The Great War

Part Two

Shortly after, she received orders to redeploy to a much harsher environment: Canada, to the cold expanse of northern Nunavut. The change of scenery and squad was as abrupt as it was strange. The whiteness of the landscape felt like a shroud draped over the terrain. A cold that seeped through even the exoskeleton, which was supposed to keep her muscles warm. An icy wind slipped through the slits of her armor—a cold whisper reminding her that winter was still there.

Due to the arrival of that fragment in orbit, the planet's temperature seemed to have dropped significantly in certain areas, and there were even rumors that spring would be delayed by a few weeks.

In the frozen moorland, Lizbeth joined a new unit composed of seasoned fighters and scientists alike, all united by one purpose: to study and confront a new type of fractus that defied all expectations. The stakes were higher in the Arctic desolation, where every breath was a struggle against both the elements and the new enemy.

These new adversaries, known as monstrilla, were far from the smaller, more predictable copepods that lent their name to their kind. In stark contrast, the fractus monstrilla reached several meters tall, with sensory organs inverted in a grotesque imitation of life. They moved in organized packs of thirty or more— like a swarm of spectral giants. Their ability to vanish and reappear kilometers away—sliding through a dimension invisible to earthly senses—rendered conventional tactics useless and forced Lizbeth and the soldiers and scientists to rethink their entire combat approach.

The cost of facing these creature was high. Lizbeth recalled how each encounter left her and her team battered, both physically and mentally, as the fractus seemed to anticipate every move before vanishing into the ether—only to strike again somewhere else.

The relentless and ever-changing Arctic battlefield proved that these creatures were not mere invaders. It was a struggle against a force that was slowly unraveling the very fabric of reality again, at least as far as spatial distance was concerned. They may have been slow, but they weren't stupid.

When a sufficiently powerful attack managed to annihilate one of the monstrilla, the rest would relocate kilometers away. In moments of frustration, they had to rely on coordinated attacks and predictions using espers to foresee where the group would jump next. Then teams would attempt what could be described as herding the creatures to direct them to a specific point. That way, a high-powered railgun strike awaited at the predicted spot where the pack would reappear. For a species lacking consciousness or much intelligence, they were making civilization fight harder than expected.

After some time, the land was completely cleared, and it did not appear that new ones were going to arrive. Perhaps, like animals, once they could not conquer a territory, they simply gave up.

During that time, Lizbeth learned a little more about something that was already beginning to be suspected: the zones where fractus portals appeared were not entirely random. Many of the scientists spoke of a possible connection with the planet's Ley Lines—those currents of energy that linked ancient places and forgotten nodes of power. Some fractus emerged near cities or around power plants; others, however, surfaced in desolate regions where those invisible lines crossed.

It seemed as though the planet's own energy—its magnetic pulse, its breath—was what drew the creatures in.

But of course, due to the Dark Events in recent years, some of the Ley Lines had shifted, and knowing exactly where an anomaly could occur was like searching for a needle in a haystack. Not even clairvoyant magi or espers with precognitive abilities could pinpoint them. After all, such phenomena existed at the microscopic scale, and an anomaly like the spaces from which the fractus originated was akin to finding a naked singularity in the middle of nature.

Some physicists spoke of topological resonances—zones where space vibrated like a hyperdimensional string, tense with forces beyond human understanding. In those points, where geometry folded upon itself, the dimensions seemed to touch—like two damp membranes brushing against one another for a fleeting instant. That was when the portals appeared: intersections of a cosmic music no one could hear, but matter somehow remembered.

According to several of the scientists studying the monstrilla, the theory of the Ley Lines made sense, in a way. In a space with four spatial dimensions, the fundamental forces—the strong and weak nuclear forces, electromagnetism, and gravity—did not behave as they did in our familiar three. They dissipated faster as dimensionality increased. Gravity, however, persisted; much of it was shared across all those invisible dimensions that lay beyond the tridimensional world. That constancy was what maintained the cohesion of the fractal matter that composed the fractus.

Finding an anomaly that allowed them to break into a three-dimensional space was, for them, like discovering a crack into a denser, more stable world…a free lunch.

Lizbeth understood that this explanation also clarified why conventional ammunition worked in some cases and not in others. It wasn't a matter of caliber or composition, but of physics—pure kinetic energy. A fast-enough projectile could alter a fractus's structure, breaking its anchor to our dimension. Yet there were types that required electrical or high-frequency weaponry to destabilize the atoms, and through them, the fractium—that liminal matter which kept them manifested in three dimensions.

The methodology of combat had evolved around that concept. Units facing mid- or high-tier fractus usually carried portable generators connected to induction lances or rifles equipped with coils designed to emit short bursts of high voltage. The objective was not destruction, but to interrupt the coherence of the dimensional field that held them together. When an electric pulse crossed their body, the fractium reacted like an unbalanced quantum fluid—it collapsed, and the creature vanished, leaving behind a core whose size varied depending on its type. A manifestation of matter from a fourth dimension, confined within a third.

The use of such weapons was not new, but now there was a physical principle behind every discharge: the fractus feared neither fire nor steel, nor even electricity itself. Their weakness lay in the concentration of energy that led to loss of form.

Magic—and esper abilities—also seemed to follow that same principle. Some researchers proposed that both phenomena were merely local manifestations of higher-order forces leaking through the cracks of space-time.

Precognitives, they said, did not see the future—they remembered it from another angle. To them, time was just another coordinate of a greater space, an axis they could sometimes glimpse… but never control. The vision came as a distant echo, a shadow of something that had already happened in another direction of time.

An esper did not alter the world entirely; they only bent its laws within a limited perimeter. Energy became form; matter responded to the will of the mind. An equivalent exchange, physicists said—though no one truly knew what the price was.

The more pessimistic among them believed the answer was simple: time. The lifespan of the three-dimensional universe itself might be the cost of using such powers. Perhaps that was what had begun to trigger the surge of Dark Events… and that the fractus invasion was merely a symptom, another tear in a fabric already wearing thin.

On windless nights, as she gazed at the enormous mass of fractium and earth drifting in orbit, Lizbeth wondered if all of it—the magic, the rifts, the portals—were, in the end, the same thing. Perhaps the invasion hadn't entirely come from outside. Perhaps someone had simply opened the wrong door, in the wrong direction of space.

It was a possibility no one wanted to imagine—because it meant that, whether by error… or what was far more terrifying, by intent—someone had caused the fractus to arrive on the planet.

And if time was the price, Lizbeth thought, then every spell, every miracle, every portal was another wound in the body of the cosmos.

And that also included her voice. But, no matter what, she would have to keep using it in that conflict.

***

Months later, Lizbeth was deployed to the dark streets of London on a mission that seemed ripped from a body horror nightmare film.

Amid the foggy, damp streets of what was now a deserted London, there hung a scent of iron that signaled the presence of the enemy. The air was so dense that every breath became a conscious effort—because the smell of blood and rotting flesh had permeated the entire city.

Fractus called ticks—their name was a grim indication of what they could do—liked to transport themselves inside living bodies to absorb blood and fluids. They could reach the size of a large cat and attacked in groups, leaping several meters to their targets before vanishing into the air and transporting themselves inside the body.

The new platoon moved in tight formation, guided by the artificial intelligence monitoring every inch of the city. In the shadows of buildings, the subway, warehouses and abandoned factories, the fractus appeared in brief bursts, breaking the gloom with fleeting shapes that vanished instantly. Liz fought amidst the urban fog, dodging attacks coming from impossible directions. Each encounter tested her endurance, as every vomit and blast from those fractus sprayed her with fluids from other people and animals who had fallen victim to them. Fortunately, these were less though and could be exterminated with conventional ammunition, although their numbers made them very difficult to combat.

At a temporary base south of London, she met a young soldier who stared at her during breakfast. He looked about twenty, his face still untouched by horror, his knuckles white around the cup he held.

"Are you... really a siren?"

Lizbeth barely glanced up ans smiled. "Not in the sexy fairytale way, if that's what you're hoping for."

He laughed nervously. "No, no. It's just... I thought they didn't exist aside tales."

"Up until a few months ago, neither did monsters that devour cities, right?"

"I guess the recent wave of fantasy around the world was due to this. Everyone is talking about it."

"Yes. Honestly, I had no idea until I joined the fight. I had no idea something like this was going to happen."

"I don't think anyone imagined it."

He nodded, swallowing hard. It seemed like he wanted to say more, but stayed silent. It wasn't exactly fear.

Lizbeth patted him on the back. "Don't worry, I won't bite you!"

"That's not what I meant! Sorry."

"I'm kidding lad, relax!" she said, laughing and looking at the dining room.

Despite the horror and gloomy atmosphere, it was clear that some people were trying to make the best of the situation. AI psychologists were available around the clock to listen to the problems of those coming and going from the front lines.

Sometimes, when she had free time, Lizbeth liked to sing or simply hum a song when everyone was gathered together. Her voice really acted as a calming influence on people, regardless of whether they were humans or fey. Even if only for a few moments, those present seemed to forget the carnage they were in the midst of. Even that young soldier. He had integrated well into the team he was with.

For a few weeks, she saw him here and there. After a while, it became routine to nod at him in passing—until one day, he was gone.

His entire squad had been wiped out.

Lizbeth sat alone with her half-empty tray, watching the steam rise from coffee that had long gone cold. It wasn't the first time she'd lost someone she knew in recent months, but the thought of getting used to it again terrified her.

She was scared for the ones she still knew.

What were the girls doing? Where were they fighting now?

Every day she tried to communicate with them. They were alive but coming and going on different fronts. That drove her crazy, and she only calmed down when she heard from them again.

And Mimi?

There wasn't much news about Mimi, but she was also going here and there. Apparently, she was incredibly effective on the battlefield. There were rumors that she was no ordinary fae. Of course she wasn't, Lizbeth thought. She knew that very well.

***

On another mission, the conflict took her to the rubble of a ruined city in Eastern Europe, where fractus had infiltrated abandoned nuclear facilities. In that battle, there were several types—from small ones resembling mushrooms that fed on radiation and emitted the stench of rotting flesh, to others that flew and could slice through troops like guillotines as they moved through the air. The buildings, corroded by time, stood as monuments to a forgotten era, now bearing witness in their shadows to the fractus emerging, fueled by radiation and the residual despair of the place.

Lizbeth ventured into the maze of collapsed corridors, facing ambushes that seemed to spring from every corner. The combination of obsolete technology, collapsed structures, and the unpredictable appearance of enemies created a chaotic environment where every step was a gamble with death. During that mission, she experienced genuine nerves when the action moved into the underground labyrinthine parts of the city.

Since her experience in that cave in Nevada in 2004, Lizbeth had developed a deep fear of subterranean spaces. Even in well-lit buildings, her hands would sweat when she had to go into basements or underground parking lots.

Meanwhile, since her deployment, she hadn't watched much television, but it was obvious there was a vast media campaign aimed at portraying feys as important allies.

Sometimes, between missions, while cleaning her weapon or watching her communicator battery die without bothering to charge it, Lizbeth would think: And to think it took a war for the world to admit what they'd always known deep down.

They'd known it in the stories, in the songs, in the whispered warnings of old grandparents and the childhood terrors no one could explain. Later, in the dark corners of the internet, there was clues.

But it took corpses, chaos, and international conferences to finally say it out loud.

The truth was, she should have realized this before the war. It was the same as what had happened with the espers about a decade earlier—a publicity campaign to introduce the ideas first and then reveal the big news.

The campaign didn't only cover espers and feys, decades ago there had been ones with the aeons too, when it was decided that one of them, named Osmia, would lead matters of the hive mind. Although the aeons had been accepted for decades, the most conservative human sectors didn't look kindly on an interactive prostitute—as some had publicly called her—being the face of conscious artificial intelligences.

In the case of the espers, it was presented that genetic mutations caused by the Dark Events had made espers appear gradually over decades, many living in hiding while others weren't even aware of their abilities. In 2085, the campaign "Are you an esper?" had been very popular in helping spread the idea that anyone could be one.

With the feys and magic, it was much the same.

Lizbeth recalled that since the early '90s, a worldwide audiovisual and entertainment campaign had begun. There were movies, books, games that seemed to spark interest in fairy legends and other fae beings, alongside magic itself. A new cultural wave that birthed new fantasy authors and directors who were acclaimed by the public.

Talking with Van and Nitocris, when they finally met and fought together on a mission, confirmed it for her.

Since 2086, a campaign had begun to slowly introduce the idea of feys and magic to the public, following the success of the espers. That had played a small part in the public's acceptance when, in February 2095, the official announcement was made: feys and magic were real, and they would be aiding in the war.

Children and younger generations received the news far more naturally than adults, who mostly stared at one another, not quite understanding what had happened to the world.

Still, it had been a clever strategy, Lizbeth thought. In almost every place where feys were now deployed, there were few problems—if any—and they were welcomed.

With every mission, Lizbeth had become more than just another number. Her abilities, along with those of other feys, proved invaluable against various types of fractus.

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The battles fought on the gray concrete of cities, in the frozen isolation of the Arctic, and in the forgotten corridors of abandoned facilities all bore the scars of her presence and of the squads she had been part of. But they had also forged a set of stories around her.

Each confrontation, each fractus defeated, was a reaffirmation that—despite the chaos and the threat of collapsing dimensions—she would keep fighting. Lizbeth knew her strength didn't just lie in technology or tactics, but in her experience defying the impossible—again and again, across many decades.

***

Through late 2095 and into 2096, Lizbeth moved across multiple fronts. She joined different units—sometimes mixed, other times as the only fey and witnessed how the situation varied in each country.

She even ended up collaborating in missions with her two daughters, like the one that reunited them in Poland in April of '96.

There, a blizzard had shrouded a village, but they knew the cold wasn't the most dangerous thing.

She walked alongside Rein and Noki and three other soldiers through the ruins of houses, the crunch of snow under their boots, tension weighing heavy in the air like a silent threat. Their target was a fractus known as a "Silent Specter," an entity that devoured sound itself, turning its zone of influence into a vacuum of death. The only clue to its presence was the total absence of noise: no wind, no whispers, not even the sound of their own heartbeat.

Rein activated her scanner, and before she could issue a warning, the creature materialized in a split second, floating between them with an amorphous, translucent body.

Lizbeth barely had time to react when a black claw grazed her, nearly tearing her in two as it drained the energy from the air around them.

It was Noki who took the lead hours later, launching herself like an arrow of pure energy with the speed of her legs, slamming into the creature and forcing it to retreat.

"Don't lose sight of it!" Lizbeth shouted, feeling her own voice swallowed by the void.

Lizbeth and Rein grasped in an instant what was happening.

Negative Pressure.

It wasn't just that the monster devoured sound: by absorbing the waves, it was also stripping matter of its very vibration. Everything it touched by the claws was reduced to a dry void, without resonance, without life. The air thickened as if it carried an invisible weight and, at the same time, their lungs struggled to open against a pressure that wasn't truly there—it was the absence of pressure, a hollow collapsing inward.

Lizbeth saw a soldier collapse without wounds, his eyes bulging as though his organs had imploded in silence. The fractus's black claw was nothing more than a prolongation of that phenomenon, channeling part of the absorbed waves into a blade of void that erased the cohesion of matter, splitting beams and stones as if they were soaked paper. The Silent Specter did not attack with force, but with the negation of all vibration, and then returned. A scalpel of silence first, waves later.

Noki was the first to react. Her body exploded into motion, like a flash of pure speed tearing through the void like a blue lightning bolt, forcing the Silent Specter to turn toward her. The creature tried to swallow her into its silence, but the kinetic shock she left in her wake was not mere sound—it was a physical rupture, ripping the air apart and cracking the artificial stillness of the fractus.

That instant of distraction was all Lizbeth needed.

She felt her throat vibrate like an ancient tuning fork and unleashed a sonic blast that expanded in visible waves, forcing the specter to reveal itself, tearing away its mask of invisibility and twisting its amorphous body until it lay exposed and vulnerable. In the very same second, hundreds of meters away in a ship, the railgun discharged its projectile wrapped in an electric arc. The impact pierced the creature, and its energy field collapsed in a blinding flash, as if its electron orbits had been ripped out entirely, dismantling the three-dimensional shadow that held its existence together. The fractus shattered into chaotic waves of energy, leaving behind the pulsing glow of a solitary core in the middle of the snow.

Rein nudged her in the arm as the silence finally broke. "Now I've got ringing in my ears, Mom."

Mom. No matter how many years went by, it still felt strange to hear the girls call her that way.

Most of the time, it was just Liz to them, but sometimes that word slipped out. The bond they shared as a family was still there, even if someone was missing.

Lizbeth let out a nervous chuckle, wiping the blood from her lip, and gave her a pat on the head, affectionately ruffling her hair, disarranging her enormous special tactical gear for feys with pointed ears.

"Well… at least it worked."

Months later after several battles, she reunited with them again.

They had been assigned to clear out an old monastery in Transylvania, where a fractus nicknamed "Blood Glider" had turned the area into its personal hunting ground.

Its form was like someone had fused a pterodactyl with a centipede. Unlike others, this one didn't destroy everything in its path—it preferred to stalk, capture, and slowly drain its victims, feeding on the iron in their blood.

They found it deep within the ruins of the cathedral, its long, membranous arms dripping with a thick, black fluid.

"Why is it always the creepiest places?" Noki complained, loading her plasma crossbow while eyeing the shattered stained glass and hallways drowned in shadow.

"Because monsters love drama," Lizbeth replied with a crooked smile.

"No, just high metal density in this mountain range. You can probably detect it, that's all." Rein replied, with a poker face.

The fractus attacked before they could even come up with a plan, launching itself like a living shadow.

Rein reacted first, using the lightning shield in her tail to block the charge. Lizbeth and Noki struck simultaneously—Noki's crossbow fired a burst of glowing projectiles while Liz spun into action, a dagger made of fractus material in each hand, carving deep into its dark flesh.

The Fractus let out a screech that echoed through the cathedral. Lizbeth saw her chance and unleashed her full sonic power in a roar. The sound waves shattered what was left of the stained-glass windows, and the Fractus collapsed into an inert mass of otherworldly material. Rein lowered her shield, raising an eyebrow at her.

"Definitely too much drama." Lizbeth shrugged.

By July 2096, her work had continued with more missions that could've earned her every medal ever created. The same was true for many others who fought as fiercely as she did. Rumors reached her constantly—of other feys, espers, and mages scattered across the world. Friends, and not-so-friends. She even met a couple of feys who had been summer flings of Shin's. Strange as it was, she liked hearing the stories. That idiot had always been the same, no matter where he went.

And of course, there were stories too of humans—those without any abilities—who had still carved their names into the history of a war that seemed never-ending.

Lizbeth was growing more and more concerned with the escalation of the conflict. More than anything, because Rein and Noki were constantly being pulled into the frontlines.

Rein especially, who seemed to get little rest. She had requested some time off, saying she was exhausted. Her storm and weather control abilities had made her a key figure in operations—deployed to fractus nests to wipe them out with lightning.

In September 2096, the three of them found themselves on the same mission again. A group of refugees was trapped in an underground station in Kyiv, blocked by a fractus nest of the "Root Terror" type. It was a massive creature formed by dozens of smaller fractus of the same species, merged into a tangled mass of metallic tentacles and vines that moved as if guided by a single will.

It had turned the station into a living labyrinth, with every wall and tunnel covered in barbed limbs, ready to ensnare and tear apart.

Rein, Lizbeth, and Noki descended cautiously, weaving between rusted train cars and the petrified bodies of those killed by the creature's toxins. Lizbeth was the first to make visual contact with the beast. Its "main body" was a huge bulbous structure clinging to the ceiling, pulsing with dark light. The moment it sensed them, the tentacles came to life, whipping out like razor-sharp whips.

Rein couldn't use her lightning until she was sure it wouldn't destroy the station and the people still trapped inside. But during the fight, she found another way to help—reinforcing the structural integrity of the combat zone with magnetic fields and layered force barriers.

"This is disgusting," Noki growled, narrowly dodging a tentacle that punched through the ground beside her.

"Focus on the root!" Rein commanded, firing her plasma rifle to clear a path.

Lizbeth inhaled deeply, feeling the vibrations of the air tighten around her. She channeled her energy and slammed the ground with a shockwave that rippled through the tunnel. The beast thrashed wildly, but it was enough for Noki to launch an explosive projectile directly at its core. The blast echoed through the station, and the Fractus let out one final roar before collapsing—its tentacles going limp, like snapped cables, as its body disintegrated into particles.

When it was over, and after the last of the survivors had been evacuated, Lizbeth dropped onto a rusted crate, catching her breath.

"Please tell me we're taking a week off after this."

Rein gave a small smile.

"If by 'week off' you mean write endless reports, then sure."

Lizbeth let her head fall back with a groan. Reports and recordings from the tactical equipment were vital for scientists and aeons studying fractus and creating new strategies.

"Why am I not surprised."

"Speaking of filling out reports... I always wonder. Why don't you want a higher rank than just support or team captain?"

"Sweetie, I already have too many problems. I don't want more responsibilities or stars on my shoulders. I'm not that kind of person."

Rein puffed out her cheeks. "You're as bullheaded as Mai, Mom."

Lizbeth raised an eyebrow. "Mai?"

"You'll meet her someday. If we make it out of this alive."

***

In 2097, Lizbeth relocated to Portugal, a land where the Atlantic kissed new shores, due to the attacks that changed part of the geography, and the streets still bore the scars of the previous year's battles on the Portuguese front. There, she formally joined other members of the Nevermore Initiative.

Her first mission led her to Évora, but what truly pushed her to continue with her new assignment was the alarming black market trade of certain types of fractus cores. These cores were being sold for illegal production, mixed into other compounds to create drugs that not only altered the minds of those who consumed them, but also threatened to destabilize the fragile order across the Portuguese and Spanish regions.

While investigating that dark trade, another unexpected phenomenon emerged: the appearance of the first Gate Trees. These plants, which seemed to have sprouted from seeds carried over from another dimension, began to emerge all over the world with a vitality that defied the laws of nature.

It was later discovered they were mutations—seeds that had been exposed to material from another realm. On a biochemical level, their cells contained hybrid membranes with structures resembling nanomaterials, along with modified enzymes that accelerated carbon dioxide absorption. Their chloroplasts, seemingly reprogrammed, facilitated an extremely efficient conversion of CO₂ into oxygen, and even transformed organic pollutants into harmless compounds. These trees not only purified the air—they altered the chemical composition of surrounding vegetation, offering a beacon of hope in the midst of chaos.

To Lizbeth, the eruption of the Gate Trees represented a moving paradox. While she fought against the brutal realities of the black market and the constant threat of the fractus, these trees emerged as symbols of renewal.

In countless communities—from the outskirts of Lisbon to rural areas—people began to notice improvements in air and water quality, attributing them to the mysterious ability of these vegetal beings to absorb toxins and purify the environment. The same was happening in Russia and the northern forests of China. In every forest, in every park, examples of these trees could be found, seemingly fusing organic matter with something from another world, defying all traditional explanations of terrestrial plant biology.

While the black market for fractus cores threatened to unleash catastrophic effects, and the shadows of the Dark Events loomed once more over humanity, the Gate Trees offered a fragile possibility to restore natural balance. With their eyes on the horizon, the coalition decided that their fight would include not only eradicating the threat, but also protecting these new seeds of life wherever they appeared—for in that contrast lay the only hope for a world on the brink.

Amid the global storm, several covert operations were orchestrated, and Lizbeth was sent to the organization's stations in Tanzania for a different kind of mission. There, in the heart of the Serengeti, rumors had surfaced of a ruthless trafficking ring capturing feys from a young community that had only recently settled in the region. They were being sold as slaves in clandestine markets.

Despite all the ways the world had progressed, in certain dark corners, feys were still hunted and exploited—treated as merchandise in an ancient and illegal trade. For Lizbeth, that reality was all too familiar and painfully close: the persecution of her kind had persisted for centuries, adapting itself to every regime, every policy, every continent.

In Tanzania, Lizbeth joined forces with Leon and Naomi, a fey from Egypt who had become an essential part of the fight against traffic. Together, they formed an unstoppable trio—blending cunning and the hard-earned experience from the past. The synergy between them was palpable in every operation: Leon coordinated tactical movements, Naomi used her innate ability to infiltrate highly guarded locations, and Lizbeth led the assault teams of Nevermore with a blend of precision and barely-contained fury.

Ironically, for them, this was a kind of break from the fractus. At least for a while.

The operations in Tanzania were brutal and relentless. In the jungle's darkness and the arid plains, the team broke into hidden camps and makeshift laboratories, confronting criminal gangs willing to do anything to protect their lucrative trade. Every skirmish was a reminder of what was truly at stake: it wasn't just about rescuing a few feys—it was about dismantling a network that threatened the very coexistence they were fighting to build.

The ambushes were constant, and each forced rescue left scars—on the bodies and souls of those fighting. The merciless nature of the mission demanded not just physical strength, but a kind of mental resilience few could understand.

Despite the successes of several raids and the liberation of many captives, Lizbeth knew this battle was only a small front in a much larger war. As she returned to base, her mind was still heavy with the weight of injustice and violence, she looked around at Leon's serious face and Naomi's determined gaze.

Almost without realizing it, Lizbeth had become the same fierce woman she'd been in the previous century during WW2—someone who didn't hesitate to jump into dangerous missions. Though she had fought countless times throughout the 21st century, she still considered the 20th her most intense period of active combat. And now she had returned to that version of herself, though she no longer had by her side that person who once fought with her.

At the same time, in North Africa—as had happened in other regions—an internal market had emerged where small fractus were being captured and used to manufacture chemicals and explosives for terrorist purposes. It was a sad irony: humans, always so bent on destruction, and feys too angry after years of persecution, were using a species that by itself was already contributing to the planet's ruin to create weapons that could trigger an even greater catastrophe. The paradox was glaring—almost comical in its pathos, but with consequences that were anything but funny. Some people, as if the lesson had never been learned, kept making the same mistakes over and over again.

Amid that madness, the black market grew unchecked. Secret auctions and deals made through hidden networks offered small fractus and cores in exchange for exorbitant sums. People, blinded by hunger for power and the thirst for revenge, or new mesianic madness, engaged in the trade without caring that, in doing so, they were feeding a machine of destruction. It was a struggle for control over chaos—a macabre business that showcased the inability to learn from past failures.

Lizbeth, who had seen too many wars to be fooled by the ambitions of a few, joined a series of operations to stop the threat. Alongside Noki, Van, and Nitocris, they formed a small unit dedicated to infiltrating black market networks and dismantling the transactions fueling the manufacture of terror weapons. They operated with the precision of a war machine, combining combat experience with intimate knowledge of the terrain to intercept shipments and neutralize those responsible. The mission was clear: uproot the business that, on its scale, could unleash a global collapse.

In every fight, Lizbeth saw the endless cycle of stupidity—human or otherwise—reflected back at her. An incessant repetition of mistakes that never seemed to end. But she had also been part of that mistake. For a long time, she had tried to stay out of trouble, only helping if she could. Was it a sin just to have tried to survive in recent decades while the world itself continued to spin out of control? As she raided black market sites and disarmed makeshift explosives, the harsh truth became more and more obvious: civilization would destroy itself if it didn't learn to value life.

But amid the chaos, her team held on to the hope that they could change the game. With tactics, not miracles, she and the others clung to the idea that, at least for a time, they could slow the tide of destruction.

Over the next two years, Lizbeth immersed herself in high-risk missions across North Africa, traveling through the vast plains of the Sahara to the ruins of ancient cities. In each operation, she faced not only fractus, armed groups, and traffickers—but also the dark events threatening to unravel reality itself.

Because of course, despite the fractus and internal conflicts, the Dark Events had not gone on break. They didn't care whether about humans, fey, aeon… or fractus.

In Africa, the revelation of the feys hadn't caused the same shock as in the rest of the world. In fact, the continent had already discovered a higher concentration of espers years earlier. But that had also sparked the rage of certain factions that, for decades, had supplied a thriving black market in feys and espers. With the cat was out of the bag the criminal underworld would've much preferred to shove it back in and keep collecting bloody dividends from a trade that had survived across two centuries.

The violent terrain, combined with the ongoing Dark Events, pushed Lizbeth to her limits. Little by little, her name became synonymous with efficiency—both on the battlefield and in covert infiltration operations.

Part of her growing reputation came thanks to Emmeline, who had helped develop a custom weapon for Lizbeth some time ago. Emmeline had long admired Lizbeth's combat style, especially the way she moved—her hips, her limbs, her rhythm in battle. That attention to detail resulted in a plasma whip forged with fractus technology. The same type she had used during her training, but improved thanks to Nevermore Tech R&D department.

Lizbeth shuddered the first time she saw it, when Emmeline sent it to her. She thanked her, but didn't believe she'd ever be able to use it.

That changed one night in the desert, while resting with her comrades. She decided to give it a try.

The result: a few injured friends and several burns on herself. The second time, for the sake of everyone, she trained alone.

Every free night over the next month, she practiced with the weapon. And over time, she realized why Emmeline had chosen it for her. She could wield it as if she had been using it for years.

Lizbeth didn't understand it. She had never liked whips—and definitely wasn't into S&M games. But this one… she could use it like it was part of her. From then on, she used it in open-field combat whenever possible.

On one occasion—much to her horror—she was assigned to infiltrate an underground facility on the outskirts of an abandoned city, where it was suspected that fractus cores were being processed for the development of biological weapons. Using disguises and infiltration routes she had helped design herself, she managed to slip into the complex without raising suspicion.

From inside, she coordinated the sabotage of the communications and security systems, disabling doors and cutting power, sowing chaos among the enemy operators. Despite her discomfort, the operation was executed so precisely that, within hours, the facility had been shut down. Critical data was recovered, leading to the dismantling of a significant portion of the illegal trafficking network.

In another mission, while moving through an oasis deep in the desert, her platoon encountered a Dark Event—a distortion in the air. Out of nowhere, swarms of small fractus appeared, resembling pufferfish, drifting through the dunes as if emerging from a space with no defined dimensions. The space itself was the Dark Event, and the fractus were using it to move.

Normally, those fractus didn't have long-range mobility, but the presence of the anomaly was clearly altering their capabilities. Lizbeth took command, organizing her squad into a defensive line and dispatching a recon team to locate the source of the disturbance. Through a combination of coordinated gunfire, whip strikes, and tactical retreat maneuvers, they managed to contain the threat and gather crucial information about the creatures' behavior and movement patterns.

The source: the location.

The origin: unknown.

Just another Dark Event, appearing at the worst time in the worst place.

Shortly after, she was deployed to the Aegean Sea—near the same beach in Greece where, more than a century earlier, she had once worked on a mission.

The operations in that area were a nightmare.

The aquatic fractus posed moderate danger levels, but exterminating them required methods that risked devastating the surrounding ecosystems—underwater electrical discharges whose salinity fluctuations could damage marine life across kilometers.

It took a coordinated operation involving boats, skiffs, quadcopters, and submarines, plus a new technology developed by ZAIEN known as Tectonic Needles. The goal: lure the fractus into special containment areas and eliminate them in what could only be described as an interdimensional deep-sea fishing mission that blended marine engineering and tectonic manipulation.

It was there—after returning from that mission—that she ran into someone who had come through the area just to check on her.

Mimi had returned from Primorsko, in Bulgaria, after an exhausting battle that had lasted nearly a month.

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