Jessie came back to herself in a daze.
Sound first—ringing, like her ears were full of broken glass. Then pressure in her chest. Then the smell—burnt metal, smoke, something else she couldn’t name…. Burnt meat?
She blinked hard and instinctively ran her hands over herself.
Arms.
Ears.
Legs.
She wiggled her toes.
“I’m… I’m okay,” she whispered, breath shaking.
Relief barely had time to register before panic clawed up her throat.
“Daniel!” she screamed. “Kanye?!”
She wasn’t the only one yelling.
All around her, voices overlapped—people crying in pain, others screaming for help, some just shouting names into the dark like she was. The music was gone. The lights were gone. The only illumination came from the broken DJ booth, sparks spitting weakly as it flickered like a dying star.
As her eyes adjusted, horror rushed in all at once.
Bodies.
Some slumped against walls, unmoving. Others sprawled across the floor, limbs bent at angles that made her stomach twist. A girl lay face-down near an overturned bar, one arm outstretched as if she’d tried to crawl away. A man sat upright against a pillar, eyes open, chest still, a dark bloom spreading across his shirt. Blood streaked the concrete in uneven lines, smeared by desperate movement.
And in the center of it—
A crater.
Concrete blown inward, edges blackened and cracked. At its heart lay something that barely looked human anymore—a skeletal corpse, twisted and burned, bones warped and fused together, ribs splayed open like they’d been peeled back by heat.
Jessie staggered, bile rising. “Guys!” she cried again, voice breaking. “Where are you?!”
Her knees buckled and she started to sob, hands shaking as she tried to move forward—
—and suddenly, arms wrapped around her.
She gasped, then clutched back hard.
“Oh my god—Kanye,” she choked. “You’re okay. You’re okay.” She buried her face into his shoulder, words tumbling out fast and panicked. “What the fuck was that? What happened? I don’t even—”
“Jess,” Kanye said, voice trembling. “I—I don’t know.”
She pulled back just enough to see his face. His eyes were red, tears streaking down through soot and dust.
“But Daniel’s fine,” he continued quickly. “He’s unconscious, but he’s breathing. I checked. I called the police, but then my phone just—” He looked down at the dead screen in his hand. “It went dead.”
His voice cracked.
“Was that a goddamn RPG?”
Jessie didn’t answer.
“We gotta get Daniel outta here but I’m not sure if…,” Kanye said urgently, voice cracking as he scanned the wreckage.
Jessie didn’t answer.
She was still staring.
Her vision tunneled, edges blurring like the world was folding inward. The air felt too thick to breathe, like it was pressing down on her chest. Her heart started hammering—each beat echoing in her skull. Her hands went numb, then painfully tingly. Sound warped, screams stretching and bending until they didn’t sound auditable anymore.
“I— I—” she tried to speak, but nothing came out right.
Her breath shattered into short, useless gasps. Her knees gave out and she folded in on herself, arms wrapping tight around her head like she could hold her thoughts in place.
And she screamed.
It tore out of her…
“I CAN’T—I CAN’T—I CAN’T—!”
Kanye dropped beside her instantly, gripping her shoulders. “Jessie! Jessie, look at me! Breathe—breathe with me, okay?”
She didn’t hear him.
She just kept screaming, voice cracking, body rocking as if she could shake the horror loose.
“Jess—!” Kanye shouted, panic rising in his own chest. “Jessie, please!”
Nothing.
Her screams echoed off the broken walls, mixing with the cries of strangers and the distant thump of helicopters.
“Fuck—fuck—this isn’t working,” Kanye muttered, jaw clenched. The smell of burning flesh hit him again and he gagged, eyes watering. His head swam, knees threatening to buckle—but he forced himself to stay upright.
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He had to.
Then an idea sparked.
“Hey, Jessie,” he said louder, firmer.
No response.
He reached into her pocket, pulled out her phone, and pressed it into her hand.
She froze.
Her scream cut off mid-sound.
For a second, he thought she was going to throw it—her grip tightened, arm pulling back—but he caught her wrist gently but firmly.
“Hey. Hey,” he said, softer now. “Don’t.”
Her breathing was still ragged, but slower. Her eyes locked onto the cracked screen.
“We can’t leave right now,” Kanye continued, forcing his voice to stay steady. He nodded toward the blown-out wall. “There’s… there’s more bodies out there. Military by the looks…. Destroyed jeeps. It’s hell out there…”
Jessie swallowed hard, tears streaming down her face.
“I’m so sorry,” she whispered. “I shouldn’t have—I brought—”
“Hey.” Kanye squeezed her hand. “It’s okay. Just—just record.”
She shook her head weakly.
“Jess,” he said, eyes shining. “This is what you do. It’ll keep you here. Keep you with me.”
She looked down at her phone.
The screen was spiderwebbing across the glass—but it still worked.
Her breathing evened out just a fraction.
“O-okay,” she whispered.
“Good,” Kanye said. “Just… start recording and don’t stop. I’m gonna go check on Daniel again, alright? Stay right here.”
She nodded.
With shaking hands, Jessie turned the camera on. And as the lens opened to the broken world around her.
———
“Nine Ropes bind—Crow’s Call seals—Nature’s Chaos, Rupture—!”
Xila didn’t let her finish.
She detonated herself in a burst of red—lightning imploding outward like a collapsing star. The shockwave ripped through the air, tearing chunks of asphalt free.
Savannah reacted on instinct.
She kicked off nothing—skated on the air itself—and shot upward, wind screaming beneath her boots as she cleared the blast radius by inches.
Xila looked up, smiling.
“Nicht schlecht,” she said, amused.
(Not bad, not bad.)
“Du bist eine schnelle kleine Maus.”
(You’re a quick little mouse.)
Savannah didn’t answer. Her eyes flicked to the ground below.
Magic Bell’s body lay bloodied and still. No aura. The section of warehouse Seamless had been launched through burned and sagged inward—and she felt nothing there either.
Her jaw tightened.
She exhaled once.
Howling Tempest.
The air screamed.
Wind erupted outward in a violent, uncontrolled storm—walls buckled, cars skidded, debris lifted and shredded as the pressure wave tore across the ground like an invisible blade.
Xila smirked.
She lifted her hand.
Crimson Bolt.
Red lightning snapped forward—not at Savannah’s armor, not at the Howling Tempest—but at her. The bolt curved, adjusted, phasing through the attack.
Savannah’s eyes widened.
She twisted, deflecting it with a compressed wall of wind just as it grazed past her shoulder, the heat searing through the air. The lightning slammed into the open night sky behind her, illuminating her in red—
—Xila dodged Savannah’s attack by a hair’s breadth, eyes wide now—not with fear, but surprise. And the concrete sank, collapsing inward.
They hovered in the air, wind and lightning crackling around them.
“Well, well,” Xila said, genuinely impressed.
“Das habe ich nicht erwartet.”
(I didn’t expect this.)
Savannah let out a slow breath.
She had no idea what this lunatic was saying—but the fact that her attack had ignored her defense, the fact that she’d had to deflect instead of overpower, sent a chill down her spine.
Unsettling.
Then she smirked.
“Oi…lucky me,” Savannah muttered, more to herself than to Xila, “another strong Judicator.”
Xila’s grin widened, sharp and delighted.
She knew she was stronger than the girl in front of her. That much was clear.
And yet—
Something about Savannah refused to sit right.
She should have felt like prey.
She didn’t.
Good.
Xila cracked her neck, red lightning crawling eagerly over her arms.
“This,” she thought, excitement blooming hot in her chest, “is going to be interesting.”
———
“Jessie—did you get that?!”
“Yeah—I got that…” Her voice shook as she kept the camera up. “What the hell is going on?”
———
Sirens flooded the night.
Police cruisers skidded into position. Military vehicles rolled forward, soldiers shouting commands that were swallowed by panic and noise. Civilians poured out of side streets, some running toward the chaos with phones raised, others fleeing in blind terror. News vans screeched to a halt, satellite dishes unfolding like mechanical wings as anchors shouted into cameras.
After New York, the country was already on high alert. And waiting for the next disaster.
And it came fast.
The warehouse exploded outward in ice.
A towering surge of jagged, unnatural ice erupted from the structure like a frozen tidal wave, roaring through concrete and steel as if they were paper. Walls vanished under crystalline growths that expanded violently, snapping and reforming mid-motion. The temperature dropped so fast breath crystallized in the air.
Cars were lifted and entombed—ice spears punching through engines, windshields bursting as frames twisted and froze in place. One cruiser was flung sideways, its tires ripped off as it slammed into a storefront and disappeared beneath a blooming glacier of blue-white crystal.
Buildings cracked.
Windows shattered in chains. Brick facades split as ice forced its way through seams and foundations, crawling outward block by block. Streetlights snapped like twigs, sparks flashing briefly before being swallowed by frost.
Apartments and homes nearest the surge were punched open as blue ice speared through walls and windows, puncturing furniture—and people—where they stood. On the street, runners froze mid-stride, silhouettes trapped inside translucent crystal. A delivery truck lay split open, its cargo scattered and half-buried beneath jagged growths that creaked as they expanded.
The ice didn’t stay blue for long.
Hairline cracks spidered through it, then darkened. Red seeped outward in slow blooms, staining the crystalline surfaces like spilled ink in water. Sidewalks became slick with melting frost and blood, the cold preserving everything too perfectly.
Police were thrown off their feet and impaled, weapons skidding uselessly across frozen pavement. Soldiers scrambled for cover that no longer existed—ice walls rising faster than they could react, locking some in place mid-step, screams cutting off as cold sealed them in.
The sound was indescribable.
A thunderous CRACK—BOOM—SHRIEK as ice tore through everything in its path, rewriting the street into a frozen ruin across multiple blocks.
Civilians screamed.
Cameras shook.
Jessie’s phone caught it all—the wave of ice racing past, swallowing cars, climbing buildings, turning streets into a graveyard of crystal and silence.
And somewhere above the destruction, unseen by most, a battle raged on.
White snow roared in from nowhere.
It collided with the surging blue ice head-on, pressure against pressure, cold against colder, until the expansion stopped. The frozen wave locked in place mid-eruption, suspended like the inside of a shaken snow globe—jagged spikes and trapped debris frozen in a moment that refused to finish.
Then the snow began to eat it.
Cracks spread. Ice hissed. The blue crystal dulled as white frost crept over it, unraveling the structure grain by grain.
Tila dropped from above and landed lightly on the tip of a massive ice spike, boots crunching as the surface weakened beneath her. She threw her arms wide, grinning ear to ear, golden-brown eyes alight as the snow responded to her like a living thing—spiraling, breaking the ice down into powder and vapor.
“Whoever gave the intel for this mission,” she called out cheerfully, voice carrying over sirens and helicopter blades, “needs to be fucking fired.”
The spikes reacted—shuddering, trying to surge again.
Her snow pushed back harder.
She tilted her head, amused. “Let’s see who’s behind door number one.”
The frozen wall in front of her began to collapse inward, layer by layer, someone—on the other side was about to be exposed.
And Tila couldn’t wait.
This wasn’t collateral anymore.
This was a message.
And the whole world was watching.
