“The Big Five are Sol Fortune academies,” he said.

  “Executive tracks. Corporate protection.”

  The tuition figure finished loading.

  “…The Honorable Five are still accredited.”

  “Oof. Better than regular ones.”

  “…So. Creston or Northbridge?”

  — Academy registry terminal

  The tendrils pulsed once more, light intensifying until I had to squint against the glare, and then they came. Not humanoid or ground-based horrors, but… birds. Except calling them “birds” was like calling a plasma rifle a “pointy stick.”

  They emerged from the tear one by one, each about the size of a large dog, with wingspans that stretched two meters across. Their bodies were covered in what looked like crystalline feathers that caught the light and refracted it in nauseating patterns. No beaks; instead, their heads split vertically into three segments lined with serrated ridges that clicked and scraped against each other.

  And they had too many eyes. Clusters of them scattered across their skulls like tumors, each one tracking independently.

  Above each creature floated the designation:

  [Incursion G-1]

  “Crystal shrikes,” Omar breathed beside me, his force armor flickering brighter. “Read about these; they’re from a planet close by, so they invade often. They hunt in flocks, like pack tactics.”

  I counted quickly. Five. Ten. Fifteen emerging from the tear, circling in the air above the open plain with movements that were just slightly wrong, too smooth and synchronized.

  Twenty. Thirty. Forty-three.

  “Omar,” I said carefully. “Have you actually fought before?”

  His laugh was nervous. “First time. Literally my first real combat. Spared a lot at school though.”

  “Great,” I muttered. “No pressure then.”

  The shrikes circled higher, their crystalline feathers catching the afternoon sun and throwing rainbow distortions across the park. For a moment, they just... hovered.

  Then one spotted us.

  Its head snapped in our direction, all those clustered eyes focusing simultaneously. The vertical mouth segments opened with a sound like breaking glass.

  I didn’t wait for introductions.

  I raised my rifle, tracked the lead shrike’s movement, compensated for wind and distance, and squeezed the trigger.

  BZT!

  The plasma bolt caught it dead center in the chest cluster. The crystalline feathers shattered on impact, and the creature’s body convulsed once before dropping like a stone, wings folding uselessly as it plummeted toward the ground.

  “Level 1,” I commented, already tracking the next target.

  And then every single shrike turned to look at us. Forty-three sets of clustered eyes. Forty-three crystalline bodies wheeling in perfect unison. Forty-three vertical mouths opening in synchronized shrieks.

  “Fuck.”

  They dove.

  The first wave hit us with three shrikes breaking formation, wings tucked for maximum speed. I fired twice more; one hit, one missed, and the hit shrike spiraled down trailing fragments of shattered crystal.

  Omar threw his hand forward, and a bolt of blue force energy materialized from his palm, shooting toward the nearest bird.

  It missed by a full meter.

  “Shit!” Omar yelled, already forming another bolt. “They’re fast!”

  “No kidding!” I dropped one more with a clean headshot, then had to dive sideways as a shrike buzzed past close enough that its wing clipped my shoulder pauldron with a screech of crystal on metal.

  The impact left a deep gouge in the armor plating.

  These things hit hard.

  More were diving now. Eight, ten, a cascading wave of crystalline death that filled the air with the sound of breaking glass and shrieking. I fired into the mass—hit, hit, miss, hit—watching shrikes tumble from the sky.

  But there were too many.

  One raked its talons across my back, and I felt the TitanWard armor buckle under the strike. Another came from my left, mouth segments opening to reveal a gullet that glowed with inner light.

  I swung the rifle like a club and caught it mid-lunge; the impact jarring my arms as crystalline feathers shattered against the barrel.

  “Omar!” I shouted. “You good?!”

  “Yeah!” His force armor was holding, the blue energy crackling as shrike talons scraped across its surface without penetrating. He threw another force bolt; this one actually connected, blowing a shrike’s wing clean off. “But I can’t aim for shit!”

  A shrike latched onto my rifle, its weight dragging the barrel down. I let go with one hand and drew my sword, slashing upward. The blade bit into crystal, and the creature screeched before releasing its grip.

  I fired point-blank into another one’s face, and it exploded in a spray of fragments and blue ichor.

  But they kept coming.

  The swarm was fully engaged now, circling us in a whirlwind of crystal and rage. Every time I dropped one, two more dove in to replace it. My armor was accumulating dents and gouges faster than I could track. The rifle’s heat indicator was creeping toward yellow.

  “Dash!” Omar’s voice was tight with stress. “There’s too many!”

  He was right. We couldn’t keep this up.

  I holstered the rifle, no time to aim properly in this chaos, and committed fully to the sword. A shrike dove at my face, and I bisected it mid-flight. Another came from behind, and I spun, blade trailing blue sparks as it carved through crystalline anatomy.

  Close quarters, but it was working.

  I fell into a rhythm: slash, pivot, stab, dodge. The sword wasn’t elegant in my hands, no fancy techniques, no proper form, just raw aggression and survival instinct. Every time a gap opened in the swarm, I’d draw the rifle and drop another shrike at range, then switch back to the blade as they closed in.

  Beside me, Omar was doing better. His force armor took the hits he couldn’t dodge, and his bolts were connecting more frequently as he adjusted to their flight patterns. Still nervous energy in every motion, but he was adapting.

  Hopefully, I can get the Michalski shield running soon.

  “Left!” I shouted. Omar pivoted and threw a bolt that caught a diving shrike perfectly, the force pulverizing its crystalline body. “Nice!”

  “Thanks!” He sounded almost giddy despite the terror. “This is insane!”

  The swarm was thinning now, as I could see gaps in their formation, spaces where dead shrikes had fallen. My arms screamed with fatigue, and my armor was more dent than plate at this point, but we were winning.

  This book's true home is on another platform. Check it out there for the real experience.

  I dropped another. Then another. Omar caught one mid-dive with a force bolt that seemed to surprise him as much as it surprised the shrike.

  And then, suddenly, there was only one left.

  It circled once, high above us, those clustered eyes taking in the carnage of its flock scattered across the pavilion hill. For a moment, I thought it might flee back through the tear.

  Instead, it dove.

  Straight at me, wings tucked, mouth segments spread wide.

  I tracked it with the rifle, waited for the perfect shot, and fired.

  Direct hit.

  It fell, trailing smoke and crystal fragments, and crashed into the grass twenty meters away.

  Silence had fallen over the area. Just the sound of our breathing and the faint hum of Omar’s force armor beginning to fade.

  [Leveling LP progress: 63%]

  I stood there, sword in one hand, rifle in the other, surrounded by the shattered remains of crystal shrikes as my chest heaved and arms trembled. Plus, the TitanWard armor looked like it had been through a trash compactor. This was a larger risk than I thought… if I made a mistake, I would die.

  “That...” Omar’s voice was shaky. “That was crazy as fuck.”

  I tried to shrug casually, going for cool and collected. “Normal day in the mines.”

  “Bullshit.” Omar’s force armor dissolved completely, leaving him standing in his regular clothes, sweat-soaked and wide-eyed. “Absolute bullshit, Dash. That was way crazier than bugs.”

  I let the facade drop, grinning despite the exhaustion. “Yeah. Yeah, okay. Crazier than bugs.”

  Omar looked down at the crystalline corpses, then back at me, then at his own hands like he couldn’t quite believe what had just happened. “I killed one,” he said, voice filled with genuine pride. “I actually killed one.”

  I did quick mental math. Forty-three shrikes total. I’d dropped... most of them. Omar had gotten maybe two, three if I was being generous.

  But I kept my mouth shut, because it was his first real combat, and he’d survived. That counted for something.

  “Can we survive the next wave?” Omar asked, already scanning the tear. The white tendrils were still there, still pulsing, but no new shrikes were forming yet. That was when I heard the high-pitched whine of a gravitic engine pushed way past legal speed limits.

  A flying car, the Vantrel branding prominent at its front, screamed over the park’s perimeter fence and dropped into an emergency/disabled landing at the entrance with enough force to crack the permacrete.

  The doors blew open before it fully stopped, and Erika sprinted out.

  Full combat gear with glowing glyphs, red hair streaming behind her like a banner and her golden streak prominent. “DASH!” she yelled, and I could see the fury radiating off her even from fifty meters away.

  She hit the park gate and skidded to a stop. “I have… what?! Pay to park? Stupid!”

  Despite the exhaustion from the swarm of crystal shrikes I’d just barely survived, I laughed. She forced down her payment chip so hard I thought the scanner might break, then sprinted toward us and cleared the distance from the entrance to the pavilion hill in maybe ten seconds, moving with that same lethal grace I’d seen at Ashford Terminal.

  “Hi, Erika,” I managed, trying to sound casual despite my racing heart… I was glad she was here. Really glad for more than one reason. “Fancy seeing you here, I—”

  “Later.” She cut me off with a raised hand, eyes already scanning the battlefield. “IC’s on their way. You killed the first wave?” Erika’s eyes swept across the pavilion hill, taking in the crystalline corpses scattered across the grass, the gouges in my armor, the general chaos of our desperate stand.

  Her expression was unreadable, probably a professional mask she wore when assessing threats? “Gray Level 1,” I said, answering her unspoken question.

  She let out a long sigh, and some of the tension left her shoulders. “At least you didn’t decide to face a Green rank and stayed with Gray. But still.” She fixed me with a look. “Idiot.”

  “Hi, Erika!” Omar called out cheerfully, waving from where he stood near his backpack.

  She blinked, seeming to notice him properly for the first time. “Oh! Um, yeah! You’re the friend from movie nights, right?”

  Omar grinned, friendly as ever. “Yep, that’s me.” Then, with the casual tone of someone discussing the weather, he added, “I was just telling Dash I put my LP into attributes. Do you have a special way of assigning LPs?”

  Behind Erika’s back, I frantically made cutting gestures across my throat. No-no-no-don’t-go-there motions with my hands.

  “No, I was aiming to power-level to twenty-one, so now I’m playing catch-up with—” Her eyes widened suddenly, and she whipped around to stare at me. “I haven’t been penalized!”

  Omar nodded sagely, completely oblivious to my distress signals. “That’s because Dash has a system. Broken, but—”

  “Omar...” I sighed, shoulders slumping in defeat. “Yeah, Eri. I got a system back at Ashford Terminal. Minor one, but still... I wanted to tell—”

  Erika’s face transformed. The professional mask shattered, replaced by pure joy. She lunged forward and wrapped me in a hug tight enough that my damaged armor creaked in protest. “That’s amazing! How?!” Her voice was muffled against my shoulder.

  Omar coughed pointedly. “Guys, we’re inside a battle zone. Focus?”

  Erika pulled back and waved dismissively. “Mentor told me I could handle any gray incursion alone and this is the lowest level. Besides, after the first wave, we have at least ten minutes.”

  She dropped onto the grass with casual ease, sitting cross-legged like we were having a picnic instead of waiting for round two of crystal death birds. I hesitated, then followed suit, lowering myself down with significantly less grace thanks to my dented armor.

  Omar remained standing, scanning the tear with vigilant attention.

  Erika glanced at her wrist. A small band there projected a screen visible only to her, the faint blue glow reflecting in her eyes as she read. “Confirmed. Gray-1. IC will...” Her expression darkened. “...not send anyone. I should handle it and then wait.” She gritted her teeth. “Syousei.”

  “What’s Syousei?” I asked.

  “Who,” she corrected strongly. “He’s from Najjar Academy and thinks I’m not good enough. He delayed the response to annoy me.” Fury radiated from her like heat.

  Omar nodded knowingly. “Heard they have a custom attribute system there.”

  Erika let out a weak laugh that held no humor. “Oh, truly? Heard? Well, listen to this.” Her voice took on a mocking tone. “‘Erika-san, you can’t get any chrome, or the attributes won’t work properly. Are you in the right track?’ As if I’d want any filthy Najjar chrome anyway!”

  I kept very, very quiet about the subdermal armor plating I’d been planning to install. Now that Erika had just confirmed chrome interfered with system attributes...

  Yeah. That was off the menu.

  “Guys, anyway,” Omar said, glancing toward the crystalline corpses and then the still-active tear. “You can clearly do this without me, and I’m running late for—” He checked his holoband. “—yeah, really late. Coach is going to kill me.”

  Erika looked up at him, then waved toward the park entrance. “Go. I’ve got this.”

  Omar grabbed his backpack and started backing away, relief obvious on his face. As he turned toward the path, he flashed me an exaggerated double thumbs-up, grinning like an idiot.

  I suppressed a groan and almost succeeded.

  The half-strangled sound that escaped from me made Erika’s head snap around, following my gaze. Omar’s thumbs-up immediately transformed into a casual wave, smooth as butter. “See you at movie night!” he called, already jogging toward the exit. “Don’t die, habibi!”

  Erika glared after him suspiciously, then turned that glare on me. I tried to look innocent. It didn’t work, so I went for deflection instead. “Feels like old times, right? We’re at the park—”

  “Dash.”

  “Huh?” I tried to play innocent, widening my eyes like I had no idea what she was talking about.

  She wasn’t buying it. Not even a little. “System. How?” Her voice was quiet but intense. “You’ve got only 17% compatibility. I know, because you complained to anyone willing to listen... and I was. For a long time.”

  I groaned for real this time, covering my face with my hands. “I used to, yeah...”

  Omar had spilled the beans. I probably shouldn’t tell any random hot girl I had a system, because the more people knew, the higher the chance of it leaking, I even hid it from Asti. Information security and all that corpo paranoia stuff the tutors had drilled into me.

  But that ship had sailed the moment Omar started babbling. Probably sailed for my sake anyway, considering my track record.

  I lay back in the grass, staring up at the sky where the tear still pulsed with sickly light. “Don’t ask me how, but someone’s been draining me. For real. I should be over 80%.”

  Erika tensed beside me. I could feel it without looking, the way her breathing changed, the shift in her posture. When I glanced over, her face was a complicated mess of emotions I couldn’t quite parse. Shock, anger, concern, all tangled together.

  “Before you ask,” I continued, “I don’t know who. Probably a Kallum rival corp trying to hurt my grandma. This is Alliance corpo politics, and they probably try weaken the family however they can.”

  “But you’re...” She murmured the words, not quite finishing the thought.

  “Yeah, nobody.” I let out a bitter laugh. “No power, no influence, just a student in Tago. But I’m still a Kallum. And hurting me, even just a little, still hurts Grandma’s reputation. She still cares about me, so it sends a message they… can hurt her. If I tell her, but I don’t know… she has too much on her plate without me coming to her.” I turned my head to look at her properly. “Corpo politics. It’s all a game, and I’m apparently somehow useful pawn to sacrifice.”

  We both noticed the tear shaking, the white tendrils writhing with increased urgency. “Your grandma would never—” Erika started.

  I nodded, cutting her off gently. “Yeah, she wouldn’t sacrifice me willy-nilly. But if she were forced? Kallum’s seat at Sol Fortune 15, or me?” I met her eyes. “I’ve got no illusions about what would happen.”

  Erika bit her tongue, and I could see she wanted to argue, to tell me I was wrong, but she’d grown up in the system too. She knew how corpo families worked and how the math always came down to power and preservation.

  Stupid Math.

  “I’ll help you,” she said instead, voice fierce with determination.

  Something warm spread through my chest, pushing back the cynicism and exhaustion as I smiled at her. “Thanks. With that said, any chance you’ll leave some for me?”

  She stuck out her tongue. “No!”

  The tendrils erupted.

  All at once, the white appendages flared with blinding light, pulsing so bright I had to shield my eyes. The tear widened, reality stretching like taffy, and a familiar shriek echoed across the park.

  Erika was on her feet instantly, daggers materializing in her hands with ease. I scrambled up more slowly, armor protesting with every movement, and brought my rifle to bear.

  The second wave was coming.

  TODAY’S CHAPTER IS BROUGHT TO YOU BY The Najjar Academy

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