⟢───── Ashes × Aether ─────⟣
NATION OF X’OMNERA — LOWER ARENA EXITS
BLACKJACKS was pandemonium.
Metal rang. Credits chimed as bets were paid out. Voices stacked over one another in a pitch that carried hunger for more of what everyone had just witnessed.
Triple Kill kept moving. Straight to the exit.
Talla moved first, cutting angles through bodies that leaned too close. Her steps stayed light. Her tail stayed low.
Riven followed, head high, grin still riding the edge of his mouth like the last note of a song he hadn’t finished playing.
Set took the rear. Broad shoulders. Long stride. Ears tracking everything that tried to creep up behind them.
A UCL staffer called out and tossed over a payout chit.
Set didn’t look.
Riven caught it midair without breaking pace.
They hit the elevator back to the main entrance together.
Outside, the rain came back hard. Neon bled down glass. Sirens stitched the skyline. The arena’s roar collapsed into a dull pressure behind concrete.
Riven cracked the chit open while they walked. YoYos spilled into his palm, warm from the system transfer. He let them clink once, then closed his hand.
“That was fast,” he said.
Talla glanced sideways. “You wanted them to clap?”
Riven laughed. Short. Clean. “I mean.. yea.”
Set cut left. “This way, come on.”
They took a service tram down into the Pulse, rode three stops past the clubs, cut through a maintenance alley, and dropped into a stairwell that smelled like coolant and old incense.
There it was. The same dim lighting that bled out more like a warning than an invitation.
Before Riven could lift his hand and knock.
The door creeped open.
Vei’s workroom stayed warm. Lamps floated at different heights. Tools lay arranged by weight and purpose. A shallow pool at the center held crystal clear water that looked like the most refreshing beverage in all of X’Omnera.
Vei stood with her sleeves rolled and her eyes already on Set.
“You brought it,” she said.
Riven set the YoYos on the table. Talla stayed near the door.
Vei didn’t touch the money. “You know the price.”
Set stepped forward and bared his forearm. The glyph pulsed under the fur coat.
“Sit.” Vei instructed Set.
Vei reach back and set a palm-sized device on the table. Clear casing. An emitter core.
A soft ring of light circling the devices cupped edge.
She pressed it against Set’s forearm.
The tool sealed with a dull thump.
Pressure built instantly.
The glyph reacted.
Heat flared under Set’s fur as the markings lifted, peeling upward in thin threads of blue light. They stretched, resisted, then tore free all at once, dragged out of him like smoke caught in a vacuum.
The device hummed lower as the glyph collapsed inward.
Vei twisted the housing.
A vial slid free from the base.
Inside, the glyph coiled once, pulsed, then folded in on itself. The blue dimmed to a deep, inert navy. Captured.
Set’s arm felt lighter.
“Now for my fun. A memory,” Vei said. “One.”
Set nodded.
Vei pressed two fingers to his temple.
The room slid away.
.
.
.
Stone rose around him, smooth and pale. Light poured down from a high opening and broke into soft bands across the floor. Lines of gold ran beneath his feet and carried a low hum that settled into his chest. Voices moved somewhere beyond sight, measured and calm.
Set stood alone.
Footsteps approached. Heavy and deliberate.
A man crossed the chamber with authority carried in posture rather than armor.
Grey hair at the temples. Hands clean. Eyes sharp enough to weigh a room.
A Pantera-Kaijin. The man stood across from Set. Taller, broader, fur marked by heat instead of forest pollen. Not Sylvannan. A migrant. Someone who learned to survive without the tribe.
The memory snapped forward in violent clarity. Sets body closed the distance.
Heat gathered along his spine. His claws flexed.
Blood on stone.
The chamber filled with figures. Titles carried in their posture. They moved together and fell together.
Another presence shifted at the edge of Sets awareness. A silence took shape where someone should have stood. Music belonged there. Motion. A grin.
The space stayed empty.
The vision darkened but the hum never stopped.
.
.
.
Set tore free.
He pulled away from Vei before dropping to one knee, breath heavy, claws biting stone.
The small pool of water trembled once and went back still.
Vei for the first time since TK had met her, looked like she had seen a ghost. Sweat lined her brow.
Riven watched both of them closely. The grin had gone. His fingers tapped once against his thigh and stopped.
“You good big guy?” he asked.
Set met his eyes. Held them. Let the weight pass.
“We’re done,” Set said. “Let’s go.”
He stood up and headed straight out the door. Riven and Talla followed.
They moved fast.
Back into the Pulse. Back into rain.
They didn’t speak until they reached the transit station and the tram doors closed.
Riven leaned back and let his head touch the glass. Neon raindrops streaked past.
“Platinum headliners,” he said. “Wonder what the matchmakers have to say now.”
Talla was exhausted but chimed in. “They’ll adjust.”
Set stared at his hands. Blood memory lingered without warmth.
“They always do,” he agreed.
Riven smiled again. Wider this time. Hungry. “Good, cuz we’re just warming up.”
The tram slid into motion, carrying them toward the next night and somewhere deep beneath stone and gold, a future pressed against the present and waited.
⟢───── Ashes × Aether ─────⟣