The ocean screamed.
Not in sound—water had no voice that deep—but in motion. Currents twisted where they shouldn't, defying the natural flow patterns that had persisted for millennia. Pressure spiked, then dropped, then spiked again in irregular pulses that made no physical sense. Instruments across the Riftguard carrier flared red as the sea itself seemed to recoil from something rising beneath it, as if the water recognized a threat and was trying to retreat.
Gene felt it before the alarms.
A pull in his chest. A wrongness in the resonance link that set his teeth on edge and made his skin crawl. It wasn't pain exactly—more like the sensation of standing too close to a cliff edge, that primal warning that something fundamental was off.
Cross Zero stirred, not gently this time.
It is awake.
The words resonated through Gene's neural link with an urgency he'd never felt from the Frame before. His hands tightened on the controls, knuckles going white.
"Command," Gene said, voice tight, forcing himself to speak clearly despite the growing pressure in his skull, "the trench is destabilizing. That anchor we saw—it's moving."
He didn't need to explain further. The data Jasmine had transmitted was already flooding Riftguard Command: warped geometry, adaptive scans, the sleeping mass at the core of the trench. Numbers and readings that shouldn't exist, patterns that violated basic physics.
Sleeping no longer.
Dean Knicko Pineda's voice cut through the comms, sharp and controlled. "All units, scramble. Provisional Riftguards to combat readiness. This is not a drill."
The carrier's deck erupted into motion.
Frames disengaged from magnetic locks with metallic clangs that echoed through the hangar, reactors flaring to life like beating hearts. The air filled with the low thunder of resonance cores spinning up—Mana harmonics creating visible distortions in the air, Abyssal undertones that made Gene's stomach twist, Astral shimmer bleeding into visible light that painted the walls in impossible colors. The temperature in the bay climbed ten degrees in seconds as massive engines converted resonance into raw power.
Gene watched technicians scatter, their faces pale but professional. They'd drilled for this. But drills didn't capture the weight of it—the knowledge that something vast and alien was rising from the deep, and they were the only ones standing between it and the surface.
Jade Ronquillo stood in the bay beneath Revenant, his hood already up, eyes flicking across cascading data streams that only he could see through his neural interface. His fingers moved in small, precise gestures, manipulating information that existed in spaces between reality and data.
"System integrity across the trench is collapsing," he muttered, more to himself than anyone else. "That thing down there isn't just an anchor. It's a processor."
Allen Maniego cracked his neck beside Helion Vanguard, the heavy Terran-Class Frame looming like a walking fortress. The Frame's bulk made the other units look almost delicate by comparison—all reinforced plating and heavy weapon mounts. Allen's grin was visible through his cockpit canopy, that familiar expression that said he was ready for whatever came next.
"So it thinks," he said.
Jade shot him a look, the kind of glance that suggested Allen was missing the point entirely. "It learns."
Allen's grin shifted, becoming something harder, more focused. "Then we teach it pain."
Across the bay, Tempest Wing flared its translucent fins as Jasmine locked in, her posture relaxed but her eyes blazing with intensity. She ran through her pre-combat checklist with practiced efficiency, fingers dancing across controls. She caught Gene's gaze across the deck and gave him a quick nod—no fear visible, just readiness. Just that unshakeable confidence that had always defined her.
Gene swallowed hard, trying to push down the knot forming in his chest.
Cross Zero's core pulsed brighter than usual, multi-colored light refracting across the hangar walls in patterns that seemed almost alive. Engineers stepped back instinctively, their professional composure cracking as they retreated from the Frame. Even among Resonant Frames, Cross Zero didn't feel like a machine.
It felt like a presence. Like something watching. Waiting.
"Gene," Mateo Reyes said over a private channel, his voice calm but weighted with the kind of authority that came from too many battles. "You're on point with Jasmine. Jade will provide digital countermeasures. Allen anchors the line."
Mateo's Aegis Halo hovered above the deck, radiant wings folding slightly as if in thought. The Frame moved with an almost meditative grace, each adjustment precise and deliberate.
"We don't know what this thing is capable of," Mateo continued. "Assume adaptation. Assume it will counter whatever we throw at it."
Gene nodded, though Mateo couldn't see it through the closed cockpit. "Understood."
The words felt inadequate. Everything felt inadequate right now.
The carrier shuddered.
The vibration ran through the entire vessel, deep and bone-rattling. Coffee cups toppled in the mess hall three decks down. Loose equipment clattered. Somewhere, an alarm started wailing.
Below them, the ocean surface bulged outward.
Gene watched through Cross Zero's external feeds as the water rose like a blister, pushed up from beneath by something massive. The sea itself seemed to be straining, trying to contain whatever was forcing its way up.
Then it broke.
A column of black water erupted skyward as something vast forced its way up from the depths. The spray reached higher than the carrier's bridge, droplets catching the light and falling like dark rain. Sensors overloaded instantly, scrambling to classify mass, energy, structure—and failing on all counts. The readings made no sense, numbers flickering between impossible extremes.
The sea parted.
And the Devourer Core emerged.
It was enormous—longer than the carrier itself, its body a fusion of organic mass and articulated armor plating that shouldn't exist together. The boundary between flesh and metal was blurred, indistinct, as if the creature existed in some state between biology and machine. Segmented limbs unfolded along its sides, each joint threaded with glowing conduits that pulsed in erratic rhythms. Bone-like structures interlocked with metallic ribs in configurations that hurt to look at directly. Cables—or veins, Gene couldn't tell which—trailed behind it, dragging seawater into spiraling vortices that defied normal fluid dynamics.
At its center burned a core.
Not a reactor.
A heart.
Purple-black light throbbed within a crystalline cavity, each pulse sending shockwaves through the surrounding water and air. Gene felt each beat in his chest, as if his own heartbeat was trying to synchronize with it. The resonance signature was overwhelming—Mana and Abyss twisted together in ways that shouldn't be possible, threaded with Nether echoes like distant voices screaming through static. His instruments tried to analyze it and gave up, defaulting to error messages.
"Visual confirmed," Dean said, the edge gone from his voice now, replaced by cold focus. The kind of tone that meant there was no room for panic, no space for anything except the mission. "All units, engage. Protect the carrier."
The Devourer Core lifted its head—or what passed for one.
And roared.
The sound slammed into the Frames like a physical force, a wave of pressure and noise that made Gene's teeth ache. His HUD flickered, displays washing out for a moment as Cross Zero compensated, stabilizing his neural link before his vision could blur. The Frame's systems worked overtime to filter the sensory overload, to keep Gene functional despite the assault on his senses.
It consumes, the Frame whispered, the words carrying a weight Gene hadn't heard before. Not matter. Pattern.
"Move!" Jasmine shouted, her voice cutting through the chaos.
Tempest Wing streaked forward in a blur of dark blue and violet, Astral energy flaring like wings of light as she cut across the leviathan's flank. Her movements were fluid, instinctive—the product of countless hours in the simulator and real combat both. Her cannons fired, compressed resonance lances slamming into the creature's armor with enough force to vaporize a building.
The impact rippled across the surface—then… changed.
The plating shifted, reconfiguring mid-strike. Gene watched in horrified fascination as the armor literally rewrote itself, adapting in real-time. The energy dispersed, absorbed, redirected harmlessly into the sea in cascading waves of dissipating light.
Jasmine swore, the frustration clear in her voice. "It adapted already!"
Allen charged next, not waiting for a new strategy.
Helion Vanguard hit the water like a meteor, heavy thrusters roaring as Allen brought the Frame's cannons to bear. The Frame's weight displaced tons of seawater, creating a wave that rolled outward. Amber-highlighted barrels glowed white-hot, unleashing a sustained barrage of kinetic and Mana-infused rounds. The sound was deafening, a continuous roar of ordnance that lit up the battlefield.
This time, the Devourer reacted differently.
It didn't harden.
It opened.
Armor plates peeled back like petals, revealing layers of organic tissue underneath that writhed and pulsed. The tissue swallowed the incoming fire, rounds disappearing into the mass like stones into mud. The detonations were muffled, energy signatures collapsing inward rather than exploding outward. It was like watching something fall into a black hole—the destruction simply vanished.
"Uh," Allen said, his usual confidence faltering, "it's eating my bullets."
Jade's voice cut in, fast and sharp with the rapid-fire analysis of someone processing data faster than normal thought. "Not eating. Integrating. It's converting impact data into structural optimization. Every hit makes it stronger against that type of attack."
"Can you stop it?" Mateo demanded.
Jade's fingers flew across invisible interfaces inside Revenant's cockpit, his Frame's systems diving into spaces that existed between code and reality. "Working on it. Its systems aren't digital—but they're patterned. Like a living algorithm. Like code written in flesh."
Gene hovered back, Cross Zero's core flaring brighter as he studied the creature. His pilot instincts screamed at him to engage, to help his team, but something held him back. Some instinct that said rushing in would be a mistake.
He felt it then.
A resonance thread tugging at him. Not hostile. Not aggressive.
Curious.
The sensation made his skin crawl. It felt like being examined, studied, the way a scientist might look at an interesting specimen. The Devourer Core's central eye—if it could be called that—shifted toward him, a crystalline structure that refracted light in impossible ways.
Cross Zero vibrated violently, the Frame's entire structure shuddering.
It recognizes us, the Frame said, and Gene could swear he heard something like concern in those words. We are… similar.
Gene's breath caught in his throat. His heart hammered against his ribs. "Mateo. It's locking onto me."
"Understood," Mateo replied instantly, no hesitation in his voice. "Gene, do not let it synchronize fully. Break contact if you have to."
Too late.
A pulse surged outward from the Devourer Core, slamming into Cross Zero's shields with enough force to rock the Frame backward. Gene cried out as data flooded his neural link—alien structures pouring into his mind, recursive loops that tried to fold his thoughts back on themselves, hunger coded into geometry that made his brain hurt trying to process it. It was like someone was trying to rewrite him, to break down what he was and reassemble him into something else.
The creature wasn't just a beast.
It was a processor grown around a Rift.
A Devourer, built to consume and repurpose resonance itself. Not just matter or energy—but the fundamental patterns that defined reality.
Jasmine broke formation without hesitation.
Tempest Wing slammed into the space between Gene and the leviathan, Astral energy flaring like a blade of light. She positioned herself as a shield, her Frame taking the brunt of the creature's attention.
"Back off!" she yelled, unleashing a close-range burst that tore chunks from the creature's exposed tissue. The attack was visceral, brutal—not elegant, but effective.
The Devourer recoiled—then lashed out.
A massive limb snapped forward, moving faster than something that size should be able to move. It caught Tempest Wing mid-evade, the impact audible even through the vacuum of the cockpit. Jasmine grunted as her Frame spun, warning lights flashing across her HUD like a Christmas tree gone mad.
"Jasmine!" Dean barked over the command channel.
"I'm fine!" she snapped back, forcing Tempest Wing upright through sheer will and skill. Her Frame's systems complained, but held. "But it hits harder than it looks."
Allen interposed himself without being asked, Helion Vanguard taking the next blow head-on. The impact drove him backward, his Frame's boots carving trenches through the water's surface as he fought for traction. Water exploded outward in a shockwave that rocked nearby vessels.
"Okay," Allen growled, stabilizing through a combination of thruster work and raw determination. "Now it's personal."
Mateo raised his hand with deliberate calm.
Aegis Halo's wings unfurled fully, radiant energy gathering into a focused halo behind the Frame. The air hummed, pressure dropping as resonance aligned into a coherent pattern. Gene could feel it even from here—the sheer amount of power Mateo was channeling.
"Jade," Mateo said calmly, as if he were discussing the weather, "mark the core."
"On it."
Revenant's skeletal frame glowed faintly as Jade forced his way into the Devourer's pattern-space, overlaying targeting data onto its shifting anatomy. It was like trying to tag a target that kept redefining what it was made of.
"There," Jade said after a moment that felt far too long. "The heart-core. That's where it's processing adaptation cycles. That's the brain."
Mateo nodded, though no one could see it. "All units—concentrated strike. Gene, you're with me."
Gene hesitated, his hands hovering over the controls. "If it syncs again—"
"I know," Mateo replied softly, and there was something in his voice that suggested he understood more than he was saying. "But you're the only one who can keep up with it. The only one whose resonance can match its frequency."
Cross Zero surged forward before Gene could argue, the Frame making the decision for him.
The Devourer sensed the charge.
Its body twisted, armor reconfiguring in real-time, tendrils lashing outward to intercept. Each movement was calculated, precise—this wasn't mindless aggression. It was strategy. Tempest Wing danced between the appendages, slicing through them with razor-sharp Astral arcs, clearing a path. Severed pieces fell into the water, still writhing.
Allen followed, Helion Vanguard hammering the creature's flank with everything it had, forcing the Devourer to divide its attention between threats. Each impact created waves, threw up spray, turned the battlefield into chaos.
Mateo and Gene broke through.
Aegis Halo's radiant beam fired, a lance of pure Mana-Astral convergence striking the Devourer's core. The impact staggered it, resonance patterns destabilizing for a brief, precious second. The creature's scream was felt rather than heard, a vibration in the bones.
"Now!" Mateo shouted.
Gene didn't think.
He opened Cross Zero's output, pushing past the safety limiters, past the recommended thresholds. All-spectrum resonance flooded the link—Mana, Abyss, Nether, Astral, and the faint, impossible fifth thread humming beneath it all. Cross Zero's crystalline core blazed, fractal light tearing through the water as Gene aimed directly at the Devourer's heart. The Frame's systems screamed warnings that he ignored.
The creature screamed.
Not in pain.
In recognition.
The two resonances collided, patterns clashing violently. Gene felt himself pulled toward the Devourer's core, its hunger pressing against his mind like a physical thing, trying to understand him—to break him down and rebuild him as part of itself. He could feel it cataloging him, analyzing every aspect of his existence, trying to figure out what he was made of so it could make more of him.
No, Cross Zero whispered, and the Frame's presence wrapped around Gene's mind like a shield. We are not consumed.
Gene screamed and pushed back.
The beam struck true.
The Devourer's core cracked, purple-black light spilling outward as its processing loop shattered. The leviathan convulsed, its massive body thrashing as resonance feedback tore through its systems. It was dying, but not quietly—every movement threatened to capsize smaller vessels, to drag Frames down with it.
"Pull back!" Dean ordered, his voice cutting through the chaos. "Now!"
The creature collapsed inward, water rushing to fill the void as its form destabilized. It sank, collapsing back toward the trench in a spiraling descent that pulled debris and displaced water down with it. The suction was enormous, briefly threatening to drag everything after it.
Silence followed.
Not peace.
Just absence.
The ocean settled slowly, waves rolling where moments before chaos had reigned. The sudden quiet was almost worse than the noise—it felt wrong, temporary, like the eye of a hurricane.
Gene hovered, breathing hard, his lungs burning as if he'd been running. Cross Zero dimmed as systems cooled, the Frame's core pulsing more slowly now. His hands shook on the controls. Adrenaline crash, he told himself. Just the aftermath.
Jasmine pulled up beside him, her Frame scarred but standing. One of Tempest Wing's fins was cracked, and there were scores across the armor, but she was intact. "You good?"
Gene nodded weakly, not trusting his voice for a moment. "Yeah. I think… it let us go. At the end, it could have held on. But it didn't."
Mateo joined them, Aegis Halo's wings folding once more. His gaze lingered on the dark water below, and Gene wondered what the older pilot was seeing that he wasn't.
"That wasn't a victory," Mateo said quietly.
Jade's voice crackled over comms, breaking the moment. "Confirmed. Residual patterns remain active in the trench. The Devourer was just one node. A single processing unit in a larger network."
Allen snorted, though it lacked his usual humor. "You're saying there's more of those things?"
"Yes," Jade replied, and Gene could hear him still typing, still analyzing. "And now they know how we fight. They have our data. Our patterns. Everything we just did was recorded and analyzed."
Gene felt ice settle in his stomach.
Far below, in the depths of the Rift Trench, fractured patterns began to reassemble.
The Devourer Core was damaged.
But the system it belonged to had only just begun to learn.
And New Earth had been noticed.