"I went to the woods because I wished to live deliberately, to front only the essential facts of life, and see if I could not learn what it had to teach, and not, when I came to die, discover that I had not lived."

— Henry David Thoreau, Walden

Luca stepped up onto the Specter's platform, fingers skimming across the control panel like muscle memory. The interface flickered, green lights chased across the dashboard as the repulsors spun up. The whole craft rose a few inches off the rock, humming like it was waking from a nap.

He didn't wait, couldn't wait. He needed space and time alone.

Breath caught, he slammed the throttle forward, right into the mist, the rain, the static-choked air, and left the noise behind. All of it.

Let them argue about fire and loot and whatever else felt important today.

He needed a moment, a parenthesis.

The second the Specter lifted clear of the ground, it was like Luca's lungs actually started working again. No Peregrine hum. No Ryan breathing down his neck. No one within five feet asking where they were going or how many Energy Cells they had left.

Just him. Just the Specter. Just quiet.

The repulsors thrummed under his boots, a deep, bone-vibrating purr that crawled up through the frame and into his spine. He feathered the throttle, angled the nose up, and let it move. It leapt like a beast finally let off the leash, slicing through the thick, rain-soaked air like it had something to prove.

The overhang vanished behind him in a streak of gray and red. The campfire, the dome, the voices, all gone.

Rain hit hard. Sheets of it, blown sideways by wind that tasted like fall leaves and wet stone. His helmet sealed with a hiss, HUD flickering slightly from old firmware as it adjusted to the deluge. Level 48 armor. Not ideal, but it held pressure and kept him dry. Environmental seals were tight. Breath steady. Internal temp holding.

The jungle blurred below him in bursts of red canopy and jagged stone ridges, all bathed in the dull glow of storm-filtered light. No mobs in sight. Not yet.

Specter's steering was sensitive. Luca tapped the side controls, banking left, then right, letting it respond under his fingers. Quick bursts of lift. A fast descent. Just testing its bite.

God, he missed this. The isolation. The hum of machinery that didn't talk back. No Ryan. No Emily. No Zoe asking to come. Just wind, rain, and the whisper of a reactor behind him.

Part of him wanted to hit max throttle. Burn the whole way to the signal. It was what, eighty miles? Ten minutes if he pushed it. He could fly straight through the storm. Slam the Specter into the dirt and find out what the System was hiding before it got a chance to lie again.

He would've, if not for Chris. "Specter, this is Peregrine."

Luca flicked the channel open. "Specter here."

"Four active portal signatures near the signal, maybe more," Chris said. "Ambient system energy levels are high."

Luca said nothing.

Chris continued, same calm cadence. "There's a storm front pushing up from the east. You're flying under it now, but you'll clip the worst of it in about ten miles. Visibility's going to crash."

Silence on coms. Just long enough to let it settle.

"That's all," Chris said. "Figured you'd want to know. Peregrine out."

The channel stayed open a second longer, like he was thinking about saying more.

Damn it, Chris. Always the voice of reason. The practical one.

Luca stared through the visor at the trees below, their red-and-slate canopies pulsing with mist and wind. Storm clouds roared across the ridge, the light bleeding out of the sky like someone pulled the plug. The rivers cut through the jungle like glowing arteries. Deep red, angry, alive.

He exhaled slowly. Just enough to keep from screaming at nobody.

Then he throttled back, just enough to level out. Drop altitude and look for a clearing. Somewhere with footing. Somewhere with targets. Somewhere he could shoot at something without thinking about it too hard.

The Specter hummed beneath him like it agreed.

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He wasn't going back. Not yet.

But he wasn't flying to his death either.

Thanks, Chris.

A few minutes out, Luca found a clearing. Flat, ringed by black rock, half-choked in red leaves and busted branches. The canopy cracked open just enough to let the rain knife in sideways, cold and pissed off, but whatever. Better than nothing.

A dead tree leaned across the center, snapped mid-spine, bark melted clean down one side like it had been hit with a goddamn orbital strike. Probably lightning.

He eased the Specter down into the gap, setting the repulsors to standby. The hovercraft sank with a soft whirr, energy brushing the soaked ground like a whisper. He cut the lights. Killed the dash.

Silence.

Just the storm, grinding on in the background like the world was chewing its teeth.

Luca dismounted, moved to the rear rack, grabbed his sniper and slung it across his back. The tomahawk snapped into place at his hip like it had missed him. He didn't think. Couldn't. Something ugly was clawing up the inside of his throat and if he let it get too far, he'd crack open.

Breathe. Move. Reset the rhythm.

He stretched his shoulder. Still tender. He could still feel how the claws raked across his chest, and the ground, speeding up to meet him.

Time to hunt.

Luca slipped into the treeline, keeping his profile low. The rain was thinner under the canopy, but the sound of it, dripping, tapping, hissing, still drowned out his footsteps. The scout suit's noise dampeners kicked in. Not as strong as the Phantom gear, but enough.

Red-leafed ferns brushed against his legs as he moved deeper. He checked the HUD's motion tracker; light pings to the northeast, mid-range, nothing worth running from. Not yet. He headed that way, climbing over a fallen log slick with moss.

Every movement was automatic. Fluid. He didn't need to think about how to move. Just where.

The deeper he went, the more the forest opened up. Less underbrush, more roots. Huge, spiraling trees that looked like something from a fever dream. Their canopies stretched out above him, red and gold against the gray sky.

He ducked under a fallen log and kept moving. Just tracking. Looking.

There were claw marks on one tree. Wide and deep. Four slashes at an angle, just below eye level. A marker of territory. Something lived here. Something big.

Luca crouched, brushed his gloved fingers across a mound of dirt. It was warm, still holding body heat. Freshly overturned, like something had been bedding here.

He circled it, quiet and slow. The focus, the silence, the scent of wet earth... it was the kind of movement that made him feel thirteen again, when Dad still let him go hiking alone, up through trails behind their house.

Back when he still had someone waiting for him at the end of the trail. Back when the worst thing he had to worry about was whether his idiot brothers had taken his bike apart.

Back before the System showed up and filled the woods with mobs.

He remembered the smell of early snowmelt. The crunch of dry needles under his boots. The way Mom used to pack dried apples and call it "fuel for the climb."

She hated the cold, but she never said no when he wanted to go.

She just watched him from the porch, coffee in hand, waving once as he disappeared into the woods. He could smell the cinnamon she sprinkled in, even now.

Even when he didn't look back, she was always watching.

Another gust of wind snapped him out of it.

Luca rolled his shoulders. Re-centered. The storm was building. The air had that electric, something's-about-to-break taste.

Yeah.

Time to keep moving.

It took another twenty minutes before Luca found what he'd been tracking.

A herd of [Silvane], grazing at the edge of a mushroom glade, soft bioluminescence pulsing up the stalks around their hooved legs. There were at least seven of them, tall and alert, their angular bodies twitching every few seconds like their nerves were wound too tight for the environment.

They moved light. Graceful. Too graceful for a world like this.

But one drifted too far from the rest. A younger male. No ridge pulses on his antlers. A little too curious for his own good.

Luca dropped prone against a moss-covered ridge, adjusted the bipod on the sniper rifle, and took a breath. No need for abilities here. He already outclassed them.

The scope locked, his visor glitched once, then refocused.

One squeeze.

The plasma bolt ripped clean through the base of the stag's skull. It dropped instantly, lights flickering off its antlers like someone had unplugged it. It crumpled, legs folding, neck twitching once before going still.

The herd scattered in a burst of high-pitched static and flapping membranes, their bodies arcing into the air as they launched through the canopy.

The underbrush snagged at Luca's boots, the rain wasn't letting up, and he was out of patience. His shoulder still ached like hell. His ribs throbbed. But he wasn't going to leave this thing behind. No, he needed the win. He had to bring something back.

Not just meat. Control.

They'd lost the thread. He'd lost the thread. The team was running on fumes, adrenaline, and half-smiles. And the portal they'd cracked open? Yeah, that was on him. Emily warned him. Zoe didn't trust it. But he was the captain, right? He said go. He let the ego drive.

Stupid.

Now they were crawling through a world that was actively mutating around them. Mobs were spawning faster. Wildlife was leveling. And he was the idiot wearing an outdated suit, pretending he still had a grip on things.

Luca pulled the Silvane up the final ridge and dropped it with a grunt beside the Specter. Rain hissed off the hull. He leaned forward, forehead pressed to the cool metal, breath fogging up inside the helmet.

"Alright, Luca. Enough brooding. Enough half-measures."

He needed to lead. For real this time. Not just run headfirst into portals like some over-caffeinated action hero. Not just try to sleep with every problem until it went away. He had to sit the team down, lay out the stakes, and start acting like the goddamn captain they thought he was.

And Emily?

God. Emily.

He'd laid his heart out there weeks ago, told her exactly how he felt. And she'd smiled, kissed him, stayed with him. But she'd never said it back. Just smiled. And yeah, he could feel it in the way she looked at him, the way she leaned into him when she was tired, but...

But what if he was wrong? What if she just liked having him around?

He couldn't keep pretending it didn't matter. Couldn't keep telling himself her actions were enough when his chest tightened every time he said "I love you" and got a smile instead of the words back.

He had to ask. Had to know where they really stood, even if the answer gutted him.

And Zoe? Ryan? The others?

They'd follow him if he gave them something solid to follow.

Luca strapped the Silvane to the back rack, climbed into the Specter, and keyed the ignition. The repulsors fired up, warm and familiar. He took one last look out at the trees, the ridge, the quiet curve of the jungle beyond.

Time to go home. Time to get his shit together.

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