The twilight bled into full night as I stumbled off the pier, the wooden boards groaning under my uneven steps like they were mocking my unraveling. City's sprawl loomed ahead, a jagged silhouette of cranes and smokestacks clawing at the stars, the distant hum of traffic a dull roar that matched the pounding in my skull. Blood seeped from my shoulder, warm and tacky, soaking through my shirt in dark blooms that stuck to my skin with every ragged breath. The graze on my ribs throbbed in time with my heartbeat, a white-hot reminder that the fight wasn't some dream-glitch, it was real, etched into flesh and bone. But the real wound? That was deeper, a venom all my own, twisting through the hollow in my chest where Lara's fire had burned just minutes ago.
*Pretty poison,* Phobos hummed, his cool wire voice threading steady now, no longer faint but sharpened to a blade's edge. *The flood recedes. Coil what remains.*
*Remains? Burn the bitch,* Deimos snarled, gravel rumbling like an avalanche in my veins, his presence coiling hot under my skin. *She toyed, now you toy back. Scales over skirts, kid. Always.*
I didn't argue. Couldn't. The pendants pulsed against my chest, alive with their dual rhythm, pulling me back from the edge of numb shock. The OS HUD flickered in my vision, green overlays scanning the wound: *Damage: Moderate. Venom Infusion: Stabilizing. Threat Level: Elevated. Quest Update: Hunt the Flood, Locate Pisces Veil-Tear.* It was insistent, a cold anchor in the storm of betrayal roiling inside me. Lara, *Pisces*, her amber eyes turning glacial, that laugh echoing like waves crashing over rocks. The kisses, the touches, the way she'd arched under me in the dark of her apartment, whispering *mine* like it meant forever. All bait. All a hook sunk deep by Scorpio's labs, testing if the forbidden Rider would snap or surrender.
I spat into the shallows, the copper tang of blood mixing with salt, and pedaled away on my rusty bike, the chain rattling like loose teeth. The streets blurred, vendors shuttering carts under flickering sodium lights, rain-slicked alleys breathing steam from grates, the faint dangdut pulse from a corner bar that made my temples throb. Home was a beacon, the boarding house's sagging facade a mundane lifeline amid the chaos. I chained the bike outside, ignoring the neighbor's curious glance through the blinds, and shouldered the door open. The stairs creaked under me, each step jarring the wounds, but the pain kept me sharp, kept the illusions at bay.
My room was a tomb, bed unmade from last night's tangle with her ghost, textbooks slumped like accusing witnesses on the desk, the black card from Ophy peeking from my wallet like a splinter I'd ignored too long. I collapsed onto the edge of the mattress, peeling off the ruined shirt with a hiss, the mirror across the room reflecting a stranger again: Rei, the nobody, scarred and bloodied, eyes hollowed by more than fatigue. The shoulder gash wept red, the rib line a angry slash, but the pendants gleamed untouched, their silver-green surfaces etched with faint coils that seemed to writhe in the lamplight.
*Call him,* Phobos urged, a cool certainty in the wire. *Ophy's ire was warning, not chain. The squad frays without the coil.*
*Or go lone,* Deimos countered, his growl laced with dark amusement. *Hunt her scent yourself, brine and lies. Make her drown in it.*
I exhaled, the breath fogging the air like warehouse mist, and fished the card from my wallet. Its edges were frayed, the black surface cool under my thumb, but as I brought it to my lips, the name slipped out, raw, reluctant: "Ophy."
The room thickened, ozone blooming sharp and electric, mist coiling from the floorboards like smoke from a struck match. He materialized slow this time, not the abrupt intrusion of before, but deliberate, his form shimmering into solidity at the foot of the bed: tall and serpentine, emerald eyes flickering with that salesman's lilt over something ancient, weary. His mist clung to him like a cloak, tendrils brushing the walls, and for a beat, his gaze raked me, wounds, blood, the slump of my shoulders, before settling on a nod that was almost approval.
"Pup," he said, voice smooth as oil over gravel, but the ire was there, banked but smoldering. "You called. Finally uncoiled from the flood's pretty jaws." He stepped closer, mist parting like water, and extended a hand, long-fingered, ringed with zodiac sigils that glowed faint. No healing touch, not yet; instead, his fingers hovered over the shoulder gash, drawing the venom from my veins in a slow siphon, the pain easing to a dull ache as green threads stitched the edges. "Sagittarius? Bold poach. And Pisces... ah, the bait you swallowed whole."
I flinched under the probe, not just the wound but the truth in his words, the hollow twisting like a knife. "She... toyed with me. All of it, the transfer, the smiles, the..." My voice cracked, heat flooding my face, shame burning hotter than the ribs. The library kisses, the pier grinds, her nails on my back in the dark, delusions, all of it spun to fray my coil. "Ophy, why didn't you drag me sooner? Your 'warnings', they were just smoke."
His laugh was low, liquid, emerald eyes narrowing to slits. "Drag you? Warnings for the tame, pup. You needed the taste, the hook before the haul. Scorpio's labs weave these games; Pisces floods the cracks, tests the forbidden's bend. She's no mere transfer; Elara Voss is veil-fog, a siren leak sent to drown Ophiuchus static." He withdrew his hand, the gash sealing to a puckered scar, pink and raw. "But you spat the venom. That's the crack we need. Squad's fraying, Mira's clones glitch wild in the east stacks, Lena scouts edges bleeding brine. Call them. Hunt the flood. Or let her pull you under for good."
The pendants warmed, Phobos and Deimos stirring in tandem, *Nest rebuilds,* the wire hummed. *Strike the source,* the gravel rumbled. I nodded, slow, the betrayal settling into resolve, a cold fire that chased the ache. "Squad first. Then her."
Ophy's mist swirled, approval flickering in his eyes before he dissolved, voice echoing as he faded: "Warehouse. Dawn. Uncoil sharp, pup. The veil thins."
Alone again, the room pressed in, the mirror's reflection less haunted but no less scarred. I bandaged the wounds with strips from an old shirt, the sting a grounding rhythm, and pulled out my phone. Mira's texts piled like unanswered debts, *Glitch run? You're ghosting, coil-boy.* *Lena's worried. Ping.* Lena's were clipped, precise: *Edges leak. Need eyes.* My thumbs hovered, guilt twisting fresh, but I typed: *Alive. Betrayed. Pisces infiltration. Warehouse, dawn. Squad up.*
Sent. The whoosh was a lifeline, the hollow echoing less with the promise of allies, not dreams, but choices, glow-stick sticky and real. Sleep came fitful, the OS humming low: *Rest Cycle: Optimize. Hunt Pending.* Dreams weren't of raids or venom this time, but of blue abysses pulling me down, Lara's laugh rippling through the waves, her hands, lover's, then tendrils, dragging me into the deep. I woke spitting shadows, the pendants thrumming urgent, Phobos's whisper cool: *Breathe through it. The coil tightens when you pull.*
Dawn broke gray and insistent, the boarding house pipes rattling like distant thunder as I dressed, faded jeans, supermarket polo stained with faint blood, sneakers laced tight over trembling resolve. The bike ride to the industrial district blurred the edges: streets waking under a pall of fog, vendors sparking carts with sizzle and smoke, the air thick with diesel ghosts and the faint ozone of veil-frays. The warehouse loomed, its rusty jaw half-open, crates stamped *Zodiac Imports, Fragile* like mocking relics from that first night.
Footsteps crunched on gravel inside, two sets, synced but edged with tension. Mira burst from the gloom first, lantern swinging like a captive star, her grin all teeth but fractured now, eyes shadowed under her wild ponytail. "Rei! Score one for the not-erased. You ghosted hard, thought the coil snapped you." She hip-checked a crate, but her stance was fluid, ready, no glow sticks or candy bars this time, just the weight of unanswered pings.
Lena followed, hoodie up, gaze scanning me like a perimeter: wounds, slump, the pendants' faint hum. Her nod was faint, almost a smile, but her voice cut steady: "Pisces. We clocked the leak weeks ago, brine trails in the east district, fogging edges. Your... transfer? Red flag." She dangled no Ouija board, just a sleek scanner that beeped faint, mapping ozone spikes. "Traffic was illusions. Mira insisted on 'bait' anyway."
My heart hammered, no hostile ping, just the low hum from Phobos: *Caution rebuilds.* Deimos: *Or bait the bait.* "She toyed," I said, locking the imaginary bike, voice rough as the gravel. "All of it. Sagittarius hit last night, pier ambush. Called Ophy. He... patched."
Mira's laugh bubbled, sharp as glass but real, shoving a med-pack into my hands. "Ophy? The mist-dad? Figures he'd let you drown first." She looped an arm through mine, casual but steel beneath, pulling me deeper into the stacks. Lena fell in on my other side, cool counterweight. The doors groaned shut, the air thick with oil, rust, and that insistent ozone, pendants thrumming like tuning forks.
*Leak strong,* Phobos noted, wire threading alert.
*Smells like payback,* Deimos grumbled, eager.
We wove through towering crates, lantern beam cutting dust motes, Mira hopping onto a stack like old times. "Spill, coil-boy. That factory bailout, Leo's flames, Aries charge, we dropped in, but you vanished. Then ghosting? Thought erasure got you." Her grin sly: "Don't drag us into Pisces fog with that Ophiuchus hum, yeah?"
The air thickened sudden, shadows pooling in corners like fingers testing light. We froze, my hand over pendants, Mira's stance shifting fluid, Lena's fingers twitching to her scanner. But no tar-beasts, no illusions crashing; just a faint ripple, brine-scent ghosting the stacks, the OS pinging: *Veil-Tear: Pisces Echo. Trace Origin.*
Lena's scanner beeped urgent, blue glow casting her face fractured. "East district. Her apartment, anchor point. Flood's pooling there, pulling squad edges." Her gaze met mine, steady, searching. "You lead? Or we glitch without you?"
I didn't pull away. The whisper in my head was static no more, venom awake, coiling sharp. This felt different from the dream, the toy. Tentative, real. "Yeah," I muttered, the words tumbling like before, but edged now. "Lead. But fair warning, mine ends in floods that get erased as 'tidal anomalies.'"
Mira whooped, snapping a glow stick, green, defiant, and tossing it to Lena, who cracked it blue. "Sign us up! Glitch squad's back, serpent-style."
We mapped it out in the dim, neon web of sticks and scanner readouts, candy bars scarfed for fuel, tales swapped halting: Mira's clone mishaps glitching wilder without backup, Lena's scouting runs bleeding brine illusions, my own raw spill of pier betrayal, the Sagittarius scatter, Pisces's mocking kiss. The hours blurred, Ouija forgotten for strat, flank the apartment, illusion-bait with Mira's duplicates, venom-strike with my coil. The hollow twisted, but sharing it here lessened the claw, allies' rhythm drowning the echo of her laugh.
Mira yawned eventual. "Flood hunt: pending. Reunion: ten. But dawn's burning."
At the gate, Lena paused, scanner pocketed. "Ping if illusions wake. Squad's open, choices, right?" Mira squeezed my arm, brief but fierce. "Yours. Don't ghost again."
I biked home through the waking streets, OS steady: *Quest Update: Flood Hunted. Allies Forged.* Betrayal wasn't dreams, it was this: brine-sticky, glow-lit, chosen in the fray.
Back in my room, the mirror's reflection sharpened, less haunted, haze thinner. Venom thrummed, not ache but edge.
*Hunt grounds,* Phobos hummed. *Build venom.*
*Or crash the wave,* Deimos chuckled. *Fun either way.*
Sleep came, dreams of riptides and strikes, not erasure. The hollow echoed less, filled with scraps of dawn plans: a swinging ponytail, a steady scan, the bitter taste of payback chocolate. The coil tightened, and for the first time, it felt like mine.