The war room buried beneath Elora buzzed with the quiet hum of holographic projectors, the air sharp with that metallic smell you get from too much electronics. It was nothing like the wild mountain winds outside—down here, everything was locked down, sterile, all business.
Ghostly holo-maps flickered in the half-light, showing the jagged peaks, sprawling forests, endless blue seas, and that ugly rust-colored cancer spreading across what used to be their world—Omniraith territory. This was command central, where the Ashari brass tried to keep their scattered alliances from falling apart.
Micah stood with Lio Venn and Kaelin Vorr, facing Dr. Eland Voss and Captain Nyra Tal across the projection table. Voss had that unflappable engineer thing going—the kind of guy who could stay cool while the world burned around him, totally absorbed in his data streams.
Tal was his complete opposite, all sharp edges and no-nonsense attitude. She'd cut straight to the point and ask questions later. Between them, they pretty much summed up how the Ashari dealt with everything—practical, efficient, and always ready for the worst.
"There's an outpost on the edge of the Fractured Belt," Voss said, his voice never wavering. Part of the holo-map lit up, showing a wasteland that looked like something had chewed it up and spat it out—right on the border of what used to be theirs. "We called it Sector Gamma-Prime. Used to be where we tested our pulse-drone prototypes, but it went silent six cycles back."
Tal moved closer, her eyes scanning the three of them like she was sizing them up. "We know the Omniraith are crawling all over that area now. They're picking through the old facilities, grabbing anything they can use. Word is, Gamma-Prime still has a stash of prototype tech that's worth something.
If those bastards get their hands on it..." She let that hang there. Everyone knew what it meant—the Ashari were already stretched thin as it was.
"So here's the deal," Voss picked up where she left off. "Get in there, grab whatever tech is left, and get out before they can strip it bare."
Micah felt that familiar knot forming in his stomach. These new Omniraith patrol patterns were bad news. The enemy kept evolving, kept getting smarter, just like the Ashari were trying to do. But this mission felt like walking into someone else's trap.
Every instinct he'd developed as a scout was telling him to slow down, be careful—but part of him wanted to just charge in and get it over with. The last thing he wanted was to end up cold and calculating like the enemy.
"Recent scans show a lot more drone activity around the Belt's perimeter," Micah said, keeping his voice level. The Ashari didn't waste words—you said what needed saying, nothing more. "Going in there, we're probably going to get spotted."
Lio was already bent over his handheld scanner, fingers flying across the interface. When things got tense, he always dove into the tech—it was his safe space, where everything made sense and followed rules. "I'm tweaking the spectral filters right now," he muttered, talking faster than most Ashari would. The guy was brilliant with anything electronic, but sometimes his nerves made him take stupid risks.
Kaelin was checking his pulse drones and gripping his rifle like he was ready to kick down doors. His whole body screamed impatience—he'd had enough of sitting around in the city talking about problems. He wanted to get out there and do something about them.
"Got it, Scout Satya," Tal said, using Micah's rank like he always did. "We've run the numbers on this. The tech we're after? Our engineers are desperate for it.
You'll move out at dusk. Dr. Voss's people upgraded your cloaking gear, but don't get cocky—the battery won't last forever. Make every second count."
"Copy that, Captain," Micah said.
Voss leaned forward. "Here's what matters: get in, grab the cache, get out. Don't pick fights unless you have to. Keep it clean, keep it fast, and bring everyone home in one piece."
Lio spoke up quietly, "We endure because we improve." The old Ashari saying rolled off his tongue naturally—he really believed their tech was what kept them alive out here.
Kaelin gave a sharp nod. "And steel that waits cuts deepest." He wasn't exactly the patient type, but even he could see the sense in playing this smart.
That was it—briefing over. The Ashari didn't waste time on speeches or pep talks. Everything was cold calculation and barely controlled urgency. They all knew the score: they needed that tech, and they needed it before the enemy got their hands on it.
Hours passed. Dusk crept over the mountain peaks, painting everything in deep grays and purples, and the three of them slipped out through one of Elora's hidden exits. The air hit them like a slap—not just the bitter mountain cold, but something else. That faint, burning smell drifting in from the corrupted lands.
They picked their way along the narrow pass that marked the edge of Ashari territory, heading into the wasteland everyone called the Fractured Belt. No-Man's Land. A torn-up stretch of nothing where the Omniraith had twisted everything into something unrecognizable.
The landscape shifted around them as they walked. Sharp ice gave way to fields of black glass that crunched and splintered under their mag-boots. Cliffs shot through with iron veins, chunks of warped metal, bones of old battles—all of it scattered across the broken ground like some kind of nightmare graveyard.
The cloaking enhancers hummed quietly around them, creating that familiar shimmer in the air. It wouldn't last long, but right now it was the only thing standing between them and the Omniraith's eyes in the sky—those damn drones were everywhere.
Micah took point, his scanner sweeping back and forth as they moved. Every shadow looked wrong to him, every flicker of movement set his nerves on edge. He couldn't shake the feeling that he was becoming too much like the things they were fighting. The thought gnawed at him, mixing with old wounds that never quite healed.
Behind him, Lio worked his pulse-drone scouts, quietly mapping their path and hunting for energy readings. The kid was unusually quiet—none of his usual nervous chatter. This was his first real mission outside Ashari lands, and Micah could feel the weight of it pressing down on all of them.
Kaelin brought up the rear, rifle ready, eyes constantly scanning the sky. Out here in contested territory, you never knew when a drone might drop out of the clouds. The wind carried a different sound than back in the mountains—not the wild howl they were used to, but something lower, more unsettling. Like machinery grinding itself to death.
They were picking their way across a field of black glass when Lio suddenly went still. "Hold up," he whispered, staring at his scanner. Something was pinging. "I'm getting a faint signature... but it's not on the path."
Both Micah and Kaelin froze. "Omniraith?"
"Nah." Lio shook his head, frowning at the display. "Pattern's all wrong. This is... organic? But there's some kind of encoding." He tweaked the settings, zooming in closer. A soft green pulse appeared on his screen—nothing like the harsh reds and grays they'd been seeing all day. "It's Thornkin work. Some kind of breadcrumb trail, looks like. Meant to help friendlies navigate through all this jamming."
A wave of relief washed over Micah. The Thornkin were still watching their backs. That fragile alliance they'd hammered out back in the glade was holding together.
This wasn't just Ashari tech anymore—it was something bigger, something that combined all their strengths. The seeds tucked close to their chests pulsed with barely-there warmth, like tiny heartbeats.
They shifted course, following the magical trail woven into the chaos around them. As they got closer to the forest's corrupted edge, the air actually felt a bit warmer. Underneath all that metallic stench, there was something else—damp earth, real earth.
That's when they saw it rising out of the darkness ahead. The lab complex looked like it had been half-swallowed by the ground, its walls twisted and blackened into something that barely looked like architecture anymore.
More like a metal skeleton trying to claw its way back to the surface. Those cold, angular Omniraith symbols covered the spires jutting up into the night—a monument to everything they could destroy.
"Gamma-Prime," Micah confirmed, double-checking his map. "That's our target."
They rappelled down the collapsed tower, metal groaning and protesting under their weight, then forced their way through a scorched airlock. If the outside looked bad, the interior was a nightmare.
Workstations lay overturned and scattered like broken toys, while shattered data crystals caught what little light remained, winking up from the floor like fallen stars. In one corner, a holo-projector stuttered through its death throes, endlessly looping some silent outpost alert that no one would ever answer.
The quiet here felt different from the mountain or forest—this was the silence of the grave, broken only by debris crunching under their boots.
Kaelin crouched beside a blackened metal panel, running his fingers over scorch marks that decorated the console like war paint. "Human-made," he said, voice rough. "They didn't go down easy." You could almost feel it hanging in the air—those final, desperate moments when the outpost made its last stand. The Omniraith weren't just conquerors. They were erasers.
The familiar ache settled in Micah's chest, memories of other fallen Ashari strongholds threatening to surface. He pushed them down hard. Control your emotions, filter through reason—the Ashari way. Had to be.
Lio was already moving, weaving through the wreckage of what used to be laboratories with the kind of fluid grace that came from too much practice navigating disaster zones. His target: the central vault. Somewhere in this mess of twisted metal and broken dreams. His hands flew over a half-melted interface panel, coaxing whatever data he could from its dying circuits.
Time crawled. Finally, they stood before the central vault chamber and its guardian—a massive gravity-lock hatch that looked like it could stop a meteor. Built to withstand just about anything, though hopefully not Lio's particular brand of electronic persuasion.
Out came Lio's kit—a chaotic tangle of wires and glowing gadgets that looked like electronic spaghetti. "Going old school," he muttered, already lost in his work. "Takes longer, but it's bulletproof." His brow creased as he fell into that focused trance that made him forget the world existed.
The wait stretched like taffy. Nothing but the ghost-quiet of the dead outpost, punctuated by the soft clicks of Lio's tools and their own careful breathing.
Then—success. Metal groaned, complained, but finally gave way. The hatch cracked open like a massive eye, revealing treasure within. Crates stacked with military precision despite the chaos everywhere else, each one stamped "Pulse-Drone Mk II." And there, sitting pretty beside them, a smaller reinforced container that screamed prototype.
"Jackpot," Lio breathed, and for the first time in hours, genuine excitement flickered in his voice. This was his element—cutting-edge tech with the power to tip scales and save lives.
Micah pushed ahead to grab the crates. The moment he reached for the first one, the device in his hand buzzed like crazy. His scanners were going nuts—multiple energy signatures closing in fast.
"Omniraith," he hissed.
Kaelin didn't need the play-by-play. Years of military training kicked in, and he was already clutching his rifle. "Ambush!"
They dove for cover as mechanical sounds started echoing through the dead outpost—that awful, grinding noise the Omniraith made when they were coming for you. Kaelin's pulse drones shot out from his pack, scrambling to jam the enemy sensors. It might buy them a few seconds, but that was about it.
They were screwed.
"We're out of here!" Micah shouted. Forget the rest of the stuff—they had the prototype, and that's all that mattered now.
They burst back through the burnt airlock and straight into the cold glare of Omniraith searchlights sweeping the black plains. The air itself seemed to shake with the rumble of juggernaut drones—those massive, nasty things built to crush anything in their path.
"Extraction point!" Lio yelled, pointing toward the jagged cliffs where the forest started. Their Thornkin contact had marked it earlier—an Ironroot grove where metal and nature somehow lived together. Maybe they could lose themselves in there.
They ran like hell across the broken landscape, black glass grinding under their boots while the drones came after them. Micah hit his acceleration boots, energy bursts shooting him forward and putting some distance between him and those metal death machines. Kaelin kept spinning around to fire his pulse rifle, the energy bolts bouncing off their armor but slowing them down just enough.
Lio held onto that prototype container like his life depended on it—which it probably did. The Thornkin seed tucked near his heart gave off this faint pulse, reminding him of the alliance they'd just made. Pretty crazy timing, considering they were about to get torn apart.
As they reached the edge of the Ironroot Grove, something shifted. The cold, metallic air of the Fractured Belt started mixing with something warmer—the smell of actual growing things. A soft green light flickered through the trees, nothing like those harsh searchlights. This was alive.
Thornkin watchers stepped out from behind the Ironroots, their shapes barely visible against the gentle glow of the forest. These guys had been waiting, ready to guide them into whatever safety the trees could offer.
They plunged into the shadows just as a new sound rolled across the plains—a deep Omniraith siren that made their blood run cold. This wasn't just a chase alarm. This was something bigger, something that meant the machines were done playing around.
They'd gotten the tech and made it out in one piece. Their little team had held together when it counted. But that siren kept echoing out there, and they all knew the same thing: escaping these broken plains was just the start. The real fight was still coming.
The seeds tucked away in their gear pulsed softly in the darkness—a tiny bit of hope against everything trying to kill them.