The desert night was alive with whispers.
Sandstorm winds howled through the canyons, carrying the static buzz of the Wire and the scent of scorched metal. A dying drone lay half-buried in the dunes, its optics still flickering. Nearby, Genrihk's team moved in formation — five individuals against an endless expanse of irradiated sand.
"Keep your helmets sealed," Genrihk muttered through the comms, scanning the ridge with his pistol. "Radiation's spiking."
Rue adjusted her goggles, her HUD crackling with interference.
"We shouldn't even be out here. Command said the signal came from deep within this sector — no one should be transmitting from a dead zone."
Genrihk's voice broke the channel, calm but edged.
"Orders are orders. DomiTech wants confirmation before sunrise. We locate the source, recover what we can, and regroup at the Turbine once netoshka's squad links up with us."
The others acknowledged with weary nods — Serah, silent as always; Battery, lugging his heavy repeater arms; and Cirke, her rebreather hissing as she hauled a portable scanner. The team was battered but disciplined, survivors of too many fights already.
Then the ground shivered.
At first it was faint, like the hum of an engine beneath the land. But within seconds, the sand began to ripple, swirling outward in concentric rings. Cirke froze. "Movement. Right under us—"
The dunes erupted.
A spiraling column of black sand tore skyward, twisting into a vortex. Out of it stepped a figure — a woman of shifting decaying and ash, her eyes molten amber, her form half-formed, half-dispersed in the storm. A Sand Demon Enchantress?. Her voice was soft and resonant, echoing in their skulls more than their ears.
"Intruders… metallic being, and even an undead officer carrying the scent of the Wire… and something more. Flesh that dares to walk the desert of the dead"
Battery cursed, raising his weapon. "Enemy Contact—!"
The Enchantress swept her arm. The air warped. His shot veered off course, bending mid-flight before slamming harmlessly into the sand. She laughed — a sound like metal grinding through glass.
"Spread out!" Genrihk barked. "Rue, on my six! Cirke, deploy scanners!"
Cirke slammed a beacon into the sand, and blue arcs of energy flared out, mapping the terrain.
"Her field's distorting magnetism—she's manipulating the minerals themselves!"
Zev darted left, sliding behind a dune, his rifle spitting bursts of plasma fire. Serah hurled a shock grenade; it detonated midair, scattering the sandstorm for a heartbeat — enough to glimpse her true shape. Beneath the swirling veil, her body was stitched with runes, burning with the same orange energy as the Wire — but older, more primal.
"She's not fully human," Rue said, voice trembling. "Something's keeping her bound here."
The Enchantress turned toward her, smiling through the sand.
"You see me clearly, child. The desert remembers those who fall within it. You bring ruin wherever you tread — just like the one you follow."
Her hand rose. The dunes surged forward like a tidal wave.
Genrihk shoved Rue behind cover as the sand hit — a crushing wall of debris that swallowed half the ridge. Battery roared, bracing himself against the force, his armor groaning under the weight.
"She's moving the whole damn landscape!"
Zev rolled clear, firing an EMP charge that struck her chest. The field cracked — light flaring from within her torso. She screamed, a sound that shook the air itself, and the storm around her faltered.
"Now!" Genrihk shouted.
Serah and Rue opened fire, their rounds punching through the fractured veil. The Enchantress staggered, her form flickering between human and molten crystal. For a heartbeat, she looked almost mortal — a woman in tattered ceremonial garb, her face filled with anguish.
"Why do you still struggle?" she whispered. "Don't you see what awaits? The Wire… will consume you too."
Genrihk's eyes hardened. "Maybe. But not today."
He fired a single armor-piercing round through her chest. Then sent his Ghostly apparition of spirits to finish her off.
The explosion was silent — a bloom of white light bursting outward, consuming her in a shockwave that flattened the surrounding dunes. The storm collapsed, leaving nothing but silence and falling ash.
The squad stood amid the aftermath, gasping through static-filled comms. Rue knelt, catching her breath but recharging its energy.
"Someone wanna tell me what the hell that was?"
Cirke's scanner pinged weakly, displaying faint readings of Wire-energy residue.
"She wasn't one of Krankl's soldiers. Too old. Too… different. Like she'd been here before the cataclysm, almost like an anomaly."
Genrihk holstered his weapon.
"Doesn't matter. She's gone. Pack it up — we move east."
Rue hesitated, glancing at the remnants of the sand vortex.
"Sir… if she was telling the truth, this desert's more than a battlefield."
Genrihk looked to the horizon, where faint red light shimmered beyond the dunes — the first hint of dawn.
"Then let's hope the rest of Erythia never finds out."
The team began their march again, leaving behind only scorched sand and the faint echo of a undead woman's last words drifting through the wind..