When Jack was six, the Power Rangers were everything. Bright colors, unstoppable teamwork, transformation sequences that could turn a group of awkward teens into walking gods of justice. Every fight ended with a lesson. Every monster was a problem that could be solved by courage, friendship, and a bigger robot.

  It was simple, but to a kid like Jack, simplicity was everything. They always showed up. No matter how bad it got, they’d shout a cheesy line, pose like legends, and then win anyway. The idea that you could be outmatched, outnumbered, and still come out on top—it burrowed into his bones.

  At six years old, that became his gospel: if you fight hard enough, if you believe hard enough, you can turn the impossible into your next episode.

  He remembered those afternoons—standing on an old couch, holding a cardboard sword while his friends wore mismatched colored shirts. They’d shout “It’s morphin’ time!” and pretend to summon mechs out of thin air. Sometimes, he was the leader. Sometimes, he was the monster. But it didn’t matter; it was the story that made sense. Heroes fight. Heroes win. Heroes come back next week.

  Jack smiled faintly at the memory. That same belief had followed him into Requiem—every battle, every close call, every time he pretended the odds didn’t matter. Somewhere, he was still that kid, shouting at the sky, waiting for the music cue.

  Then the world crashed.

  The memory broke apart as a shockwave ripped through the ground, sending dust and rubble into the air. His head snapped up—reality slammed back in. The battlefield, the screams, the horde. The black devil’s roar tore through the smoke.

  Jack clenched his fists, the smile fading into something harder.

  No zords. No morphers. Just him.

  “Alright,” he muttered under his breath, standing tall again. “Show me something good!”

  They collided—well, more like Jack was barely surviving the collision. Every blow from the devil landed like a freight train; every counter he threw felt like punching through wet concrete. He was keeping up, but only because of his Echo. Without it, he’d have been paste five rounds ago.

  The rifle? Useless. It may as well have been a water gun. At least his fist worked. Each punch that connected, hit like thunder, causing energy to snap through the air in concentric ripples. The devil stumbled a few times, but not from damage—more like confusion. Its movements were sharp but oddly inexperienced, its stance uncertain.

  And that’s when it hit him. This thing’s new.

  It was powerful—terrifyingly so—but wild. Like a kid learning controls.

  “Hah,” Jack grunted, blocking a blast with his arm and sliding backward through the dirt. “So this is what I look like to everyone else, huh?”

  The devil hissed, claws charging with green light. Jack smirked. “Life’s funny sometimes.”

  Another explosion rocked the field. He rolled, dodging the next barrage, smoke and ash filling the air. He could feel the rhythm now—the creature’s timing, its anger bleeding into predictability. One second too slow, one blast too wide. He ducked under another, spun, and slammed a kick into its side—bone cracked like stone splitting under ice.

  “Gotcha—”

  The words died in his throat. The devil didn’t even flinch. It adapted.

  Before Jack could recover, a claw punched through the smoke and slammed into his ribs with the force of a falling mountain. He gasped, the sound sharp and wet.

  “—ah, fuck.”

  He was hoping the hit would send him flying, give him a second to regroup. But the creature didn’t let go. Its other hand drove forward, claws spearing clean through his stomach and out his back.

  Jack’s body stiffened. His vision flashed white.

  Everything felt light—too light. The pain hit first, then the weightlessness, then the sudden, horrifying calm.

  His heartbeat echoed in his head. Slow. Distant.

  And somewhere, behind the haze, he thought he heard that same six-year-old voice—the one that used to shout at the TV every time the Rangers were cornered.

  “Come on, Jack… heroes don’t die like this.”

  “Maybe they do, little me.” He let out a weak laugh, the blood bubbling at his lips. “Weird,” he muttered inwardly. “How time slows down when you’re dying.”

  The thought was dry, almost amused, echoing faintly between his collapsing lungs. Time had slowed to a crawl, and he finally understood why dying people said everything gets quiet. It wasn’t peace—it was the universe cutting the sound so you could hear your own regrets more clearly.

  Then the truth rolled in. He hadn’t done much. Sure, he’d fought—he’d joined the Intermediate Rankers, strutted around with titles and bravado, rode the high of being almost relevant—but that was it. Almost. Every time the real battles came, every time the stakes rose, he fell behind.

  Running with the Wandering Rabbits had been cool, yeah. But he’d always been the guy in the background. The one with “potential.” The one everyone said might be something, eventually.

  He clenched his teeth as another wave of pain shot through him. “Eventually never came, huh.”

  He thought about the Fortune Holder, how he joined thinking it’d be his turning point. His fights were flashy, full of sparks and noise, but once anyone pushed through that first burst? He folded. Every damn time.

  Calmbrand, North, Ozzy… they commanded presence. They were the kind of people whose names felt heavier when you said them. They didn’t need to call themselves main characters—they just were.

  Jack had been running behind them, trying to catch a shadow that never slowed down.

  And yeah… maybe he was bitter. Maybe he hated that no one saw him the way he saw himself. Magjesti? Dropped him the moment the red-haired guy—what was his name again? Didn’t matter. He had the look, apparently talent, and momentum. Jack was just the subplot.

  Even Teach—kept her distance. Lessons became brief talks, feedback became silence. Tinsurnae, too, always half a mystery, was hesitant sharing how she survived impossible odds. They all had something. Some internal flame, some cosmic narrative pushing them forward.

  And him?

  He just had effort.

  He could almost hear the words now—“you’re trying too hard to be the main character.” Maybe they were right.

  His eyes fluttered. The world dimmed.

  Maybe this was it. Maybe it was time to stop pretending. Maybe he should’ve used the damn page.

  His heartbeat thudded once. Then again. Then slower.

  And just as the last thread of consciousness began to unravel, two memories cut through the darkness.

  He reached toward both as the world dissolved.

  One was him and her by the lake—a memory blurred by time but sharp in feeling.

  The water shimmered in lavender hues, rippling gently under Dekara’s twin moons. She was laughing, her armor glinting white and grey, streaks of blue woven through her long white hair. Golden-brown eyes bright as dawn, antlers draped in ribbons that danced with every move.

  “Remfubale dance!” she teased, her voice like sunlight cutting through mist. “You nearly collapsed doing the first sequence, Jack. You’re supposed to flow, not flail.”

  “Flail? That was strategy,” he protested. “I was distracting my opponent with interpretive excellence.”

  She laughed harder, hand on his shoulder. “You do better when you stop trying so hard. Just fight like you dance—messy, loud, and free. Remember, in dance or battle you’re the center. Always.”

  He’d smiled then, thinking it a joke. But now, in the half-light of death, her words felt like a promise.

  The second vision bled through—pure white, endless, humming with cold serenity. The void again.

  V’s voice surrounded him.

  So, Jack. You still want to go?

  “Yeah. But… can I get my family back?”

  A long pause. Then V answered, smooth and certain. No.

  Jack remembered the ache in his chest, the tears that hadn’t yet dried. “Then why me?”

  Entertainment, V said simply. Every world needs a story worth watching. Sculpt your own, and you’ll be the main character. That’s the magic of all this.

  The visions flickered—her laughter overlaying V’s words, light and dark woven together.

  Sculpt your story. Be the Center.

  His heart thudded once. Pain crawled back in, dragging him from that perfect stillness.

  “Oh right,” he thought distantly, feeling his blood spill into the dirt. “I’m dying.”

  But, he didn’t sound scared. Just… amused. Because dying wasn’t the same as ending—and if V was right, maybe this was the scene before the comeback.

  ———

  Tinsurnae was a blender of annihilation. There was no finesse left, no rhythm to her strikes—only destruction incarnate. Every motion shredded matter into nothing. Limbs and bones disintegrated under her momentum, each impact sending shockwaves that liquefied the undead before they could even reach her.

  Her Sryun, once a restrained whisper, now poured from her in liquid ribbons of black and violet light. It hissed through the air like live wire, flaying hundreds in arcs that carved through the horde. A gesture—a mere flick of her fingers—ripped holes in reality that collapsed in on themselves, sucking the infected into shattering implosions of pure void. She pivoted through a storm of claws and teeth, every strike erasing more of the undead.

  The ground trembled as she finished her rotation, energy coiling around her body like a living storm. Then she unleashed it—one final burst of Sryun. It surged outward in a sweeping wave, a tidal pulse that tore across the battlefield. Everything it touched disintegrated. Thousands of zombies vaporized into mist, the sound of their unmaking drowned in a roar of collapsing air.

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  But the wave stopped—dead—against an invisible wall. The shock of contact rattled through her bones, the barrier flaring faintly in her vision like translucent glass. The air around it distorted, humming with energy.

  High above, two of the Tree’s guardians watched her from the branches—eyes glowing with layered consciousness. They didn’t move, didn’t blink.

  Only observed.

  Tinsurnae stood in the silence that followed, chest heaving, her breath coming out in jagged bursts. For a heartbeat, neither side moved. Then she smirked faintly—half defiance, half exhaustion—and shook her head.

  “Fine,” she muttered. “I’ll make the first move.”

  As she stepped forward, the Whispering Tree began to vibrate. Its trunk twisted subtly as if recoiling. Each pulse of its roots sent ripples through the dirt, like a warning.

  But Tinsurnae didn’t stop. The air trembled around her, heavy with the sound of distant whispers—as if the Tree itself was whispering her name in fear.

  “What’s got you so scared?” Tinsurnae asked, voice low and steady, her tone eerily calm against the thunderous pulse of Ryun still echoing through the ground.

  The Whispering Tree shuddered in reply, roots coiling inward like serpents preparing to strike. Its two guardians descended from the branches—

  Their bodies were semi-translucent, woven from bark, mist, and memory. A sound rippled through the air—not speech, but a deep hum that vibrated inside her skull. Words didn’t form; instead, meaning pressed directly into her mind.

  [“You are the wound.”]

  [“You must be cleansed.”]

  Her eyes widened. She could understand them. She wasn’t sure how, or why, but their voices reached her like echoes through a dream she didn’t remember having. The guardians froze, just as startled—the hum faltered, like they too hadn’t expected her to hear.

  “I can understand you,” she whispered, taking a step forward. “What do you mean? I’m the wound?”

  [“Doesn't matter since you’ll cease to exist.”]

  [“Seems the hollow can still listen.”]

  The taller guardian’s form flickered, stretching as its outline blurred into the Tree’s branches. Then came the sound—a metallic, otherworldly screech that cut the air open. It reverberated through the valley, and from below, the ground cracked as thousands of corpses stirred.

  The Tree’s bark pulsed. The taller guardian’s body elongated into living wood, fusing with the branches above. The limbs snapped downward like whips, tearing through the soil, reaching for her.

  Tinsurnae moved before she thought. The first whip shattered the ground where she stood. She dove, spun, and released a pulse of Sryun—purple light erupting from her palm. It sliced through a wave of crawling zombies that were already closing in, vaporizing them to ash.

  “Fine,” she hissed. “You want to dance? Let’s dance.”

  Her Sryun flared brighter, crawling over her skin like rats. Her eyes glowed—a deep violet burning with madness and focus. Every lash of the Tree came faster now, twisting through the ground and air, forcing her to bend and weave between strikes.

  The zombies surged like a flood tide, their shrieks blending with the Tree’s living groan. Tinsurnae didn’t care. Her hands became streaks of energy, shredding through them in bursts of violet-black explosions. Each motion melted flesh and splintered bone, Sryun flaring with every heartbeat.

  Her laughter slipped out—uncontrolled and wild.

  The air grew dense, the smell of rot and ozone thick enough to choke on. Tinsurnae spun again, a cyclone of shadow, cutting down dozens at a time.

  But even as her power surged, a gnawing sense of time pressed at the back of her mind. Her friends were still out there—Caroline, S?urtinaui, the Moon soldiers and even Jack. The giant zombie still lumbered toward them, and she wasn’t a hundred percent sure they could take it.

  She grit her teeth and ripped a whip in half, the Sryun vibrating in her hands like an electric scream.

  “I don’t have time for you,” she snarled, eyes blazing as she launched forward, cutting through another wave.

  The Tree roared back, shaking the ground so violently that entire hillsides cracked.

  And through it all—Tinsurnae kept running, purple light spilling behind her like a comet’s tail, determined to reach the tree before it reached the people she loved.

  ————

  “They’re coming out of the goddamn portals again!” someone yelled through the comms—voice strained, but still trying to sound confident.

  Red tags were giving frantic callouts, voices overlapping, half static, half screaming. The cavernous valley was nothing but motion and noise—swarms bursting from violet spirals that tore open in the air and ground. The purples barely had time to react.

  “Raise the barriers—NOW!”

  Walls of translucent energy flickered to life, curving around the north zone in a ragged dome. Gaps flashed open with every impact as mutated zombies slammed against it, their limbs like battering rams. Above, a swarm of winged corpses rained acid and bone shards, and the purple tags redirected all remaining power to seal the airspace.

  It wasn’t enough. Not this time.

  With perks and upgrades still locked, their once-limitless flow of Ryun-based enhancements had slowed to a crawl. Every shot mattered now. Every mistake killed someone.

  Blue tags sprinted between fighters, glowing hands pressed to wounds, shouting for bandages and mana packs that weren’t coming. Healing energy sputtered, fading as their reserves ran low. They had enough left for maybe one more resurrection if someone went down—and twenty percent of the north zone was already gone.

  Caroline and S?urtinaui didn’t notice. Couldn’t.

  They were demons on the front lines.

  Caroline was knee-deep in gore, both guns roaring until they clicked dry. She didn’t hesitate—switched to her knife, spun through three lunging corpses, and kicked the next one so hard its neck folded backward. Her hoodie was torn and soaked in blood, but her eyes burned with manic fire.

  S?urtinaui was beside her, calm and relentless. Her blade carved glowing arcs through the dark, every swing a symphony of precision. She flowed around Caroline’s wild movements, covering her blind spots.

  A flying zombie dove; S?urtinaui snatched it midair and crushed its skull with her knee. Caroline slid beneath her, firing upward into another’s open chest.

  Big zombies. Flying zombies. Crawlers. Splitters.

  It didn’t matter. They fell all the same.

  Kiera was off to the side—a one-woman war machine. Her hands drenched in blood as she tore through the horde, the ground exploding beneath each strike. She’d lost her weapon but didn’t seem to notice; she was wielding chunks of the environment now, tearing up slabs of the ground and using them like shields and hammers.

  Everywhere else, the red tags were doing what they could. Forming squads, dragging fallen allies to the blues, then diving back into the pit. The barriers flickered red under constant pressure.

  And above them—

  The giant moved.

  Eighteen stories of rotting muscle and bone, dragging a sword made of corpses stitched together with tendons and wire. Its every step sent quakes through the field. Each swing of that grotesque weapon cleaved through hundreds of undead and weakened the barriers.

  Caroline reloaded with shaking hands, glanced at S?urtinaui, and forced a grin.

  “Guess we’re still in the winging it phase.”

  S?urtinaui parried another zombie, blood running down her arm, and smiled faintly. “Always.”

  The ground shook again. The giant raised its blade. And the sky split open with another wave of portals.

  Kiera’s voice cut through the cacophony like a battle horn.

  “Red squad! With me! Magjesti! S?urtinaui! Let’s END that bastard!”

  Her tone didn’t allow argument, only motion.

  Blood burst under her feet as she sprinted forward, aura flaring against the blackened landscape. The callouts from the others bled into static—voices fading as she, Caroline, and S?urtinaui charged into the storm. A handful of red tags followed, their battle cries drowned by the thunder of the horde.

  Caroline gritted her teeth, flipped her rifle into full auto, and plowed forward. “Got your back!”

  “Try not to die doing it!” Kiera yelled, laughing despite the blood in her mouth.

  S?urtinaui was the calm eye in the chaos. Her movements cut a narrow corridor through the sea of corpses, precise and fluid, every strike removing another obstacle between them and the giant.

  Behind them, the rest of the Occulted Moon fought to buy them time. Purple tags barriers shimmered and cracked, blues knelt over fallen comrades, and the air turned into a haze of smoke and Ryun discharge. But soon, the they were too deep in the horde for anyone to see—swallowed whole by the endless tide of undead.

  And the giant was waiting.

  Its corpse sword swung like a planet in orbit, shearing through waves of lesser undead as it turned to face them. Its rotting jaw opened with a groan that sounded like the earth itself mourning.

  Kiera raised her hand. “All or nothing!”

  Caroline smirked. “I like those odds.”

  They charged.

  —–——

  At the base of the Whispering Tree, Tinsurnae’s battle was no less desperate. Her Sryun burned like wildfire now, casting flickering purple shadows across the field. Every blast she unleashed shattered dozens of zombies, but the invisible wall surrounding the Tree—refused to yield.

  Each time she struck, the barrier shuddered but never cracked. The Tree’s branches moved like spears, stabbing and curling through the air with inhuman speed. They seemed to predict her, coiling toward every gap she left exposed.

  Her shoulder was bleeding. A jagged cut traced across her cheek. Her Sryun aura pulsed erratically—each burst weaker, more forced. And the zombies kept coming, shambling into her path as living shields for the Tree.

  She glanced at her UI—its crimson border flashing warnings in the corner of her vision.

  [EAST AND SOUTH ZONE LOST] / [REMAINING ZONES: 1]

  Her throat tightened. She could feel the narrative pulse in the air now—the dungeon’s story trying to end.

  Conceptual erasure.

  No respawns. No retries. Just oblivion.

  She swallowed hard and steadied her breathing.

  Think. Plan. Adapt.

  Tinsurnae closed her eyes for a brief second, ignoring the claws scraping at her shield. She ran through every possible tactic in her head—Sryun burst through the ground, reflect the Tree’s roots, exploit its rhythm. Nothing worked.

  But maybe… maybe she didn’t have to break the barrier. Maybe she could corrupt it.

  Her eyes snapped open, glowing with violet fire. “Alright, Whispering Tree,” she muttered. “Let’s see what happens when rot meets infection.”

  Sryun began to coil around her hands—dense, unstable, and ready to rewrite the rules.

  The plan failed—spectacularly.

  Tinsurnae’s Sryun surge hit the barrier like a hammer on glass but cracked nothing. The blast ricocheted, igniting the ground instead. The feedback scorched her arm, tore through her ribs, and left her open long enough for a horde to swarm in.

  A zombie sank its teeth into her shoulder. Another slammed her back with a jagged limb. She stumbled, coughing blood, vision flashing red as she tore them off.

  Every breath hurt. Every step burned.

  She was failing. Again.

  Failing to live up to expectations.

  Failing to protect her friends.

  Failing the curse she swore to overcome.

  Failing the promise she made to North.

  Failing the promise to her male counterpart—to live.

  She knew it now; she wasn’t built for this.

  Her hands shook as another root tore through the ground and shot toward her.

  Her body refused to move.

  Maybe this was it.

  Then—she heard it.

  Through the roars, the explosions, and the static of battle, she heard them.

  The distant voices of Caroline, Kiera, S?urtinaui—all shouting, fighting, refusing to die. Their defiance hit her like a memory. She felt their Ryun signatures burning in the distance—ragged, desperate, but alive.

  And then, far off in the direction of the east zone, a beam of blue and yellow Ryun erupted into the sky like a signal flare cutting through despair.

  That was Jack. Had to be.

  Tinsurnae’s lips trembled, then curved into a bloodied smile.

  “Yeah,” she whispered. “This isn’t over just yet.”

  The next moment, the root struck—clean through her chest.

  Her body jerked, eyes going wide, but the pain never came. Instead, she felt clarity.

  She wasn’t mortal. Not truly.

  She was something between existence and reflection.

  A story that refused to end.

  A catalyst.

  So she leaned into it.

  The Sryun around her body ignited—not in bursts, but as a flood. It crawled along the root that impaled her, seeping into the wood like infection through a vein. The Whispering Tree shuddered, its glow flickering.

  The barrier rippled—then fractured as the corruption spread.

  Her essence poured into the roots, twisting through the Tree’s arteries, infecting not just the immediate structure but the avatars themselves.

  The avatar in the roots froze mid-attack, its wooden limbs turning violet. Its hum broke into a scream as the infection devoured it from within.

  The corruption traveled further, linking through the Tree’s internal network—

  to the second avatar,

  then the third,

  and finally to the fourth, the smallest one at the heart of the system—the one anchoring the barrier, suppressing the V-Dungeon’s natural laws.

  That one panicked. Its shifting face twisted in disbelief as Sryun began to etch across its chest.

  Through the agony, through the chaos, the Beast voice echoed in its soul like a whisper:

  “Fulfill your purpose or be devoured.”

  ——

  For one beautiful heartbeat, the entire battlefield froze.

  The giant halted mid-swing, its corpse sword hovering above the ruins of the north zone. The horde’s screeches went silent. Even the air itself seemed to hold its breath.

  And then—

  Perk machines erupted from the ground like geysers of neon light.

  “JUGGERNOG—IT’S BACK!” someone screamed.

  “Quick Revive! Quick Revive!” another voice shouted.

  The purple tags’ UIs exploded with alerts as upgrades and add-ons blinked to life across their displays—barrier amplification, auto-turrets, Ryun conversions, all the quality-of-life miracles they hadn’t seen consistently since round 45.

  Then, just as suddenly, half of it was gone again.

  Machines winked out, screens dimmed, and upgrades grayed out.

  But not all of them.

  Enough remained to matter.

  Caroline threw her arms up and screamed at the sky, voice cracking from exhaustion and relief.

  “LETS GOOOOOOO!”

  Kiera didn’t hesitate—she was already sprinting full-speed toward a glowing purple machine half-buried in the rubble. “PHD FLOPPER, BABY!” she roared, slamming her hand on the console like it owed her money.

  S?urtinaui exhaled, a weary smile forming despite the grime and blood streaking her face. “Tinsurnae…” she murmured, watching the faint violet pulse ripple across the horizon. “She must be making progress.”

  “You mean she’s kicking ass.” Caroline chimed in.

  The giant stirred again, roaring as it raised its sword high. Preparing its next swing.

  Caroline was already scanning, eyes locked on the two nearest perk machines.

  Stamina-Up. Double Tap. Both humming faintly.

  S?urtinaui noticed that look—the manic grin, the twitch of her ears, the reckless fire in her eyes. “You seem… energetic,” she said, slicing through a lunging zombie.

  Caroline fired a burst into a cluster of crawlers and smirked. “Just a plan,” she said. “It’s either gonna be an amazing comeback or an epic fail.”

  S?urtinaui arched a brow, kicking another corpse aside. “It’s better than nothing. What’s it entail?”

  Caroline snapped a fresh mag into her gun, turned to her, and grinned wide—eyes blazing, blood-smeared, insane and electric.

  “How good are you at belly flopping?”

  S?urtinaui blinked once. “…Excuse me?”

  Caroline pointed at Kiera, who was already crackling with energy, and at the massive, quivering horde surging toward them again.

  “Oh no,” S?urtinaui muttered.

  “Oh YES,” Caroline laughed, running towards the machines.

  “Time to become nukes!”