Mino’s glow dimmed. She swayed, suddenly hollowed out. Inside her ribs, the presence shifted—restless, hungry.

  The armored man pushed off the wall and approached her carefully, like she might erupt again.

  “You saved my life,” he said, voice rough. “What’s your name?”

  Mino hesitated. “…Mino.”

  His eyes swept her—hood, ears barely hidden, the faint light still clinging to her hands.

  “That power,” he said quietly. “You have no idea what you’re carrying, do you?”

  Mino’s throat tightened. “No.”

  He nodded once, decision settling into his face. “Then you’re coming with me.”

  Mino blinked. “I—I was going to a shelter—”

  “This is bigger than a shelter,” he said. Not unkind. Just firm. “There are people who will hunt you for what you can do. And people who will try to use you. If you want even a chance at choosing your own life… you come to HQ.”

  Mino stared at him. She should have said no. She should have run.

  But she’d already seen what alone cost.

  “…Okay,” she whispered.

  He exhaled like he’d been holding his breath. “Good. Stay close.”

  HQ was nothing like Mino expected.

  She’d pictured gray concrete, soldiers, cages. Something clinical. Something cold.

  Instead it felt like a fortress built by people who planned to outlast the end of the world: thick stone, reinforced steel, warm lights that didn’t flicker. Hallways lined with maps and insignias and plaques carved with names—memorials.

  People moved with purpose. Some wore armor. Some wore street clothes with weapons hidden under coats. A few looked like ordinary office workers until they turned and you noticed the way they carried themselves—balanced, ready, trained.

  Mino’s ears flattened beneath her hood. She felt out of place before she’d taken ten steps.

  Garth led her into a wide room where a large emblem dominated the wall. A long table sat beneath it, surrounded by chairs. Screens and boards were crowded with notes, photos, routes—strings of work that never really ended.

  “This is the Super Freaks,” Garth said, like he was introducing a sports team and not something that sounded like a joke.

  Mino blinked. “That’s… really what you call yourselves?”

  Garth’s mouth twitched. “We didn’t name it. Someone else did. It stuck.”

  Mino hugged herself. “What do you do?”

  His expression sobered. “We respond to threats normal forces can’t handle. Asterbound. Spirits. People who weaponize vavic. Things that fall from the sky and change what humans can survive.”

  Mino’s stomach clenched on the last part.

  Garth pulled out a chair and sat, motioning for her to take one across from him. “Tell me what happened.”

  So she did.

  The words came uneven—too fast in some places, stuck in others. Her voice cracked when she talked about her family. It died entirely when she reached Risa. When she described the fire spirit pouring into her, she wrapped her arms tighter around herself like she could hold it in place.

  Garth listened without interrupting. No pity. No disbelief. Just attention.

  When she finished, he leaned back and stared at the ceiling for a long moment, jaw working.

  “That fragment,” he said finally, careful. “It’s not just a rock. Those things are tied to something bigger. A project we’ve been tracking.”

  Mino swallowed. “What project?”

  Garth leaned forward, elbows on the table. “Armageddon.”

  Mino froze. “That’s… like the end of the world.”

  “Yeah,” Garth said grimly. “And somebody out there is trying to make it more than a word.”

  He stood and crossed to the wall display, tapped it once.

  Images snapped into place: craters. Strange shards. scorched zones. Reports of people manifesting power they couldn’t control. Threads drawn between incidents across regions like someone had taken a marker to the map of the world and decided it needed scars.

  “This started with impacts,” Garth said. “Fragments. Not all the same size, not all landing in the same place. But every time one shows up, something follows. Spirits. the Bound. vavic surges. Factions turning uglier overnight.”

  Mino’s hands clenched in her lap. “Why?”

  Garth’s gaze hardened. “Because someone is collecting them. Or trying to.” He exhaled. “And when enough of them are brought together…” His jaw tightened. “We don’t know exactly what happens. But we have enough to believe it won’t end clean.”

  Mino stared at the screen. “So you’re stopping it.”

  “We’re trying,” Garth said. “But we’re outpaced. And now…” His voice tightened. “Now Heroko is out there killing people and leaving vavic readings behind like breadcrumbs.”

  Mino remembered Heroko’s eyes. The calm smile. The way he’d said destiny like it was comfort.

  “Heroko used to be one of us,” Garth said quietly. “One of the best.”

  Mino’s mouth went dry. “He didn’t feel like… like a hero.”

  Garth didn’t flinch. “He wasn’t always like that.”

  He gestured to a side panel lined with photos—some smiling, some caught mid-fight, some looking half-dead on their feet.

  Stolen from Royal Road, this story should be reported if encountered on Amazon.

  “That’s Rell,” he said, tapping a broad woman with a mechanical arm. “Tech and frontline. Sable—stealth. Juno—medic and vavic stabilization.” His finger paused on another photo. “Alisa—” His voice shifted by a fraction. “—she’s important.”

  Mino caught the change in him at that name.

  “And me,” Garth finished, tapping his own picture like it was an afterthought.

  Mino swallowed. “Why are you telling me this?”

  “Because you have power,” Garth said plainly. “Enough that Heroko noticed. Enough that other people will notice too. If you stay alone, you’ll get used… or you’ll break.”

  Mino’s throat tightened. “I don’t want to hurt anyone.”

  Garth nodded once. “Then learn control. Control gives you choice.”

  The door opened behind them.

  Zach strolled in like he owned the hallway.

  Mino’s head snapped up. “Zach!”

  Zach’s eyes warmed when he saw her. “You made it.”

  Relief hit Mino so sharply it almost hurt. “You said you’d come.”

  “Told you.” Zach’s gaze slid to Garth. “So this is where you dragged her.”

  Garth’s stare sharpened. “You met her already?”

  Zach shrugged. “Street.”

  Garth’s jaw tightened, but he didn’t argue. “Good. Then you understand why she needs to stay here.”

  Zach’s expression sobered. “Yeah. I do.”

  Mino looked between them. “You two know each other.”

  “We do,” Zach said easily. “He’s grumpy. I’m charming. It balances.”

  Garth ignored that and looked back to Mino. “I’ll teach you to control what you’ve got. We’ll assess you, stabilize whatever’s inside you, and—” He hesitated, then added, “—we’ll get you armor. And a weapon, if you want one.”

  Mino blinked. “A weapon?”

  “Only if you choose,” Garth said. “Only when you’re ready.”

  Zach leaned against the doorframe, folding his arms. “And I’ll make sure nobody in here treats you like a lab experiment.”

  Mino’s lips trembled. She didn’t know what to do with kindness anymore. It felt like it might vanish the second she reached for it.

  Garth rolled his shoulders like he was putting his weight back on. “I can’t stay.”

  Mino’s eyes snapped to him. “Because of Heroko.”

  He nodded once. “He’s escalating. If I don’t stop him, more people die.”

  Zach’s gaze sharpened. “Garth—”

  Garth cut him off with a look. “Watch over Alisa.”

  Zach’s mouth tightened, but he nodded. “I already am.”

  Garth looked at Mino one last time. “We’ll talk more when I get back. For now—eat something real. Get rest. Tomorrow we start.”

  “Be careful,” Mino whispered.

  Garth paused at the doorway—just long enough for her to see the exhaustion behind the toughness.

  “Yeah,” he said. “You too.”

  Then he was gone.

  Taco didn’t announce herself.

  She moved through her town like a shadow with a job to do—cutting through alleyways, slipping over broken fences, listening for the sounds that mattered: boots on pavement, raised voices, the metallic click of weapons coming ready.

  The Bound had turned the place into a playground. They took what they wanted and laughed while they did it.

  Taco clenched her jaw until her teeth ached.

  She found them outside the bank—three men with masks half-up, hauling bulging bags out the front doors like they’d won something. A fourth stood watch, twirling a baton that crackled with stolen tech-energy.

  Taco stepped into the open.

  “Hey,” she called. “You guys open an account for regret yet? Because you’re about to deposit a lot.”

  The watchman snapped around. “Who the—”

  Taco threw her camping hatchet.

  It struck the baton and knocked it wide, sparks spraying. The watchman yelped and stumbled back.

  The other three dropped their bags and drew steel.

  Taco surged forward—fast, vicious. She wasn’t the strongest. She wasn’t the flashiest. But camping taught you something simple:

  You don’t survive by being polite.

  You survive by ending threats.

  A blade came for her head. She dipped under it, drove an elbow into the man’s throat, yanked his mask down, and slammed his face into the bank’s stone steps. He went limp and stayed there.

  Another lunged with a knife. Taco caught his wrist, twisted until the joint complained, and drove her knee into his gut. The knife clattered across the sidewalk.

  The third turned to run.

  Taco sprinted him down, hit him low, and dumped him hard. She pinned him with her forearm across his chest.

  “Where’s your boss?” she hissed.

  He wheezed, eyes huge. “I-I don’t know—”

  Taco leaned in, pressure tightening. “Yes you do.”

  His throat bobbed. “Warehouse. Old—old rail yard. He’s there.”

  Taco held his gaze, measuring the fear, weighing the lie.

  It wasn’t a lie.

  She released him and stood.

  He scrambled backward on hands and knees. “Wait—wait, please—”

  Taco picked up the dropped knife.

  And she ended him without ceremony.

  Not because she enjoyed it.

  Because she’d seen what happened when monsters were allowed to crawl away and come back.

  She wiped the blade on his jacket, turned, and headed for the rail yard.

  Her town was bleeding.

  She wasn’t going to ask nicely for it back.

  The night grew heavier the farther south Garth traveled.

  Reports guided him like breadcrumbs—officers found dead, patrol cars overturned, radios reduced to shrieking static. By the time he reached the next town, he didn’t need directions anymore.

  He could smell it.

  Blood and burnt dust.

  He found them on the main street: police officers—what was left of them—laid out in a wide arc, like they’d tried to form a line and been cut down before it could hold. One was still alive, breathing in shallow, panicked pulls, eyes flicking everywhere at once.

  Garth dropped beside him. “Who did this?”

  The officer’s lips trembled. “A man… with a sword. He—he smiled.”

  Something clenched hard in Garth’s chest.

  A soft sound carried from the far end of the street—boots on pavement.

  Garth rose slowly.

  Heroko stepped out of the darkness like he’d been expected.

  His sword was stained. His face was calm.

  He looked at the bodies, then at Garth, and let out a quiet sigh—an inconvenience given shape.

  “Garth,” Heroko said warmly. “You came.”

  Garth’s grip tightened on his weapon. “Why?”

  Heroko’s eyes drifted toward the horizon where the desert swallowed what little light the town had left. “Why do storms happen?”

  Garth’s jaw set. “Answer the question.”

  Heroko looked back. For a moment the emptiness in his gaze made Garth’s skin crawl.

  “It was destiny,” Heroko said. “The world takes what it wants. We take our paths.”

  Garth took a step forward. “This isn’t a path. This is you choosing to butcher people who can’t fight back.”

  Heroko’s mouth lifted, almost sympathetic. “You still speak like the world is fair.”

  “You used to believe it could be,” Garth snapped.

  Heroko’s expression tightened—just a flicker—then smoothed back into that calm.

  “You will always be my friend,” he said softly. “That doesn’t change.”

  Garth’s voice went rough. “Then stop.”

  Heroko raised his sword a fraction—not a threat.

  Acceptance.

  “I can’t,” he said. “Because I must kill you.”

  Garth’s eyes narrowed. “Because someone told you to?”

  Heroko shook his head. “Because it’s what I am now.”

  For a heartbeat, the street held its breath. The only sound was the wounded officer’s ragged pull of air.

  Then Heroko moved.

  Garth met him.

  Steel screamed.

  And far away, in a fortress full of people preparing for the end of the world, Mino sat with her hands in her lap and felt the power inside her stir—

  like it knew something terrible had just begun.