A dim, crimson glow pulsed through the ship's interior, casting jagged shadows against the wreckage. Sparks rained from torn wires, flickering in weightless arcs before vanishing into the dark. A low hum vibrated through the metal walls—uneven, unstable.
Ash dropped into the corridor first, his boots striking the floor with a sharp clang. His grip tightened around his blade as his gaze swept the wreckage. The air smelled of burnt circuitry.
"Alright, we're in." His voice was low, steady. "Now we find the controls and get out of here."
Kael landed next, rolling his shoulders as wisps of smoke curled from his jacket. He swiped at the embers clinging to his sleeve.
"Yeah, yeah. Let's just hope Max doesn't give another lecture on ship integrity."
Max followed last, landing with a sharp exhale. His eyes flicked across the damage, scanning each sparking console, each loose wire swaying from the ceiling.
"You really did a number on this place."
Kael scoffed. "It worked, didn't it?"
Max ignored him. His fingers danced over a nearby interface, bringing up fragmented data feeds.
Then—his movements stilled.
Ash caught the shift. "What?"
Max's brows furrowed as he expanded a schematic of the ship. The cargo bay flashed onto the screen, its reinforced clamps outlined in red. His gaze sharpened at the energy readings pulsing beneath the surface.
"This isn't just a transport ship." His voice was edged with something unreadable.
Ash stepped closer. The diagram showed the ship's underbelly gripping a massive asteroid fragment, its surface veined with unstable energy signatures.
Kael crossed his arms. "So? We already knew they were after it."
Max's fingers moved, pulling up scan results. The numbers spiked—erratic, unnatural.
"This thing isn't just space rock." His voice was quieter now, but heavier. "It's radiating the same energy I detected earlier. Whatever Apex was after—it's in there."
Ash's grip tightened around his blade. "Meaning?"
Max exhaled. "Meaning we're not just stealing a ship. We're stealing their prize."
Kael's smirk spread slow and sharp. "So we're making this even worse for them? I like it."
Ash didn't hesitate. He turned toward the cockpit. "Can you fly this thing?"
Max's lips curled into a grin, fingers already moving across the controls. "Of course I can." His gaze flicked to the weapons lock-on warning flashing on the screen.
The ship trembled beneath them.
Beyond the hull, Apex fleetships shifted in formation, gun barrels glinting cold against the void.
"The real question," Max muttered, "is whether we make it out in one piece."
Max's AI pulsed a cold, mechanical warning.
"[Multiple hostiles detected. Defenses offline. Evacuation recommended.]"
Max ignored it, fingers flying over the controls. The engines flared, their glow bleeding across the shattered consoles.
"You don't have to tell me twice."
He slammed a command.
The ship lurched, metal groaning as it tore free from its docking clamps. The asteroid chunk dragged behind, straining against the stabilizers.
Then—fire.
Apex lasers rained down in a blinding storm of red, tearing through the void. Explosions rocked the ship, hull plating screaming under the assault. The floor trembled, wires snapping free like veins bursting under pressure.
Max clenched his jaw, gripping the controls like a lifeline. "Find me something—anything—to slow them down! If we take too many hits, this thing's gonna rip apart!"
Ash scanned the ruined consoles. Static-filled screens, shattered input panels—nothing useful left.
Kael cracked his knuckles. "I got it."
Before either of them could react, he launched himself toward the open hull breach, boots clamping onto the exterior with a metallic clang.
Max cursed under his breath. "Tell me he's not actually—"
Outside, space stretched—cold, vast, uncaring. And in the middle of it, standing defiant against the endless void, Kael's flames ignited.
Heat roared through his veins, power swelling in his palms. A flick of his wrist—fire surged forward, a swirling mass of gold and red tearing through the darkness.
The explosion swallowed the battlefield.
Apex ships reeled, their formations fracturing under the fiery assault.
Kael didn't stop.
His next blast streaked through the chaos, carving a path between them. Another. Another.
Inside, Ash stood frozen, staring up at the gaping hole where Kael had vanished.
The ship shook. The battle raged. He could hear the hum of enemy engines, the deep whoosh of fire igniting against the cold.
And all he did was stand there.
Max yanked the controls, forcing the ship into a violent turn. "Kael, don't get yourself killed out there!"
Kael grinned, another fireball swirling in his grip. "No promises."
The void burned.
Kael's flames streaked through space, molten trails carving through the black. Every blast swelled outward, fire blooming into storms of debris. Ships twisted in desperate attempts to dodge, but the sheer velocity of the chase turned the battlefield into a death trap.
An Apex vessel veered too late—flames licked its hull, metal melting before it burst apart in a chain of explosions. Another fighter swerved hard, colliding with its own fleet, shattered fragments scattering into the void.
Inside, Max wrestled with the controls, the ship bucking like a wounded beast. Warnings blared across the flickering screens—engine strain, failing stabilizers, structural integrity dropping by the second.
Ash stood by the gaping hull breach, watching Kael become the storm. Fire wreathed his body, each movement a deadly arc of destruction. He didn't hesitate. He didn't miss.
Ash's grip tightened on his sword.
He needed to move.
A shadow loomed ahead, swallowing the battlefield in its vast presence.
A planet.
Swirls of deep blue and green churned below, storm clouds thick in its atmosphere. Gravity's pull snagged the ship, yanking them toward its orbit.
Max's gaze snapped to the readings. "Hold on!"
The ship lurched, dragged downward, engines struggling against the descent.
Kael barely turned, another fireball coiling in his palm. "Finally. Was getting bored up here."
Ash exhaled, tension twisting through his chest. They weren't escaping this one.
They were falling.
————
Planet Varagos.
A lone titan drifting through the void.
Its sun, massive and relentless, burned at a distance, yet even that cosmic inferno seemed small against the planet's sheer scale. Two moons circled the giant world—one veiled in an eerie crimson glow, the other reflecting the golden hues of the distant star. Their light painted the surface in a haunting, ethereal glow.
But the beauty of Varagos was a mask.
Half of the planet was missing. Not in the physical sense—land still stretched beneath the sky—but nothing could be seen past the towering fog that swallowed the horizon. It was not mist, not vapor, not a trick of the atmosphere. It was something else. Something that didn't belong.
At the edges, the fog coiled in dense, shifting walls—an unbroken boundary between the known and the lost. But sometimes, just for a breath, shapes flickered in the depths—towering spires, ruined cities, landscapes that felt both ancient and unreal. As if the land within existed outside of time, trapped in a memory that refused to fade.
The fog had weight. Purpose.
It wasn't a storm to be weathered—it was a barrier. A prison. Whether it was meant to keep something in or to stop the outside world from reaching inside, no one knew.
They only knew one thing.
Nothing that entered ever returned.
Ships that dared approach the mist were swallowed whole. No signals. No debris. No screams. Just silence. The kind that buried itself in the bones, leaving only whispers of horror in its wake.
But Varagos was not a dead world.
Beyond the fog, life endured.
Human cities stood tall beneath the open sky, their towers built from dark stone and reinforced steel, strong enough to withstand the harsh storms that swept across the land. Roads of metal and light carved paths through endless plains, connecting settlements that had long learned to survive under a sky that could shift in an instant.
At the heart of the inhabited lands lay the Frozen Expanse.
A wasteland of ice and storms, stretching farther than the eye could see. It was no ordinary tundra. The glaciers here were ancient, layered over something far older. Beneath the surface, strange ruins slumbered in the depths—structures of a forgotten age, their purpose lost to time. Some believed them to be remnants of a civilization before the fog. Others whispered of something more.
The Expanse was a graveyard of secrets. And yet, despite its dangers, it remained untouched by the mist. As if the two forces refused to meet.
Varagos was a world of division.
Half a planet lost to an unseen force. Half a land struggling to endure.
And at the center of it all, a question that had haunted its people for generations.
What lies beyond the fog?
————
The ship burned as it fell.
Flames licked at its shattered hull, metal peeling away in molten streaks. The asteroid fragment wrenched loose, spiraling into the atmosphere before vanishing into the storm-choked sky below.
Max scowled, gripping the failing controls. "There goes the asteroid."
Kael, crouched against the ruined interior, barely spared it a glance. "Forget it. Focus on not crashing."
Ash braced himself against the ship's frame, his knuckles white. The wind howled through the breaches, shrieking through exposed wires and shattered panels. Sparks rained from flickering consoles. Every second dragged them closer to the ground.
"This thing won't hold," Ash said, voice barely cutting through the roar.
Max's hands clenched, muscles tight with frustration. He knew. Every flickering warning, every tremor in the ship's frame screamed the same thing.
They weren't landing. They were crashing.
His gaze flicked to his brothers. Kael's clothes were singed, embers still smoldering at the edges from his earlier fight. He looked unfazed, his stance loose, eyes sharp. Ash stood tense, wind whipping through his dark hair, fingers twitching as if he could will control over the chaos unfolding around them.
Max exhaled sharply. "We jump."
Kael was already moving. He leaped toward the breach, pulling Ash with him. The instant they hit open air, the wind slammed into them like a battering ram. Pressure tore at their skin, dragging them into the violent descent.
Ash squinted through the force, eyes scanning the world below.
Empty.
No cities. No roads. Just an endless wasteland of cracked earth, dunes shifting under an unseen force.
The ground was coming fast.
"Kael!" Max's voice cut through the wind.
Kael moved without hesitation. He grabbed both of them, veins glowing as fire erupted at his heels. Heat blasted downward, sending them rocketing away from the wreckage.
A heartbeat later, the ship struck.
The explosion split the desert.
Flames roared outward, swallowing the landscape in a wave of fire and debris. A shockwave surged through the earth, sending ripples across the sand. Smoke rose in a towering column, its shadow stretching far into the horizon.
Kael hovered above the devastation, lips curling into a grin. "Feels good to be back on land."
Max's gaze stayed on the wasteland below. The unnatural silence. The emptiness.
"We're not on land yet," he said. "Take us down."
Kael rolled his eyes but descended, flames trailing behind him.
Their boots pressed into scorched earth, the ground still hot from the explosion. Smoke curled through the air, thick and acrid, veiling the twisted remains of their ship. Fires flickered across the wreckage, their glow barely visible through the shifting haze. The air reeked of burning fuel and scorched metal, the scent mixing with dry dust and the bitter tang of melted circuitry.
Ash stepped forward, his gaze dragging across the devastation. Shattered panels jutted from the cracked ground, jagged remains of the hull half-buried in the dirt. Wires sparked in the wreckage, twitching like dying embers. What had once been a ship was now nothing more than a graveyard of broken machinery.
Max's fists curled tight. "Damn it." His voice was low, frustration biting at every syllable. "We lost the asteroid. Now we'll never know why Apex wanted it so badly."
Ash exhaled, his mind circling back to the impossible sight from earlier. "That thing wasn't just some random rock." His voice was steady, but beneath it, something uncertain. "It healed your arm, Max. Whatever it was, it was important."
Kael folded his arms, studying Max with narrowed eyes. "Speaking of that—what's up with your arm? And your leg? Your clothes are ripped exactly where they should've been gone."
Max's jaw tensed. A beat passed before he spoke. "It's more than that." His voice dropped. "The AI told me that I died."
Silence.
Then, two voices at once.
"You what?"
Max didn't look at them. "Not just me. You guys too. Everyone who got caught in the blast… we all died."
Kael scoffed, shaking his head. "Yeah, right. If we died, how the hell are we standing here?"
Ash didn't share his skepticism. His stare remained fixed on Max. "The asteroid. It did something to us."
Max nodded. "Exactly. My arm and leg didn't just heal—they grew back. And Kael, your firepower is stronger. It's like something changed."
Kael's frown deepened. "I didn't advance, though. I'm still at Master Veinflow. My Vein energy feels the same. And Dad said breaking into the next stage needs an emotional trigger, not just raw power."
Max's gaze sharpened. "Then it wasn't advancement. It was amplification."
Kael didn't respond, but the weight of the idea settled between them.
Max exhaled, scanning the barren landscape. Empty. Silent. Nowhere to hide. "We're stranded," he muttered, voice edged with frustration. "If we find a city, I might be able to get a signal out."
Ash adjusted his grip on his sword, eyes sweeping the horizon. "Then we move. Sitting here just makes us easier to find."
The words had barely left his mouth when the sky split open.
A deep, mechanical roar rolled through the wasteland, vibrating in their bones. A sound too sharp, too precise to be anything but artificial.
Max's jaw clenched.
They didn't need to look up.
They already knew.
Apex had found them.