic struggle hasn't stopped.

The ethereal, pure glow of Lisa's Foxfire still illuminates the cavern. Podenco is leaning entirely over Lucas's still frame, her knees pressed into the dusty floor. Her gloves and the sleeves of her teal jacket are completely soaked in dark crimson. She frantically presses a fresh roll of sterile gauze against his chest, her chest heaving with short, jagged gasps.

"Podenco… Lisa…" I whisper. "It… is… okay."

But Podenco doesn't hear me. The bright, citrusy yuzu is completely drowned in the metallic tang of blood and desperate, blinding denial. "If I just stabilize this wound,"

Podenco stammers, her voice cracking as she presses harder against the unmoving chest. She scrambles blindly for another coagulant vial. "I just need to… if the bleeding just stops…"

The brilliant, glowing light of the Foxfire flickers, and then slowly dies out, plunging that corner of the cave back into the dim, harsh shadows.

Lisa stops. Her hands drop limply to her sides. She looks at Lucas's vacant, unmoving face. She takes a slow, shuddering breath, her eyes shimmering with fresh, devastating tears. She slowly reaches out, her trembling hand wrapping gently around Podenco's blood-soaked wrist.

Podenco freezes. The frantic, desperate motion ceases completely.

She looks at Lisa's hand holding hers, and then slowly lowers her eyes to the absolute stillness of the man beneath her. The heavy, suffocating silence of the cave presses down on us all, completely drowning out the howling roar of the Catastrophe outside.

The silent slowly becomes physical.

The deafening, apocalyptic roar of the Catastrophe eventually begins to thin. The violent trembling of the cavern walls slows to a stop.

I slowly pull my empathic tether back, my fingers trembling as I loosen my grip on the black shaft of my Arts Unit. The liquid suspended swirls sluggishly. I look down at Viktor. He is alive, but the frantic, terrifying panic has completely burned itself out. He sits slumped against the stone, staring blankly at the blood-stained dirt. He is entirely despondent, a hollow shell emptied of everything but the crushing, suffocating gravity of his loss.

Miss Adele steps into the center of the cavern. The comforting, dormant hearth fire of her presence is muted, banked low beneath the ashes of the tragedy.

"We need to move out," Miss Adele instructs. She looks toward the pitch-black tunnel leading back to the surface. "If the rest of the restorationist rebels realize the storm has passed, they will undoubtedly send patrols to check on this supply cache and their scouts. We cannot be here when they arrive."

Nobody argues. Mint quietly gathers our scattered equipment, keeping a respectful, wide berth from the tragedy on the floor.

We emerge from the cave into the biting air. The sky above is a bruised, swirling canvas of unnatural purples and sickly yellows, but the immediate danger has passed. The wind whips across the land.

But the cold wind isn't the worst part. It is the blood.

Podenco’s teal jacket and Lisa’s pristine skirt are heavily stained with dark, drying crimson. My own clothes carry the horrific, metallic smears of the cavern floor. Miss Susie doesn't hesitate. The cozy, toasted-sugar pushes through her own lingering fear as she pulls fresh water from our logistics packs and gathers clean cloths.

We strip our ruined outer layers off in the chiling wind. I shiver violently, my bare arms prickling with goosebumps as Miss Susie gently but methodically washes the horrific, copper-scented stains from my skin. She works with a quiet, devastating care, wiping away the physical residue of the violence before wrapping us tightly in crinkling, silver thermal blankets.

Lisa, Podenco, and I huddle closely together on a dry patch of grass. We pull the reflective blankets up to our chins, pressing our shoulders together to share whatever body heat we have left. Lisa is staring blankly at her knees, her nine tails tucked entirely out of sight beneath the silver foil. Podenco sits rigidly beside her. I lean my head against Lisa's shoulder.

"Look…" Mint whispers, her voice trembling as she points out across the plains.

I lift my head from Lisa's shoulder. In the far distance, beneath the bruised sky, the sprawling silhouette of the mobile city sits on the horizon. The main cluster of the Porte-Léon’s plates has successfully detached and driven away, leaving a massive, empty scar in the earth where they once stood.

But one plate didn't make it.

It is stranded, completely immobilized in the dead center of the Catastrophe’s path. I stare at the devastation in absolute, paralyzing awe. Massive, jagged clusters of pitch- black Originium crystals have violently erupted straight out of the earth. They pierce right through the thick, armored steel underbelly of the nomadic plate, jutting aggressively into the sky. The beautiful Victorian buildings on the surface have been entirely impaled, their elegant architecture shattered and crowned with sickly, pulsing black crystal.

It is a monument of pure, unadulterated annihilation. Thousands of people, lost, not because they couldn’t run, because their officials were too proud.

Miss Adele steps up to the edge of the ridge, standing just a few paces away from where we are huddled. She just stands there, the wind whipping her hair around her curling horns.

The ambient flavor bleeding off the brilliant Leithanian researcher is so profoundly sorrowful it makes my own chest physically ache. The warmth of her hearth fire is completely gone, replaced by the freezing, desolate taste of cracked stone and weeping ash.

"Why must our world fill with strifes," Miss Adele asks the empty, freezing air.

The question drifts over the ridge, delicate and shattering. I pull the thermal blanket tighter around my shivering frame. I look at the dead plate in the distance, impaled by the very earth it tried to outrun, and then back at the dark mouth of the cave where a man sits broken beside his friend. The silence is absolute.

The crunch of footsteps against the grass breaks the heavy, mourning silence. Miss Susie and Mint hurry toward us from the edge of the river, their arms laden with the freshly washed and dried clothing.

"Here. Dress up before you catch a cold," Miss Susie urges softly.

"Thank you…" I whisper, my voice a tiny, fractured cloud of mist.

We slowly dress up. I shrug off the thermal blanket, and carefully dress up once more.

As we finish pulling on our layers, Podenco suddenly freezes. She drops her hands from her collar, her ears swiveling sharply toward the distant, obscured horizon. She strains to listen, her brow furrowing in deep concentration.

"Is… is that combustion engine?" Podenco says, her voice dropping into a tense, hushed whisper.

I strain to listen, I cannot hear it.

"We should get moving, everyone," Lisa says. She pulls her bag tightly against her hip, her tails tucking securely around her legs.

"Right. Let’s," Podenco replies instantly, reaching down to grab her reinforced terrarium. But Mint doesn't move. Her eyes darting nervously toward the pitch-black, yawning entrance of the cavern we had left.

"What about Viktor? He’s been in there for a few hours now." Mint asks.

The bustling, urgent momentum of our group completely stalls.

We had tried to move him. But none of us has the strength to drag him out.

Mint looks between the adults, her crisp, sweet mint-leaf emotional resonance radiates with a desperate hope. "An engine, that’s Victorian patrols no?" Mint looks around, her voice pitching up slightly. "If they find him… he will be safe, right?"

Miss Adele closes her eyes.

Miss Adele reaches out, gently but firmly taking Mint by the arm.

"We cannot stay to find out, Mint. We have to go. Now."

The distant, menacing hum of the combustion engine Podenco had heard earlier never materialized for us. We didn't wait around to find out who it belonged to. We just kept moving, putting as much distance between ourselves, the hidden Gaulish supply cache, and the blood-stained floor of the cavern as our legs could manage.

After about half an hour. The cave is now far behind us.

We walk slowly but purposefully across the devastated plains. The landscape has been entirely transformed by the Catastrophe's wrath. The rolling, untamed grass we had trekked through just yesterday is gone, replaced by violently scarred earth, jagged trenches, and fresh, smoking shards of black Originium jutting aggressively from the soil. I keep my head down, carefully stepping over the treacherous debris.

A few paces ahead of me, Lisa is holding her communicator high in the air, turning slowly as she desperately searches for a connection. Her tails are drooping slightly.

"Any signals?" I ask.

Lisa lowers the device, letting out a soft, frustrated sigh. The ambient crystallized sugar of her presence feels damp and heavily muted. She shakes her head. "No," Lisa replies, her voice tinged with quiet worry. "The Catastrophe must have moved closer to the landship's holding pattern. Messages are unsent."

We are entirely cut off. Just six of us wandering the scarred plains without a tether to home.

Beside Miss Adele, Mint adjusts her Arts Unit’s calibration. The terrified, panicked static that had consumed the Feline researcher in the pitch-black cave is finally beginning to recede. The crisp, sweet mint flavor of her emotional resonance is slowly blooming again. She is acting more like herself once more.

"Miss Eyjafjalla," Mint asks, her eyes scanning the dark, brooding clouds still clinging to the distant horizon. "How long does a Catastrophe like that last? It felt like it tore the sky apart for hours, but the epicenter shifted so abruptly."

Miss Adele adjusts her own staff, her focus following Mint's to the bruised horizon.

"It varies greatly depending on the region and the specific geological makeup, Mint,"

Miss Adele explains. "But generally speaking, Catastrophic storm cells are heavily attracted to existing, dense clusters of active Originium shards in the earth. They act almost like a magnet. The storm feeds on the localized atmospheric pressure, drawing in raw energy from the ground to sustain its violent rotations."

She points a finger toward the sprawling, scarred plains stretching out before us.

"However, they are inherently unstable," Miss Adele continues. "Once the storm consumes the immediate ambient energy and begins to physically move across the terrain, it loses its primary anchor. Without that dense, localized pressure to feed on continuously, the storm cells lose their structural integrity and dissipate relatively quickly. That is why the violent tremors and the absolute worst of the destruction are usually confined to a specific, devastating window before the storm simply breaks itself apart."

Miss Adele continues to discuss geology with Mint. They have somehow drifted into discussions about Leithanian geography.

"The Winterwisp Mountains form an incredibly treacherous, natural barrier in the northern territories," Miss Adele explains. "The atmospheric Originium density around the peaks creates localized weather anomalies. It is why navigating those passes requires highly specialized Catastrophe Messengers."

Mint nods furiously, her notebook already out as her pen scratches rapidly against the paper. "So the mountain range effectively isolates the valleys behind it! That explains the cultural divergence in the northern settlements!"

I watch them, my tail giving a slow, relaxed sway. Everything is back to normal now.

"Miss Susie?"

Podenco suddenly pops up right next to Miss Susie, seamlessly matching her stride.

Podenco tilts her head, her eyes locking onto the specialized glass dome and the sharp, scissor-like drones resting at the crest of Miss Susie’s technical staff. "How do your drones work?" Podenco asks, her curiosity entirely overriding her usual botanical focus. Miss Susie blinks. She lifts her staff slightly. "Well, I use my Arts to control them," Miss Susie explains softly. "They act as remote channels for my Arts. So they can go as far as my eyes can see."

Podenco bubbles with a sharp, tactical realization. "So if we can see a target… you can hit it, technically?"

"Technically, yes," Miss Susie nods, though a sheepish, modest smile touches her lips.

"But I am still learning how to control my Arts properly. They can be a little… volatile.

Rhodes Island is helping me a lot, though! There are so many brilliant Casters here who have been giving me pointers."

"Now that I think about it," Lisa chimes in, stepping up beside me. "Lethe, Podenco, and I are classified as Supporters in the Rhodes Island system. But Miss Susie, Mint, and Miss Eyja are Casters."

Lisa taps her chin thoughtfully, looking at the different focal units we are all carrying.

"Even though we all use Arts Units… Podenco and I both know how to cast basic Arts projectiles to attack, too."

My sneakers come to a dead halt against the grass.

I look at Podenco, who casually taps the glowing, magenta focal point of her staff. Then I look at Lisa, remembering the ethereal, brilliant glow of her Foxfire that she can use to slow down enemies.

I look down at my own black staff. My Arts are entirely empathic. I can siphon pain, and I can push heavy, sleepy emotions into people's minds, but shooting an actual, physical projectile of energy?

"Wait…" my voice pitching up into a frantic, horrified tremor. I look between my two best friends, my eyes blowing completely wide. "I am the only one who doesn’t know how to do that?!"

The terrifying realization hits me. If a wild sandbeast charges us, Podenco can throw a vial of neurotoxins, Lisa can cast a blinding Foxfire, and Miss Susie can literally deploy remote-controlled explosive drones. Miss Adele can summon volcanic Arts. And I am just going to be standing there, aggressively projecting feelings of calmness at a hungry monster.

"I don't either!"

Mint abruptly stops her note-taking and drops back to join our circle. Her face is flushed with a sudden, panicked solidarity, entirely abandoning her geological debate.

"I don't know how to cast projectiles!" Mint confesses. "I only know how to manipulate wind with my Arts! If something attacks, I just… I just make the air pull them in a circle!" I let out a massive exhale, my shoulders completely slumping in relief. I am not the only one. I reach out, grabbing Mint's sleeve. "We will just have to stand behind Miss Susie and Miss Adele," offering the researcher a deeply solemn, highly serious nod.

Miss Adele’s shoulders shaking as a giggle floats back to us. "Don't worry, you two. We have more than enough Casters to keep our team perfectly safe."

"I will just hide behind Lisa then," I declare, puffing my chest out as if I have just formulated the absolute greatest tactical maneuver in the history of Rhodes Island. I take a deliberate step sideways, tucking myself neatly behind the Vulpo's shoulders and gripping the edges of her sleeves like a physical shield.

Lisa’s nine fluffy tails instantly fan out, swaying in a happy, protective rhythm. But across from us, Podenco rests her hands on her hips.

"Just don’t fall asleep in her tails while we fight, Miss Sarkaz Royalty," Podenco teases, a highly exaggerated, knowing smirk stretching across her face.

"I won’t!" I yelp, my tail snapping into a rigid, defensive thump against the grass.

The immediate, flustered panic on my face is the breaking point. Podenco bursts into a bright, ringing laugh. Lisa covers her mouth, a musical giggle echoes through the freezing air, and even Miss Adele and Miss Susie join in with soft chuckles. The overlapping, vibrant symphony of their joy washes completely over me, entirely chasing away the final, lingering dread of the day. The shadow of the hidden rebel cache and the bleeding men is momentarily pushed back, replaced by the sheer warmth of my friends.

As we continue our trek, the sky above the plains slowly begins to bruise. The afternoon blue melts into a deep, velvet indigo, and the sun slowly sets below the rolling hills, casting long, stretching shadows across the untamed grass. We come to a halt near a rare sturdy grove of trees, dropping our bags as we decide where exactly to camp for the night.

I set my black Arts Unit against a tree trunk and look around to do a quick headcount. Podenco is already unrolling the tent canvas. Lisa is clearing the ground of sharp rocks. Miss Adele and Miss Susie are discussing the wind direction for the campfire.

I let out a long sigh. Mint has wandered off once more.

I turn around, scanning the darkening horizon. A few paces away, entirely separated from the safety of our designated perimeter, is a familiar figure crouched in the dirt.

Mint has her face practically pressed against a fissure in the ground, her flashlight illuminating the cracked earth.

"…the limestone dissolution here is incredible," Mint is mumbling to herself, her pen scratching furiously in her notebook, completely oblivious to the setting sun. "This strongly indicates a massive subterranean watershed. An entire underground river and interconnected cave systems beneath this specific county…"

I march over, gently but firmly grabbing the collar of her jacket. I drag my highly distractible friend back toward the safety of the group before she accidentally plummets into the very underground river she is so enthusiastically documenting.

Back at the center of the camp, Miss Susie is kneeling beside our primary logistics crates. She shifts a few silver-foiled packages around, her ears folding down slightly in dismay.

"We might need to go to a town to resupply soon," Miss Susie announces, looking up from the dwindling contents of the box. She holds up a crinkly, dehydrated packet.

"Unless you guys want to eat instant mashed potatoes and instant ramen for the next ten days. Porte-Léon is too far by now."

I swallow hard, my hands gripping the fabric of my jacket. "Dr. Kal’tsit is going to feed us all to Mon3tr if we do that," A cold shiver traces its way down my spine that has absolutely nothing to do with the biting wind.

Miss Adele pulls out her slate.

The glowing screen casts a crisp, cool blue light across her face, pushing back the flickering orange shadows of our campfire. She scrolls methodically through the topographical maps, her eyes scanning the intricate elevation lines and sector boundaries with practiced focus.

"Well," Miss Adele announces, her voice floats comfortably over the crackling flames.

She taps a specific coordinate on the screen. "There’s a small town, Val-de-Lis, about a day’s walk northeast from where we are currently camped. If we alter our trajectory slightly, we can head that way tomorrow to restock."

Across the fire, Miss Susie lets out a long sigh of relief. She holds a silver-foiled packet of instant mashed potatoes, tearing the top open with a sharp, crinkling rip. A small puff of dehydrated, starchy dust escapes into the cold air as she dumps the contents into the boiling water of our heavy-duty pot.

"That sounds great," Miss Susie’s tail sways as she begins to stir the thick mixture.

Miss Adele gently lowers her slate, her expression shifting into a more serious, calculated focus. "It is also the safest route," she explains, looking around our small circle. "Heading northeast means we can effectively pivot away from the active Originium fields left behind by the Catastrophe."

She gestures vaguely toward the dark horizon, the dormant hearth fire of her presence banking into a protective, cautious warmth. "Those zones are not only environmentally volatile, but the armies usually move in incredibly fast to secure those fields for state mining operations. We absolutely do not want to cross paths with an imperial military patrol out here."

But not everyone in the camp shares our tactical relief.

"Aww," Podenco whines.

I turn my head. The Perro botanist is sitting cross-legged on her sleeping mat, her ears drooping dramatically against her light blonde hair.

"But the active fields are exactly where the ecosystem gets interesting!" Podenco protests, gesturing with a small glass vial. "The high Originium density usually attracts wild Originium slugs. The ones out here in the Victorian plains have incredibly vibrant, unique shell patterns due to the specific mineral composition of the soil!"

She leans forward, pointing in my direction. "I was really hoping to catch one to show Lethe! She has never even seen a slug yet!"

I stare at her, my eyes blowing completely wide in absolute horror. I pull my knees up tightly to my chest and bury the lower half of my face into my scarf, completely ignoring the fact that she considers this a missed educational opportunity.

"I…" I mumble through the soft fabric of the scarf, my tail wrapping into a rigid, defensive coil around my ankles. "I think I will pass on ever seeing a slug if I can help it." The chilling, unfiltered wind howls softly against the reinforced canvas of our tent, but inside, it is wonderfully warm. We had finished the last scrapes of our mashed potatoes and cleared the pot from the dying embers of the campfire. Now, safely tucked into our sleeping bags, the heavy, exhausting dread of the day has finally melted away into a drowsy, comfortable quiet.

I lie on my side, facing Lisa’s soft hair.

"Why did you guys join Rhodes Island?"

The sudden, hushed whisper breaks the comfortable silence. I blink, lifting my head slightly from my pillow. Across the small space of the tent, Mint is propped up on one elbow. Her emotional resonance drifts through the enclosed space, carrying a gentle, hesitant curiosity. "If you don't mind answering, that is," she adds quickly, her ears twitching as she pulls her blanket up to her chin.

"For my story," Mint continues softly, filling the space before any of us can answer. "I got accidentally infected during a field study. It was terrifying… but then Skyfire found out. She pointed me directly to Rhodes Island to receive treatment. She told me it was the only place that would actually look after me while letting me continue my research." A soft rustle of fabric comes from the sleeping mat beside me. Lisa shifts.

"Well, I am about the same," Lisa’s voice is gentle,. "I got infected during an incident back in Siracusa. It was really scary, and my family didn't know what to do to keep me safe. So, my mom entrusted me with Rhodes Island when I was about eleven." She offers a small, grateful smile into the dim light. "They have taken care of me ever since."

"For me, it was a bit different," Podenco pipes up from the far side of the tent. She rests her hands behind her head, staring up at the canvas ceiling. "I wasn't looking for a hospital. I was just traveling across Terra, trying to find rare seeds and learn about different soils. Trying to find a purpose. Then, I literally ran into Miss Lena."

Podenco lets out a soft chuckle. "She took one look at my botanical notes, saw how much I cared about cultivating plants, and she pretty much hired me on the spot. I’ve been helping her in the garden ever since."

The tent falls quiet again. I feel three pairs of eyes gently shift toward me.

I look at the tent flaps.

I don't have a home like Siracusa to remember, and I don't have a university field study to miss. My entire existence is meticulously curated inside the My Life folder on my digital slate.

I look up at the three girls sharing this tent with me.

"Well," I offer them a small, quiet smile. "You guys all know my story. My Oripathy burned away everything before I woke up. I don't have a grand journey or a family that sent me here." I pull my blanket a little tighter around my shoulders. "I am just a permanent fixture as far as my memory is concerned."

Lisa shuffles closer, her tails brushing against my sleeping bag, and reaches out to gently squeeze my hand.

"Oh, Lethe," Lisa says. "You are definitely the best permanent fixture Rhodes Island could ever ask for."

Before I can even stammer out a proper thank you, a highly amused, carbonated fizz bubbles through the air from the other side of the tent.

"And," Podenco adds. "Definitely the easiest to tease, too."

My head snaps up. The sentimental, teary-eyed warmth instantly evaporates. I drop Lisa's hand and pull my arms out of my sleeping bag.

"Hey!" I yelp, my tail giving a sharp, indignant thump against the sleeping mat. "I am not easy to tease! You guys just gang up on me!”

Lisa slaps both hands over her mouth as a bright, ringing giggle echoes through the tent. Mint completely fails to hide her own laughter, burying her face into her blanket to muffle her amused snorts. Even Podenco laughs out loud, entirely unrepentant.

The bright, lingering giggles inside the tent eventually settle into a comfortable silence. The ambient air thickens into a warm, sleepy sugar.

"Good night, everyone," Lisa whispers, her voice sleepy and fading into the dark.

"Good night," I murmur back.

The night marches on. When the clock on my slate finally dictates the shift change, I quietly slip out of the tent alongside Mint. As usual, the final watch of the night belongs to us. The wind of the night plains bites at my cheeks, but I bury the lower half of my face into my woolen scarf and take my seat on the collapsible folding chair.

I rest the sleek, black shaft of my Arts Unit across my lap.

My job for the next few hours is incredibly simple, yet highly critical: I have to stare directly at Mint. I keep my eyes glued to my clumsy friend, making absolutely sure she doesn't wander off into the dark to make friends with a wild Originium slug or accidentally walk off a ravine just to inspect a fascinating patch of dirt. Mint is practically vibrating with suppressed academic energy, her flashlight sweeping over the rocky ridges, but she thankfully stays safely within the camp's perimeter.

Eventually, the sky shifts into a vibrant dawn. The camp begins to stir. The quiet rustle of zippers and canvas fills the air as Miss Susie, Miss Adele, Podenco, and Lisa emerge from their tents to greet the crisp morning.

Breakfast is a purely utilitarian affair. We huddle around the small, portable thermal burner, pouring boiling water into our leftover silver-foiled pouches of instant oats and stirring steaming cups of powdered cocoa. I sit on my chair, poking at the thick, gelatinous texture of my breakfast.

"Oats without milk sure doesn’t taste as good," I mumble into my scarf, letting out a soft, pathetic sigh as I force a bland, sticky spoonful into my mouth.

Miss Susie lets out a melodic laugh. She zips up her supply bag and gives it a pat.

"Well, all the more reason for us to reach the outpost today," Miss Susie smiles, her eyes sparkling with anticipation. "I'm sure they'll have proper milk and fresh bread waiting for us."

“Hopefully so.”

We finish our breakfast in relative quiet as we focus on the upcoming treks.

After breakfast, we meticulously pack up the remaining camping gear, collapsing the tents and securing the thermal blankets back into our bags. With the fire extinguished and the campsite cleared, we begin our trek once more across the sprawling plains.

The entire trip has been wonderfully, mercifully peaceful. The vast, untamed hills stretch out under a heavy, overcast grey sky, the cool wind whipping softly. Up ahead, Podenco is completely in her element, cheerfully darting off the dirt path to take botanical samples of the thick, wild brush. Mint matches her chaotic energy on the opposite side of the road, her eyes scanning the ground as she collects geological samples and mutters excitedly to Miss Adele about rock compositions.

While the researchers indulge in their academic fieldwork, Lisa walks close beside me.

She wears her bright, optimistic smile, but her tails sway in a slow, highly calculated rhythm. She always keeps alert, her eyes constantly sweeping the perimeter.

We follow the winding, rutted dirt road for a few hours until the landscape begins to level out. A town comes into view, nestled quietly amidst the rolling greenery.

I stop, my eyes taking in the rustic settlement of Val-de-Lis. It looks like a pristine painting pulled straight from the Archives. Sturdy houses built from pale stone and stucco line the dirt path, their pitched roofs topped with tall brick chimneys. Thick, golden hay bales are stacked neatly near wooden fences, and lush green hedges border the front doors. It looks incredibly peaceful, a quiet, pastoral haven resting entirely untouched under the dreary clouds.

But before we even reach the edge of the town, Lisa and Podenco suddenly go on alert. Podenco stops mid-stride. The bright, zesty yuzu flavor of her emotional resonance violently sours, twisting into a sharp, acidic spike of apprehension. Beside me, Lisa’s tails instantly fan out into a rigid, defensive posture, the spun-sugar sweetness of her aura chilling into brittle ice.

"What's wrong?" I ask.

Lisa doesn't take her eyes off the rustic stone houses.

"It is just too quiet," Lisa’s voice tight and entirely stripped of its usual chime.

Podenco stares at the brick chimneys jutting into the overcast sky.

"It is dinner time right now," Podenco adds, her tone dropping into a grave, chilling whisper. "But… it is just quiet."

I look back at the town. She is right. There is absolutely no smoke rising from the chimneys. There is no overlapping chatter of families, no barking dogs, no clatter of plates, and no warm scent of cooking fires bleeding into the air. It is a completely pristine, perfectly intact settlement, but it is utterly, terrifyingly dead.

"Let's be careful," Miss Adele orders.

She raises a hand, signaling for us to stop just at the edge of the dirt path leading into the rustic town.

I stare down the empty, picturesque street. The stone houses and stacked hay bales look perfectly pristine, but the silence is incredibly heavy. It is a suffocating, unnatural void.

Then, the void begins to sing.

As we take a slow, agonizingly cautious step forward, a hauntingly beautiful melody drifts through the overcast sky. It is incredibly quiet; a faint, mournful arrangement that sounds like a solitary cello weeping, perfectly synchronized with a hollow, breathy woodwind. But it doesn't sound like music playing from a distant radio or a town square speaker. It feels like the notes are bleeding directly out of the stone walls and the damp earth.

The air itself is physically vibrating. The melancholic tempo hums against my skin, rattling faintly against my teeth, making the liquid of my staff ripple and dance in an erratic, agitated rhythm.

"Do you hear that?" I ask.

No answers.

The crunch of shoes against the dirt path has completely ceased. The wind whistling through the hedges is the only ambient noise besides the haunting, vibrating cello.

"Everyone?" I ask, my heart giving a sudden, frantic flutter. I turn my head around.

Thud.

Mint collapses directly onto the ground. She doesn't trip, and she doesn't try to catch herself. Her knees simply evaporate beneath her, and she hits the dirt like a cut marionette, her geologic book tumbling uselessly from her slack fingers.

"Mint!" I gasp, pivoting sharply.

But as my eyes sweep over the rest of the group, a freezing, absolute terror paralyzes my lungs. Podenco and Lisa are not moving. They are just standing there. Their arms hang entirely limp at their sides, their eyes blown wide and completely glazed over.

Lisa's tails have dropped dead against the dirt, and Podenco’s bright, energetic posture is rigidly locked into a horrifying stare.

A few paces away, Miss Susie simply sinks to the ground. She pulls her knees tightly to her chest, wrapping her arms around her legs in a desperate, trembling ball. Faint, erratic sparks of pink static electricity arc dangerously off the tips of her hair, completely out of control, but she makes absolutely no sound.

"Podenco? Miss Susie? Lisa?!" I cry out, my voice cracking in the vibrating air.

Only Miss Adele is still moving, but barely. She is leaning heavily against her dark staff, her knuckles bone-white. She shakes her head repeatedly as she violently fights whatever is trying to drag her under. Her chest heaves with shallow, ragged gasps, her eyes squeezing shut in absolute agony.

"Lethe…" Miss Adele chokes out. Her voice is a fractured, desperate wheeze, barely cutting through the haunting, weeping melody of the air. "…it is… musical Arts…"

And then, the psychic dam completely breaks.

My Arts, which had been passively brushing against the silent town, are suddenly, violently impaled. The absolute, unfiltered nightmare of my friends hits me like an apocalyptic tidal wave.

It is a completely suffocating, toxic sludge. From Mint, I taste the claustrophobic, crushing weight of collapsing stone, thick with stale dust and the absolute terror of being buried alive in the dark. From Podenco and Lisa, a sickening, rotting flavor floods my senses; it tastes of wilting, dying flowers, burning ash, and the damp, sticky sugar of absolute, paralyzing helplessness from blood-soaked streets.

From Miss Susie, the flavor is blindingly acidic; the sharp, metallic tang of scorched ozone and the bitter, electrocuting panic of completely losing control of her own body and hurting the people she loves. And from Miss Adele, an overwhelming, pitch-black void bleeds into me; the taste of volcanic ash and the sheer, freezing dread of absolute sensory death, of losing her sight and her hearing entirely to the black crystals.

My stomach violently heaves. The sheer venom of the nightmares burns the back of my throat like battery acid. I squeeze my eyes shut, letting out a high-pitched, ragged scream as I drop to my knees in the dirt. I press the my Arts Unit flush against my chest, desperately relying on the artificial data swirling inside the halos to shield my own mind from being instantly incinerated by their collective terror.

We walked straight into a trap.

I want to throw up. And I do.

The sheer, concentrated toxicity of their combined hells is simply too much for my body to hold. I lurch forward, my knees digging harshly into the dirt, and violently empty my stomach onto the grass. I just sit there, my chest heaving with ragged, wet gasps as my body violently purges. The haunting, weeping melody of the cello continues to vibrate against my teeth, completely indifferent.

I wipe my mouth with the back of my trembling sleeve. I look up through my tear- blurred vision at Lisa’s blank stare, Podenco’s rigid paralysis, Mint’s collapsed form, and Miss Susie’s terrified, sparking silhouette. A few paces away, Miss Adele sinks heavily into the dirt.

I need to drag them out.

"Think, Lethe. Think!" I scream, the sound tearing raw and desperate from my throat. It echoes uselessly against the suffocating music of the town.

I cannot do offensive Arts. But I am a Djall. I should be a master of emotions.

“No one controls my friends!” I yell out.

I don't need to siphon this venom. I need to override it.

I squeeze my eyes shut. I completely lock down the empathic tether that is pulling their nightmares into my lungs. Instead, I dig deep into the absolute core of my being. I reach into the impenetrable fortress of my memories, pulling forth the foundational pillars of my existence.

I grab the rich, protective honey of mom's absolute, unconditional love. I weave it together with the cool, smooth river stones and grounding, starlit ozone of Rosmontis. I drag up the roaring, unapologetic fire and machine-grease bravery of Ms. Blaze's fearless grin. And finally, to slice cleanly through the paralyzing fog of the illusion, I summon the sharp, uncompromising bite of Miss Sussurro's unsweetened dark chocolate and pitch-black coffee.

I blend it all together into a massive, concentrated beacon of absolute safety, unwavering clinical focus, and fierce, unyielding survival.

I grip the dark shaft of my staff with both hands. I throw the invisible doors of my mind completely open.

"WAKE UP!" I command.

I push. I shove the blinding, radiant cocktail of my anchors directly outward. I force the roaring fire, the grounding stone, the sharp coffee, and the protective honey straight into the minds of the team. I use every single bit of willpower I possess, projecting the emotional tether like a physical sledgehammer to shatter the music Arts suffocating their senses.

I hold the projection, feeling the warm honey, the grounding stone, and the roasted spices collide with the weeping, haunting melody of the abandoned town. For a fleeting, desperate second, I think it works. I see Mint's shoulders twitch. I hear Podenco let out a sharp gasp.

But just as I steady myself, the ambient atmosphere violently thickens. The hostile melody doesn't break; it harmonizes, turning into a crushing, suffocating dirge that presses down from every conceivable angle.

The psychic backlash hits me like a physical wall of rusted iron. My knees instantly buckle. My padded sneakers slip against the dirt, and I hit the ground hard. The shock shatters my concentration entirely. My fingers slip on the black shaft of my Arts Unit, and the liquid sputters, its comforting mechanical hum completely drowned out by the oppressive music ringing in my skull.

Suddenly, an ethereal light blooms across the desolate street. It is a blindingly pure, brilliant light that washes over the cracked pavement and the shadowed buildings.

It is Foxfire.

But it doesn't carry the radiant, spun-sugar warmth of my best friend. The ambient flavor is completely wrong. It tastes brittle, damp, and overwhelmingly terrified, laced with the sharp, acidic bite of raw panic.

I look up. Lisa is standing in the center of the glow, her tails fanned out to their absolute maximum, radiating with intense Originium energy. But her eyes are completely vacant.

"Please… don’t move…" Her voice echoes terribly in the eerie light. She raises her hands, projecting her Arts outward in a frantic, indiscriminate dome. "It is for your own good… the Gramophones are nearby."

Gramophones? What?

The word means absolutely nothing to me, but the sheer, unadulterated terror attached to it makes my blood run cold.

The moment her Foxfire washes over me, the air turns to freezing molasses. My limbs suddenly feel as though they are encased in liquid lead. Every single movement requires an agonizing, monumental effort.

"Lisa!" I gasp, my voice barely a wheeze against the crushing weight of her Foxfire. I try to push myself up, but my arms tremble violently and give out. I cannot stand.

I refuse to let her drown in this. If I cannot walk, I will crawl. I drag my heavy, leaden body across the dirt, my fingers stubbornly gripping the black shaft of my Arts Unit, refusing to leave my shield behind. Every crawl feels like moving through wet concrete.

"Lisa! Lisa! Please!" I wheeze, my chest heaving with shallow, jagged breaths.

I close the agonizing distance until I am right at her feet. "Lisa!" I cry out. I reach up with a trembling, exhausted hand and press my palm directly against her shin.

The second my skin makes contact, the floodgates shatter.

It tastes of scorching flames, suffocating ash, and the sickening, metallic tang of innocent blood spilling over cobblestones. I feel the crushing, desperate helplessness of watching the people you are trying to save turn around and slaughter each other. I feel the horrific, blinding flashes of rioters blowing themselves up in the streets, spreading toxic fire and infection just to spite their neighbors. It is a town tearing itself apart from the inside out, fueled by a hatred so blind and venomous it entirely consumes the Medics desperately trying to drag the wounded from the crossfire.

My stomach violently heaves. The sheer venom of her memories burns the back of my throat. I am drowning in the exact nightmare that had shattered her, feeling every bit of the terror she is feeling.

My vision swirls. The damp dirt of the abandoned Victorian street dissolves entirely, tearing away like wet paper.

Then, when I open my eyes again, the Victorian town is gone.

The air that hits my lungs is no longer cold. It is scorchingly hot, thick with a suffocating, blinding smog that tastes of pulverized concrete and charred flesh. I am inside a burning town. All around me, classic, towering stone architecture is crumbling under the weight of roaring orange flames and billowing plumes of pitch-black smoke.

I am kneeling on shattered, blood-stained cobblestones. Standing directly in front of me is a tall Feline woman. Her dark brown hair whips wildly in the ash-choked wind. She is wearing a crisp white Rhodes Island medical coat, but strapped to her back and sides are massive, incredibly intimidating mechanical rigs; heavy, blocky white machinery that looks far more like heavy artillery than medical equipment.

Is that… Dr. Folinic?

I remember the fierce, incredibly strict Feline Medic marching through the medical wards back home, her presence always tasting of sharp, medicinal alcohol and absolute, uncompromising lethality. But here, in this nightmare, she is radiating a frantic, desperate need to protect.

I look past her, peering through the thick curtains of smoke and the raining embers.

Looming outside, dominating the shattered plaza, is a massive, greyish mechanical tower. It is a striking, geometric obelisk that tapers upward, floating slowly and ominously above a heavy, circular pedestal. It moves up and down slowly with a low, grinding mechanical hum, defying gravity.

I feel incredibly sluggish. The Foxfire is still trying to bind my limbs,

"Lisa! Lisa! Please!" I scream, but the sound is swallowed by the roaring flames of the hallucination.

I cannot let her stay trapped in this ash-choked war zone. I force my leaden arms to move. I drag myself forward, my knees scraping agonizingly against the cobblestones.

"Lisa!" I cry out again, throwing my hand forward to touch her. Trying my best to focus past the weeping music in reality and the burning sky in the phantom vision.

I close my eyes tightly against the flames. I need to override this nightmare.

I gather every single anchor, every pristine memory I have meticulously saved of my best friend. I think of the radiant, blindingly bright smile that chased away the dark of my dorm. I think of the warmth of her tails wrapping around me like a shield. I recall the exact, unadulterated taste of pure, crystallized sugar sweetness that always floods the Convalescent Garden whenever she walks down the path.

I take all of it; every laugh, every shared pastry, every promise we made; and I violently push it outward. I force the massive, overwhelming wave of crystallized sugar directly through our empathic tether, actively drowning out the weeping, haunting melody playing in her mind.

"Please! Lisa!" I scream, my voice tearing raw and desperate from my throat.

I hold onto her for what feels like an absolute eternity. I press my forehead against her, fiercely pouring the sweet, domestic safety of Rhodes Island straight into the freezing abyss of her nightmare. The clash of emotions is agonizing. The sharp, acidic bite of her panic fights wildly against the sugar, but I do not let go. I hold her tighter, anchoring her to the present.

Slowly, the heavy, suffocating gravity pressing down on my shoulders begins to fracture. The blindingly pure, ethereal glow of the Foxfire illuminating the desolate street sputters. The phantom vision of the burning ruins loses its grip, the eerie light dimming until it completely dies out, returning us to the overcasted sky.

The oppressive weight lifts entirely. I gasp, my lungs finally able to draw in a full, unhindered breath.

The rigid, defensive tension in Lisa's frame shatters. Her arms drop limply to her sides. She takes a sudden, ragged gasp of the cold air, blinking rapidly as the vacant terror drains from her eyes.

"Lisa?" I whisper, my voice a tiny, fragile cloud of mist.

She looks down at me, her blue eyes wide and disoriented. The brittle, damp flavor of her presence slowly begins to thaw, the familiar, comforting sweetness tentatively blooming back into the ambient air.

"Le… Lethe… Lethe?" she stammers, her voice cracking, weak and breathy.

I don't hesitate. I scramble up from the dirt. I throw my arms securely around her neck, pulling her into a massive, desperate hug.

"Lisa! Thank Terra you are okay!" I sob, burying my face into her shoulder as the hot, unbidden tears finally spill over my lashes.

Lisa weakly raises her arms, gently wrapping them around my back to return the embrace. She leans her chin against my shoulder, her breathing still shallow and uneven. She slowly turns her head, her eyes scanning the quiet expanse of the rolling grass hills and the rocky outcrops.

"We are…" Lisa breathes out, her voice thick with exhaustion and a profound, dawning relief. She looks around, the nightmare completely banished. "Oh… we are still in Victoria…"

The desperate relief of holding my best friend is painfully short-lived. I keep my arms securely wrapped around Lisa, my cheek pressed against her shoulder, but before we can even catch our breath, a sharp, deafening crack echoes through the abandoned street.

The windows of the nearby brick houses violently shatter outward. A shower of jagged glass rains down upon the dirt paths, propelled by a massive, uncontrolled surge of raw static power.

Lisa gasps, her entire frame jolting against mine. Her tails puffing up in immediate, instinctual alarm. She looks past my shoulder, her eyes widening in terror.

"Miss Susie?!" Lisa cries out. She sways slightly, bringing a trembling hand up to her head. "Uh… the music… Lethe… it’s still in my head…"

I tighten my grip on her shoulders, forcing her to look at me.

"Stay with me, Lisa," I plead, pitching my voice to be as steady and anchoring as I possibly can. "Can you cast Foxfire to calm them? I need to get close to Miss Susie, but the electricity is too strong."

Lisa swallows hard, her lower lip trembling. She looks at the violent sparks arcing through the air a few paces away. "I… I will try," she whispers, her voice a fragile, breathy chime. "It is so hard to focus…"

She grips her staff with both hands. For a terrifying second, she wobbles slightly on her feet, the invisible weight of the haunting musical Arts pressing heavily against her shoulders. But then, a fierce, undeniable spark of bravery flashes in her eyes. She digs her heels firmly into the dirt, planting herself like an immovable anchor against the storm.

The ethereal light blooms once more.

But this time, it is completely different. The Foxfire envelops us in a radiant, brilliant glow. The ambient air instantly sweetens, washing away the metallic tang of fear with the blindingly bright, comforting taste of pure, crystallized sugar. It is purely protective; a warm, unyielding dome that physically pushes back the haunting music from the Victorian town, carving out a safe haven in the middle of the nightmare.

"Thank you, Lisa," I look back at her, the warmth of her Arts seeping directly into my bones.

I turn around. I go to Miss Susie first.

She is huddled near the base of a crumbling brick wall. The sheer volume of static electricity whipping off her is almost unbearable. Violent sparks arc wildly from her oversized sweater, snapping against the stone and crackling through the dusty air. The smell of scorched ozone is suffocating, burning the inside of my nose with every breath. She is completely losing control, trapped in a terrifying loop of her own misfiring Arts.

I grip my Arts Unit with both hands, and I take a deep breath, lower my head, and step directly into the storm of static.

"Please… don't come closer!" Miss Susie gasps, her voice fracturing into a desperate, high-pitched sob. She curls even tighter into a ball, burying her face into her knees. "I will just hurt you!"

"Miss Susie?" I call out.

She doesn't answer. Her eyes are squeezed tightly shut, completely blind to the real world. She is not seeing me at all. She is entirely trapped inside the chaotic, terrifying loop of her own misfiring Arts, drowning in the blindingly acidic fear of losing control and hurting the people she loves.

I clench my jaw, and push forward directly into the electrical storm.

It hurts.

Tiny, agonizing needles of static bite straight through the fabric of my uniform, stinging my skin and sending violent, jarring shivers up my arms.

I cannot stop.

I reach out, forcing my trembling hands through the crackling air to grab her shivering shoulders. I close my eyes, desperately trying to project her own warmth and baseline emotions back into her mind.

Before I can fully establish the empathic tether, a low, agonizing groan echoes from the dusty street behind me. I turn my head slightly, wincing as a spark snaps against my cheek.

It is Miss Adele.

She is actually pushing herself up from the dirt. She leans incredibly heavily against her Arts Unit, her knuckles tight with the sheer, monumental effort. The overwhelming, pitch-black void of volcanic ash that had consumed her mind is slowly being beaten back. She forces her eyes open, violently shaking her head to physically throw off the phantom nightmares trying to drag her back under.

She stumbles, her shoes scraping against the grass, but she catches her balance. She slowly reorients herself in the light of Lisa's Foxfire.

"Lisa… Lethe…" Miss Adele breathes out. Her voice is a fragile, fractured wheeze, but it carries an undeniable, staggering resilience. She looks at the glowing dome of light, and then at me. "…you two are okay…"

"Miss Eyja!" Lisa calls out, her voice cracking with a desperate, tearful relief. The brilliant, pure glow of her Foxfire pulses brighter.

Miss Adele takes a ragged, shuddering breath. The comforting, dormant hearth fire of her presence finally begins to spark back to life, actively pushing back the freezing dread. She lifts her head, her eyes locking onto the buildings surrounding us.

"We need to stop the source," Miss Adele commands, her tone dropping into a grave, absolute certainty that completely cuts through the haunting music. "Or the Arts won't stop."

"I will try to reach Mint," Miss Adele says. She forces herself to take a slow, agonizing step away from the relative safety of Lisa's Foxfire, leaning heavily on her Arts Unit as she wades toward our shivering Feline companion.

I turn my entire focus back to the terrified barber huddled against the bricks. I drop to my knees on the dirt road, and reach out. I grab Miss Susie’s arms.

"Ah!" A violent jolt of electricity pulses directly through my hands, shooting straight up my arms and rattling my teeth. The raw, misfiring Originium Arts burn against my skin, making my muscles spasm involuntarily. The stench of scorched ozone is so thick it makes my eyes water, and every survival instinct I possess screams at me to pull away from the blinding pink static.

But I cannot let go. I refuse to.

I clamp my fingers down tighter, gripping the thick fabric of her sweater.

"Miss Susie! Come back to us!" I cry out.

"Please…" Miss Susie sobs, her eyes still squeezed completely shut. She weakly tries to twist her arms out of my grasp, her hair flying as she shakes her head frantically.

"Please… stay away… I'm going to hurt you…"

"No! Miss Susie! Open your eyes!" I plead. "It is me Lethe! And I am not abandoning you!"

Miss Susie stays entirely silent.

She doesn't pull away, but she doesn't open her eyes, either. She just remains curled into a tight, trembling ball. The air is so thick with the bitter, acidic tang of her panic and scorched ozone that I can barely draw a full breath.

"Miss Susie!" I scream, the words tearing out of my throat to cut through the crackling electricity and the weeping melody. "I don’t remember how I met you! I don’t remember the haircut you had given me!"

A violent flinch ripples through her frame. A fresh wave of hot tears leaks from beneath her tightly squeezed eyelids, dropping onto her knees.

"But the asymmetrical fringes are the best haircut I had ever had! I see it every single morning of the life I still remember!" I cry out, my voice breaking but refusing to waver. I pour my stubborn, desperate affection into the empathic tether between us, forcing the warm, toasted-sugar comfort of hers directly back into her spiraling mind.

I think of the gentle Cautus girl who sits with me in the dark. I borrow her unwavering strength, wrapping it around my own desperate plea.

"Amiya told me once," I gasp, forcing the words through the stinging air. "She said that it doesn't matter what the Originium does to our blood. We are not defined by the terrifying powers we inherit, or the destruction they can accidentally cause. We are defined by what we choose to do with them."

I squeeze her arms, entirely ignoring another violent shock that rattles straight up my forearms. I lean in, bringing my face as close to hers as the electrical storm will allow.

"And you, Miss Susie, you choose to be a barber for us," I declare fiercely, my tears mingling with the dust. "You choose to make people feel beautiful and safe. You are our friend. And there is absolutely no way I am going to abandon you just because of your Arts!"

Slowly, but surely, the violent, snapping bite of the static begins to weaken.

The sharp needles of electricity piercing through me dull into a faint, tingling hum. The suffocating stench of scorched ozone starts to clear from the damp Victorian air. I keep my grip firm on her sleeves, until the crackling sparks dancing across the cobblestones finally sputter and die out completely.

I can taste the shift on the back of my tongue. The blinding, acidic terror that had completely swallowed her mind finally breaks. The battery acid slowly melts, washing away to leave behind the comforting, cozy flavor of toasted sugar and warm milk.

Miss Susie lets out a long, ragged exhale. The rigid tension locking her spine completely collapses.

She slowly opens her eyes, blinking through the heavy sheen of tears. She uncurls her legs from her chest, the defensive ball unravelling as she drops her hands from her face. Her fingers tremble visibly as she reaches up, wiping the dampness from her cheeks. She stares at me for a long, quiet second.

Her folded ears give a tiny, hesitant twitch.

"Lethe…" Miss Susie whispers, her voice thick and raspy from crying. The corners of her lips tremble, slowly tugging upward into a watery, incredibly weak little smile. "…

your hair… looks like a puffball…"

I pause.

The sheer, overwhelming relief of seeing her smile instantly collides with a hot, prickly flush of absolute mortification. I let go of her sleeves and frantically bring my free hand up to my head.

She is entirely right. The violent electrical storm had completely ravaged the beautiful, asymmetrical haircut she had meticulously restyled for me a few weeks back. Every single strand of my woodsmoke-grey hair is standing straight up in every possible direction, crackling with residual static electricity and completely defying the laws of gravity. I feel like a giant, fuzzy dandelion.

I puff my cheeks out, letting out a pathetic, embarrassed whine as I try desperately to pat the floating strands flat against my horns. They immediately spring right back up the second I lift my palm.

"I… I was trying to save you!" I protest. "You cannot make fun of my hair when you're the one who shocked it!"

A soft, breathless giggle escapes Miss Susie's lips. The sound is tiny, vibrating with the exhausting aftermath of her panic, but the faint, playful pop of sweet static electricity returns to the air.

"I know," Miss Susie breathes out, reaching out to gently take my hands, pulling them away from my ruined hair. Her grip is warm, and incredibly grounding. "I will fix it for you, Lethe. I promise."

"Let's retreat for now," Miss Adele says. Her voice is exhausted.

She reaches down, carefully wrapping an arm around Mint’s shoulders to help the younger Feline researcher to her feet. A few paces away, the brilliant, ethereal glow of the Foxfire finally extinguishes as Lisa wraps her arm securely around Podenco’s waist, supporting the trembling botanist. They are all shivering slightly, their frames vibrating as their bodies react to the violent, unnatural strain of the hostile Arts that had just tried to hollow them out.

I grip the shaft of my Arts Unit with both hands, holding it out before me like a shield. I step backward, matching their slow, agonizing retreat pace by pace.

I keep the empathic channel wide open, projecting my curated anchors; the warm hearth fire, the toasted sugar, the soothing lavender; outward to form an invisible wall between my friends and the weeping, hostile melody of the town. Our logistics supplies, the heavy bags, and Podenco's carefully packed terrariums are left entirely behind, completely abandoned in the dirt and the chaos. Nothing matters except getting them out.

We walk for what feels like an eternity. Slowly, the suffocating, weeping notes of the music begin to thin. The oppressive weight lifts from the air, fading into a distant, mournful echo of Val-de-Lis, before it finally dies out entirely, leaving only the howling of the natural wind.

We collapse near an abandoned wooden shack, far beyond the reach of the town. I sink onto the earth, letting my Arts Unit rest across my lap with a massive, shuddering exhale. The tension draining from my muscles leaves me feeling entirely hollowed out.

Miss Susie immediately shuffles over to my side. Her hands are still trembling slightly, but she pulls a small, sturdy comb from the pocket of her styling apron. Without a word, she scoots close and begins to work through the chaotic, static-charged puffball of my hair. The meticulous, gentle strokes through my tangled fringe physically ground both of us with the familiar, rhythmic motion of her salon.

I let out a slow breath, leaning into the pull of the comb. I look across our huddled, shivering circle. My eyes find my tutor.

"Miss Adele…" I ask. "You said musical Arts. What happened?"

Miss Adele takes a slow, shuddering breath. She takes a long look at the rising twin moons.

"In Leithanien…" Miss Adele begins, her voice weak but laced with an unyielding, academic precision. "Arts are woven into music. Many focal units are crafted directly into instruments." She looks at me, her expression grave, the dormant hearth fire of her presence flickering unsteadily. "The music manipulates the ambient Originium energy in the air, creating a resonance that bypasses physical defenses. And… it is especially resonant with Casters. Like us. It forces the Originium in our blood to synchronize with the melody."

Clap. Clap. Clap.

The sound is slow, perfectly rhythmic, and entirely devoid of warmth. Slicing cleanly through the wind of the plains. Each clap echoing with a heavy, concussive bass note that physically forces the air out of the my lungs.

"Genau." A word floats out nearby. A Leithanian speech? In Victorian countryside?!

A woman steps out from the pitch-black shadows from the other side of the shack. She is tall, draped in a heavy, flowing black cloak that entirely swallows her silhouette, the dark fabric shifting soundlessly. A stark, featureless white mask obscures her face, completely devoid of emotion or humanity. Long, pale hair spills from beneath her dark hood, and a pair of sharp, curving horns juts upwards into the air.

A Caprinae.

The moment my Arts brush against her, my breath completely stalls in my throat.

Her emotional resonance is fundamentally wrong. It is meticulously, terrifyingly cultivated. It tastes like a glass of aged, freezing plum wine laced heavily with crushed, frozen glass. Beneath it is the sharp, agonizingly high-pitched hum of a perfectly tuned piano wire, pulled tight enough to sever bone.

But her taste is not the only thing that is wrong. A sickening crescendo follows her wake. My body feels completely rigid. My limbs feels impossibly heavy.

I struggle to even turn my head. I can feel Miss Susie completely stops mid combing.

Strands of my hair are still held in her paused hands.

The masked Caster slowly lowers her hands, the dark leather of her gloves creaking slightly in the cold. Her voice is smooth, echoing from behind the porcelain mask with a chilling, aristocratic elegance.

"I thank you all, truly, from the bottom of my heart," she continues, stepping deliberately into the dimming sunlight. She tilts her masked head, sweeping over our shivering, huddled group. "The symphony I had composed for this miserable Victorian town was growing dreadfully dull. The lingering, terrified echoes of its former residents provided such a repetitive, uninspired chorus."

The freezing piano wire in the air vibrates, setting my teeth on edge.

"But you," she murmurs. "You provided the most exquisite inspirations. The violent, crackling dissonance of the pink Feline’s volatile static… the suppressed, boiling tempo of the Caprinae’s volcanic heat… it was a beautiful, chaotic crescendo against my composition."

Then, the featureless white mask turns. The dark, empty eye-slits lock directly onto me.

"And you, kleiner Teufel," she states, taking a single, gliding step forward. "To use emotional anchors as a localized psychic battering ram? To override a perfectly tuned melody with raw, unfiltered emotion? What a breathtaking piece of sheet music you have handed me tonight."

She pauses.

"I must thank you for the performance."

"You… you…" Mint’s voice trembles. She is leaning heavily against Miss Adele's side, her fingers gripping Miss Adele’s coat. "Val-de-Lis… you said it was dull… what happened to the townsfolk?"

The masked Caprinae tilts her head. A soft, wistful sigh escapes her lips, drifting through the air with the airy, detached disappointment.

"They provided a serviceable percussion," she murmurs, her voice smooth. "A necessary, rhythmic baseline to ground the ethereal higher notes of my craft. But alas, flesh and bone are terribly fragile instruments."

She raises a hand, tracing an invisible conductor's baton through the freezing air. "Their minds shattered entirely too fast. Their bodies gave out before the second movement could even truly begin. It made the composition die far too prematurely. It was profoundly… disappointing."

Beside me, the crisp, sweet mint flavor of Mint's emotional resonance completely flatlines. It doesn't just sour; it drops into a churning, visceral abyss of pure nausea. My own stomach violently heaves in response, the sheer, casual inhumanity of the musical Caster’s words settling like a block of ice in my gut.

"How dare you!" I scream, my voice tearing through the freezing piano-wire tension of the air. "How dare you treat humans as mere instruments! They are people with their lives! They had families!"

The masked Caprinae doesn't flinch. The featureless white mask simply looks down at me, radiating a quiet, almost pitying calm.

"People with lives," she echoes, the words floating like a distant, melancholic melody.

"That is the absolute tragedy of modern Leithanien. Under the Thronräuber, the ones people call Twin Empresses, everything has become so terribly sanitized. So hollow and mundane. They have traded the breathtaking, transcendent majesty of true symphony for comfortable, quiet mediocrity."

She spreads her arms slightly, embracing the night as if it were a grand, sold-out concert hall. "I am the last true visionary. I am carrying on the majestic legacy of His Majesty, the Witch King. True art; the kind that moves the very earth and elevates the soul; requires elevations. It demands raw notes to achieve absolute perfection."

The dark eye-slits of her mask drop. "Aber für eine Kleine wie dich, whose only instinct is to desperately smother the music, could never possibly understand the weight of a Meisterwerk."

The sheer, unapologetic altitude of her delusion is the final straw. It shatters the paralyzing terror gripping my chest.

"You are just like them," I whisper, my voice trembling before I force it to ring loud and clear. "You are exactly like the empires. You just use people until they break, and you don't even care."

I reach directly into the dark. I gather every single bit of the suffocating, rotting horror I had tasted when her music first hit us. Miss Adele, Miss Susie, Mint, Lisa, Podenco, all their despairs.

If she sees my emotions as a crude, unrefined battering ram, then she is absolutely getting another one.

I launch the concentrated, toxic sludge of raw suffering directly at her.

It hits. The perfectly tuned, freezing piano wire in the ambient air violently twangs, jarring completely out of tune. The suffocating melody of her Arts wavers, the oppressive gravity lifting off our shoulders for a single, microscopic fraction of a second.

But a fraction of a second is all Miss Adele needs.

The instant the musical hold slackens, the dormant hearth fire of Miss Adele's presence detonates into a blinding, apocalyptic supervolcano. The earth directly beneath the masked Caprinae violently erupts. A massive, deafening pillar of superheated rock and roaring fire tears through the grassy earth, shattering the street and swallowing the Caster entirely in a blinding column of thermal destruction.

The shockwave of intense heat washes over us, forcing me to raise my arms to shield my face.

I lower my arms as the dust and smoke slowly begin to clear, my chest heaving with gasps. We hit her. We broke the song.

But as the heavy smoke drifts away on the wind, the silhouette remains.

She is still there.

The masked Caprinae stands at the very edge of the glowing, molten crater Miss Adele had just torn into the earth. An invisible, rippling barrier of Arts had perfectly deflected the catastrophic heat. Her pristine clothing is entirely unblemished, her posture still perfectly, elegantly poised, as if she had simply stepped around a minor puddle in a ballroom.

She looks at the cooling magma, and then slowly lifts her featureless white mask back toward me.

"Enttäuschend," she sighs.

The single word hangs in the freezing air, dripping with an agonizingly detached arrogance. She raises a hand, her fingers curling as if preparing to conduct the next movement of her horrific symphony. The deadly piano-wire tension wrapping around my throat once more.

I refuse to let her play another note. I push every bit of my will outward, wrapping my friends in a desperate, grounding shield of warmth to fight off the melodic dread.

"We are not your instruments!" Lisa cries out. She steps directly in front of me, her nine tails fanning out to their absolute maximum limit. A blindingly pure, brilliant light explodes from her staff. The Caprinae attempts to glide backward, but the Foxfire instantly turns the air into heavy, suffocating molasses. Her elegant, floating steps violently stutter. The invisible, rippling barrier of Arts that had deflected the molten crater visibly strains, flickering rapidly before shattering entirely under the crushing, sluggish weight of Lisa's domain.

"Try singing through this!" Podenco yells. With a sharp, practiced flick of her wrist, the botanist hurls a specialized glass vial directly at the masked woman's feet. It shatters against the grassland with a sharp pop. A thick, noxious cloud of vibrant purple spores violently erupts, instantly engulfing the masked Caprinae.

The masked woman violently recoils. A harsh, ragged cough tears through the toxic cloud, her flawless posture completely collapsing. The terrifying, invisible piano wire vibrating in the ambient air snaps with a jarring, discordant screech as her absolute focus is finally broken.

Enraged, the Witch King loyalist sweeps her arm through the toxic dust. A barrage of jagged, materialized Originium energy shoots out of the smoke, hurtling directly toward us with lethal intent.

"I won't let you!" Mint screams. She pulls out her wand. The crisp, sweet flavor of mint leaves and fresh parchment flares brilliantly in my senses. The air between us violently twists. A roaring, localized vortex rips upward from the ground, catching the lethal barrage of Originium projectiles. The wind howls, swirling the deadly notes into a chaotic funnel before launching them harmlessly up into the dark, bruising sky.

Before the masked Caprinae can even recover, the smell of scorched ozone floods the air. "My turn!" Miss Susie's voice rings out, completely devoid of her earlier panic. The static electricity crackling in her emotional resonance pops like sweet candy. She thrusts her technical staff forward. The sharp, scissor-like drones detach from her focal unit, darting through the air with terrifying, mechanical precision.

They dive at the Witch King loyalist in a relentless, synchronized motion. The masked woman is forced to abandon her aristocratic grace entirely. She scrambles backward, weaving and ducking frantically as the sparking blades snap just millimeters from her face and tear through the pristine fabric of her coat.

She leaps out of the drones’ path, landing heavily on a patch of grassy plains just outside the purple spore cloud.

But she dodges exactly where we needed her to.

"Your twisted symphony ends here," Miss Adele states.

The masked Caprinae freezes, looking up. Miss Adele’s eyes are closed, her Arts Unit suspended just off the air in front of her.

The ground beneath the Caprinae doesn't just tremble; it violently ruptures. A colossal, apocalyptic pillar of molten magma and blinding thermal energy erupts straight out of the bedrock. The roaring, deafening explosion swallows the twisted maestro entirely, lighting up the night with a devastating, brilliant orange flare. The sheer, overwhelming heat washes over my face.

The howling wind of Mint's localized vortex finally dies down, carrying the last noxious wisps of Podenco's purple spores away into the dark sky. The blinding, ethereal glow of Lisa's Foxfire fades, and the deafening, unnatural silence of the untamed plains rushes back in to fill the void.

I slowly lower my arms, my breath tearing out of my throat in exhausted gasps.

I look toward the edge of the molten, glowing crater Miss Adele had ripped into the earth. The thick smoke clears entirely. There is nothing left. The masked Caprinae, the terrifying, weeping melody, the suffocating piano-wire tension that had threatened to slice our minds to ribbons; it is all completely gone. Whether she was incinerated by the blast, or if she simply melted away into the shadows the moment her twisted masterpiece was shattered, the plains are entirely empty.

My knees wobble dangerously.

"Is she… is she gone?" Mint whispers. Her voice is trembling uncontrollably as she lowers her wand. The crisp, sweet flavor of mint leaves and fresh parchment in her aura is completely exhausted, stretched paper-thin by the sheer terror of the encounter.

Miss Adele closes her eyes, taking a long, shuddering breath. The comforting, dormant hearth fire of her presence slowly begins to spark back to life, actively pushing back the freezing, desolate dread that had coated the battlefield. She opens her eyes, her soft gaze sweeping over our battered, shivering group.

"She is gone," Miss Adele confirms softly, her airy melody returning to anchor us. She takes a slow step forward, the warm, roasted-chestnut glow of her aura wrapping around us like a thick, protective blanket. "How are you girls holding up?"

I look around. Lisa is leaning heavily against Podenco, her tails drooping toward the scorched grass, completely drained of their usual spun-sugar energy. Miss Susie is huddled nearby, taking deep, deliberate breaths as she desperately suppresses the last, lingering pops of static electricity crackling off her.

"I… I am scared…" I admit. I look up at Miss Adele, my eyes wide and brimming with unshed tears. "We still have nine days left on our expedition schedule… what’s going to come next… a Feranmut?"

The heavy, exhausted silence is suddenly broken. Podenco lets out a breathless, incredulous scoff. Beside her, a soft giggle bubbles out of Lisa’s tired throat. Even Miss Susie covers her mouth, her shoulders shaking with a relieved, teary-eyed laugh that finally chases the last of the bitter ozone from the air.

Miss Adele's face softens into a beautifully radiant smile. The remaining shadows of the fight completely melt away. She steps forward and gently rests her hand on the top of my head, carefully smoothing down my hair.

"If a Feranmut shows up, Lethe," Miss Adele smiles, her voice a soothing, unwavering promise in the dark, "then we will simply take notes, gather some very rare geological samples, and rely on you and Lisa to keep it calm while we run away. But for tonight, I think we have survived quite enough of the world."

"I will offer the Feranmut our leftover marshmallows!" Lisa’s tails giving a sudden, determined wag.

Podenco nods in agreement as she looks at me. "And well, Lethe might be able to reason with it? Sarkaz bloodlines are ancient too, right?"

Mint practically vibrates on her heels. Her eyes blow completely wide with scholarly thrill. "Oh! Lethe, if you can talk to a Feranmut, I have so many questions!"

I blink, staring at the three of them in absolute horror.

"I… I think it will just use me as an appetizer," I squeak, my tail wrapping into a rigid, defensive coil around my leg. "Maybe even not enough for a full bite…"

Miss Adele lets out a giggle that finally breaks the last of the post-combat tension.

"Now, now, girls," Miss Adele says. "Let’s go retrieve our gears before the night temperature completely sets."

The walk back to the abandoned Val-de-Lis is a slow, quiet march. As we cross the threshold back into the abandoned, dirt streets. The reality of the slaughter we had witnessed presses back down on our shoulders.

We carefully retrieve our logistics bags and Podenco's terrariums from the dirt. As we check our bags to ensure none of the delicate vials were shattered during the frantic escape, a soft, bluish glow catches my eye.

Lisa is standing a few paces away. She has pulled her digital slate from her bag, her small thumbs flying rapidly across the glass screen. The sweetness radiating from her is completely steeped in a heavy, solemn maturity; a quiet, carrying resilience that reminds me so incredibly much of Amiya.

"What are you doing, Lisa?" I ask softly, pitching my voice to barely a whisper so I don't disturb the echoing quiet of the abandoned town.

Lisa doesn't look up from the screen immediately. She hits send, her ears drooping just a fraction. "Sending this to Dr. Kal’tsit too," Lisa replies, her voice trembling slightly but ringing with undeniable duty. "So the Victorian Army can come and bury the bodies."

I look back at the seemingly pristine settlements.

An entire settlement of innocent people. They were completely wiped out in the dark, without a single person in the outside world even knowing they were gone.

Dr. Kal'tsit would know exactly how to force the Victorian authorities to come to this place, ensuring those innocent townsfolk wouldn't simply be left to rot and be forgotten in the cold.

A soft rustle of fabric draws my attention. Podenco drops to her knees in the damp dirt near the edge of the town limits. She reaches into one of her botanical pouches, her fingers pulling out a small handful of tiny, dormant flower seeds. With meticulous, reverent care, she presses them into the earth, burying them securely beneath the soil. We gather around her. Miss Adele, Miss Susie, Mint, Lisa, Podenco, and I. We stand shoulder-to-shoulder in the wind, looking out over the silent houses. Nobody says a single word. We just stand there, bowing our heads in the dark.

One minute. Two minutes. Three minutes.

The absolute, unbroken silence of the plains acts as a final, solemn requiem for the people who had their lives so callously stolen. When the three minutes finally pass, we turn our backs, clutching our bags and our Arts Units, and quietly walk away into the night.

We walk as far as our aching legs can carry us under the silver glow of twin moons, putting as much distance as physically possible between ourselves and the heavy, deathly silence of the dead town. By the time we finally stop to set up camp in a shallow, rocky depression, my muscles are trembling with a bone-deep exhaustion.

I carefully set my new Arts Unit against the leg of my folding chair.

We don't have the energy or the ingredients to cook a proper meal tonight.

Miss Susie sits heavily on her collapsible chair, cradling a steaming plastic cup between her hands. "Well, instant ramen it is," Miss Susie sighs, staring down at the curly noodles.

In the other chair besides Miss Adele, Mint is looking at her slate. "Hmmm," Mint goes deep into thought, her brow furrowing in intense concentration. She traces a finger along the map. "I don’t think there’s any city too close to our projected routes without a massive detour. We are going to run out of fresh rations."

Podenco blows on her own cup of noodles, her ears drooping slightly in the chiling wind. "I mean. Can we not just ask Engineering to deliver via drones?" Podenco suggests, looking around the small circle. "They are low profile. No Victorian patrols would spot a high-altitude drone out here."

Miss Adele takes a slow sip of her broth. "We can try to ask," Miss Adele replies, her voice calm despite the heavy night. "I will send a message to Engineering."

A delivery drone. From Ms. Closure's engineering department.

I completely deflate. My spine turns to jelly, and my upper body collapses forward until my cheek squishes entirely flat against the surface of our portable camping table.

"They will do it…" I whine, my voice a muffled, tragic groan against the plastic. "And Ms. Closure is going to charge me for sure. She is going to bill my account for the cross- country drone fuel and the hazardous delivery fees!" I squeeze my eyes shut, mentally watching my hard-earned internal credits evaporate into the wind. "I am so close to my fifth plushie…"

A gentle, warm pressure presses against my squished face. Lisa reaches over from her seat right next to me, her finger lightly poking my cheek.

"There, there, Lethe," Lisa says softly. "I am sure the Vulpo series plushie is coming back next year. You will have plenty of time to save up again!"

“Not helping.”

With laughters we finally set up our camp and slowly drift to sleep.

I slowly blink my eyes open, the dim interior of the tent gradually coming into focus. I push myself up from the sleeping mat, raising my arms high above my head to give a massive, luxurious stretch. My joints pop in quiet protest against the lingering chill of the plains before us.

I reach out instinctively, my fingers wrapping around my Arts Unit. But as my eyes adjust, the crisp white daylight bleeding through the canvas flap catches my attention.

Wait. Daylight?

My heart gives a sudden, frantic lurch. I scramble to grab my slate, tapping the cool glass screen. The numbers glare back at me, entirely betraying my internal clock. It is fully morning.

"Oh no!" I gasp, throwing my blankets off in a sheer panic. "I missed my shift!"

A soft giggle ripples through the quiet tent. I whip my head around. Lisa is sitting cross- legged on her own mat, a wooden brush in her hand. She is meticulously running the bristles through her tails, ensuring the silk-like fur is perfectly smooth.

"You were completely dead to the world, Lethe," Lisa says, her voice bright and soothing. "So we didn't want to wake you."

From the other side of the tent, the familiar clinking of glass vials echoes softly.

Podenco is already fully dressed, meticulously adjusting the straps and buckles of her logistics gear. She pauses her work, throwing a highly amused, cheeky smirk to me.

"And you were snoring lightly, too," Podenco adds playfully.

A hot, prickly flush of absolute embarrassment violently crashes over my cheeks, burning all the way up to the tips of my horns. I instantly duck my head.

"Oh…" I mumble miserably, my tail completely dead against the sleeping mat.

"Don't worry, Lethe," Podenco says. Her teasing tone instantly softens, melting into a warm, genuine comfort that pushes back the brisk morning air. "We were all incredibly tired. Besides, without you. None of us might have survived."

I grab my jacket, rubbing the last stubborn remnants of sleep from my eyes. As I look around our small, enclosed sanctuary, I notice the unzipped, empty sleeping bag near the entrance.

"Where's Mint?" I ask, my brow furrowing in a sudden spike of concern.

Lisa sets her brush down.

"She is out there with Miss Adele," Lisa answers, offering me a bright smile. "She's perfectly safe."

I push aside the canvas flap of the tent and step out into the brisk morning air. The chill of the morning plains immediately stings my cheeks, but it feels incredibly grounding after the lingering warmth of my sleeping bag.

A few paces away, standing near the extinguished remains of our campfire, is Miss Adele. She is looking out at the sprawling horizon, the rising sun casting a soft, golden glow over her curling horns. My empathic Arts brush against the ambient air, and I immediately relax. She tastes wonderfully content.

"Good morning, Miss Adele," I call out softly, my sneakers crunching against the grass.

Miss Adele turns around. Her soft eyes meet mine, and a beautiful smile breaks across her face. "Good morning, Lethe."

She steps closer, adjusting the strap of her satchel. "We have received an update. We are going to meet up with another field team," Miss Adele explains, her voice carrying a deep sense of relief. "Because of the intel we fed back, Command was able to negotiate. The local Earl has given us permissions to secure the area."

"Dr. Kal’sit really saved us…" I breathe out, an overwhelming wave of gratitude warming my chest. Even from kilometers away, our Medical Director remains our absolute safest shield.

"So who is coming?"

The bright, inquisitive voice completely shatters the quiet morning. Podenco pops her head out from the tent flaps right behind me.

"Mousse and Grani," Miss Adele answers.

I tilt my head. Mousse. The name brings up a faint profile. "Ah…" I murmur, tapping my chin. "Mousse is the Victorian Feline who likes to read books… and her left hand…" I trail off, remembering the heavy, protective gloves she always wears to hide her severe Oripathy infection. "I don’t think I have met Grani, though."

"Grani is a Kuranta from Victoria, too," Miss Adele clarifies gently. "She works as a Vanguard for us."

I blink, my brow furrowing in deep confusion. I look at Mint, who is currently sitting in a camping chair and reading her book with a hot cup of tea, and then think of Ms.

Skyfire, Miss Susie and Mousse. "So not all Victorians are Felines?" I ask, genuinely puzzled. I had assumed, based on the people I knew, that the empire was entirely populated by them.

"Far from it, Lethe."

Miss Susie steps out into the light, raising her arms high above her head to give a massive, luxurious stretch. She lowers her arms, offering me a bright, relaxed smile.

"There's Vouivre, like Bagpipe. And Sarkaz, like Hibiscus," Miss Susie smiles, stepping up beside Miss Adele.

I stare at her in absolute shock. Hibiscus is from Victoria? The cheerful, eucalyptus- scented Medic with the tiny horns who had shielded me in the triage bay was born in the very empire we are walking through?

"Our country is actually ruled by Aslans," Miss Susie continues, though her ears droop just a fraction. She wraps her arms loosely around her sweater, her voice dropping into a quiet, melancholic murmur. "…though the crown has been empty since 1072, since our King was executed."

"Well, let’s get our breakfast first!" Lisa declares before the atmosphere get heavy, ducking out from the flaps of our tent. "We want to meet them before Miss Grani disappears on a treasure hunt!"

"Right!" Miss Susie smiles, she walks over to the supplies. "I will get the oats ready."

"I will help!" Lisa happily declares.

We eat our oats quickly, the warm, utilitarian meal chasing away the lingering morning chill, before meticulously packing away the tents and the portable stove.

With our gears secured, we begin our trek.

The sprawling expanse stretches out endlessly before us. We walk for hours, navigating the rolling, grassy hills and steering well clear of any darkened clusters of Originium. As the afternoon stretches on, the bright, crisp daylight slowly begins to mellow. The sun dips lower toward the horizon, casting long, stretching shadows across the grass, and the sky above us starts to bruise into a soft, hazy twilight.

My legs are just beginning to ache when the wind suddenly shifts.

I pause, my nose twitching. The chilly air is abruptly cut by a rich, deeply comforting aroma. It is the unmistakable, smoky scent of a crackling campfire, mingling perfectly with the heavy, savory smell of sizzling meat and frying eggs. My stomach gives a loud, immediate rumble, entirely betraying my exhaustion.

"Looks like they beat us here," Podenco notes, her tail slowly wags as she catches the scent.

We clear the crest of a small rise. Nestled safely in a sheltered clearing below is a meticulously established campsite. A large, pristine white canvas tent is already pitched in the background, and a metal pot hangs from a tripod over a roaring, expertly built fire.

Sitting in a camping chair right beside the flames is a Feline girl. She has short, light brown hair that frames her face, her soft feline ears twitching happily as she notices our approach. She is bundled up against the evening chill in an oversized, tan trench coat and a vibrant red scarf wrapped securely around her neck. Below the coat, she wears dark red knee-high socks tucked into sturdy black boots.

Her presence washes over me. It tastes incredibly sweet and comforting; like warm, freshly baked bread and whipped cream, underscored by a faint, nervous flutter of powdered sugar.

She happily balances a cast-iron frying pan in one hand, the eggs and thick cut meat sizzling loudly over the heat. "Oh! You're here!" she greets us, her voice soft but bubbling with genuine, eager excitement. She holds the frying pan up slightly, offering a bright, welcoming smile. "I… I made some food for everyone! I hope you like eggs and meat for dinner too!"

Before I can even step forward to eagerly accept the incredible-smelling food, a blur of motion steps out from the shadows of the white tent.

She is a Kuranta. Ash-grey hair spills out from beneath a sleek, tactical cap, her long Kuranta ears standing at absolute, rigid attention. She is wearing a dark, heavily pocketed navy-blue trench coat layered over a brown combat shirt, with a bright orange armband reading 'POLICJA' strapped proudly to her left sleeve. Her legs are protected by metallic shin guards, and in her right hand, she effortlessly wields a massive, intricate dark-grey polearm that looks almost as tall as she is. Pinned playfully to the edges of her tactical coat are tiny, adorable badges of a fried egg, a Siracusan slice, and a green apple.

Her emotional resonance hits like a high-speed projectile. It is a blinding burst. It tastes like sparkling ginger beer, sun-warmed grass, and the sharp, refreshing bite of a cool autumn breeze. It is absolutely fearless and brimming with an undeniable sense of justice.

She stops right beside the seated Feline. She flashes us a massive, highly confident grin, winks playfully, and brings her free hand up to the brim of her cap, giving us a crisp, cheeky salute.

"Right on time, team!" she announces, her voice ringing clearly across the campsite.

“Mounted Police Officer Grani! From this point forward, I will protect you!”

"Hi Grani. Hi Mousse," Miss Susie calls out, she offers a relaxed wave as we step fully into the clearing.

Beside me, Lisa smooths the front of her skirt and offers a flawless, perfectly poised little curtsy. "Hi Miss Grani, and Miss Mousse," she says politely.

I blink, tearing my eyes away from the sizzling pan. The mouth-watering smell of the roasting meat is absolutely paralyzing my manners. I quickly adjust my grip on my Arts Unit and hastily follow suit, offering them both a deep, respectful bow.

"H… Hi! I am Lethe," I stammer. "It smells amazing…"

Miss Grani’s confident grin only widens. She gestures proudly with her free hand toward the edge of the campsite, right behind the canvas tent. Parked neatly in the shadows of the tree formations are two rugged all-terrain vehicles. The white Rhodes Island logo is stenciled proudly against their armored chassis.

"Load up your gears, team!" Miss Grani announces, her voice carrying a bright, bouncy cadence. “No more walking for you girls!”

I stare at the ATVs. The sheer, overwhelming relief of not having to drag my aching legs across the sprawling plains is instantaneous, but it immediately collides with the terrifying reality of what Miss Adele and Ms. Dobermann has said.

"Is… is it safe, right?" I ask. I look nervously between the Kuranta Vanguard and Miss Adele. "Didn't we say driving Rhodes Island vehicles in Victorian territory might make the Grand Dukes think we are an invading army?"

Miss Grani rests the shaft of her polearm effortlessly against her shoulder.

"Don't worry about the Victorian Army, Lethe!" Miss Grani winks playfully, waving her hand dismissively in the air. "If they try to shell us with artillery, Mousse will just scratch the Originium shells to pieces before they even hit the ground!"

At the campfire, the sizzling of the frying pan completely stalls.

Miss Mousse freezes. The comforting, warm aroma of baked bread and whipped cream in the air is instantly pierced by a frantic, buzzing flutter of powdered sugar panic. She looks at her protective gloves, and then stares at the grinning Miss Grani in horror.

"Eh?!" Miss Mousse squeaks, her voice trembling violently. She holds the frying pan defensively towards her chest. "I… I can… try?!"

"That’s the spirit!" Miss Grani declares, her voice ringing with an absolute, infectious confidence. She gives her polearm an effortless twirl before planting the base firmly into the dirt.

I stare at the energetic Kuranta, my mind completely failing to process the physics of a Feline scratching a high-velocity military explosive out of the air. The terrifying image of the Victorian army lobbing artillery at our campsite flashes behind my eyes.

Before my spiraling imagination can completely run away with me, a bright voice cuts through the brisk morning air.

"Let’s just get our food first before anyone even thinks about intercepting artillery shells!" Lisa effortlessly bringing the conversation back down to Terra. She steps forward, and completely ignores the absurd tactical propositions of Miss Grani.

Miss Mousse lets out a soft, stuttering exhale. The moment Lisa redirects the focus back to the food, the static completely melts away. Miss Mousse’s two feline tails, which had been held rigidly straight behind her in sheer nervousness, finally drop and relax into a gentle, swaying curve.

We all quickly gather around the crackling campfire, pulling up our collapsible chairs.

The evening air of the plains is still biting, but the heat from the flames and the mouth- watering aroma of the pan-fried meat completely banishes the chill. Mousse carefully distributes the portions, her oversized, heavy protective gloves moving with a surprising, practiced delicacy as she hands me a plate.

I don't even wait for the meat to cool. I balance my black Arts Unit securely against my knees and take a massive, eager bite. The rich, savory juices burst across my tongue, perfectly seasoned and cooked to absolute perfection. It is heavenly. I let out a loud, contented hum, my tail giving a frantic, rhythmic thump against the leg of my folding chair.

"This is really good, Miss Mousse," I declare, my cheeks puffed out happily as I chew.

Miss Mousse flinches slightly at the direct praise, a rosy flush warming her cheeks. The sweet, whipped-cream flavor of her presence bubbles with a sudden, shy modesty.

"Thank… thank you!" Miss Mousse stammers, her voice a soft whisper over the crackling fire. She nervously rubs the thick fabric of her gloves together, her eyes darting down to the dirt before she look back up at us. "I… I also tried to make some cakes before we left the landship. I packed them in the thermal cooler."

She tilts her head, her ears giving a tiny, uncertain twitch. "What kind of cake do you all prefer? Mango, or matcha?"

The word 'cake' acts like a localized jolt of electricity. The savory perfection of perfectly cooked meat is instantaneously overshadowed. Beside me, I feel the exact same spark of pure, crystallized joy erupt from my Vulpo friend.

"Matcha, please. Thank you." Lisa and I answer at the exact same time, our voices ringing out in perfect, instantaneous, and entirely unapologetic unison.

Miss Mousse reaches into the thermal cooler resting beside the ATVs, her protective gloves carefully retrieving two pristine, identical square boxes. She sets them down gently onto our portable camping table.

With meticulous, almost delicate care she flips the latches and unboxes the first one.

The immediate, earthy aroma of rich matcha hits me instantly, cutting straight through the savory, smoky scent of the meat that had just filled the evening air. It is a beautiful crepe cake, stacked with dozens of impossibly thin, perfectly uniform green layers bound together by thick, generous spreads of fresh cream.

"That smells so good, Miss Mousse," I say, leaning forward slightly as my mouth immediately begins to water all over again.

"I… I am glad," Miss Mousse stammers softly.

She picks up a small, serrated camping knife. She expertly slices through the delicate, layered pastry, placing a perfect wedge onto a paper plate for Lisa, and then another for me. Finally, she cuts a slightly smaller piece for herself.

She holds the knife up, offering a timid, hopeful look to the rest of the Operators gathered around the fire. "If you guys want, feel free to get it," she says, her voice polite.

I don't wait a single second. I pick up my small plastic fork, press it through the satisfying, resistant layers of the crepe, and take a bite.

The cake is absolutely amazing.

The delicate bitterness of the premium matcha perfectly balances out the sweet, rich heavy cream. It melts on my tongue, the impossibly thin layers dissolving into a cloud of pure, culinary perfection.

"This is really good," Lisa adds, her eyes closing in sheer delight. The blindingly pure, crystallized sugar sweetness of her emotional resonance blooms into the cold Victorian air, wrapping the entire campsite in a peaceful warmth.

As the evening winds down, the adrenaline and terror of the past few days finally begin to ebb away. I look across the campfire. Miss Adele is sitting quietly in her collapsible chair, holding a plate with a vibrant slice of the yellow mango cake in her hands. She takes a small, deliberate bite, her eyes looking upward, slowly enjoying the sweet treat while the endless, glittering canopy of the starry night provides the perfect, breathtaking backdrop.

It feels safe.

Then, the energetic Kuranta decides to drop a tactical bombshell right into the middle of our tea party.

"Though, just let you girls know," Miss Grani announces casually. She leans forward, resting her arms on her knees. "We are no longer on a survey mission. We are to sweep the county and destroy any caches."

The rich, sweet taste of the matcha instantly turns to ash on my tongue. My mind violently flashes back to the pitch-black, hidden cavern we had stumbled into. I see the crude, brutal iron of the Kazdelian swords resting in the shock-absorbent foam. I smell the suffocating, metallic tang of innocent blood spilling over the stone floor, and I hear the ragged, agonizing sobs of a man realizing he was dying for a war engineered by my own people.

"Shouldn't this be the Army's job?" Mint asks, her brow furrowing in deep, academic confusion. She lowers her own slice of cake, looking at Miss Grani. "We are a pharmaceutical company on a geological survey. Sweeping for rebel contraband in a county sounds like high-level military jurisdiction."

Miss Grani doesn't miss a beat. She flashes a massive, highly confident grin, her Kuranta ears twitching with absolute, fearless enthusiasm.

"Well. They gave us a contract," Miss Grani declares proudly, puffing her chest out and gesturing to the 'POLICJA' armband strapped to her sleeve. "And we stop the crimes!"

Mint lowers her fork.

"Hmmm," Mint muses, tapping her chin thoughtfully as she looks toward her senior. "I suppose Miss Eyjafjalla and I can survey the land to point out potential hidden cave systems or weird geological formations that could be camouflages."

Miss Adele gives a firm, approving nod, taking another slow bite of her mango cake.

Podenco immediately jumps in, her presence bubbling with botanical pride. "And I can trace Originium pollutions in florals and waterways," Podenco adds smoothly, gesturing with her fork. "If any crates are improperly sealed, the leaked radiation will absolutely alter the cellular structure of the nearby moss and roots."

Lisa sits up perfectly straight.

"Miss Grani, Miss Susie, and I will keep everyone safe!" Lisa declares, her bright voice ringing with the fierce dedication of a true Supporter.

"Of course!" Miss Grani beams. She gives her polearm an effortless, confident twirl, her fearless ginger beer and cool autumn breeze energy washing over the campsite.

Across the fire, Miss Mousse nervously rubs her gloves together.

"Well… I can help…" Miss Mousse whispers. "I am very good at scouting too."

The campfire crackles brightly. The tactical planning is entirely flawless. We have elite geological surveyors to map the terrain, a master botanist for chemical tracking, a heavy-hitting Kuranta Vanguard, a drone Caster, and a Foxfire Supporter. They are a highly coordinated, perfectly balanced strike team entirely ready to dismantle a rebel supply line.

And then, there is me.

I look around the circle. I look at the brilliant researchers, the brave Casters, and the fearless Vanguard. Then, I slowly lower my eyes to look at the plastic fork in my hand and the half-eaten slice of delicate matcha crepe cake resting on my paper plate. I look at my black Arts Unit, currently leaning entirely uselessly against my knee.

"Uhm…" I mumble, my tail dropping into a slow, highly uncertain sway against the grass. I blink, looking around at my fiercely capable friends.

"I… I am here to eat cakes?"

A bright, overlapping chorus of laughter erupts around the circle. Miss Susie covers her mouth, her shoulders shaking with a melodic giggle, while Grani laughs out loud, the sound completely unrestrained and infectious. Even Mousse hides a tiny, shy smile.

From across the table, Podenco leans forward. Flashing me a highly exaggerated, knowing smirk.

"Oh, she truly is our Miss Sarkaz Royalty, isn't she?"

"Hey! I was just being honest!"

Before Podenco can launch another playful volley, Lisa shifts in her collapsible chair.

"Don't worry, Lethe," Lisa declares, her bright voice effortlessly cutting through the giggles. She looks at me with absolute, unwavering sincerity. "You are the only Medic on the team! You are very important!"

I look down at the tactical band strapped securely around my right thigh, bearing the crisp, black and white Rhodes Island Medic symbol. I trace the heavy, undeniable weight of that title.

"But…" I look between my Vulpo and Perro friends. "You and Podenco both know how to heal… Podenco has her botanical healing vials, and you have your Foxfire Arts to close wounds…"

Lisa doesn't even blink.

"But your role is Medic!" Lisa says, stating it as an undeniable, fundamental law of Terra.

"So you need to be our Medic."

I stare at her bright blue eyes. There’s no doubt.

I let out a slow, defeated sigh that quickly morphs into a radiant smile.

"Okay," I concede.

I pick up my paper plate, scooping up another generous bite of the perfectly layered, sweet matcha cream. As the exquisite dessert melts on my tongue, I settle comfortably back into my chair under the starry sky, entirely ready to be the best cake-eating, emotion-siphoning Medic this expedition team has ever seen.