The hallway smelled like burnt metal and electricity. Steel doors were broken and bent, hanging off their hinges and buried in rubble. Sirens wailed like injured animals. Medics rushed through the smoke, pushing stretchers and shouting into radios.

Chief Aomorii stood in the middle of it all. Her arms were crossed, her uniform covered in ash, but she stood straight and calm, in control. Deputy Haturii stood right next to her, talking quietly into his comm.

Through the shifting haze, two silhouettes took shape. At first, only the rhythm of their boots cut through the noise, like one of them was charging forward and the other keeping just behind.

Orenji skidded to a stop first, breathing hard. "We came as soon as we heard."

Yukira stormed in after him with eyes glowing a not-at-all-subtle angry green, her red hair catching the emergency lights like wildfire. "What the hell happened here?"

She was fire incarnate: tense, sharp, and already mentally reenacting the boss fight she missed.

Orenji, by contrast, was already scanning for exits, counting damage, and probably worrying about how badly this mission would hurt their Academy scores. Because of course, there was a grading system for disaster.

Haturii didn't bother with pleasantries. He simply pointed toward the wreckage.

"An anomaly broke containment."

Yukira's gaze sharpened. "What classification?"

"Category 2," he said, grim as a narrator doing a last-time recap.

"Volatile-Class," Orenji echoed. "Creatures with unpredictable behavior. That's bad, but not this level of bad. Right?"

"No," Aomorii said. "It's worse. Volatile usually means erratic, unstable, but oftentimes containable with the right protocols in place. This one broke pattern."

She gestured to a half-collapsed corridor where reinforced alloy had been peeled back like paper. "The structural damage alone—it's bordering on the Cataclysmic."

"Cataclysmic-Class anomalies are capable of leveling entire districts." Yukira muttered, clearly remembering every textbook she ever skimmed five minutes before a test.

Orenji's face paled. "And if it continues to grow…"

Before the silence could deepen, a new presence cut through it like a razor through silk. Ganymede, the Regional Director of the ARGUS Foundation, strode toward them, followed by Dr. Rhys Stane. She walked like someone who'd never known defeat and didn't plan to. Her long coat flared behind her, spotless despite the chaos, her heels clicking against the scorched floor in perfect rhythm.

‎

"Chief," she said, nodding once. "Status report?"

Aomorii delivered it in clipped efficiency. Ganymede listened, her jaw tightening, until her gaze slid to Yukira and Orenji.

"These ones? These are the assets the Academy sent?" Her voice was dry as sunbaked sand.

"We're Drift Program candidates," Yukira shot back instantly. "Top of our year."

The Argus Drift Program — ADP — was the Foundation's polished cage, a government project that trained and regulated those born with awakened abilities.

Awakenings were rare, but not unheard of. People who survived the monsterization process with their minds intact — or what was left of them — were called Drifters. Human enough to pass in a crowd but changed enough to never belong to one again. They carried power shaped by the very emotions that had nearly destroyed them. Fear. Anger. Grief. When left unchecked, those same emotions could still rot them from the inside out.

Young Drifters were sent to facilities dressed up as schools and clinics, all promises of purpose and rehabilitation. In reality, they were containment in clean clothes. The Drift Program wasn't about nurturing them. It was about keeping the world safe from them.

"You're children." Ganymede muttered.

"And yet, here we are standing in a crater you yourself failed to contain."

Orenji winced. "Yukira…" he warned under his breath, both soft and almost pleading, as though trying to reel her back before she said something they'd all regret.

But Yukira didn't flinch. Her arms remained folded, her eyes hard. "What? I'm just stating facts."

Ganymede raised an eyebrow, but didn't rise to the bait. Veteran move. "Haturii, walk with me. Bring the hotheads."

As they followed her into a reinforced briefing room, the lights buzzed faintly. Half the grid had been drained by the breach. Screens flickered to life, pulling up a containment profile labeled RS-07. The walls were covered in steel, thick with shielding tech, and yet the tension inside felt like walking into a war council moments before the first shot.

"It broke containment two hours ago," Ganymede began. "Breached three security zones in under ninety seconds. Our highest-level dampeners failed. It absorbed the EMP countermeasure and redirected it."

She tapped a screen. A seismic graph spiked off the charts.

"That... was new."

Orenji's eyes narrowed. "It's evolving."

"Fast," Ganymede confirmed. "This isn't just a Volatile-Class breach anymore. It's Cataclysmic, bare minimum."

"Thing's got main villain pacing," Orenji muttered with a chuckle.

No one laughed.

In fact, everyone was staring at him.

He noticed. The chuckle died in his throat. He cleared it awkwardly and looked away.

A new display appeared. A Quarantine category projection, pulsing red.

"And if our estimates are correct in terms of anomaly classifications, it's on track to breach the Quarantine threshold within 48 hours."

Yukira's expression flattened. "Which would force the Foundation to lock down an entire city. No entry points. No exit."

"No hope," added Orenji, probably wishing he'd brought snacks.

"And if the anomaly persists beyond Quarantine boundaries as we know it…" Ganymede paused, then tapped once more.

A new file opened stamped OMEGA.

They were in all-caps. All-bad. And styled in red like every end-of-season cliffhanger.

The glow bathed their faces in silent dread.

"Extinction protocol," Orenji whispered. "Full total annihilation."

Humanity didn't bounce back from that. 

The room was quiet enough to hear the faint hum of the projectors. Orenji looked around. No one's theme music played. That's how serious it got.

Ganymede continued. "Which is why we're initiating a full-scale recovery operation. You two, like it or not, are part of it now."

Yukira scoffed, crossing her arms tighter across her chest. "You didn't even want us here," she said sharply, her voice laced with defiance. "You were ready to write us off the moment things got messy."

Ganymede didn't blink. "Want has nothing to do with it. The situation demands capable assets, not approval."

Orenji shifted uncomfortably, glancing at Yukira. "Let's just… hear her out," he muttered, hoping to de-escalate, but even he could hear the hesitation in his voice.

Only now did Yukira's eyes flick to him, the fire behind them smoldering. "Wow. Great vote of confidence," she muttered.

He leaned toward her, lowering his voice to a calm, steady murmur. "Let it go."

"But I am letting it go."

"You're never letting it go."

She opened her mouth to argue. So Orenji did what every exasperated partner does in tense, possibly world-ending moments.

He clamped a hand over her mouth.

"Let. It. Go."

She bit him—not to wound, but with just the right level amount to be petty, a sharp little reminder that she was still irritated.

"Every damn time," he muttered, nursing his hand like this wasn't their fifth mission with surprise dental engagement.

The tension between them hung thick in the air when Haturii cleared his throat, breaking their charged exchange.

"Can I speak with you in private?"

His voice was measured but carried an unmistakable edge of urgency.

Orenji blinked. "What? Why? Wait, I'm not in trouble, am I?"

Yukira rolled her eyes and elbowed him. "Come on, genius," she grumbled, yanking his collar like a dogwalker and pulling him against his will. "It's less soul-crushing over there than it is in here anyway."

As the door clicked shut behind them, Yukira tossed a casual middle finger over her shoulder.

Ganymede didn't blink. Aomorii's lip twitched. Possibly respect. Possibly gas. Outside, the hum of auxiliary generators filled the silence.

"Hey," Orenji said, breaking it. His voice was quieter than usual, almost hesitant. "I didn't understand half of what they said until they mentioned Omega. I'm not dumb, right?"

Yukira didn't miss a beat.

"Don't push your luck," she replied, her arms folding neatly across her chest.

They stood in the hallway too young to be anyone's first choice, too stubborn to back down.