Chapter Text
Caleb jolted awake, chest heaving like he’d just run a marathon.
He sat up fast, the nightmare still clawing at his mind, his breath catching in his throat. The sheets were tangled around his legs like chains. For a few seconds, he didn’t know what was real and what wasn’t.
He dragged a shaky hand down his face, trying to breathe.
The nightmare. Again.
He had seen her body crushed in the debris, with dust in her hair and blood on her lips. And she wasn’t moving, breathing. It was the explosion. And this time it hadn’t been him and grandma, it had been her.
“Damn it,” he whispered, voice raw.
He pressed the heel of his hand hard into his eyes, as if pain might erase the image. But it stayed, of course, seared into his mind.
The cold air of the apartment bit at his bare chest. He stood up, muscles tense, heavy with sleep and something deeper, grief, or maybe guilt. His shoulders were slick with sweat, his hair was a mess, sticking to his forehead.
The pain in his chest wouldn't fade even though he’d woken up. He felt it like it was real, too real. He moved to his desk, fast. His legs almost buckled, but he caught himself on the chair.
Please be okay. Please.
The screen lit up.
He didn’t waste time. Fingers flying over the keyboard, he pulled up his network of surveillance. Cameras, logs, tracker data… everything he had set up to monitor her. To keep her safe from afar, like always.
Some people would call it invasive, stalker behavior, even. He didn’t care.
She was his to protect.
And right now he couldn't be there to do it in person. She was safe, thinking he was dead and he would keep it that way if it meant Ever would never find out about her.
His fingers moved fast across the keyboard, typing in shortcuts he knew by heart, checking her most frequented locations. A few seconds later, he found her.
There she is.
Walking down a path near the hospital. The breeze played with her hair, and there was that small smile on her face, the one she didn’t even know she made when she was enjoying the weather. Caleb’s jaw clenched as he leaned closer to the screen.
Beside her walked Zayne, his usual long coat brushing against his legs as he spoke. Probably lecturing her about something again. Her heart check-up was today, Caleb remembered. That’s why she was with him.
He watched the way she tilted her head as she replied to Zayne, one hand stuffed in her jacket pocket.
Still there, still breathing.
Caleb let out a slow breath, but the knot in his chest didn’t untie, not really.
Caleb watched the way MC looked at Zayne, how her hand brushed her chest briefly, the spot where the Aether Core lived inside her heart.
She was safe right now, but the pain of that recurring nightmare wouldn’t leave him. He kept seeing her body, still and lifeless, her warmth gone forever. It wasn’t real, but it could be. And that was the problem.
He breathed out slowly, his mechanical hand flexing unconsciously, the metal beneath the synthetic skin humming with tension.
“She’s okay,” he whispered to himself. “That’s all that matters.”
Caleb watched the screen in silence.
MC was laughing now.
Her head tilted slightly and she brushed her hair from her face. Zayne said something, probably dry and clinical, but she still laughed. Caleb could practically hear it, even though the feed didn’t carry audio.
His jaw clenched tighter, the muscles in his arms coiling like springs beneath his skin. Zayne was walking too close. Too casual, too comfortable. And MC wasn’t pulling away. No, she never pulled away from him.
Caleb stared hard at the screen, his violet eyes narrowing as something twisted deep in his chest.
Zayne was her doctor, that was all. It was a routine check-up. Just a simple, friendly conversation. And maybe he made her laugh. So what?
She laughs with lots of people, that doesn't mean anything.
Right?
He sat back in his chair, letting his head fall against the headrest, eyes still fixed on her like he could memorize every step she took.
She didn’t know how many things out there wanted to hurt her. How many people wanted to use her. Or that her very existence, that Aether Core in her chest, made her a target every single day.
Zayne didn’t understand the weight she carried. He was a good doctor, sure. Probably meant well. But he didn’t know her like Caleb did, he didn’t see her.
He’d known her since she was a child. He knew what scared her. What made her laugh for real, not this light, airy thing she gave to other people. He knew the way her shoulders curled when she was trying to hide how tired she was. How her eyes dimmed right before she cried, even if the tears never came.
Caleb told himself this wasn’t obsession.
It was loyalty, love. Duty.
If he seemed overprotective, it was because no one else could protect her the way he could. Because no one else would when it mattered.
Caleb rolled his shoulders slowly, muscle and metal shifting under his skin like coiled wire.
The old ache was there again, the want. The craving to be near her, to walk beside her, to feel her arm brush his when she laughed at something dumb he said. If only he could cook for her again, or make her tea the way she liked it, with honey but no lemon.
But he didn’t move from his spot, because they had rebuilt him for one reason.
To destroy her.
But no matter what they’d done to him, no matter how much of him they’d scraped away, there was still one thing they couldn’t touch.
His love for her.
And he would use all the power they gave him for one thing only: to protect her.
Even if it meant staying far, far away.
***
The wind was crisp as MC and Zayne walked side by side down the narrow path leading away from Akso Hospital. The morning sun painted the buildings golden, but it did little to warm her.
Her fingers fidgeted with the silver necklace around her neck. It was the only thing she’d found after the explosion, the only piece of Caleb she had left.
Zayne glanced sideways at her, his hands still tucked neatly into his coat pockets.
“Have you... been attending the grief counseling sessions I recommended?” he asked, voice low, careful.
MC's step faltered just a little. Not enough to be obvious, but still. Her hand tightened around the necklace.
She didn’t look at him when she spoke. “I’ve been... busy.”
Zayne didn’t press, he never did. They kept walking, his silence as steady as the rhythm of their footsteps.
She hated that question. Not because he was wrong to ask, but because it always brought her back to this heavy truth: Caleb was gone. And the more days that passed, the more she feared she was forgetting him.
Not entirely, not yet. But when she closed her eyes, she had to try harder to see his smile.
She had to concentrate to remember the exact shade of violet in his eyes when the light hit just right. Or the way he used to tilt his head slightly before teasing her with some stupid nickname. Pipsqueak, brat, silly girl.
She was losing pieces of him and it hurt in a way nothing else could touch.
At the corner, Zayne stopped with her. She offered him a faint smile, but it didn’t reach her eyes.
He surprised her by pulling her gently into a hug. Just brief, tight enough to ground her.
“If you ever want to talk,” he murmured, “you know how to reach me.”
She nodded into his shoulder.
And when they pulled apart, she whispered, “thanks, Zayne.”
Then she turned and walked away, the necklace still clutched in her fist.
The streets were slowly filling, cafés opening, sunlight filtering through the glass towers in strips of pale gold. It was still early, still quiet enough that her thoughts could press in without mercy.
She told herself she was fine. That the check-up with Zayne was routine. That the ache in her chest was just from the early morning air. But she knew better.
This was what grief looked like after the shock wore off. It wasn’t constant crying or sitting in the dark, it was walking down the street like nothing had happened, while a hollow ache dragged behind her like a shadow.
And underneath that ache was something darker. Something she knew she couldn't talk about in the therapy Zayne wanted her to attend.
Rage.
Hot, blistering, unrelenting rage. The need for revenge.
They took them from her.
Caleb. Grandma. Her only family. The two people who had held her through the darkest parts of her life were gone in one flash of heat and fire and screaming metal. Nothing left but that necklace, not even ashes.
And someone out there had made that happen. Someone had planned it.
She didn’t care who it was… Ever, Onychinus, some faceless monster pulling the strings from the dark. It didn’t matter. She would burn it all down to find the truth.
MC kept walking, jaw clenched, steps quicker now, purposeful. She wasn’t going to be just surviving. She will be hunting.
The breeze shifted as she passed an alleyway and something pricked at her senses. She paused, just briefly, glancing at the building beside her.
Mounted near the edge of the old brick wall was a security camera. Old model, barely noticeable. But as she passed, it turned. Smoothly, silently. The little red light on it blinked once, twice. Then held steady.
She stared at it for a second, frowning, unsure why it made her feel suddenly... watched.
The feeling passed quickly. Just old city tech, probably motion activated. Still, she couldn’t shake the strange flutter in her chest.
She turned away and kept walking.
Back towards the HQ.
Back towards her mission.
Back towards vengeance.
Behind her, the camera stayed fixed on her, its lens following the figure who didn’t know she was being seen by the one person she missed most.
***
The scent of engine fuel and cold steel hung thick in the air. Fleet personnel moved like clockwork prepping for the Deepspace Tunnel dive, but Caleb stood apart. Still, anxious, unreadable to all around him.
His black colonel’s coat flared slightly in the draft of the open bay, the silver insignia on his uniform gleaming beneath the overhead lights. His military hat cast a sharp shadow over his eyes. Only the slight twitch of his mechanical hand betrayed the storm brewing beneath the surface.
He didn’t want to leave. Not now. Not after he'd seen her going to some underhanded meetings with Rafayel.
That charming bastard with paint-stained hands, all soft eyes and whispered promises. An artist on the surface, sure, but Caleb knew the kind of people Rafayel did business with, the kind of doors he could open, the kinds of places he could get her into.
He didn’t know what they’d talked about, he'd just caught them on a muted camera feed, but it was enough. The tilt of her head, the determined look in her eyes. She was planning something... and Rafayel would help her.
Why? Out of curiosity, or profit, or maybe just for the thrill. Who knows.
Caleb clenched his fists. She was going to do something reckless, he could feel it in his bones. And he wouldn’t be there to stop her.
He turned as footsteps approached.
Lieutenant Han, surveillance ops. Arrogant, but efficient.
“Colonel,” Han said with a short nod, clutching a tablet. “Pre-op reconnaissance is in place. Waiting for your final approval. But… I noticed you also requested a personal tracking assignment?”
Caleb didn’t answer right away, he just looked at him, through him.
Han shifted.
Caleb stepped closer and spoke in a low and sharp voice. “I want eyes on a specific civilian. Off record. Female hunter in Linkon. Her markers are in the request, aren't they?”
Han blinked. “I just wanted to make sure. You want me to track a random city resident while you’re off-world?”
Caleb gave no expression. “Yes.”
“Permission to speak freely, sir?”
Caleb’s jaw tightened.
“This is a waste of fleet intel resources. We’ve got six teams near the tunnel’s anomaly and you want half my processing power rerouted to some hunter in Linkon?” Han scoffed quietly, tapping the file Caleb had sent. “Who even is she?”
Caleb moved, fast.
He lifted Han by the collar, looking him over before letting go, just like that. The man hit the floor hard, the tablet clattering beside him.
Silence.
Nearby engineers turned, startled, but one look at Caleb’s face, and no one said a word.
He stood over Han, expression blank beneath the brim of his hat. He didn’t breathe hard, he didn’t apologize.
He lowered his voice, calm and ice cold. “You don’t ask me questions. You follow orders.”
Han just stared up at him, stunned.
“You’re a surveillance officer, Han. Act like one.”
Caleb stepped back, adjusting his gloves. The officers nearby hurriedly looked away.
Han rose slowly, standing unsteadily on the ankle he had fell on. “...Understood, sir.”
“Good,” Caleb said, voice flat. “You’ll report directly to me. Feed updates to my private line. No logs, no backup servers. No one else sees that data.”
“Yes, sir.”
“If she deviates from any of her usual locations, any strange travel patterns, anything at all— you ping me instantly. I don’t care if I’m in a firefight. You interrupt me.”
Han nodded stiffly, mumbling quietly, “Is she that important?”
Caleb heard him and turned his head just enough to fix the man with a hard look.
“None of your business. Just do your damn job.”
Then he walked away.
But as he moved toward the shuttle bay, the rage in him simmered into something darker. Anxiety, helplessness. The brutal fear of distance.
She’d smiled the last time he'd seen her. She laughed.
But what if something happened while he was gone? What if someone touched her? Found out what she was? If Ever or anyone discovered the truth...
To him, she was everything.
And now, for the next four days, he would have to leave her behind. Unwatched, unprotected... unloved.
He stepped into the transport, heart hammering. He didn't care about the danger of the mission, didn't care that he could get hurt... but the possibility that something could happen to her while he was gone and he wouldn’t even know?
That thought terrified him more than anything waiting in the dark of the tunnel.
***
The ship shuddered as it docked at the Fleet's base in Skyhaven.
Caleb didn’t wait for the ramps to fully lower. As soon as the hatch hissed open, he was off the ship, ignoring the sharp looks from officers lining the corridors.
His boots hit the metal flooring of the docking bay with a hard, deliberate rhythm, his uniform pristine despite four sleepless days.
Four days. Four endless, brutal days.
The moment the ship slipped past the tunnel’s mouth, the feeds died.
The interference hit like a wave. Silent, absolute. Their sensors fried, screens blacked out one by one. Communications with the fleet dropped to static, reduced to nothing but rudimentary radar blips barely enough to keep them from crashing into space debris.
What was she doing?
Where was she?
He hadn’t slept, hadn’t eaten. Not properly, not once. Every time he closed his eyes, the nightmares clawed in. Visions of her thrown into danger, making deals with dangerous men like Rafayel, plunging headfirst into chaos with no backup, no protection.
And for what, some silly dreams of revenge?
He’d tried to focus on the mission. He had to. But his mind was a prison cell. The ache in his chest grew deeper with every second lost without news.
Now he’d made it back. But what about her?
“Colonel! Mission report…” one called after him.
“Ask the second in command,” Caleb snapped without looking back, his voice low but cutting.
His stride was long and furious, carrying him straight to the surveillance center, a cold room bathed in the glow of dozens of monitors and blinking consoles.
Inside, Han looked up from a tangled web of data streams, eyes immediately catching the tension radiating off Caleb’s rigid frame.
Caleb’s throat tightened. “Where is the hunter? The one I told you to track.”
Han hesitated, just for a beat. Then tapped a sequence of keys and a large screen lit up. “She disappeared from the city grid shortly after your departure. No activity in registered zones.”
Caleb’s throat dried.
“Where?”
“She went into N109 Zone.”
The words didn’t hit, they detonated.
“What?” Caleb’s voice dropped to a deadly hush.
N109, the dead zone. The wasteland of shadows and violence. A place no one sane dared enter, let alone someone like her.
Caleb’s muscles tensed so hard his knuckles whitened, his military hat slipping slightly back on his sweat-slick forehead. His violet eyes darkened, narrowed, and a cold fire flared in them. A low growl escaped his throat, his whole body coiled tight with fear and rage.
He didn’t say a word, but the room could feel the storm inside him.
Han cleared his throat. “We didn’t have many visuals inside, but she got caught by a few cameras along the outer perimeter. She was inside on day one after your departure.”
Something snapped.
Caleb moved fast, grabbing Han by the front of his uniform and slamming him into the console hard enough to rattle the hardware, so hard the screens flickered.
“You let her walk into that zone?” Caleb growled, low and furious. “Do you have any idea what kind of shit crawls in there?”
Han tried to speak, tried to stay composed. “Colonel, sir… You said to track, not intervene. She’s a hunter. She wasn’t flagged as…”
“You think that matters to me? Why didn't you use your fucking head?”
The room had gone still. Eyes were watching, yet nobody dared interrupt.
Han swallowed, hands raised just slightly, trying to defuse the situation. “Sir… please calm down. I was about to tell you that she made it out. I got a hit on her just this morning. She exited the zone completely intact. Someone helped her. I'm still identifying who.”
Caleb didn’t move.
For a full, dragging second, all he could do was stare at Han like he didn’t believe him.
Then, slowly, his hands loosened and he stepped back.
His heart was slamming against his ribs, the adrenaline crash hitting like a freight train. He adjusted his hat, his coat. Straightened his posture with surgical precision.
Everyone was still watching. So he pulled the pieces of himself back into place.
“Send the full report to my personal line,” Caleb said, voice flat. “Every second of footage. I want timestamps. Movements. Who she talked to. Everything.”
“Yes, Colonel.”
He turned without another word.
Left the room like a thundercloud, boots echoing down the hallway.
***
Caleb slammed the door to his apartment behind him, the heavy sound echoing through the sparse room. His breath came quick and shallow, heart pounding like a war drum. He stripped off his coat and hat without care, the fabric falling to the floor.
He rushed to his surveillance setup on the desk, looking frantically through the feeds.
Ah, gotcha.
MC, sitting at a small café table, sunlight catching in her hair. She was talking animatedly with her friend Tara, her hands moving expressively, laughter lighting her face. For a split second, Caleb allowed himself to believe maybe it was a mistake and she'd never left, they’d tracked someone else.
Then his eyes caught the bruise on her jaw. A dark, angry purple shadow that shouldn’t have been there. His breath hitched, chest tightening as a surge of fury boiled up inside him. How had she let herself get hurt?
“Damn it,” he muttered under his breath, jaw clenching so tightly his teeth ground together.
The protectiveness in him flared with reckless heat. She was supposed to be safe, supposed to be careful. But here she was, bruised and reckless, like she was chasing danger instead of running from it.
His mind raced, refusing to slow down. What had she been doing? Who had done this? Did she even realize how close she was to losing everything?
His line pinged, pulling his attention back to the screen. The new message was from Han: the full reports he’d requested.
He skimmed through the footage, a lot of it grainy, but clearer by the time it showed her leaving the N109 Zone.
She was walking alongside a man.
Tall and broad-shouldered. Muscular enough that the fabric of his jacket stretched tight across his back and arms. His hair was a wild, tousled silver that caught the light in flashes. And those eyes… a sharp, glowing red that burned with something fierce and dangerous.
The man stopped at her side, bent low, and gently took her hand. The kiss he pressed to her skin was slow, deliberate, filled with an intimacy that sent a cold spike through Caleb’s gut.
He couldn’t look away. The image burned itself into his mind: her hand in that stranger’s grasp, the restrained softness in her eyes as she looked up at him.
The jealousy clawed at him, dark and furious. How dare she? How could she?
His hands clenched into fists at his sides, nails digging into his palms as a low, dangerous growl rumbled in his throat.
He felt the old ache twist into something sharp and wild, a desperate need to pull her back, to keep her close, to stop her from slipping into the arms of anyone else.
He wanted to yell, to scream, to demand answers.
But he stayed silent, eyes glued to the screen as the footage ended, leaving him alone with the ghost of what he’d just seen.
Because what could he possibly do?
***
The arcade was loud, glowing chaos. Neon lights danced across the glossy floors, and the mix of synth music and machine blips gave the whole place a kind of messy charm.
Sylus looked completely out of place in it.
His sharp suit jacket hung over his shoulders, his shirt half-unbuttoned, his calm intensity odd against a row of claw machines lined with plushies. His silver hair was wild, slightly mussed, and his red eyes shimmered beneath the flashing overhead lights.
“You know you can’t just glare the machine into giving up, right?” MC teased, nudging his arm with her elbow.
Sylus smirked sideways. “I wasn’t glaring. I was… calculating.”
MC grinned. “Right. Calculating how many coins you’ll waste before I have to rescue your pride.”
“Bold talk for someone who wanted me to cheat last time.”
“I didn’t want you to cheat. I wanted you to use your… skills. There’s a difference.”
Sylus let out a soft laugh, then focused on the machine. The claw moved, grabbed the plushie aaaand… dropped it.
“Ridiculous,” he muttered.
MC snorted. “Tragic, really. Want me to show you how it’s done?”
He stepped aside with a theatrical flourish. “By all means, destroy my ego.”
She slipped in a coin, guiding the claw with practiced hands. A plush crow sat wedged in the back corner of the machine. The claw dipped and caught it clean. It tumbled down the chute with a satisfying thunk.
MC bent to grab it and held it out. “For you.”
Sylus took the toy slowly, fingers brushing hers. “A crow. I feel… typecast.”
“You say that like it’s not your entire aesthetic. Well, maybe Mephisto will appreciate a little plush brother.”
His gaze lingered on her face for a moment longer than necessary. “You should wear the brooch,” he said suddenly.
“Hm?”
“The crow one I gave you. Suits you better than that old thing.”
It took her a second to realize what he meant, her hand had moved on its own, fingers curled around the pendant of the silver necklace at her throat without even realizing. The chain glinted under the flickering lights, familiar and dull from how much she'd touched it.
She let go of it quickly.
The mood shifted, just slightly. Not overtly obvious, but Sylus noticed.
She didn’t say anything because she hadn’t told him everything.
He knew about the explosion, knew she’d lost her family. She’d never said Caleb’s name. Never told Sylus how they'd grown up together, how they’d shared rooms and meals and inside jokes no one else could understand. How he’d been the only person in the world she trusted for most of her life.
She never told him what it felt like to hold that necklace in her hand the day she pulled it from the rubble, still warm from the fire.
It just hurt too much.
And Sylus (despite all his arrogance, all his sharp edges) recognized the look in her eyes without needing to hear the story.
He didn’t push. Instead, he stepped closer and pulled her into his arms, warm and steady, his chin resting lightly against her temple.
“You’re strong,” he murmured. “I adore that about you.”
Her breath hitched, just for a moment. Sometimes, kindness was harder to face than pain.
But maybe she didn't have to be just in pain anymore.
She blinked hard, chest tightening, throat burning and before she could stop herself, she grabbed his collar and pulled him down into a kiss.
It was desperate, needy. Like something inside her was breaking open and trying to cling to anything that might keep her whole.
Sylus responded instantly, his hands gripping her back, mouth moving against hers with that same fierce hunger he always carried, like he never did anything half-hearted, like he meant every second of it.
And above them, in the far corner of the arcade ceiling, a camera lens shifted.
It zoomed in. Silent, watching.
***
The room was dark except for the soft blue glow of the monitors. Caleb sat at the desk, shoulders squared, jaw set, his violet eyes locked on one screen.
The feed was low resolution, the angle wasn't perfect either, but it was enough.
The plush arcade backdrop, the flashing lights.
Her and him.
Sylus.
They were standing too close, laughing about something. He couldn’t hear it, didn’t need to. The way Sylus looked at her, that smirk, that easy confidence. The way she leaned into him without realizing it, the way her hand drifted to her necklace and then…
Then she kissed him.
No hesitation, no resistance. She kissed him like it meant something.
And Caleb stopped breathing.
Literally. He stopped. His chest locked up, air frozen in his lungs, his vision tunneled. Every muscle in his body stiffened as the blood in his veins went cold, then boiled all at once.
He blinked rapidly, as if it could remove the image. But it was still there, still happening. Her mouth on Sylus’, her body pressed to his like she belonged there. Like she hadn’t once looked at Caleb like he was her world.
The chair groaned as he pushed away from the desk, hard. He paced the room, hands gripping his head, chest heaving like he’d taken a punch.
“No… no, no, no… what the fuck is this?”
He spun back toward the screen.
The kiss was still going. Too long, too intimate.
He slammed a fist against the desk and the metal dented with a dull crack.
This wasn’t how it was supposed to go. She was supposed to be too struck by grief, and then one day… he'd come for her.
He’d stayed away because it was the only way to keep her safe… from Ever, from the Fleet, from himself. He’d watched every corner of her life. He’d endured the silence, the distance, the crushing loneliness.
He suffered for her.
And she gave that smile, that soft gaze, that kiss… to him?
To Sylus? That murderer? That thing that crawled out of the N109 Zone?
He paced again, clawing at his own arms, hands shaking.
“She's confused,” he said to the empty room. “She’s hurting. She doesn’t know what she’s doing.”
His voice shook, his thoughts spiraled. Sylus had tricked her, manipulated her. He had no right! No right to touch her like that.
“She doesn’t love him,” Caleb whispered, eyes wide and glassy. “She doesn’t love him. She loves me.”
He reached for the control panel, pulling up older recordings he'd kept. Moments she’d spent alone, every time she’d reached for the necklace. Every late night walk where she looked up at the sky like she was searching for a ghost.
“She still misses me,” he muttered. “She still thinks about me. I know she does.”
His hand hovered over the alert system. One command and he could ping her phone, one override and her screen would flash with a message from nowhere. He could remind her… remind her he was alive. That he’d never left her.
That Sylus could never love her like he did.
That Sylus didn’t know her the way he did. He didn’t know the look she made when she was lying, the songs she hummed under her breath when she thought no one was listening, the way she clutched her sleeve when she was scared.
Caleb knew.
The screen flickered again, MC leaning into Sylus’ shoulder, eyes closed, like she felt safe there.
Caleb's body shook.
And then, suddenly he went still. A terrifying, unnatural stillness.
His hand slid slowly off the keyboard. He stared at the screen with something new behind his eyes. Not pain, not jealousy.
Conviction.
This wasn’t over.
She didn’t understand what she was doing. She was lost, grieving. She needed guidance and protection.
She needed him.
Caleb stepped back from the desk, each movement deliberate, like a machine slowly winding into motion.
“I won’t let this happen,” he whispered.
Not after everything he’d sacrificed.
She could be mad at him. She could scream, hit him, curse him, but he would not let her fall into the hands of someone like Sylus. Someone dangerous, someone selfish. Someone who would break her and leave her bleeding in the dark.
No. Caleb wouldn’t allow it.
Never.