Chapter 9: The Price of Being Remembered
Ruby walked through the wreckage of Watchspire, each step a silent reminder of how close she'd come to losing control. Her boots crunched over the shattered armor of fallen bounty hunters and the splintered remains of forgotten tech. Ash clung to her skin, staining her hands and cheeks in a soot mask that no longer bothered her. After the third time nearly dying in a collapsed timeline, the aesthetic of ruin felt oddly familiar.
Behind her, Lyra limped slightly, clutching her plasma pistol with an unsteady hand. Her jacket was torn at the shoulders, its thermal mesh exposed beneath. She hadn't spoken much since the confrontation. Ruby didn't blame her. Watching a Titan awaken—partially or not—was enough to shatter even a seasoned hunter's sense of reality.
"So, what now?" Lyra asked, voice dry and strained.
"We don't stay here," Ruby replied without turning. "This place is about to get erased from the map. Korrin's energy signature is still embedded in the dimensional field. He'll be back with reinforcements. Smarter ones."
"Let him come," Lyra said, forcing a grin. "I'll be ready this time."
Ruby stopped walking and turned. Her expression was unreadable beneath the blood and grime, but her voice betrayed a colder edge. "No. You won't. Because if he gets that stabilizer working, there won't be a next time. For anyone."
Lyra lowered her gaze. The fires around them crackled, casting flickering shadows against what was left of the walls. Ruby looked up toward the breach in the sky—an ugly scar of fractured stars and bleeding space. It pulsed with quiet hunger.
She opened her system menu silently, feeling the hum of her leveling framework kick into gear. The multiversal rank tracker hovered in her peripheral vision: Tier 3, Reputation: Phantom Echo. Not bad. Not good enough. She needed Tier 5 access to reach some of the deeper nodes in the Anchor Network. That meant tougher bounties. Higher stakes. And fewer allies.
"I need answers," Ruby muttered, half to herself.
Lyra adjusted her grip on the pistol. "From who?"
"From someone who's survived longer than he should've. Someone who knows what it means when Titan energy starts leaking into unstable zones."
"You're talking about Daken," Lyra said, her voice suddenly tight.
Ruby didn't answer. She didn't need to.
"You said you'd never deal with him again," Lyra continued. "He betrayed your entire team back on Siroth Prime."
"I remember," Ruby said. "That's exactly why I'm going to him. He knows how this ends."
Without waiting for agreement, she activated her jump module. A rush of light wrapped around her form as her coordinates locked into place. Lyra sighed and followed a moment later, her figure dissolving into a shimmer of phase energy.
The last thing to vanish from the Watchspire ruins was a single, glowing Titan mark etched into the ground by Ruby's partially awakened form. A warning. Or a promise.
Sector Prism wasn't technically part of any known star system. It existed between realities, tethered by quantum strings only someone like Daken could navigate. It had no sun, no moon, no orbit. Just darkness and cold logic.
As they landed on the black-glass platform, Lyra visibly stiffened. The surface looked smooth, but pressure sensors beneath the panels immediately analyzed their presence. Ruby felt the weight of at least a dozen unseen turrets lock onto her vitals. She didn't flinch. Daken liked his security almost as much as he liked games.
The vault wall was seamless. No door, no signal beacon. Ruby stepped forward and placed her hand on the smooth surface. Titan blood responded to dimensional fields differently than standard biometrics. Within seconds, the wall shimmered and began to peel apart like dissolving mist.
"Still just as subtle," Lyra muttered.
Inside was colder. The air buzzed with static, old circuitry woven through every wall like veins. Ruby led the way through the twisting halls of Sector Prism, her boots making no sound on the obsidian floor.
Daken was waiting in the atrium chamber. He stood beside a multi-dimensional map, his coat trailing behind him like a shadow stitched in code. He hadn't aged—at least not visibly. Augments covered most of his skin now, with thin metallic wires extending from the base of his neck into a subdermal interface array. His eyes glowed faint blue. Synthetic, probably.
"Well," Daken said, voice smooth and infuriatingly calm. "The prodigal girl returns."
"Save it," Ruby said. "I'm not here to reminisce."
Daken smiled and clasped his hands behind his back. "You've always been predictable. You never show up unless something's broken and you think only I can fix it."
"Something *is* broken," she said. "And you *are* going to help fix it."
"Am I?" He circled her slowly. "Let me guess. Breach in reality. Titan resonance. Collapse vector initiated. Same old crisis in a shinier package."
"You've been watching."
"I always watch you, Ruby. You're the last Titan worth betting on."
She stepped toward him, close enough to remind him she was no longer the same girl he betrayed. "This isn't about betting. It's about survival."
Daken's smile faded. He turned toward the map and tapped a series of nodes. One segment pulsed red, spreading like a virus. "You're right. The breach is accelerating. And if you don't anchor the fracture points soon, the collapse will pull entire sectors into recursive erasure."
"Give me the coordinates," Ruby said.
He hesitated. Just for a moment. But that was enough.
"I know about Miraxis Void," she added. "I know that's where it started."
"You don't know what's waiting for you there."
"I don't care."
Daken studied her for a long moment, then finally nodded. "Fine. I'll give you the node path. But it won't matter unless you unlock the resonance keys. You'll need to siphon stabilized Titan energy at each location. And that means awakening more of what you've tried to hide."
Ruby's fists clenched at her sides.
"I've kept my form sealed for a reason."
"Because you're afraid of what happens when people see what you really are," he said. "Or maybe because you're afraid of liking it too much."
She didn't respond. He wasn't wrong. But he didn't have to be right either.
"Just give me what I need," she said.
Daken gestured, and a data node formed in midair. Ruby extended her hand and absorbed it directly into her system. Her HUD lit up with updated star paths and breach coordinates.
"That's the first," he said. "Miraxis. The rest will be revealed once you survive it."
"I will."
"You always say that."
As she turned to leave, Daken called out one last thing.
"They'll come for you, you know. Once they realize the breach links to a living Titan."
"I'm counting on it," Ruby said without looking back.
Outside the vault, Lyra raised an eyebrow. "How bad?"
"Worse than expected. First breach point is in a place I buried my past. Literally."
Lyra glanced at the starlines above. "Guess we're going grave-digging."
Ruby opened a portal key and stepped through the shimmering gate. As the world dissolved around her, she whispered to herself.
"You can kill a Titan. But you can't forget one."
And in the void between worlds, something stirred at the sound of her name.