Location: The Hollow Grid — Minutes after breach
The light from the breach crackled and collapsed inward, leaving behind a void charged with heat and dread.
Mara stepped through the smoke like a queen returning to her throne.
Her armor glowed with molten yellows and ember-washed gold, twisted into sharp edges and thorn-like curves. Her visor flared with an angry, pulsing flame—no longer the cheerful glow Kael once remembered.
Mara Vex. Former Yellow Ranger of Team Delta. Now… Fractured Warlord of the Eclipse Knight.
She tilted her head at the stunned silence, her voice a mix of sarcasm and something deeper. Something broken.
"Don't everyone hug me at once."
Kael didn't move.
Not a breath. Not a blink.
His hands trembled at his sides, fists clenching and unclenching. "You… died."
Mara stepped forward slowly. "Did I?"
He stepped toward her, ignoring the team's raised weapons.
"I buried you, Mara. I watched you get torn apart."
A smile—sharp, unkind—played across her lips.
"You watched me fight. And you left me."
Scene 1: Fractures in the Flesh
Ayla whispered from the back, "Whoa. That's his Mara?"
Mira's scanner flashed. "Readings are off the charts. That's a morphing signature, but… inverted. Like it's feeding off destruction."
Thorne's eyes narrowed. "She's not just corrupted. She's chosen this."
Mara heard them.
She waved cheerfully.
"Oh, I missed the background commentary. Nice to see you too, random sidekicks."
Kael stepped closer.
His voice cracked. "Why?"
"Why?" she repeated, faux-thoughtful. "Was it the centuries of being erased from the Grid's memory? Was it the part where my death meant nothing to the universe I bled for? Or was it—" she leaned forward, voice cutting like glass "—the part where you ran, Kael?"
"I didn't run," he growled.
"You lived," she said, voice dropping. "And I died. And now… I'm what's left."
Her visor flared, and flames burst outward, forcing the team to leap back.
Kael stood his ground.
"You're being used," he said. "Elios twists everything. He took who you were and—"
"No. You took that," she hissed. "When you let the world burn, Kael. I woke up in the Broken Citadel, alone. No Morph. No name. Nothing. And he found me. Gave me a second chance."
"He enslaved you."
"No," she said, smiling faintly, "he showed me that sacrifice is a lie."
Scene 2: The Spark Reignites
Without warning, Mara launched herself forward.
Kael barely dodged, pulling his saber to block as her molten staff came crashing down. The floor beneath them exploded from the impact.
The team scattered.
Thorne charged her from the left. "Don't take it personally—"
She roundhouse kicked him mid-sentence, sending him flying into a pillar.
"—okay, that was personal," he groaned.
Mira fired pulse rounds from her gauntlet. Ayla threw a blinding flash bomb.
But Mara spun her staff, absorbing the blast with a twist of her armor's energy field. She flared brighter—feeding off the chaos.
"She's linked to the Grid somehow," Mira shouted. "Every blow we land, she feeds on it."
"Then don't fight to win," Rin said.
He stepped forward, gliding into position with his blade unsheathed. His voice was ice.
"Fight to distract."
Kael understood immediately.
"Get her attention."
Ayla grinned. "On it."
She vaulted off a broken beam, flipped over Mara's shoulder, and slapped a charge on her back mid-air.
"Catch me, rage queen!"
Mara snarled and turned, lunging after her.
Kael took his chance.
He slid in low, reversed his grip on his saber, and drove it through the weak gap in her lower armor—not to kill… but to shock.
The blade sparked with red energy. Mara screamed, not in pain, but in frustration—the charge Ayla planted now activating, locking her motion.
"Don't make me do this," Kael said, pressing his helmet to hers.
"I already made you," she hissed.
With a burst of flame, she shattered the trap.
But it was enough.
Rin moved in, slashing his blade across the floor beneath her, inscribing a seal of light—pure Morph energy that rejected corruption.
Mara froze mid-lunge, locked in a stasis circle.
She snarled like an animal.
But she couldn't move.
Kael stepped forward.
"I don't care what he told you," he said quietly. "You were my sister. You still are."
Mara stared at him through the flickering fire of her visor.
Then… the fire dimmed.
"I… remember," she whispered.
The moment stretched—
Then shattered.
Mara's body collapsed into flame and vanished.
Not destroyed.
Extracted.
Scene 3: Aftershock
The Hollow Grid returned to silence.
No alarms. No breach.
Just a scorch mark on the floor where Mara had stood.
Kael stood there, breathing heavily, his fists shaking.
The others watched him.
Ayla finally broke the silence.
"Well… that was a lot."
Thorne nodded. "You okay?"
Kael didn't answer.
Rin stepped forward and placed a hand on his shoulder. "That wasn't possession."
"I know," Kael whispered.
"She chose this."
He nodded.
Mira looked toward the fracture still hovering at the edge of the station. "Then we better figure out how to stop the next one before we see more of our pasts turned into weapons."
Kael finally turned.
Eyes burning, voice cold.
"Next time we face her… we bring her back."
"Or?" Thorne asked.
Kael stared into the void.
"Or we put her to rest."
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