"Memories are fragile. Easy to twist, easier to sell—and easiest to delete when no one's looking."— Classified Bastion Handbook, Section 9: Psychic Crimes & Archive Protocols
The raid ended with sprinkles and blood on the floor.
Asher Blackwood stood over the last cult enforcer, the man crumpled in a heap of frosting-streaked robes, babbling between ragged gasps. His eyes, wide and glazed, rolled back as he whispered over and over:
"The flame that whispers… the mask that feeds… the mask… it's always hungry…"
Asher's jaw tightened. The smell of burnt sugar and ruptured enchantments hung thick in the air, so sweet it almost choked him. His coat was shredded at the edges, smeared with frosting and something darker—something that still dripped down his arm.
Behind him, Delphira Noir crouched casually, wiping powdered sugar off her gloves with all the urgency of someone cleaning up after brunch rather than a magical firefight. She yanked a rune-etched cupcake from the now-smashed cult altar, holding it up to the light like she was appraising fine art.
"I swear," she muttered, voice dry with amusement, "every time we dig deeper, the crazy gets sweeter."
But Asher wasn't listening.
He was staring at the rune—the glowing, cracked thing pulsing in the center of the room like a heartbeat gone wrong. His breath hitched as he stepped closer, eyes locked onto its jagged, shifting lines. Something about it called to him, a faint hum beneath his skull that buzzed louder with every step.
He should have turned away. He knew better.
But his hand moved on instinct, fingers outstretched—
And the rune shattered.
WHUMP.
A wave of psychic backlash blasted outward like a shockwave, slamming into Asher's chest and through his skull. His vision went white-hot, and then—
FLASH.
A woman, crimson eyes glowing, chains coiled tight around her throat, mouthing something Asher couldn't hear.
A city suspended upside down in the sky, buildings gleaming silver and bleeding light.
His own hand—gripping a dagger he'd never seen before—driving it straight into the chest of someone who looked like… himself.
He dropped to his knees, a ragged groan torn from his throat. "N-No. No, that's not mine… that's not mine—"
The world blurred. His heartbeat roared in his ears, drowning out everything except the ragged rasp of his own breathing.
Delphira was on him in a flash, hands gripping his shoulders tight. Her nails bit through his coat as she shook him once—hard.
"Snap out of it, detective!" she barked, eyes blazing. "The rune was a trap. Someone planted false memories in the Archive system—and they're bleeding into anyone who gets close."
Asher blinked, dazed, staring at her like he didn't recognize her at first. Sweat dripped down his temple, soaking into his collar. Slowly, painfully, his breathing began to steady.
"…False memories," he repeated hoarsely, like he was trying to convince himself.
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Meanwhile – Bastion HQ, Sub-Level 13
Lieutenant Haru Baxter didn't knock. He kicked the reinforced door open, sending it crashing into the Archive Core Room with a bang that rattled the metal walls.
The place was a mess.
Servers sparked wildly, glitching in and out of sync. Files and digital case logs floated mid-air like shattered ghosts, flickering between corrupted fragments. Overhead, the AI assistant—once a prim and proper voice—was now singing lullabies in reverse, its tone warped and hollow.
"Great," Haru growled. "This is fine. Everything's fine."
His fingers tightened around his katana's hilt, the blade humming faintly with contained power. His eyes locked on the mess of corrupted data threads—thick, sticky strands of broken memories hanging from the ceiling like vines.
"Access: Haru," he barked. "Emergency override—Katana Protocol."
With one smooth motion, his blade flared—slashing through the corrupted memory threads, each one disintegrating with a hiss of static and sparks.
At the center of it all, the Archive Core sat—an enormous crystalline sphere, usually bright and immaculate, now flickering weakly like it was suffocating.
Haru's eyes narrowed.
"This isn't a simple hack," he muttered. "Someone injected… a paradox."
On the nearest holo-screen, surveillance footage rewound itself over and over, caught in a maddening loop:
Asher Blackwood. March 7th. Suspect. Witness. Suspect. Witness. Suspect—
It repeated until the file glitched, collapsing into a jagged mess of corrupted data.
Haru's jaw tightened. His fingers twitched. "Oh, hell no."
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Back at Sweet Salvation's secret chamber...
Asher sat hunched, palms braced against the floor, eyes squeezed shut as he fought to clear the lingering images from his mind. Every blink brought another flicker of someone else's life—a splintered timeline clawing at the edges of his sanity.
Delphira crouched beside the shattered rune, her sharp eyes scanning its remains. She picked up a fragment—small, crystalline, its edges faintly glowing.
"The images…" Asher rasped, wiping sweat from his brow. "They're fake memories. Someone's… someone's trying to overwrite my past."
"No," Delphira said grimly, holding up the shard, "worse. They're seeds. If they grow inside you, they'll twist everything—make you doubt what's real… make you question who you are until there's nothing left but noise."
She pressed the shard into his hand, fingers wrapping tightly around his. "Take this to Haru. He's the only one who can stabilize your memory matrix before this thing burrows deeper. And fast, detective—because right now? You're one psychic pulse away from seeing pink elephants juggling knives."
Asher managed a shaky laugh, rising unsteadily to his feet. "At this point, I'd welcome normal pink elephants."
Delphira gave him a look—a dark, knowing smile ghosting at the corner of her lips. "Oh, darling… nothing's ever normal here."
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Above the City – Watcher Satellite HQ
A masked figure leaned over a bank of monitors, their face hidden in shadow as the screens flickered with surveillance footage. They watched closely as Asher stumbled out of the bakery, clutching the rune shard tight in his fist.
Their gloved fingers danced across a control panel, zooming in. The feed sharpened: Asher's face—pale, tense, resisting.
"Subject Blackwood is pushing back," the masked figure murmured. Their voice was smooth, clinical. "Initiate Phase Two."
Behind them, a wall of monitors displayed other targets across Arkwick:
A succubus club owner whose patrons had started forgetting entire weeks.
A cathedral whose stained glass now rippled with events that had never happened.
A child, sitting alone on a street corner, sketching the exact symbol of The Mask in chalk—over and over, with eerie precision.
The masked figure smiled coldly beneath their mask. "Time to accelerate the collapse."
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Rain hammered down as Asher limped through the empty streets, his hand gripping the rune shard so tight his knuckles blanched white. Every step felt heavier, like the city itself was pressing down on him.
Lightning split the sky—but it wasn't lightning.
It was images.
Distorted reflections, flickering high above: his own face, copied and pasted a hundred times over across the storm clouds—each one twisted, each with a different expression. Angry. Sad. Manic. Broken.
Asher stared up, chest heaving.
"…What the hell is happening to this city?" he rasped.
Behind him, Delphira's voice floated up, soft and dangerous.
"Oh, darling. You're only just starting to see the cracks."
[End Of Chapter 43]
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Next Chapter Preview:Chapter 44 – "Resonance in the Ruins"Asher and Haru meet in secret to confront the reality-bending virus infecting the Bastion Archive. Beneath Arkwick's forgotten cathedral, the truth about The Mask begins to surface—and it might tie back to the original demonic incursion. Expect mental breakdowns, sword fights, cursed graffiti, and Delphira being... well, Delphira.