The sky was no longer grey; it was a bruised, electric purple. The Green Storm was rolling in, a wall of emerald radiation and pressurized wind that leveled the remaining glass in the plaza. Above, the cloud ceiling churned like a boiling sea of toxic bile, lit from within by jagged forks of atmospheric static. Each discharge sent a concussive boom through the ruins, shaking the very foundations of the skeletal skyscrapers. This wasn’t weather as the Orbiters knew it; it was a planetary tantrum, a surge of ionizing energy that made the air taste like burnt copper and the hair on Evelyn’s arms stood on end.
"Fall back! To the ship! Now!" Jax’s voice was a jagged edge, stripped of its usual military composure. His white armor was scorched, marred by the black streaks of close-range pulse fire and the deep gouges of predatory claws. He stood his ground at the mouth of the atrium, his rifle sweeping the shadows as he provided cover for the remnants of his squad.
The soldiers were retreating in a desperate, frantic scramble, dragging Miller toward the glowing orange thrusters of the Valkyrie. The dropship sat like a defiant beacon in the center of the silt-covered square, its engines screaming as they fought to keep the systems primed against the rising magnetic interference. The heat from the thrusters distorted the air, creating a shimmering veil that made the world look like it was melting.
Evelyn scrambled to her feet, her vision still swimming with the ghost-image of Ren’s molten amber eyes. Her lungs burned, struggling to process the heavy, ash-laden air through her respirator. The "Snap" of the bond had left her hollowed out, as if a part of her soul had been ripped away when the pulse-grenade separated them. She looked toward the dark, jagged ruins where the pack had retreated, her heart hammering a frantic rhythm against her ribs. She expected to see monsters; instead, her gaze caught on a patch of matted, blood-stained fur in the silt, barely twenty yards away.
A wolf scout; a young one, barely out of its cub years was pinned beneath a fallen steel girder that had collapsed during the firefight. The creature was a mess of agonizing contradictions; it was shifting frantically, its biology reacting to the trauma by fluctuating between states. One moment, Evelyn saw a mangled human limb, pale and fragile; the next, it was a thick, furry haunch covered in coarse obsidian hair. It was whimpering; a high, thin sound that cut through the rolling thunder like a serrated knife, vibrating with a frequency of pure, unadulterated pain.
"Harper! Move your ass!"
The roar was accompanied by a violent jerk. Jax had reached her, his armored glove clamping down on her bicep with enough force to bruise the skin beneath her uniform. He tried to drag her toward the rising ramp of the ship, his sensors undoubtedly screaming about the lethal radiation levels now saturating the plaza.
"There's a casualty, Jax! Look!" she shouted, her voice cracking as she pointed toward the trapped creature. The scout's amber eyes, so like Ren’s, were wide with the glazed terror of the dying.
"It’s a target, Evelyn! Leave it!" Jax didn't even turn his head. His focus was entirely on the Valkyrie, which was beginning to vibrate as the pilot initiated the pre-flight lift sequence. "The storm is hitting in five minutes. If we don't lift now, the radiation will fry the ship's navigation and we’ll be stuck in this hellhole forever. We leave. Now."
Evelyn looked at the ship. It was the symbol of her life, the embodiment of the "Purity" she had been raised to protect. It represented her father, her career, and the only world she had ever known. A world of glass, order, and safety. Then she looked back at the whimpering scout.
In that moment, the bond spiked. It wasn’t a vision, but a physical invasion. She felt Ren’s agony through the tether. A sharp, stabbing pain in his own leg that wasn't his. Through the shared resonance, she could feel him lurking in the deep shadows of the skyscraper, his muscles coiled, his heart breaking. He was watching from the darkness, torn between the primal instinct to save his kin and the cold, Alpha necessity of the pack's survival. He was paralyzed by a choice he couldn't make, but she could.
I am a doctor, she told herself, the words becoming a mantra that drowned out the sirens and the thunder. I do not choose who deserves to live. I only choose life.
She ripped her arm away from Jax with a sudden, explosive strength she didn't know she possessed. The movement caught the Commander off guard, his heavy boots sliding in the slick ash.
"I don't leave casualties. Go!" she screamed.
"Evelyn, don't be a fool! You’ll die for a mongrel!" Jax reached for her again, but a bolt of green lightning slammed into a nearby lamppost, throwing a spray of sparks and debris between them. The radiation alarm on his suit went from a yellow pulse to a solid, screaming red.
She didn't listen. She didn't look back. Evelyn ran toward the scout, her boots sinking into the silt, her medical kit bouncing against her hip. She dropped to her knees beside the fallen girder, the smell of blood and wet fur filling her nostrils. The Mother’s Key in her pocket was no longer just humming; it was glowing with an encouraging, fierce warmth that radiated through her leg, shielding her from the sudden chill of the storm's wind.
The scout snapped at her, its teeth bared in a desperate, animalistic terror. It was a reflex, a dying creature's last attempt at defiance. Evelyn didn't flinch. She reached into her kit with hands that were miraculously steady, pulling out a localized sedative patch.
"I know," she whispered, her voice a calm anchor in the chaos. "I've got you. I'm not the enemy."
She pressed the patch to the creature's neck, right where the fur met the flickering human skin. The scout’s eyes rolled back, its breathing slowing as the fast-acting neuro-blockers took hold.
The sky began to rain. Not water, but heavy, static-charged droplets of black liquid that sizzled when they hit the ground. The wind intensified, threatening to peel the respirator from her face. From the corner of her eye, she saw the Valkyrie lurch. Jax was at the top of the ramp, his hand outstretched, his face a mask of disbelief and fury.
"Harper!"
Evelyn ignored him. She wedged her medical kit under the girder, using the reinforced carbon-fiber casing as a makeshift fulcrum. She threw her entire weight onto the lever, her muscles screaming, her vision tunneling as the radiation levels began to spike in the air around her. She was a daughter of the Orbit, a creature of the stars, but in that moment, she chose the life in the dirt over the safety in the sky. She was no longer Vane’s scout or the Orbit’s pride. She was a healer, and the Earth was her theater.
