Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

Cold.

It pressed against my skin before I even opened my eyes quietly, patient, and endless. When I finally stirred, the world around me glittered in pale light, filtered through layers of ice that curved like glass around my body. The air felt thick, heavy with stillness. I could hear nothing but the faint rhythm of my own breathing, small halos of fog forming and fading in front of my lips.

I lay there, cocooned in crystal. Frost clung to my eyelashes; my hands were numb but somehow alive, trembling as if remembering how to move. When I shifted, cracks spidered through the shell that held me, each one releasing a soft chime that vanished before it could echo.

Silence followed. Silence so deep it swallowed every thought I tried to form.

Voices.

Faint, distant, curling around the edges of my mind like smoke. I couldn’t tell if they were inside or outside of me. Whispers overlapping one another... gentle, pleading, yet joyful. Prayers. Laughter. The hum of lullabies I almost knew.

I tried to hold onto them, to pull them closer, but they slipped away as quickly as they came. Each attempt to remember sent a sharp pain through my skull, fragments of something vast and bright shattering into nothing.

The light above flickered. My chest ached as though something long asleep had stirred again. I didn’t know where I was-or who I was. Only that I had been asleep for a very, very long time.

And that the world beyond this frost was waiting for me.

I don’t remember how long it’s been since I broke free.

Days? Centuries? The cold never changes, and the sky never moves. It’s always the same shade of white-blue, heavy with light that never fades and never warms.

I walk because it feels like I should. Because something inside me says that if I stop, the world will stop with me. My footprints vanish almost as soon as I make them, swallowed by snow that falls without sound.

The first shapes I found were human.

They stood frozen mid-motion, hands reaching for one another, faces caught in surprise or terror. Every detail preserved in ice so clear I could see the fear still in their eyes. Some kneeled as if in prayer. Others clutched their children close. Entire streets lined with them, like a city turned to glass.

And above them, towers of frost stretching into a sky painted with pale auroras. Their colors ripple endlessly, silent waves across a still horizon.

I wander through what must have once been their home. Crumbling buildings, frozen gardens, temples buried in frost. Inside one, I find walls painted with a figure cloaked in blue light, her hair white as snow, her hands raised toward a silver moon. Offerings rest at her feet, flowers that never wilt, bowls of fruit encased in ice.

When I look closer, I see her face. My face.

Something twists inside me. My fingers graze the mural’s surface; it’s so cold it burns. But beneath that frost, I swear I feel warmth. As though life still beats faintly within it, waiting to be remembered.

Was this my doing?

The thought lingers like frostbite. Did I bring this silence, this stillness? I can’t recall a reason, only the echo of a feeling akin to sorrow so vast it swallowed everything.

The quiet presses against me, thick and unrelenting. Even the wind refuses to speak. I try to say something, anything, just to break the weight of it.

“Hello?”

The word drifts through the ruins and returns hollow, smaller than when it left my lips.

I keep walking. I don’t know if I’m searching for someone or running from the truth that maybe no one is left.

And yet, deep beneath the snow, I can almost hear it; a heartbeat. Not mine, not human, but the pulse of a world that refuses to die.

I don’t know how long I’ve been walking. Time doesn’t move here, it drifts. The world feels caught between one breath and the next, like everything is waiting for someone to wake it.

Then, through the haze of snow, I see it.

A light.

Faint at first, like the blink of an eye. It flickers once, then again, steadying into a pulse that beats against the horizon. My heart answers before my mind does, an instinct older than memory whispering, go.

I follow. The air thickens the closer I come, the cold sharpening until it bites through even me. The ground shifts beneath my steps, shards of crystal and the remnants of machines jut from the ice, their metal skeletons gleaming dully under the aurora.

The light grows stronger until I find its source: a broken device, half-buried in frost. It hums softly, as if struggling to breathe, its glow fading with each pulse.

I kneel before it. The markings along its frame are unfamiliar, yet they stir something in me, a memory that flinches when I reach for it. My fingertips hover, trembling, before they finally touch the metal.

The world ignites.

The machine flares to life, light spilling out in blinding waves. A low, rhythmic sound ripples through the air; a heartbeat, not mine, not alive. For an instant, it feels as if the planet itself remembers how to move.

Then... voices.

One name whispered through the roar, soft and far away.
Aldra

My breath catches. The light burns brighter, and within it, I hear another voice. Distant, melodic, and sorrowful.
“… the cycle begins again.”

The ground trembles beneath me. A beam of light shoots upward, cutting through the clouds, into the stars. Then, silence.

The device goes dark, its glow fading to nothing.

I sit there in the snow, the afterimage burned into my eyes, my pulse still echoing the machine’s final rhythm. I don’t know what I’ve done, or what answered that call, but somewhere far beyond this frozen sky, something is coming.

At first, I think it’s the light again, another flicker in the storm, another illusion meant to haunt me.

But then the ground shudders.

The snow ripples outward in waves as a low hum fills the air, resonating deep enough to shake the frost from the ruins. I lift my head and see it—a streak of radiance tearing across the sky, brighter than anything I’ve ever seen. The clouds part in its wake, scattering starlight over a world that hasn’t seen motion in eons.

The light grows, solidifies, and lands.

It’s unlike anything I’ve ever known, sleek metal gleaming against the snow, windows glowing warm from within. I don’t have words for it. It’s alive and not alive all at once, like a fragment of a star given form.

Then, movement.

Figures step out into the cold, four of them. They move with purpose, their voices sharp against the silence. I freeze, watching from behind a drift of ice. The sound of their laughter cuts through the air, so casual, so warm, it hurts to hear.

The first two are young, bright-eyed and pointing toward the horizon, their breath rising in small clouds. The girl’s hair catches the faint light of the aurora; her tone is curious, unafraid. The boy beside her carries himself like someone used to danger, though there’s kindness in his eyes when he speaks.

Behind them come two others. One, a man with eyes that carry entire lifetimes of knowledge; the other, a woman with a calm strength that reminds me of the sky before a storm. They survey the landscape as if searching for something or someone.

I don’t know why, but instinct screams at me to hide. I back away, my heart pounding for the first time in memory. The air grows colder around me, frost curling from my fingertips before I realize what I’m doing.

They see me.

The girl gasps, pointing. The boy steps forward cautiously, but I panic.

“Stay back,” I whisper, though the words barely carry. My fear answers for me and an involuntary surge of power erupts, and a wall of ice bursts from the ground between us. The sound is sharp, violent, echoing across the dead world.

For a moment, no one moves.

Then the older man with the steady eyes' steps closer. His voice cuts through the cold, calm but firm.
“We mean no harm,” he says, his breath visible in the frozen air. “You’re safe now.”

Safe. The word feels foreign on my tongue.

The energy drains from me as quickly as it came. The frost begins to melt around my hands, water tracing lines down my arms like tears. The world tilts, the sky spinning above me. I try to speak, to ask what they are, what I am, but my body refuses to move.

Strong arms catch me before I fall. I think it’s the boy, his voice distant and worried. The girl’s words follow, muffled by the ringing in my ears.

And then I hear it again, that same voice from before, the one from my dreams.

“Rest, child.”

Darkness folds over me like snow.

When I wake again, the world moves.

The low hum beneath me is steady, alive. It vibrates through the floor and up my spine, like a heartbeat that belongs to something vast. I open my eyes to warm light instead of the endless blue. The air here smells faintly of metal and spice.

I’m lying on a bed that's soft, and unfamiliar. Blankets gathered at my chest. Around me, the walls curve in polished bronze and gold, etched with patterns that ripple faintly as the machine breathes. Through the window beside me, stars drift past like falling snow.

For a moment, I forget how to breathe.

My planet lies behind us now, small and glimmering, a sphere of glass adrift in starlight. Even from this distance, I can see the frost still clinging to it, preserving every city, every soul. Beautiful. Terrible. My doing or my curse... I can’t tell which.

Voices carry softly through the open doorway.

“There were no other life signs,” a woman murmurs. I know her voice, it’s the calm one, the red-haired one who looked at me not with fear but with quiet understanding. “Just her. Let’s give her time before we start asking questions.”

A younger voice protests, light and curious. “But, Himeko, she’s sooo pretty! And that hair-how is it that white naturally? Do you think she’s made of ice or-”

“March,” Himeko says gently, amusement threading her tone, “let her rest.”

Footsteps retreat. The room grows quiet again except for one lingering presence.

I sense eyes on me before I see him. Standing just beyond the doorway, half in shadow, is the man who had spoken to me before the darkness took me. His gaze is steady, unreadable, yet there’s something behind it, like a flicker of recognition that neither of us can explain.

For a moment, we simply look at one another. The hum of the train fades; the stars outside seem to still.

I should feel uneasy, but I don’t. It feels… familiar. As if I’ve met him somewhere before, in another life, another world swallowed by snow.

He nods once, a quiet acknowledgment, and turns away to follow the others.

I turn back to the window. My hand rises, almost on its own, until my fingertips touch the glass. It’s cool, but not cold. For the first time, I feel something like warmth, faint, fragile, real.

A word slips from my lips before I can stop it.
Not a name. Not a prayer.
Something older.

It leaves my mouth like a sigh, a remnant of a language I can no longer remember. The sound hangs in the air for a heartbeat, then vanishes into the hum of the train.

I stare at my reflection in the window taking in the pale glow of my eyes, the quiet lines of a face that feels both mine and not mine. Half divine, half human. Half memory, half ghost.

And for the first time since I awoke, I wonder if I’ve truly left that world behind… or if a part of it still sleeps inside me, waiting to thaw.

Chapter Text

The Astral Express hums like a living thing. I press my palm against the window and feel the vibration through the glass. The stars beyond are sharper here, clearer than they ever were from the frozen horizon of my world. Maybe because they’re moving again. Maybe because I am.

“First mission nerves?”

I turn to find Himeko standing beside me, arms crossed and smiling in that calm, steady way she always does.

“I’ll be fine,” I say, though it comes out softer than I intended.

“Nerves mean you care,” she says gently. “That means you belong here.”

Before I can answer, March 7th bursts in with her camera, eyes bright. “First mission memory!” The flash blinds me for a second, and I wince, laughing weakly. “See? You already look less nervous,” she says proudly.

“Do not distract her,” Dan Heng says from the doorway. He stands perfectly still, his spear across his back, gaze cool and sharp.

“I’m motivating her,” March mutters.

Welt Yang joins them, his steps calm, every movement deliberate. His presence fills the space quietly. “Stay close,” he says, adjusting his glasses.

I nod before I can think.

The doors open, and a wave of sterile air greets us. Herta Space Station glimmers ahead, glass and steel suspended in the void. Inside, our footsteps echo too loudly in the still corridors. Himeko checks in with Asta through the comms. March hums to herself while scanning the walls, and Dan Heng surveys everything with practiced focus. Welt walks beside me, steady and silent.

The lights flicker. A tremor shivers through the floor. Then alarms erupt, flooding the corridor with crimson.

Asta’s voice bursts over the intercom. “Antimatter Legion detected in the sector. All personnel evacuate immediately.”

The name means nothing to me. The shapes mean everything. Shadows twist out of the red haze with too many limbs, glowing eyes, claws scraping steel.

March fumbles for her bow. “Oh great… another walk in the park” she says, her voice shaking.

Dan Heng steps forward, spear raised. Welt’s hand lifts, his barrier blooming in a shimmer of force. “Form up,” he commands. “Protect each other.”

I move with them, the cold biting at my palms, forming blades of ice that hum in the air. Welt’s voice reaches me again, low and calm. “Stay with us.”

I nod, grounding myself in the sound.

We push forward through corridors of panic. Scientists and technicians run in every direction. Himeko takes the lead, scanning a nearby terminal. “Left junction,” she says, her tone measured even through the chaos. “Minor power outages near Control, nothing dangerous yet.”

“Yet,” March mutters, already drawing her bow. “Minor outages always grow up to be major ones.”

“Eyes forward,” Dan Heng replies, already ahead.

Welt walks beside me. Not too close, not far either. The quiet between us feels safe, like the kind of silence that steadies instead of isolates.

The station turns again, and a new corridor opens ahead. Glass ceilings reveal a scatter of stars pressed close against the dark. March whispers a soft “wow,” and I almost echo her, but stop myself. The stars have never comforted me. They remind me of what doesn’t move anymore.

Asta’s voice crackles through the comm again, distorted. “Reading interference… power rerouting… keep moving… we’ll meet you—” The line cuts out in a burst of static.

“Lovely,” March says flatly.

“Proceed,” Dan Heng says. “Caution.”

We passed a maintenance alcove. Tools lie scattered: a wrench, a coil of cable, a mug with a faint lipstick print on its rim. Someone left in a hurry. The small details root me in the moment, keeping me from slipping too far into memory.

Then the tremor comes again, stronger. The corridor shakes. Lights dim, then flare blood-red. Sirens wail overhead, deafening.

Himeko’s head snaps up. Welt raises his hand instinctively, his barrier flickering into being. Dan Heng draws his spear. March steadies her aim, though her breath shakes.

Asta’s voice cuts in again, sharpened with urgency. “All personnel evacuate immediately! Antimatter Legion in Sector—” The message fractures into static.

The monsters arrive with the noise, crawling and gliding while their bodies bending in ways that should not exist. 

“Positions,” Dan Heng calls.

Himeko moves forward, sword blazing. March fires a volley of energy arrows. Welt’s barrier hardens, shimmering like glass. I let the ice answer, sweeping across the floor toward the advancing creatures. The first one freezes mid-lunge, its body locking in place. March’s arrow pierces the crack in its shell, and it shatters.

March whooped, some wild little spark of triumph flashing across her face. “Did you see that? That was—”

“Focus,” Welt said, not unkind.

Welt glances at me but says nothing. He turns, catching another attack with a wave of force.

The comm spat static and then tried again: “—Aux evac corridors— Security lock— All nonessential personnel—”

“Welt,” Himeko said, breath measured, blade wet with a light that didn’t stain. “Split right with Dan Heng. March with me.”

Welt’s glance flicked to me. “With me,” he added, and wrapped calm around the words until they sat properly in my ribs.

“Roger— I mean, yes— uh, sir— I mean, not sir—” March bubbled, backing with Himeko, then shot me a look past her shoulder that said everything she would say later when we weren’t being murdered: That was awesome, are you okay, what was that, you saved my life, also are you okay, are you okay.

Dan Heng had already moved. Welt stepped when he did, and my body discovered it could go where safety had gone. Our trio cut right and the corridor narrowed, then widened too suddenly, as if the architect had remembered a different job midway through this one. A row of windows to space made my stomach lift. My reflection looked like a girl who hadn’t slept for years.

Dan Heng turned a hinge with opinions. “Three,” he said, which meant: three we can see. His spear traced a small circle in the air and completed it on the throat of the first creature to test our willingness to bleed for this place

With a tap of his cane, Welt’s barrier expanded until it met with things that disagreed with the concepts of boundaries. The remaining two monsters slowed upon impact and we pressed on.

In a side passage, we spot a group of technicians huddled behind a security door, eyes wide with panic. Welt steps forward, calm but firm. “Follow corridor five to the evac zone,” he orders. “Do not stop until you reach the main junction.”

They stare for a moment, then obey. As they run, one of the creatures drops from the ceiling, targeting them. Dan Heng is too far. Welt’s barrier is still recovering. I move without thinking, thrusting my palms toward the floor. Ice shoots out in a clean line, locking the creature’s legs in place. It struggles and snarls, trapped.

“Go,” I shout to the technicians. They sprint away. Welt raises his hand, compressing the air around the monster until it crumples with a crack of energy.

He looks at me, eyes steady. “Well done.”

We keep moving. Welt’s barrier reshapes ahead of us, slowing the next wave. Dan Heng cuts through with practiced precision, and I follow their rhythm, striking where the ice can help. A controlled freeze here, a sharpened blade there. No overreach. No loss of control.

The station coughed up new alarms like a failing organ. The comm skittered with Asta’s voice, then someone else’s, then a rolling baritone that did not belong to anyone I knew. “—breach in the archive— containment— all hands—”

Himeko’s voice came through our line, crisp but warm enough to thaw the edge of panic. “Status?”

“Advancing,” Welt said. “Civilians were routed to evac. Hostiles thinned.”

“Good. Rendezvous at Control, if Control is still the word for it. We’ll meet you as soon as our dance partners get tired of losing.”

“Understood.”

The red light paints everything in motion. The station feels alive and dying all at once. My breath fogs as I push the cold back under my skin.

“Stay close to me,” Welt said. 

I nod.

“Control,” he says. “Now.”

Dan Heng finally looked over, with the shortest acknowledgment that I was not a liability he’d have to tie to a chair. “Keep to Welt’s left,” he said. “If they cluster, slow them. Not the floor.”

He had noticed. Of course he had. He’d noticed that I kept choosing the floor, the walls, the harmless parts of the world to punish. Not people. Not anymore.

“Understood,” I said.

We run. The corridor shakes again. The Legion returns in fragments and smoke, but we cut through them cleanly this time.

The Control room door looms ahead. Welt lifts his hand to override it. The panel flickers and gives way. The sound inside changes, shouting, the hum of weapons, the electric smell of ozone and fear. A pressure presses behind my eyes, like a storm thinking of its name.

March’s laughter echoed down the connected corridor an instant later, like a bell answer. Himeko’s voice chased it: “Two more, then we breathe.”

“Together,” Welt says.

“Always,” I answer before I can stop myself. His expression flickered, almost a softness.

We crossed the threshold and stepped through

The room noticed us. Every head not attached to a monster pivoted our way. Asta is at the far console, frantically issuing orders. Himeko and March shortly followed behind, holding a fraying line at the far console. Dan Heng slid into the gap that looked like it had been waiting for him, spear first.

Welt moves forward, and the room steadies around him.

I lift my chin, staring at the woman ahead. 

“So that’s Asta…” I whisper to myself.

Her hair flamed like a sunrise, her white coat trailing, her posture a mix of exhaustion and defiance. She was young, younger than I expected, and yet the room bent around her as though she had always been its center. Her voice carried like command, but her eyes burned with the sleepless shine of someone who had chosen responsibility over comfort too many times.

She turned as we entered, her relief visible but brief. “You made it.”

Himeko inclined her head, composed as always. “We came as soon as we received your signal.”

“And not a moment too soon,” Asta said, pushing her glasses up the bridge of her nose. “The Legion breached faster than we calculated. I’ve rerouted nonessential power, but containment is failing in multiple sectors.”

March winced. “Translation: big trouble, right?”

Asta’s smile was weary. “Correct.”

Her gaze flicked across each of us, cataloguing, measuring. When her eyes found me, she paused not suspiciously, but curious, as though I were a variable she hadn’t accounted for. “I wasn’t told there was a new member aboard the Express.”

Heat flushed my face. “I… joined recently.”

“She’s with us,” Himeko said simply, warmth threading her words like silk.

Asta nodded, accepting without argument. That small mercy made my chest loosen by a thread.

Asta gathered her tablet from the console, flipping through lines of data that jittered and reset as though the station itself was trying to sabotage her. “I’ve sealed most auxiliary corridors, but their numbers keep growing. We need to clear the Archives before the Legion breaches any further.”

Her tone was clipped and efficient but her hands trembled when she set the tablet down. Not enough for most people to notice. Enough for me to see.

I knew that kind of trembling. The kind that came not from weakness but from carrying too much, too long.

“I’ll direct personnel to fallback routes,” Himeko said, brushing the red strands of her hair behind one ear. “You focus on the Legion.”

“Easier said than done,” Asta muttered. She rubbed at her temple, then looked at us again, and her smile was almost apologetic. “But I’m glad you’re here. Without the Express…” She didn’t finish the thought. She didn’t have to.

March bounded forward with renewed energy, spinning her bow like a baton. “Don’t worry! With us around, you’ll be fine. We’ll smash those creepy crawlies before they get another inch.”

The cheer in her voice clashed with the red-lit room, but somehow it worked. Asta laughed softly not long, but enough to soften the tightness in her shoulders.

Dan Heng only adjusted his grip on his spear. His silence filled in the gaps where March’s words fell short.

Welt spoke last, his voice steady and deliberate. “Point us where we’re needed most. We’ll handle the rest.”

Asta’s eyes softened. For the first time since we’d entered, she looked less like a commander standing on the brink and more like a person holding onto hope.

We moved again, following Asta’s lead through a network of corridors and lifts that hummed like a nervous system stretched too thin. She spoke in clipped bursts about breaches, containment, and research protocols, her tablet glowing in her hands.

March stuck close to her, peppering her with questions about telescopes, satellites, and whether Asta ever had time for fun. Asta’s answers were short but kind, each one peeling away a little of the exhaustion from her voice.

Himeko walked ahead, every stride balanced, the weight of command fitting her like a well-worn coat.

Dan Heng flanked, silent, eyes sharp.

And Welt… stayed by me.

He didn’t speak, not even to reassure me. But his presence was deliberate, as if he’d chosen this place beside me not by accident, not because there was nowhere else to stand, but because he thought I might need it.

I tried not to let the thought warm me too much.

By the time we reached the Archives, the station felt like it was holding its breath. The doors loomed tall and cold, the seal glowing faintly with warnings. Asta keyed in a command, her fingers flying too fast for my eyes to follow.

“They’re inside,” she said grimly. “If they reach the core, we lose more than data. The station’s entire system depends on this sector.”

Himeko raised her weapon, her stance graceful, ready. “Then we won’t let them.”

March bounced on her heels, drawing her bow. “Time to shine.”

Dan Heng twirled his spear once, settling into silence again.

My hands trembled in my pockets. The frost itched against my palms. The red light bled into my vision.

Welt’s voice came low beside me. Only for me. “Remember what I told you. You’re here. Not there.”

I swallowed, forcing air into my lungs. “I’ll try.”

His gaze lingered just long enough to feel like a promise. “That’s enough.”

The doors began to slide open. The sound of claws on steel poured out, a chorus I had hoped never to hear again.

And we stepped into the storm.

A thousand claws on steel, screeching in rhythm, echoing through the cavernous heart of the Archives. The air stank of ozone and burning circuits. Sparks rained down from broken consoles, the glow strobing across the glass walls that spiraled high into the dark like a cathedral for knowledge.

Only now, it was no cathedral. It was a battlefield.

The Antimatter Legion swarmed across the tiers of the chamber, their grotesque forms spilling over stairways and crawling along walls that should have been untouchable. Between their ranks, research drones sputtered and fell, their lights flickering out like fireflies under storm rain.

Asta’s breath hitched beside me. “The core’s ahead… if they breach it, everything we’ve built—”

She didn’t finish. She didn’t need to.

“Then we hold them here,” Himeko said. Her voice was steel, calm, unyielding. She raised her weapon, and its glow cut the dark.

Dan Heng stepped forward, spear at the ready, his shadow stretching long under the red emergency lights.

March knocked an arrow, her voice high and fierce. “Let’s do this!”

Welt adjusted his glasses, his gaze sweeping across the chamber with quiet precision. His eyes flicked to me only once, but the look was deliberate: steady yourself.

The first wave struck.

Dan Heng met it head-on, his spear flashing, clean arcs slicing through carapace and shadow alike. His movements were efficient, honed, a rhythm of thrust and retreat that left no space for hesitation.

March loosened her arrow, the bolt of light streaking past my shoulder. It struck true, detonating in a burst that scattered Legion fragments across the polished floor. “Ha! How do you like that?” she shouted, already drawing another.

Himeko swept her weapon in a wide arc, fire cutting a line through the swarm. Her presence blazed, a pillar of strength that steadied the others even as the Legion screeched louder.

Welt raised his hand, and the air shimmered. The Legion slowed, crushed beneath invisible weight, their movements sluggish, deliberate, as though the station itself had turned against them.

One of the Legion broke past, skittering low, claws scraping as it rushed Asta.

She gasped, stumbling back.

The frost surged out before I could stop it, a vein of ice cracking across the floor. The Legion froze mid-step, trapped in a sudden lattice of rime that glowed faintly in the red light.

Asta’s eyes widened. “You—”

March fired another arrow, shattering the creature before Asta could finish.

She turned to me, her grin too wide, her voice too bright. “You really are amazing! Where were you hiding that?!”

Heat flared in my chest. “I… just got lucky.”

Welt’s voice cut across hers, calm and firm. “March. Focus.”

Her pout was audible, but she obeyed.

His gaze brushed mine, heavy, steady, and for a moment I thought he’d speak. But he didn’t. He only turned back to the fight, raising his hand to bend the Legion’s charge.

Relief and dread tangled in my chest. He had seen. Again. He was choosing silence.

But for how long?

Chapter Text

The Archives were quiet again. Too quiet.

The Legion’s broken shells littered the glass floors like discarded husks. Asta’s people were already moving through, salvaging what they could, repairing consoles, sweeping debris into neat piles. The red lights still pulsed overhead, the sirens still wailed, but softer now tired, as if the station itself had grown weary of screaming.

My arms ached, my hands trembled, but I forced myself to move with the others. Himeko was already at Asta’s side, reviewing readouts from a cracked terminal. Dan Heng stood near the entrance, eyes sharp, spear still in hand. March leaned against a console, flexing her sore arms and groaning theatrically. Welt adjusted his glasses and spoke with Asta in low tones, his voice steady, even now.

It should have been enough to calm me. The Legion was scattered. The Archives were secure. For now.

But the stillness pressed too hard against my skin. My ribs felt tight, my breath shallow. Something thrummed in the air, deeper than the hum of machinery, older than the station itself.

A pulse. Not mine. Not the station’s.

Something else.

I gripped the edge of a cracked console, grounding myself. The frost itched beneath my skin, eager to answer, eager to spread. I clenched my hands into fists, forcing it down.

“You’re pale,” March said suddenly, peering at me with wide eyes. “Like… extra pale. Are you okay?”

I opened my mouth, but the words tangled. “Just… tired.”

She tilted her head, unconvinced, but before she could press, Himeko called her over. March huffed and skipped away, still glancing back at me with suspicion.

I let out a slow breath. My fingers had already left faint frost on the console’s surface.

No one else noticed. Not yet.

Asta’s voice carried over the sirens, clipped but steady. “Containment is deteriorating faster than expected. The Legion is retreating in some sectors, but…” Her tablet flickered with collapsing graphs. “…they’re converging in the hangar. It’s as if they’re gathering for something.”

“Something?” Himeko echoed.

“The Doomsday Beast.”

The name hit the room like a weight. Even the sirens seemed to hush for a moment, their wail dulling against the walls.

March’s eyes went wide. “Doomsday? what kind of name is that?! Who names these things?!”

Dan Heng didn’t look up. “It’s a war construct. Created by the Antimatter Legion. Blessed by Nanook.”

The air left my lungs in a shudder. Nanook. Even the name felt heavy, resonant, sharp. The frost inside me coiled tighter.

Asta tapped her tablet, pulling up half-complete schematics, riddled with errors. “It was designed to end worlds. It hasn’t been seen in years, but if the readings are correct, it’s here.”

“Here?” March squeaked. “As in… here here? On this station?”

“Yes.”

The console under my hand vibrated faintly. 

I staggered back, pressing a hand over my sternum. My breath came sharp, white in the cold air. The others didn’t notice as they were focused on Asta’s readouts, on strategy, on preparing.

But I felt it.

The pulse wasn’t just the Beast. It was deeper, more human, like a heartbeat that wasn’t mine. Resonant. Familiar. Wrong.

Someone was here. Someone awake.

And whatever was inside him was calling to what was inside me.

“Dan Heng, you’ll take points,” Himeko was saying. “March, cover the flanks. Welt and I will hold the center. We need to keep them from breaching the station core.”

Her voice was calm, sure. Orders, plans, stability. I should have felt steadied by it. But the resonance drowned everything.

My vision blurred. Frost spiraled across the floor at my boots.

Not now. Please, not now.

I squeezed my eyes shut, forcing the cold back down, forcing myself to breathe.

“Stay with us.”

My eyes snapped open. Welt was watching me. His voice had cut under the others, low and deliberate, meant only for me.

I nodded quickly, too quickly, clutching my hands behind my back so no one would see the cold fading from my fingers.

He didn’t press. He only adjusted his glasses, turning back to Asta. But the weight of his gaze lingered, steady, anchoring.

The ground shuddered as we made our way towards the hangar 

Not like before, not a tremor, not the station’s bones groaning. This was heavier. Intentional.

A console exploded in sparks. The sirens blared back to life at full volume, shrieking warnings in languages I didn’t know.

Asta’s tablet lit up with a red warning that outshone all others. Her face blanched. “It’s here.”

The walls trembled again, dust raining from the seams. A sound like tearing metal echoed through the chamber, distant but growing.

March gasped, spinning toward the corridor. “That’s—”

The floor lurched, nearly throwing us off balance. A shadow passed across the glass ceiling, vast and wrong, blotting out the emergency lights.

The Doomsday Beast.

It wasn’t just a shadow. It was a presence. A weight pressing down on the station, pressing into my bones.

And under it, fainter but certain, I felt the other heartbeat again. The resonance.

Someone else was awake. Someone else who carried the same burden.

My knees buckled as the beast roared.

The ceiling above the station warped with the shadow’s passage, emergency lights bowing in red arcs as if the building itself were praying. Glass vibrated under my palms. The hum in my chest rose, an answering note I hadn’t agreed to sing.

“Positions!” Himeko’s voice cut across the alarms, clean as a blade.

Dan Heng moved first, already reading paths the rest of us couldn’t see. March’s bow snapped into line with muscle memory and stubborn courage. Asta rattled off evacuation routes into the comm, her voice too calm for anyone but a leader who’d chosen calm on purpose.

“Breathe,” Welt said quietly near my shoulder as if he could convince my lungs they hadn’t been bricked over with ice. His presence was the single steady thing in a room that wanted to buckle.

I tried. Air stung in. Air scraped out.

The Beast’s shadow crossed the glass again, slower this time, as if it had found us and meant to savor the discovery. 

And beneath the alarms, the tremors, the station’s protesting bones, there was that other rhythm. A heartbeat that wasn’t mine. Not the Beast’s, either. Something human, frightened, stubborn. Close enough that my frost leaned toward it like a tide.

He’s here, the cold said, in the wordless way cold speaks. He’s awake.

Asta’s terminal went violent with warnings. “Multiple breaches. The Beast is forcing the outer hull. We can’t hold it at this level! fall back to the observation spine!”

“Move,” Himeko commanded, and the order was a bridge we ran across.

We spilled into the corridor like a single body. Doors opened a fraction of a second before Asta’s authorization reached them, lights blooming ahead as if the station wanted us to survive. March ran backward for three steps “We’re not dead yet, keep moving!” then yelped and spun to face forward again when Dan Heng gave her that look.

The floor bucked as something titanic set its weight down on the station. A vending machine toppled and exploded into a storm of packaged snacks. My shoulder clipped the wall; Welt’s hand was there, brief, a promise pressed into skin.

We rounded onto the observation spine, the long glass artery that stitched two halves of the station together. The universe opened on either side, black and star-shot, the station’s ribs curving away like the inside of a sleeping creature.

And the Beast was finally visible.

It clung to the station’s exterior like a desecration with segments of armor welded to the idea of muscle, engines where organs should be, a head crowned with blades and wrong light. Every motion it made bent the station’s frame a little more. The glass around us sang with the strain.

March swore softly. It sounded like a prayer.

“Target its stabilizers,” Himeko said, voice steady when mine could not be. “We buy ourselves time.”

Dan Heng set his spear for a lunge that looked impossible through glass. Asta gunned power toward the spine’s shield array, coaxing reluctant systems into coherence. Welt lifted his hand and the air condensed, the station’s shiver becoming a push instead of a tremble.

The heartbeat in my chest answered someone else’s. Closer now. Close enough that I could almost put a shape to it: footsteps uncertain, breath ragged with the strangeness of being alive. Something inside him burned ruin-bright, and the cold inside me recoiled and reached for it at once.

You’re not wrong, I told the my. You’re not alone. But not now.

A fracture raced along the glass to our right, a white lightning bolt that froze rather than burned. The Beast anchored one claw, drove the other through a maintenance bracket, and pulled. The observation spine heaved; alarms found new volumes.

“We hold,” Welt said, and the field around us thickened like the world had remembered weight.

“Holding,” Asta hissed, as if it were a personal insult. “But the dampeners are maxed. We need to drive it off now or we’re going to—”

The spine lurched. The next door down blew open in a cough of smoke. Figures in lab coats scrambled through. Three, four, faces ash-streaked and wild-eyed. Himeko waved them past. March grabbed a staggering tech by the elbow and shoved him into motion with unceremonious kindness. Dan Heng’s spear flicked once and set a Legion straggler into permanent reconsideration.

The Beast’s head rotated toward us.

Its eyes weren’t eyes. They were wounds that leaked light.

“Look at me,” Welt said, and the world narrowed to the exact space between us. His gaze held me like a person holds a frightened animal, not with force but with certainty. “You know how to do this without breaking it.”

He didn’t mean the Beast.

I swallowed. Air found the bottom of my lungs. The frost listened, resentful, yet loyal and lay itself thin across the junction plates in the floor, a seam the station could use instead of a shroud it would have to survive. I didn’t freeze the window. I didn’t silence the alarms. I didn’t make the mistake of believing stillness equals safety.

“Now!” Himeko’s call rang clean.

Dan Heng moved with three strikes that looked like one. March’s arrow stitched a line of bright defiance into the Beast’s shoulder assembly. Asta pushed a surge through the spine’s emitters; the glass hummed with a field that bit back. Welt’s barrier bowed, then pressed outward, a refusal made manifest.

The Beast recoiled. Not much. Enough.

The resonance in my chest spiked hot, then cold, then the precise sensation of a door opening. Not in the station. In a person.

Footsteps, fast and unsure, hit the metal walkway behind us. I turned because my body knew him before my eyes did.

A boy stood in the threshold of the blown-out doorway with hair damp, shirt clinging, eyes too clear for someone who had been alive for such a short time. Confusion lived beside a resolve that didn’t belong to him yet. He took in the Beast, the crew, the breaking station, and didn’t flinch. He touched his chest like someone confirming a rumor and winced, as if the rumor had teeth.

Our gazes caught.

The Stellaron in him rang against me like two notes aching toward the same chord. Not harmony. Recognition.

I understood him in the instant the station roared again: empty and full; chosen and condemned; a beginning stamped on him without consent. He looked at me like I was the first person who could hear the noise he’d woken into.

“Who—” he began, and the Beast slammed a limb into the spine.

The floor kicked under us. Glass shrieked. The field buckled and then held because Welt told it to. Himeko’s blade flared. Dan Heng planted himself like a promise. March swore a vow only she would ever call a joke.

The boy’s hands curled, as if he expected to find a weapon there and found only the need to act.

I took one step toward him without meaning to, as if the thread between us had tugged. “Stay with us,” I said, and my voice trembled on the us in a way that made my ribs hurt.

He nodded, once, quick. Something like relief flickered through his face as if the world had offered him a hand, and he had decided to take it.

The Beast’s head lowered. The station’s lights guttered. Asta’s screen went blood-red.

“Brace,” Welt said.

We did.

The Doomsday Beast drew breath not air, but of catastrophe, and the observation spine filled with the kind of light that turns endings into facts.

I reached for everything I was not supposed to be. And the chapter broke there, on the cusp of ruin.

“March, shield!” Himeko’s command cracked through the roar.

March snapped up a wall of light, bracing it against the Beast’s first blast. The shield shuddered, spiderwebbing at the impact. “O-okay, that’s not fair!” she squeaked, but her stance held.

“Dan Heng, right flank,” Welt ordered, calm as a stone.

Dan Heng was already there, spear glancing across the Beast’s armor in streaks of silver. Sparks cascaded into the void.

Himeko’s blade blazed in answer, carving a line of fire across its limb. The air scorched and crackled, fire and void arguing over who would own the space between.

And Welt he anchored everything. His hand lifted, and gravity itself remembered its place. The Beast slowed, staggering just long enough for March’s arrow to pierce a seam in its armor.

The glass floor trembled under the counterstrike.

The boy.

He looked at the Beast, at us, at his own shaking hands. His breath came ragged, but he didn’t retreat. His gaze snapped to a broken length of pipe thrown loose from the wall. He grabbed it, swung it with both hands and the impact against the Beast’s claw rang like a bell.

The construct reeled. Not from the metal. From the raw power that poured through him like a vein torn open.

Light bled from the swing, a burst of destructive energy that fractured the armor.

March gawked. “Did he just—hit it with a stick?!”

Welt’s glasses glinted as he narrowed his eyes. “Not a stick. Instinct.”

The boy swung again. And again. Wild. Unrefined. But every strike tore deeper than it should have, as if the universe itself recoiled from his touch.

I moved before I realized it, covering his flank when the Beast’s other claw swung low. My frost surged out, veining across the floor to slow its advance and Its wild strike met my restraint.

The boy blinked at me, startled, then softened. For a heartbeat, the battle blurred away.

His voice was raw. “I don’t know who I am. I don’t know why I can do this.” His grip tightened on the pipe, knuckles white. “All I feel is… something inside me that wants to break everything.”

My throat tightened. I almost looked away. But he deserved the truth. “Then we’re the same.”

He froze.

I swallowed hard, breath fogging between us. “There’s something inside me too. But I spend every breath trying not to let it out. You destroy, I hold. Either way… we carry things too big for us.”

For a moment, he just looked at me, his amber eyes wide, wet at the edges. A boy who didn’t ask for this, recognizing another who hadn’t either.

“Then maybe…” His voice cracked. “Maybe we can hold it together. Just for now.”

I nodded, fierce, because anything softer would have broken me. “Just for now.”

The Beast roared, snapping the world back into fire and noise. But when we moved again, it wasn’t alone. His swings matched the pace of my frost, wild and sharp but meeting restraint. His burden sang with mine.

The Beast lunged, its claws tearing through the spine’s shields like paper. The station shuddered, alarms bleeding into a single flat scream.

“Hold formation!” Himeko called, her voice sharp enough to cut through chaos.

March fired again and again, her arrows sparking against the Beast’s joints. Dan Heng was a blur at its flank, every strike precise, clean, measured. Himeko’s blade blazed across its armor, burning fissures into metal that should have been unbreakable.

Welt anchored us all. His hand lifted, and the Beast’s claw slammed down slower than physics allowed, the weight of the universe dragging against its motion. His field shimmered around us, catching falling glass, catching falling courage.

The boy moved with us. His swings were raw, wide, but his power was undeniable. Every strike tore deeper than it should, the metal pipe in his hands cracking like thunder when destruction leapt from his body into the Beast. He looked half-terrified of himself, half-defiant.

The Beast reared back, pulling energy into its crown of blades. Light gathered in its throat, a sphere of annihilation that made the air hum with panic.

Asta’s voice cracked over the comm. “It’s charging! if it releases that inside the station, everything’s gone!”

“Then we stop it here,” Welt said, calm, absolute.

Dan Heng planted himself, spear raised in perfect form. “I’ll open it.”

“March, shield them!” Himeko’s command rang out.

“Got it!” March’s barrier flared, brighter than I’d ever seen, her teeth clenched as she forced it to hold.

Himeko’s blade ignited, fire spiraling up its length. She glanced once at Welt. He nodded, the tiniest motion.

I knew my place. I met the mysterious boy's eyes, watching his grip tightened on the pipe. He nodded too, a silent pact.

Dan Heng struck first, spear plunging into the Beast’s neck seam with a burst of silver light. The creature reeled, its energy sphere flickering.

“Now!” Himeko shouted. Fire roared across her blade as she carved a burning line into the fracture.

I threw my frost across the breach, holding it wide, forcing the armor to split, to stay vulnerable. The cold burned my veins, but I held.

“Together!” Welt’s voice anchored everything.

His field collapsed inward, pressing the Beast’s massive body down, forcing it to accept the blows.

The boy roared, lifting the pipe in both hands. Destruction flared, wild and violent, shattering the air. He swung an arc so raw and brutal it felt like an ending, and the Beast’s core cracked under it.

Light spilled out, sputtering, faltering.

It screamed, the sound rattling the station to its foundations, then tore itself free from the spine, retreating into the void.

The silence that followed was deafening.

For a moment, none of us moved. Just the sound of our breathing, ragged and disbelieving. The station groaned around us, but it was still standing.

March broke the silence first, collapsing to her knees with a dramatic groan. “My arms are so dead. If anyone asks, I carried the whole fight.”

Dan Heng didn’t answer, though the faint twitch of his brow said enough.

Himeko exhaled, lowering her blade. Fire dimmed to embers. She looked at us all and allowed herself a smile. “Good work.”

Asta’s voice came through, choked but steady. “Core integrity… holding. The Beast is gone. The Legion is retreating. You… you did it.”

Her relief was palpable, filling the room like sunlight after storm.

The boy dropped the broken pipe, chest heaving. His hands trembled, and he stared at them as if they were weapons he couldn’t put down. His voice was raw, trembling.

“…Who am I?”

The question silenced even March.

He looked at us, at Himeko, at Welt, and then at me. His eyes were too clear, too desperate. “What… what am I supposed to be?”

My throat ached. I wanted to answer, but the frost inside me locked the words away. If I said them, they’d sound like mine, not his.

Himeko stepped forward instead. Her voice was warm, certain. “Someone at the beginning of a journey. Nothing more, nothing less.”

He blinked, as if trying to believe her.

“You don’t need all the answers now,” she said gently. “But if you want a place to start, come with us. The Astral Express is a home for people like you.”

He stared at her hand when she offered it, the same way he’d looked at the weapon in his grip with uncertainty but needing to hold something. Slowly, carefully, he took it.

The world shifted, just a little.

As the others moved ahead, I lingered. My palm brushed the frost-veined floor, fading now that the Beast was gone. My heart was still hammering, still resonating.

He glanced at me once as Himeko led him forward. His eyes lingered not recognition, not yet, but something close. Something like understanding.

I wasn’t the only one anymore.

Welt’s voice reached me, low, steady, from behind. “Come on.”

I turned. He stood a step back, watching me with that same calm weight, offering no judgment, only presence.

I breathed once, twice, forced the frost quiet, and followed.

The Beast was gone. The station was safe. And for the first time since leaving my frozen world, I wasn’t alone.