The alley swallowed Daybreak Reaper whole. The triumphant clash of Aqua and Aegis battling the Rift-Elite faded into a muffled roar behind her, replaced by the oppressive silence of the disaster zone's forgotten corners. Dust motes danced in the shafts of weak sunlight piercing the canyon of crumbling brick. Her heart hammered against her ribs, a frantic drum solo against the eerie quiet. That movement, she thought, gripping her scythe tighter, knuckles white. Small, gray, fast. Like a rat, but⦠wrong. Her earlier successes against the smaller spawn fueled a reckless confidence. This was her chance to prove herself. A solo hunt. To show she wasn't just some wide-eyed kid needing piggybacks.
She sprinted, boots crunching on debris, the yellow fabric of her cloak snapping behind her like a defiant flag. The alley twisted sharply. Reaper skidded around the corner, momentum carrying her forward, scythe held ready in a dramatic two-handed grip.
And stopped dead.
The creature in front of her wasn't a rat. It wasn't even vaguely canine or insectoid like the beetles she'd fought. It stood hunched over the mangled carcass of a smaller Rift-Spawn, one she vaguely recognized as one she had slain earlier.
The creature was unsettlingly humanoid. Roughly her father's height, but its proportions all felt slightly off. Its limbs were mismatched, its torso was compact with skin that wasn't skin at all. It was the same dark, muscular flesh that many bestial Rift-Spawn possessed, with flakes of chitinous plating dotting its hulking form. Yet, the most jarring feature was the absence of a head. Where a neck and skull should have been, there was only a smooth plateau of flesh located between its shoulders.
As she watched, frozen mid-stride, the headless creature moved. One arm, ending in thick, blunt fingers, reached down and effortlessly hoisted the corpse of the smaller spawn above its shoulders. Then, from the center of that featureless space where its neck met its torso, a small, fleshy orifice puckered open. Out snaked a thick, brown, fur-covered tube. It looked disturbingly organic, like a grotesque, oversized, furry earthworm. With unnerving precision, the tube latched onto the corpse. A wet, tearing, sucking sound filled the narrow alley as the tube began to devour the dead spawn, pulling chunks of gray flesh and dark ichor into its maw with terrifying speed.
Revulsion warred with bravado in Reaper's chest as it watched the creature devour the slain Rift-Spawn. This wasn't fighting. This was a violation of the natural order, even in this unnatural world. Fear, cold and sharp, pricked at her spine. Aqua said fear was a bad emotion to fuel her magic with, so she tried to shove that icy feeling down and replace it with courage. Bravery. Use bravery. She forced her voice out, aiming for the commanding boom Aegis used, but it came out slightly higher pitch, tinged with a nervousness she couldn't quite suppress.
"H-Halt, evildoer!" she declared, brandishing her scythe. The blade gleamed in the alleyway's fading light. "Your reign of terror ends now!"
The headless creature didn't react. Didn't flinch, didn't turn. It simply continued its grotesque feast. The sucking, tearing sounds were the only reply. Reaper watched, horrified fascination battling with growing indignation. Is it ignoring me? The thought stung her pride more than the fear.
The tube retracted with a final, wet slurp, vanishing back into the seamless plating of the torso. The creature dropped the now significantly lighter, mangled remnants of the Rift-Spawn carcass with a dull thud. It straightened back up, turning with unnerving fluidity to face her directly. For a heartbeat, they stood in silence. Then, without a single word, it simply started walking away, down the alley, back turned to her once more.
Indignation flared, hot and bright, momentarily eclipsing the fear. "Hey! Get back here!" Reaper yelled, charging forward. Bravery was a lot easier to muster as the monster turned its back on her. She closed the distance rapidly, swinging with her scythe in a wide horizontal arc aimed squarely at its back. "I said stop!"
The creature didn't turn to face her. Instead, it simply leapt upwards with a speed much faster than its lumbering form suggested was possible. It soared upwards, leaving Reaper's scythe to cut nothing but empty air, and landed on the rooftop of an adjacent building. Disappearing over the edge and out of sight.
"Cheater!" Reaper spat, frustration boiling over. She glared at the side of the building the monster had just leapt onto. Fear of heights warred with the burning need not to let this insolent monster get away. Gritting her teeth, she jammed the bladed tip of her scythe into the brickwork, using it as a crude climbing hook to vault onto the first landing. Scrambling, using her scythe more as a climbing pole than a weapon, she hauled herself onto the gritty rooftop. Panting, she scanned the uneven landscape of vents and crumbling parapets.
There! She saw the creature moving with unsettling speed across the next rooftop. Reaper cursed under her breath and gave chase. She jumped gaps, scrambled over low walls. The creature moved with an eerie, silent grace, always just ahead, never looking back. It dropped down into another alley below, and Reaper followed, sliding down a drainpipe, landing hard but rolling to her feet.
The monster led her into a wider side street, the avenue eerily empty with every storefront lining it remaining closed in the middle of the day. The creature was there, already crouched over another fallen Rift-Spawn, seemingly preparing itself for its next meal.
Rage and frustration surged anew. "Oh no you don't!" Without thinking, Reaper channeled magic into her scythe. Yellow light flared along the blade as she unleashed her attack.
"First Light of the Moon!"
She didn't aim for the creature itself; she aimed for the corpse it coveted. With a cry, she unleashed a wide, vertical slash of pure yellow energy. The crescent of light screamed across the pavement, forcing the creature to leap out of the way and cleaving the fallen Rift-Spawn in two.
The energy crescent dissipated against a wall, leaving a scorch mark. Reaper ran forward and planted herself firmly between the headless creature and where the corpse had been, scythe held ready in a combat stance she'd practiced. Her chest heaved, but her voice was stronger this time, laced with righteous fury.
"Face me, monster! No more running! No more⦠eating! Your opponent is me! Luminary Daybreak Reaper!" She infused the title with all the grandeur she could muster. "Prepare to be cleansed!"
The headless creature straightened slowly. It turned its blank torso fully towards her. For several heartbeats, it simply stood there, watching her.
Reaper watched the creature with bated breath, wondering what it could possibly be thinking right now.
-
Mochi stared at the peculiar human in front of them. They were different from the other humans who fled at the mere sight of Mochi. They had magic like its master did.
But they looked human, so Mochi assumed they were human. And it had been instructed not to harm humans.
Now they were interfering with its task to grow stronger, but they were still a human. And it had been instructed not to harm humans.
Then, it had called itself something else. A strange word that Mochi had not heard before.
A Luminary.
The strange human called itself a Luminary once more. And Mochi understood, this strange human with magic was not a human, but a Luminary. And it had been instructed not to harm humans.
But they were a Luminary, which was not a human.
And soâ¦
-
The monster attacked without warning. One moment it seemed content to stand perfectly still and merely watch her, the next it lunged forwards, closing the distance between them in a heartbeat. Its right arm shot forwards in a punch aimed directly at her chest. Reaper reacted instinctively, bringing the thick metal haft of her scythe across her body to block the blow.
THOOM!
The impact was brutal, the punch carrying a lot more force than Reaper was expecting. Pain exploded through her arms and shoulders as she was thrown back by the impact and sent hurtling backwards. She slammed into a nearby illegally-parked car, the air driven from her lungs in a painful gasp.
Vision swimming, she quickly clambered back to her feet just in time to see the creature closing in. It raised a heavy foot to stomp down on her prone form, slamming into and cracking the asphalt below as she barely managed to roll out of the way.
Scrambling back to her feet, Reaper desperately reached out for her magic once more. Her scythe glowed faintly yellow as she funneled the last of her bravery and determination into the attack.
"First Light of the Moon!"
Her scythe became a blur of radiant yellow steel as she unleashed another arc of yellow energy. The creature, upon seeing the blow, leapt to the side, watching warily as the attack fizzled out behind it.
Reaper then surged forward to slash at them directly with her scythe. Unleashing a series of slashes and sweeps. Slowly, she forced the creature back step by step, her movements fueled by a frantic manic energy as she felt herself slip into the rhythm of battle.
But the creature learned. It watched her movements and figured out a pattern. Linking the telegraphing of her swings to the openings they created. With a swift, methodical strike, the creature delivered a lightning-fast kick directly into her chest, shattering a couple of ribs with a deafening crack.
Pain, white-hot and nauseating, ripped through her mind as Reaper was launched backwards into a wall. She cried out upon impact as she rebounded off the solid concrete and collapsed onto the sidewalk in a heap. Her scythe clattering away as she lost her grip on it.
Stolen novel; please report.
Gasping, tasting copper, Reaper tried to push herself up. Fiery pain lanced through her chest with every breath. She could feel her broken ribs scraping against each other as she forced herself back up.
Blood leaked from her lips as fear sank deep into her mind. She wobbled weakly as the monster slowly approached her. Fear wasn't just present now; it was consuming her. She felt it seep into her mind and empower her. Giving her more magic than bravery ever could. In this dire situation, she ignored Aqua's warnings and desperately clawed at it, trying to use it in one final gambit.
But she couldn't get the words out. As the headless creature loomed over her she couldn't form the magic into a proper spell. As she tried to make a last stand, all her mind could focus on was trying to figure out a way to flee from here.
Then she felt that fear dissipate as a wave of emerald energy, solid as a mountain, slammed into the monster from the side. The force of the blow forced the creature back, and its attention turned to the source of that blow.
"Get back from her, you fiend!" Aegis bellowed as he surged forward, slamming into the monster with the full force of his shield.
The monster staggered back at the blow, and as it did, a streak of blue lightning shot past Aegis. Aqua, spear gleaming like the tip of the iceberg that sank the Titanic, drove her weapon with pinpoint precision into the monster's right arm.
"Glacial Burst."
The tip of her spear glowed with blue energy and exploded, severing the monster's arm in two as it leapt backwards to avoid a second blow.
The creature stood a good distance away, watching silently as Aqua and Aegis planted themselves between it and Reaper. It gave no indication of whether it felt any pain from losing one of its limbs, seemingly inspecting the stump with silent indifference.
Having seemed to weigh its options carefully, the monster leapt upwards with surprising agility, landing on a nearby rooftop behind it and disappeared out of sight. Without a backward glance, it vanished out of sight.
With the monster gone, Aegis and Aqua seemed to breathe a sigh of relief, with Aqua keeping watch as Aegis rushed over to check on Reaper.
Reaper managed to stumble forward, adrenaline fleeing her body as the pain in her chest became an all-consuming inferno. The world blurred as she fell forwards, Aegis catching her before she could hit the ground. The last thing she registered was the surprising warmth of his hands as consciousness fled her entirely.
-
The address Mr. Thorne had sent Aiko led to a nondescript corner in one the city's quieter districts. Not the glittering towers of the city's center or the ruins from major disaster zones that were now abandoned, but somewhere in between. Quiet enough that there were not that many people around, but busy enough that a person standing around didn't automatically raise suspicion.
She leaned against the cool brick wall of a closed bodega, the hood of her nondescript jacket pulled down low. Her violet eyes scanned the sparse foot traffic, the afternoon sun still high in the sky.
The address had come with a small message that she should wait for 'One of my lieutenants'. She pictured another nondescript sunglasses-wearing man in a sharp suit, probably with an air of intimidation and violence.
She jumped slightly as a police cruiser pulled up to the curb, its engine left idling with a low rumble. It was a slightly battered standard-issue cruiser, with a faded city crest on the door. The driver who stepped out wore the dark blue uniform and cap of the Boston Metropolitan Police. He was middle-aged, with a tired face etched with lines that spoke of long shifts and years of experience. He scanned the street before settling on Aiko, who tried desperately to sink into the wall as he met her gaze.
Aiko considered fleeing as he walked over, pretty confident that the man couldn't chase her if she leapt onto a nearby rooftop.
"Are you the specialist from our mutual friend?" He asked, his voice gravely but calm.
Aiko stared at him in shock. "Are you the lieutenant?"
"Name's Lieutenant DaSilva." He answered with a tip of his cap. "I take it that means that you are the specialist."
Aiko pushed off the wall, keeping her hands in her jacket pockets to conceal their crystalline nature. She nodded once. "That's me."
DaSilva gave a small, almost imperceptible nod. "Right. Appreciate you coming out." He gestured towards the cruiser. "Hop in. Front seat's fine."
Aiko hesitated for a fraction of a second. Getting into a police car felt inherently wrong. DaSilva didn't seem like a dirty cop in the mob's pocket to her, but she guessed she hadn't met a dirty cop in real life before.
But at this point, she might as well try to see things through to the end, to get a glimpse of that 'perspective' Mr. Thorne had talked about.
She climbed into the passenger seat, putting on the seatbelt as DaSilva put the cruiser into drive.
As DaSilva pulled away from the curb, he glanced at her, studying her nervous disposition. "First time doing this kind of thing?"
Aiko kept her gaze fixed out the window at the passing view. "Yes." She paused before letting a question slip out, "What exactly am I doing here, Lieutenant? I was told I would be helping, but wasn't really told to help with what."
DaSilva sighed, "Figures. You're a face I haven't seen before. Guess it was too much to hope they'd brief a rookie before dropping her into my lap." He grumbled. "What we're going to be doing is responding to calls. Reports of possible Rift-Spawn activity. Unconfirmed sightings, strange noises."
Aiko frowned. "Why not call the Luminaries? Isn't that their job? Dealing with Rift-Spawn?"
DaSilva shot her a look filled with pure cynicism. "You know any Luminaries personally, Miss Specialist?" His tone was mild, but the distaste he had for them was clear.
Aiko met his gaze evenly. "No."
"Exactly." He looked back at the road. "The Celestials, they deal with the big stuff. Rift-Disasters, outbreaks, big monsters. They operate on their own intel, their own schedule. They don't exactly have a hotline for Mrs. Mabel, who thinks she heard scratching on her walls in the night or saw something furry with too many eyes skulking behind her dumpster." He gestured vaguely out the window. "Regular folks like you and me? We've got no way to ask them for help, so all of that 'Luminary' work falls to the uniformed officers who are horribly underequipped to handle problems like that."
They continued on in silence until they reached the first stop. A run-down apartment building in a quieter part of town. DaSilva parked out front and climbed out, with Aiko following closely behind.
They strolled in and DaSilva knocked on a door on the second floor. An elderly woman answered, slightly surprised to see an officer at her door. DaSilva was all calm professionalism, his voice low and reassuring as he explained they had received a call about weird growls and scratching noises. The elderly woman's face lit up and she talked about the matter. DaSilva listened patiently as she told him her tale of thumps and scratching on the ceiling.
She looked mostly thankful, but slightly embarrassed as DaSilva took down her statement. Her gaze fell on Aiko for a brief moment before she immediately froze up in fear.
Aiko realized her sunglasses had slipped down her nose, quickly pushing them back up to hide her glowing violet eyes once more.
DaSilva followed the woman's gaze before apologizing for the fright, saying the girl was with him and was a specialist on Rift activity.
The elderly woman still looked a bit shaken, but nodded weakly. Stealing a couple more gazes at Aiko as DaSilva wrapped up the conversation.
"Well, thank you for your time, Mrs. Gable. We will take a quick look upstairs, and let you know if we find anything. Have a good evening, ma'am."
Mrs. Gable nodded profusely before closing the door, before the unmistakable sound of deadbolts being pulled came through the door.
DaSilva took the elevator up with Aiko in tow. The journey felt slightly awkward after that brief exchange.
"Sorry," Aiko mumbled weakly.
DaSilva shrugged, "Eh, don't let it get to you. The kind of person to oversell some rats as a Rift-Spawn is probably the paranoid type."
The elevator dinged open and DaSilva made his way to the apartment directly above Mrs. Gable's. Knocking on the door firmly to no response.
"Looks abandoned," he commented gruffly, before turning to Aiko, "What do you think? Sense anything?"
Aiko shook her head for no and they headed back down to the car.
The second location they visited was similar: a report of 'glowing eyes' in an alley behind a diner. Aiko sensed nothing beyond the faint, decaying residue of Verge energy that permeated most of the city now, like background radiation. Another dead end. DaSilva logged it with weary efficiency.
The third location was different. It was a slightly better-kept apartment building, but as DaSilva parked a block away, Aiko felt it. A faint, sickly pull. Like a cold spot in the air, a discordant hum beneath the city's ambient Verge resonance. It wasn't strong, but it was unmistakable.
"Lieutenant," Aiko said, her voice low and urgent, stopping him as he reached for the car door. "Here. Something's⦠off."
DaSilva froze, his hand hovering over the door handle. He studied her face, his own expression tightening. He didn't question her. He simply nodded, his eyes hardening. "Alright. Take point. Stay sharp."
They climbed out of the car and Aiko frowned as DaSilva stood idly next to her. "Do you not have a shotgun or something in the boot that you want to grab first?"
DaSilva met her gaze, his expression grimly matter-of-fact. "If there really is a Rift-Spawn in there, Miss Specialist, a gun would do me little good against it." He tapped the pistol in his holster. "Their skin is too tough for bullets to punch through. This is about as useful as shouting at it. Might just piss it off more." He gestured for her to lead. "After you."
Aiko led him up to the third floor. The discordant hum grew stronger as a faint smell slowly began to accompany it. Aiko walked up to the door where the pull felt strongest, DaSilva standing a ways back with his hand resting near his holster, his body tense.
Aiko knocked. Three firm raps.
And the door exploded outwards.
Shattered, splinters of wood flew like shrapnel towards her as three bladelike horns shot forwards towards her. The monster shrieked at her and lunged straight for Aiko, its horns aimed directly at her chest.
Instinct took over. Aiko didn't think. She pushed. A shimmering, violet barrier materialized and slammed into the creature, deflecting its horns and shoving it back into the room with the broken pieces of the door.
Aiko kept pushing as she stepped through the ruined doorway, DaSilva stood outside, peering in with his pistol drawn, but held low.
The small apartment was a mess. Furniture was overturned or shredded. Garbage and debris were strewn everywhere. And in the center of the living room, lying on top of a broken coffee table, was a body. A half-eaten, bloody, and disfigured body.
Rage, cold and pure, surged through Aiko. She looked with disgust at the monster in front of her, and with one swift motion, she crushed it between two barriers, killing it instantly with a deafening crunch.
Blood splattered outwards from the gaps between the two barriers, but she didn't care. She kept pressing them together until she was sure the creature was dead. The noise its body made as it was turned to paste was horrific, and when she released the barrier,s the Rift-Spawn fell to the floor in an unrecognizable heap of twisted limbs and dark ichor. Utterly still.
Silence descended, broken only by Aiko's ragged breathing and DaSilva's sharp intake of breath. He slowly holstered his pistol and stepped into the room. Giving it a quick glance over before calling it in.
"Dispatch, DaSilva. Confirmed Rift-Spawn at 245 Sycamore, Apartment 3G. One civilian fatality. One deceased Rift-Spawn. Requesting backup and a Coroner."
They waited outside the shattered doorway in grim silence as the afternoon descended into night. Another officer soon arrived. DaSilva briefed the arriving officer tersely before handing over the scene. He got a brief statement from the terrified neighbor who had made the initial call, assuring the pale, shaking man that the threat had been dealt with.
When he finally walked back to where Aiko stood leaning against the cruiser, away from the flashing lights of other officers who had arrived on the scene and the growing crowd of onlookers held back by police tape, his shoulders seemed heavier. The lines on his face having grown deeper.
Aiko watched the activity, at the body bag being wheeled out. The casual horror of it seemingly lingering on her mind. "How?" she asked, her voice low and rough. "How does this happen? How does something like that get inside a building with no one noticing? To do something like this?"
DaSilva lit a cigarette, the flare of the match illuminating his weary face. He took a long drag, exhaling smoke into the cool night air. "Wish I knew," he said, his voice flat. "Every damn day, I wish I knew. Breaches happen. Small rifts open and close like bad dreams. Sometimes things slip through the cracks. The Luminaries catch the whales. Whilst the minnowsâ¦" He gestured towards the apartment building. "...they drown people like him." He nodded towards the coroner's van.
They got back into the cruiser. The silence this time was thick and suffocating. DaSilva waited a while, content to let the engine idle as he finished his cigarette.
After a long moment, Aiko spoke, staring straight ahead through the windshield. "What would have happened if you had gone in there alone? Without me."
DaSilva didn't look at her. He took another drag of his cigarette, the ember glowing brightly in the dimness. "I'd be in a bag next to him," he stated coldly. As if he'd thought about that exact scenario many times before.
He smothered his finished cigarette into the lidded ashtray in his car before glancing over at her. "You need to stop for tonight? Call it here?"
Aiko looked down at her hands, clenched in her lap. "No," she said, her voice firmer than she felt. "No. Let's keep going. I want to help get through as many of these as I can."
The rest of the patrol was a numb blur. A couple more uneventful calls like the first two. Each time, Aiko scanned the area and felt nothing, but still couldn't shake the feeling of being on high alert.
DaSilva handled the callers with weary patience. The weary look on his face seemingly grew wearier as the night wore on.
Finally, as the city lights fully claimed the night, DaSilva drove back to the corner where he'd picked her up. He put the cruiser in park but left the engine running. He reached into the glove compartment and pulled out a plain white envelope, thick with cash.
Aiko's hand instinctively jerked away from it. "No. I don't want that."
DaSilva pushed it insistently towards her. "Take it. Seriously." His tone brooked no argument. "It's off the books, but we set aside a bit of the budget every month for this. Plus, the big man is going to be expecting his cut, and I don't want you paying out of pocket for it."
Reluctantly, feeling a new layer of grime settling on her soul, Aiko took the envelope. It felt heavy, tainted as she tucked it quickly into her jacket pocket, wanting it out of sight.
She climbed out of the cruiser, but lingered near the driver's side window, her face conflicted as a question hovered on her lips. DaSilva watched her, his expression unreadable in the dashboard lights.
"How do you all do this?" she asked, her voice barely above a whisper. "Risk your lives going after monsters knowing full well you have no chance of fighting back?"
DaSilva sighed, a long, weary exhalation. He looked out his window at the quiet, battered street. "As far as I know. Most of the time when we get a call like that, we ignore it."
He pulled away from the curb, the cruiser's taillights disappearing around the corner, leaving Aiko alone on the dark street, standing under the flickering lights in the indifferent darkness of the city.