Time: 02 // 00 Fade (Deep Night in the South) Location: The Ramide Frozen Caverns / The Inner Sanctum

The cavern was silent, save for the crackling of a smokeless thermal fire Emerjn had started. The ice walls reflected the orange glow, creating a kaleidoscope of warm light in the frozen dark.

Valode Medu lay on a bed of furs in the center of the room. They hadn't moved since collapsing outside. Their breathing was shallow, rhythmic—too rhythmic.

Gwen sat beside them, stripping down her rifle for cleaning. Across the fire, Wren sat with her knees pulled to her chest. She wasn't looking at the fire; she was looking at the entrance of the cave, her body tense, ready to fight. Since the incident in the library, she refused to use her light. She gripped a jagged shard of ice in her hand like a dagger.

"It's been too long," Gwen muttered, checking her chrono. "The suppression meds usually wear off in four pulses. It’s been six."

"It is not withdrawal," Emerjn said, walking over with a bowl of warm broth. His blind eyes were fixed on the air above Val. "The meds were a dam. The dam broke. Now the water is finding a new path."

"What path?" Saje asked, leaning against a stalagmite. "Usually, Val has a melody... right now, it's just silence."

"Not silence," Wren whispered, her voice tight with fear. She pointed a trembling finger at the floor. "Absence."

Around the room, shadows stretched away from the light. But around Val’s bed, the shadows were pulling in. The darkness pooled under Val’s skin.

Location: The Inbetween (Val’s Mindspace)

Val stood in a room made of grey mist and endless water.

"Relax your grip, Little Thread," a voice spoke.

Standing across from Val was Aeliana, the Water Elder.

"I'm scared," Val admitted. "If I let go, I might fall."

"You cannot fall when you are the floor," Aeliana smiled. "Let me show you the weave. You watch. I will drive."

Val hesitated, then stepped back mentally.

Location: The Physical World

Val sat up.

It was a fluid, unnatural movement. Val’s eyes opened. There were no whites. Just pools of absolute, swirling Void.

"Curious," Val’s voice spoke, layered with Aeliana’s ancient resonance. "The air here is thin."

"Val?" Gwen reached for her sibling.

Val raised a hand. The Harmonic Key floated out of their pocket, pulsing violet.

"Water..." Val whispered. Moisture condensed in their left hand. "Spirit..." A white mist gathered in their right. "Collapse."

Val slammed their hands together.

SNAP.

A shockwave of silence hit the room. In Val’s hands, a sphere of pure Blackness formed. A black sun.

"Void?" Romar gasped, shielding his eyes.

"Gravity," Val/Aeliana corrected. "The weight of the soul."

In the Mindspace, Val panicked. "It's too heavy! Aeliana, stop! It's crushing them!"

Val lunged for the mental wheel. The connection fractured.

SNAP.

In the cave, Val’s eyes flashed back to brown. The control broke.

"I can't hold it!" Val screamed, their own voice full of terror. The Void sphere didn't vanish—it began to vibrate, sucking the oxygen out of the room. The thermal fire died instantly. Frost raced across the floor, coating Romar's boots.

"Ground them!" Emerjn barked, his blind eyes wide with sensed danger.

Saje scrambled forward, slamming his hands on the ice. He tried to hum a grounding tune, but the Void ate the sound before it could leave his throat. The sonic backlash threw him backward against the cavern wall.

"I can't stop it!" Val cried, their skin turning grey as the sphere fed on their life force. "Wren! Help me!"

Wren scrambled backward, pressing herself against the cold stone, clutching her jagged ice dagger. "No! I can't!"

"Wren, please! Use the Light! Balance it!"

"I'll burn it!" Wren sobbed, shaking her head violently. "If I open the gate, I'll destroy everything! I'm a bomb, Val!"

"You are not a bomb," Aeliana’s ancient voice punched through Val’s lips, harsh and commanding. "You are clay waiting to be fired."

Val looked at Wren, their eyes flickering between human brown and abyssal black. "Wren, listen to me! You have to take it! You have to rewrite it!"

"I can't control it!" Wren screamed, tears steaming on her feverishly hot cheeks.

"Then I will control it for you!" Aeliana shouted through Val. "Take the darkness, child! Let it define your edges!"

The Void sphere expanded. Val’s breath hitched. They were seconds away from implosion.

Wren looked at Val, dying. She looked at Gwen and Romar, freezing. The terror in her own heart was unbearable, a roaring fire threatening to consume her.

With a scream of pure desperation, Wren dropped the ice dagger. She didn't walk; she flashed across the room in a streak of blinding white.

She grabbed the Void sphere from Val’s hands.

CONTACT.

The black sun didn't disappear. It rushed into Wren.

Wren arched her back, a silent scream tearing from her throat. Her body became a warzone. Blinding white plasma erupted from her pores, warring with the absolute blackness swirling beneath her translucent skin. She was strobing, vibrating so fast she started to blur.

"Stabilize," Aeliana commanded in the Mindspace.

Val reached out with a trembling hand and placed their fingers on Wren’s temples.

In the Mindspace, Aeliana showed Val the weave. "The light is too volatile because her spirit is too frightened. To hold the Void and the Light together, we must use the light not to burn, but to build. We must change the vessel."

"Change her?" Val thought, horrified. "Into what?"

"Into something that can endure," Aeliana replied coldly. "Seal the fear. Rewrite the form."

Val hesitated. It felt like a violation. But Wren was tearing apart in front of them.

"Do it," Val whispered.

Val’s fingers glowed with a dull, grey light—the pressure of the deep ocean. They pressed the seal into Wren’s mind.

Wren didn't stop screaming. The sound just stopped coming out.

The blinding white light radiating from her body didn't vanish. Instead, it turned inward. It wrapped around her like a shimmering heat haze in a desert, blurring her outline. The light bent and twisted, rewriting her physical structure on a molecular level, using the plasma as a forge and the void as a hammer.

For a terrifying moment, she looked like a mirage, a wavering image of a girl that wasn't quite real.

Then, the light snapped off.

Wren collapsed to her knees on the ice. Steam curled off her body.

The room was dead silent.

Romar stepped forward, then stopped, his jaw dropping. "Wren?"

The girl kneeling on the ice was not the girl who had entered the cave.

The blinding, translucent paleness that let her veins show through like cracks in porcelain was gone. Her skin was now a soft, light brown—like sand after the tide had gone out, sun-kissed and opaque.

Her hair, once a brittle off-white, hung in heavy, sleek curtains of pure, light-absorbing black around her face.

Slowly, Wren opened her eyes.

Gwen gasped.

Wren’s eyes were no longer glowing saucers of white light. The irises were a deep, matte black, dark as Ouhan’s, but in the center of each, a distinct, normal pupil was visible. They were human eyes, but devoid of any light reflection.

"Wren?" Val whispered, slumping to the floor, utterly drained. "Are you... okay?"

Wren looked at her hands. She turned them over, examining the new, darker pigment of her skin with detached curiosity. She touched her own face, feeling the change in her structure.

"The burning stopped," Wren said. Her voice was smoother now, lower, completely stripped of the frantic terror that had defined her since Khijan. It wasn't robotic, just... flat. Like a calm sea.

"How do you feel?" Gwen asked cautiously, her hand still near her rifle.

Wren tilted her head, considering the question as if it were a complex math problem.

"Quiet," Wren decided. She looked around the room, her black eyes scanning Romar, then Saje. There was no flinch of fear. No worry that she might hurt them. "I feel quiet."

She held up a hand. She focused, trying to summon the blinding plasma that usually erupted when she was scared.

A small, flickering ball of white fire appeared in her palm. It was stable, warm, but dim. It lacked the roaring, explosive heat of her previous power. Without the fuel of her terror, the engine was barely turning over.

Wren closed her hand, snuffing the weak flame out.

"It is less," she observed calmly. "But it is mine."

"What did you do?" Saje whispered to Val, staring at the transformed girl. "Val... that's not just stabilization. You rewrote her."

Val looked at their own trembling hand—the fingers that had placed the seal. They could still feel the cold echo of Aeliana’s logic in their mind. They had saved Wren from detonating, but they had stolen her fear—and perhaps much more.

"I saved her," Val whispered, the guilt already beginning to crush them. "I had to."

Emerjn stepped forward, his blind face turned toward Wren, sensing the massive shift in energy. "The vessel is hardened. The storm is contained."

Wren stood up. She moved with a new, grounded grace. She walked over to the corner where her blankets were and sat down, pulling them around her new, darker form.

"We should rest," Wren said flatly, closing her black eyes. "We have a long walk tomorrow."

Val stared at her. The terrified girl from the Jefue labs was gone. Something else—something colder, steadier, and tragically diminished—had taken her place.

Val wiped hot tears from their face, the cost of their growing power settling over them like a shroud.

"We leave for Ousujan at dusk," Val commanded, their voice hardening to match the new reality. "We need answers. And I need to learn how to fix what I just broke."

"No," Emerjn’s voice cut through the cavern, soft but immovable. "You cannot go to the Shadow Lands yet, Heir. Not alone."

Val spun around. "We aren't alone. We have an army right here."

"You have refugees," Emerjn corrected gently. "And you have a broken circle. If you march on the Council now, or even try to enter Ousujan without the proper keys, you will be unmade."

Emerjn walked to the center of the room. "The Elders didn't rule by power alone. They ruled by Harmony. A court of elements to balance the weight of the world. You are the Weaver, Valode, but you cannot weave with only half the threads."

Ouhan stepped forward, counting on his fingers. "We have Water," he pointed to Emerjn and Irame. "We have Shadow," he pointed to himself. "We have Resonance," he nodded to Saje. He pointed to Gwen and Romar, "We have light... and now..." he looked at the transformed Wren, "...we have Fire."

"We are missing the bind and chaos," Saje realized, rubbing his chin. "Life. The wood. The breath. Storm. The Chaos."

"We don't have time to recruit," Val argued.

"Efficiency dictates we complete the set," Wren interrupted. Her voice was flat, cutting through the emotion in the room like a scalpel. She didn't look at Val; she was staring at the map. "A balanced engine runs longer. An unbalanced engine explodes. Like I almost did. We at least need Life... Saje should be able to cover Storm and Echo."

Wren walked to the ice wall. She traced a line away from the Shadow Lands, toward the dense, green sector on the equator.

Vañujal. The Great Overgrowth.

"I know a Life Ide," Wren stated. "Talia. We were... calibrated... together in the early academy before my containment. She is a High-Tier cultivator."

"Talia?" Saje perked up. "The one who made the Venus Filters? I thought she was a myth made up by botanists."

"She is functional," Wren said. "And she owes me a favor. We go to Vañujal."

Val looked at the map. Ousujan was the answer to the Void, but Wren was right—without Life to anchor them, they were just a collection of ghosts and weapons.

"Fine," Val nodded. "To the forest."

Time: 02 // 15 Flare (Talma Sunrise) Location: The Canopy Border / Vañujal Sector

The transition from the ice of Ramide to the humidity of Vañujal was violent.

One moment, the air was brittle and cold; the next, it was thick, wet, and smelling of crushed jasmine and rotting wood.

The Kjisugi (Sun Dragon) couldn't land here. The trees of Vañujal were titans—redwoods the size of skyscrapers, their branches woven together into a ceiling that blocked out the suns entirely. The ground was a twilight world of bioluminescent moss and ferns that moved when you weren't looking.

They trekked on foot through the undergrowth. Saje was in heaven, touching every leaf, but Val felt claustrophobic. The life here wasn't peaceful; it was aggressive. Vines reached for their boots. Flowers turned to watch them pass.

"Keep moving," Wren ordered from the front. She moved through the jungle with unnatural ease. She didn't push branches aside; she calculated the path of least resistance and slipped through gaps that didn't seem to exist. Her new, dark camouflage blended perfectly with the shadows of the trees.

"Are you sure she's here?" Romar swatted a mosquito the size of a hummingbird. "This place is a death trap."

"She is here," Wren said without turning around. "Talia prefers systems that eat intruders. It saves on security guards."

They broke through a wall of vines and stumbled into a clearing.

It wasn't a clearing. It was a garden, but not like the manicured ones in Tsujan. This was a riot of color. Purple vines strangled statues of old Kassaj members. Massive, pitcher-shaped plants gently puffed clouds of golden spores into the air.

In the center of it all stood a massive tree with bark like white bone and leaves of shimmering silver. The Tree of Life.

And hanging upside down from a branch, swinging lazily by her knees, was a girl.

She had wild, curly green hair that seemed to move on its own, and her skin was dusted with golden freckles that glowed in the twilight. She wore a simple tunic made of living leaves.

"Visitors!" the girl chirped, swinging up and landing lightly on the branch. She grinned, revealing teeth that looked just a little too sharp. "And here I thought the perimeter sensors were just glitching."

She looked at the group—Val, dirty and tired; Romar, sweating in his royal robes; Saje, looking starstruck.

Then her eyes landed on Wren.

Talia froze. She tilted her head, sniffing the air. "Wren?"

Wren stepped forward. She didn't smile. She didn't wave. She just stood there, a statue of dark efficiency.

"Hello, Talia," Wren said flatly. "We require sanctuary. And your connection to the Root."

Talia hopped down, landing inches from Wren. She circled her friend, poking Wren’s new, darker skin, lifting a strand of her black hair.

"You changed your wrapper," Talia mused, her eyes dancing with chaotic energy. "You used to be so... shiny. Now you feel like a eclipse."

"I was unstable," Wren explained. "I have been rewritten."

"I like it," Talia grinned, grabbing Wren’s hand. Wren didn't flinch, but she didn't squeeze back either. "It suits you. Less 'explode-y', more 'assassin-y'."

Talia turned to the rest of them. "Welcome to the Greenhouse! Don't touch the red flowers, they eat meat. Come on inside, I've got tea steeping!"

Time: 03 // 30 Flare Location: Talia’s Treehouse / The Living Room

The "house" was carved directly into the trunk of the massive white tree. It felt alive—the walls pulsed with sap, and the furniture grew out of the floor.

"So," Talia said, pouring tea that changed color as it hit the cup. "You found out that the kassaj is lying and now you want to fight them. Cute. Suicidal, but cute."

"We aren't just fighting," Val said, taking the tea cautiously. "We want to restore order, like in the old age—" Val quickly corrected. "The time of the Elders... I should say. We're replacing them. We're rebuilding the Elder Court."

"And you need a Life support," Talia guessed, winking at Saje. "Get it? Life support?"

Saje chuckled, blushing.

"Yes... but more importantly we need the tree," Val corrected.

"What tree? You never mentioned a tree..." Gwen cut in, eyeing the pulsing walls suspiciously.

"They mean the Tree of Life," Talia said, patting the wall fondly. "It's part of everything, has access to everything. We speak to it for answers of the universe. It's the only reason the Kassaj hasn't taken it for themselves and have kept us alone for the most part... also being it's impossible to get here. But why would you know of it or even need it?"

"There's somewhere we can go... The Inbetween I call it... We could possibly use it to train without being detected by the Kassaj. If we can perfect our abilities we can stand a fighting chance."

"The Dream-Walk," Talia nodded, her smile fading slightly. "Yeah. I can do that. The Tree connects to everything. The dead, the living, the sleeping. But it's not a playground, Valode. If we go in there with a heavy heart, the roots will eat us."

"I can handle it... We can handle it... But I'll ensure it's safe as long as we can have a medium to get there," Val said.

"We'll see," Talia hummed.

Suddenly, a chime echoed through the room. A flower on the wall opened, revealing a vibrating membrane.

Alert. Perimeter Breach. Sector 4.

Talia’s eyes narrowed. "Company. One signal. Fast."

"Council?" Gwen asked, reaching for her rifle.

"Scout," Wren stated. She stood up. "If it sends a signal, a squad follows. The signal must be terminated."

Before anyone could stop her, Wren vanished. She didn't use the door; she simply slipped out the window, moving with the terrifying speed of her new form.

"Wren, wait!" Val shouted, scrambling after her.

Location: The Perimeter

Val and the others burst into the clearing just in time to see it.

A Council Scout, a young ide in light reconnaissance armor, was fumbling with a distress beacon. He had spotted the ship.

"Don't move!" Gwen shouted, raising her weapon. "Surrender!"

The Scout panicked. He reached for his sidearm, trembling in fear.

It was a mistake.

Wren dropped from the canopy. She didn't use plasma. She didn't use a grand display of power.

She used efficiency.

She landed behind the Scout. In one fluid motion, she grabbed his helmet and twisted.

CRACK.

The sound was sickeningly loud in the quiet forest. The Scout dropped like a puppet with its strings cut.

Val froze, skidding to a halt.

Wren stood over the body. She didn't look horrified. She didn't look triumphant. She looked... bored. She reached down, took the distress beacon from the dead man's hand, and crushed it.

"Signal terminated," Wren said calmly. She looked up at Val. "Threat neutralized. We are secure."

Talia covered her mouth, her eyes wide. "He... he was just a kid, Wren. He was shaking."

"He was a variable," Wren replied, tilting her head. "He was going to call the High Guard. Now he won't. This is the optimal outcome."

Val stared at Wren. They saw the black eyes, the total lack of hesitation. This wasn't the girl Val had saved in the library. This was a machine made of flesh.

"You killed him," Val whispered. "You didn't even try to stop him."

"Stopping him required 40% probability of failure," Wren recited. "Elimination is 100% effective."

She looked at Val’s face. She saw the horror. She looked at Talia, who was backing away slowly.

Wren paused. Her brow furrowed, a flicker of something—confusion?, crossing her face.

"I have... miscalculated," Wren said slowly. "My actions cause distress to the unit."

She looked at her hands. "I am dangerous to the cohesion of the group."

"Wren, no," Val stepped forward. "We just... we need to talk about rules of engagement. If we are to be different than the Council we must act differently."

"Talk is inefficient," Wren said. She stepped back, fading into the shadows of the tree line. "I will secure the perimeter. From the outside. Where I belong."

She was gone.

Val stood over the body of the scout, the silence of the forest pressing in.

"She's right," Talia whispered, her voice trembling. "That wasn't Wren. That was... something else."

"That was Kira," Val said, feeling the weight of their choice in the ice cave crushing them. "As our sun, unbiased, neither good nor bad. But present. And I... I made her that way."

Time: 04 // 00 Flare Location: The Garden Border

Wren sat on a high branch, hidden in the shadows. She watched the treehouse. She watched Talia moving inside, setting up hammocks for the others.

Wren felt a strange pressure in her chest. It wasn't fear—she didn't feel fear anymore. It was... heavy.

She looked at her hands. They were steady. The plasma hummed beneath her skin, perfectly controlled.

"I am safe," Wren whispered to herself. "I am efficient."

But as she watched Talia laugh at something Saje said, Wren felt a flicker of something she couldn't name. A desire to be down there. A desire to be warm.

She closed her eyes, letting the darkness take her. She would guard them. She would be the monster in the dark so they could stay in the light.