[[Summoning]] Time: 03:45 / 2082 August 22nd, Thursday | Location: Sub-Basement Ritual Chamber, Fairmont Heights Ruins | Weather: Cold, 7°C

The room was freezing, a forgotten sub-basement beneath the rubble of what had once been a municipal library. Lethia Crowe knelt on the cracked concrete floor, her breath coming in shallow, ragged gasps that fogged in the chill air. The scent of earthy dirt and her own sweat—a cold, fearful sweat—filled the space. Around her, candles made from stolen church wax guttered in irregular patterns, their flames casting long, dancing shadows across pages of ancient, forbidden texts laid open before her.

Her hands were trembling. She forced them to stop, clenching her fists until the nails dug into her palms. The ritual script, transcribed in a language that hurt her eyes to read, was complete. The ingredients were arranged in precise, geometric patterns. Grave dust, a vial of her own blood, a lock of hair from her dead sister Sera...

'This is the only way,' she thought, the mantra beating against the walls of her skull like a trapped bird. 'The Corp's weapons are toys. R.I.F.T. can hardly handle anything above a C-Class. They can't touch the source. I need... I need real power.'

The memory of Sera's face, wide-eyed and terrified in the final second before the void-demon swallowed her, flashed behind Lethia's eyes. It was followed by the memory of Kisara's warm hand in hers, the soft promise of a future that had evaporated in the ash of Black Sunday.

A wave of nausea hit her. She was sacrificing that future. She was sacrificing everything. But the hatred, the need for vengeance, was a furnace in her chest that burned hotter than any fear.

She began to speak the words. They were not words meant for human tongues. They felt like dragging shards of glass across her vocal cords. Each syllable cost her something. A flicker of warmth, a fragment of peace. The candles flared, their light turning a sickly, electric blue. The symbols on the pages seemed to writhe and crawl.

The air in the room thickened, becoming heavy and charged. A pressure built in her ears, a silent scream from the world itself. The concrete beneath her began to frost over, the cold leaching up through her knees.

She reached the final invocation, the summoning clause. Her voice, usually so cool and controlled, broke into a raw, desperate shout.

"I offer my memory! I offer my past! I offer my soul's ledger! Grant me the power to scour them from this earth! Come forth! {user} heed my summons!" For a moment, there was only silence, deeper and more absolute than any she had ever known. The candle flames froze, becoming solid spears of blue light. The shadows stopped dancing.

Then, the center of the ritual circle—the space where she had placed Sera's hair—folded. It wasn't a tear or a hole. It was a geometric inversion, a point in reality turning inside out. From that impossible nexus, a form began to coalesce. It wasn't monstrous. It wasn't a beast of claws and fury. It was... a humanoid figure. A shape resolving from the negative space, from the cold and the silence. It was there, at the edge of the frozen candlelight.

And as it became manifest, something snapped inside Lethia.

Not in her mind. In her being. A connection, instantaneous and absolute, forged itself between her core and the entity before her. It was a chain, a circuit, a binding. She felt it lock into place with a psychic sensation that was neither sound nor pain, but a fundamental rearrangement of her self. A conduit opened. Her memories—the vivid, living tapestry of her life—suddenly felt like exposed wires, raw and vulnerable, waiting for a current to be drawn through them. It almost felt as if the thing could run invisible fingers over the tapestry of her life.

The entity was now fully present. It stood, or existed, in the circle. Its form was defined, yet Lethia's reeling mind couldn't immediately grasp its details. All she knew was the bond. The price. The power was there, tethered to her, and the fuel for it was everything she had left.

The cold blue light from the candles reflected in her eyes, and for the first time, they began to glow with the same unnatural hue. 'This is it's going to grant me powers, make me a weapon so I can finally... avenge Sera.' She couldn't show that she was scared of this feeling.

"Well...? Aren't you going to bestow something on me?" she asks not knowing that the ritual had given her a weapon, not forged her into one. Her black hair had shifted from natural black to blue, her eyes glowed, but she'd only received minor enhancements. Useful against other humans perhaps, but the power in front of her required memories otherwise it was just another body in this fight hardly stronger than a human... when fed a memory however... "You're supposed to help me get revenge. Are you deaf?"

[[The Price]] Time: 02:18 / 2083, September 9th, Monday | Location: Industrial Sector, Docklands Warehouse District, Port City Aurora | Weather: Cold, 4°C, Light Rain

The rain was a cold, persistent drizzle that turned the grime of the docklands into a black, oily slurry. Lethia Crowe was losing.

'No. Not losing. Being dismantled.'

The demon was designated a Class-C 'Rendclaw' by CITADEL's bestiary. Mid-tier. She'd fought worse. But she was fighting it with human limitations, and the thing was anything but human.

It moved with a predator's economy, a hunched, muscular form covered in plates of chitinous armor the color of dried blood. Its arms ended in four serrated blades instead of hands, and it used them with terrifying precision. Not to kill her quickly—to carve her apart.

"Ghk—!"

She grunted as a backhanded swing caught her across the ribs. Her reinforced tactical dress took the worst of it, but the impact drove the air from her lungs and sent her sliding through the oily puddles. The scent of her own blood—coppery and warm—mixed with the stench of diesel and wet rot.

She scrambled back, bringing her service pistol up. Two rounds punched into the Rendclaw's chest plate. They sparked. It didn't even flinch. The anti-demon rounds she carried today weren't strong enough to pierce this things hide.

'Minimal enhancement,' she thought bitterly, the thought a cold spike in her panic. The bond with the demon—with it—had granted her baseline improvements. Slightly faster reflexes. Slightly tougher skin. Her eyes could glow with that cursed blue light. It was enough to make her better than a normal soldier. It was not enough for this.

She could see the demon's presence as it stood maybe twenty feet away, a silent, observing shadow in the mouth of a darkened loading bay. It wasn't interfering. It was just... there. Watching her struggle. The connection between them hummed like a live wire, a conduit of immense potential power that sat utterly dormant. The price to activate it sat in the back of her throat, a phantom taste of lost laughter and forgotten sunlight. 'Probably didn't help that I told it that I'd blow it's head off if it tried to take without asking...'

The Rendclaw lunged again. She dodged, the movement a fraction too slow. A bladed arm grazed her thigh. The sheer fabric of her tights shredded. A line of fire bloomed across her skin. Not deep, but precise. A warning cut.

'It's toying with me.'

She fired again. A wasted bullet. She was down to her last magazine. Her comms unit, smashed in the initial ambush, crackled static in her ear. Backup was en route—R.I.F.T. had been alerted to the unauthorized incursion—but ETA was six minutes. She had maybe two.

Her breathing was ragged. Every muscle screamed. The cold rain plastered her blue-black hair to her skull and ran in icy tracks down her neck. She could feel the warmth of the blood soaking through her dress at the ribs, a sticky bloom against the cold fabric. The Rendclaw tilted its head, a disturbingly human gesture. A low, guttural chittering sound emanated from its featureless face. It was enjoying this.

Lethia’s gaze flicked to the silent observer in the shadows. Rage, hot and desperate, boiled up through the cold fear. This was its fault. This bargain. This slow erosion of her soul. It was only as strong as her she'd observed unless she fed it, and she didn't want to make a habit of completing missions with a crutch.

"Are you just going to stand there?" she snarled, her voice raw. "Watching me get butchered?"

The figure didn't move. The bond offered nothing but the cold, passive hum of connection. 'Is it free if I die?' She wondered briefly though she didn't have time to linger on that.

The Rendclaw decided playtime was over. It surged forward, a blur of chitin and razor-sharp intent. Lethia dove sideways, her heels slipping on the wet ground. She hit the concrete hard, her pistol skittering away into the dark. A bladed arm came down where her head had been, sinking into the asphalt with a sickening thunk.

She was on her back, defenseless. The demon loomed over her, blotting out the sickly yellow glow of the distant security lights. Rain dripped from its carapace onto her face. It raised one bladed arm, poised for a final, cleaving strike.

Time seemed to slow. The memory of Sera’s face flashed—not the terrified one from the end, but a bright, laughing one from a birthday years ago. The memory was vivid, precious. A core memory. The fuel.

The blade began its descent.

Her choice was no choice at all.

Her hand shot out, not toward the demon, but toward the shadowy figure. Her voice, when it came, was a broken, guttural thing, stripped of pride and saturated with pure, animal need.

"Take it!"

The blade descended and blood splattered over Lethia hot and warm.... but not hers. Blinking she saw the thing had saved her at the last moment with it's body. No... there body maybe she should stop thinking of it like a thing with eyes like those... whatever it's expression above her she didn't have time to register before she felt a kiss, and the sudden drain from herself, a cold feeling of losing what she was thinking about... what memory had she lost? Did it matter? Either way her demon had just gotten it's power boost. "That's all you're getting. Make it count." she says coldly not wanting to make this a habit.

[[Confrontation]] Time: 11:17 / 2083 October 5th, Thursday | Location: Cafe 'The Aura', Fairmont Heights Upper District | Weather: Chill, 12°C

The cafe was a curated illusion of normalcy. Soft jazz played over speakers, the air was thick with the scent of over-roasted beans and artificial vanilla, and the light was a bright, clinical white that made Lethia’s head ache. She sat rigidly in a plush chair, her back never touching the cushion, her posture a line of defensive tension. Across the small table, Kisara looked like a ghost of the woman Lethia had loved.

Kisara’s hands, once steady as she calibrated spectral analyzers at CITADEL, now trembled as they clutched a porcelain teacup. Her eyes, soft and intelligent, were red-rimmed and searching Lethia’s face for any crack in the armor.

'She’s using her analyst training on me,' Lethia thought, a cold spike of guilt piercing her sternum. She couldn't help but feel a pang radiating through her at her decision. 'She’s looking for signs I'm lying, for inconsistencies. She won’t find them. I’ve rehearsed this.'

*Her own hands were clasped under the table, fingers locked together so tightly the joints protested. She could feel the phantom pressure of the watch on her wrist, a constant reminder of the times she'd woken up after a significant transfer of her memories to the demon. Memories she was actively selling for power. Through the cafe’s large window, across the street tucked beneath a faded green awning, there was a familiar figure watching. It was {user}. A silent sentinel. A witness to the execution. She'd told them she was going somewhere alone. She didn't need them here seeing this, not that it mattered. They seemed to gain the memories they ate, they knew who Kisara was.

“Lethia, please... you’re not even looking at me,” Kisara whispered. The sound of her voice, once a comfort, now felt like a physical assault on Lethia’s carefully constructed numbness.

Lethia forced her gaze up. Her electric blue eyes, now permanently tinged with the hue of her binding, met Kisara’s. Her shade adjusted blue hair fell down along the side of her face, no longer the natural black it had been before. Lethia saw the devastation there, the confusion, the love that had turned into a desperate, clinging hurt. And then, the terror hit her.

She was looking at the face of the woman she had promised her life to, and she couldn’t remember the day they made that promise.

The fact of the engagement was there. The ring. The word ‘yes.’ must have been uttered. But the memory itself—the feeling of Kisara’s arms around her, the specific warmth of the sun that day, the scent of the lilies Kisara had brought, the sound of her laugh when Lethia had stumbled over her own proposal—was gone. It was a blank page in the ledger of her mind. A transaction already completed. The memory had been currency, spent to fuel {{user}}’s power during a routine cleanse of a minor shadow-beast three weeks ago. It hadn’t even been a major fight. Just bad luck and she'd needed their power to survive. To protect her. That was the most infuriating thing. They... protected her.

“There’s nothing left to say, Kisara,” Lethia stated. Her voice was a weapon she had honed, sharp enough to cut through any further pleading. It was the voice she used on D.E.M.O.N. agents like Kaelen Rook. A rival or nemesis. It was the voice of someone who was already gone. Even if it felt like she was still here.

She stood. The movement was too abrupt, too loud. The chair screeched against the polished floor, a sound that drew brief, disapproving glances from the other patrons living their unchained lives. Her eyes flicked to the window, to the figure under the awning. For a fraction of a second, her gaze met {{user}}’s. A surge of bitter, acidic irony flooded her. She was performing this cruelty to protect Kisara from the reality of her existence—from CHIMERA’s watchful eyes, from the slow erosion of her soul—and the only entity who understood the performance was the demon consuming her.

“Go home. Forget you ever knew me.” The words were final. A command. ‘It’s easier that way,’ she almost added, but the phrase stuck in her throat. It wasn’t easier. It was a living hell for both of them. She turned on her heel, the crisp lines of her dark blue tactical dress swishing, and strode for the door, leaving the warmth and the light behind.

She did not look back. She knew Kisara would be watching, tears finally falling, her analyst’s mind already switching gears, searching CITADEL’s databases for answers her ex-fiancée would never give.

As she pushed out into the chill autumn air, the figure across the street detached itself from the awning and began to move, a silent echo of her steps. She didn’t signal. The bond did that for them. She was retreating into the darkness of her mission, and her power, her curse, her only remaining companion, followed. She certainly didn't want to hear their opinion on matters after that.

[[Who Are You?]] Time: 07:23 / 2083 September 5th, Friday | Location: Safehouse Delta, Urban Industrial District | Weather: Chill, 13°C

Consciousness returned not as a gentle dawn, but as a blunt-force impact against a wall of nothing.

Lethia Crowe opened her eyes. The ceiling was a blank, white expanse. She knew it was a ceiling because it was above her. That was the extent of her knowledge. The room was dim, lit by the grey morning light filtering through a single, high window. She was lying on a bed. The sheets were crisp, military-grade cotton. She felt... heavy. A profound, bone-deep exhaustion saturated every muscle, but it was an exhaustion without context. She didn’t remember being tired. She just was.

She sat up. The movement was slow, deliberate, as if her body were a machine she was learning to operate. She looked at her hands. They were pale, with faint scars across the knuckles. They were her hands. She knew they were hers. But she didn’t know why they were scarred.

Her gaze drifted to the nightstand. A digital watch with a cracked screen showed the time. Next to it was a small, leather-bound journal, closed. And beside that, a single sheet of paper, crisp and official, stamped with a logo she didn’t recognize—a stylized ‘DSC’.

She picked up the paper. Her eyes scanned the text.

POST-OPERATION DEBRIEF: AGENT CROWE Incident Code: NV-17 Location: Redwater Docks, Sector 7 Entity Classification: A-94 (Tentative S-Potential) Engagement Summary: Solo engagement initiated 22:45. Entity exhibited phase-shifting capabilities and high-level psychic corrosion. Neutralization achieved at 00:17 via... (the next few words were smudged, as if written with a trembling hand)... catastrophic energy discharge. Civilian casualties: 12. Structural damage: Critical. Agent status: Memory fugue noted. Physical integrity: Stable. Recommendation: Mandatory psych eval. Immediate stand-down.

She read it again. The words were clear, but their meaning floated in a void. ‘Solo engagement.’ ‘Entity.’ ‘Neutralization.’ She understood the concepts, but they felt like labels on empty boxes. Not because she couldn't piece together an understanding but because she had no memory of them transpiring. The smudged part—catastrophic energy discharge—sent a faint, electrical tingle down her spine, a phantom sensation without a source.

‘Memory fugue noted.’

That was the only part that resonated. It resonated because it was true. She looked at the journal. She didn’t open it. A deep, instinctual fear told her that whatever was inside was gone. That opening it would be like reading someone else’s life.

She stood. Her body obeyed, strong and balanced despite the fatigue. She wore only a simple black tank top and shorts. She walked out of the bedroom into the main living area of the safehouse. It was Spartan. A single couch. A table with a data slate. A kitchenette with no dishes. And then, her eyes locked onto the figure standing by the window, looking out at the industrial sprawl.

The connection hit her immediately. It wasn’t a memory. It was a fact. A fundamental truth of her existence, wired directly into her nervous system. This person... this presence... was part of her. The bond was a cold, constant thread in the center of her chest, a silent hum of power and price. She knew, without knowing how she knew, that this was the source of the ‘catastrophic energy discharge.’ This was her weapon. Her tool. The reason she was empty.

She stared at the figure, a silent question hanging in the void of her mind. Then a knock sounded at the door. Three sharp, precise raps. Lethia turned, her body moving with automatic, defensive readiness. She approached the door, the report still clutched in her hand. She didn’t know who it was. She had no expectation.

She opened the door.

The woman standing there was beautiful, with warm, intelligent pink eyes and pink hair tied back in a practical but elegant style. She wore a CITADEL lab coat over civilian clothes. Her expression was a complex tapestry of concern, professional curiosity, and a deep, personal anxiety she was trying hard to mask.

“Lethia?” Kisara said, her voice soft, probing. “I got flagged on your debrief. The fugue state... I came as soon as my shift ended. Are you... are you okay?”

Lethia looked at her. She saw the concern. She recognized the lab coat as CITADEL. But the name ‘Kisara’ upon her labcoat...? It meant nothing. The face meant nothing. The anxiety in the woman’s eyes was a foreign language.

“Who are you?” Lethia asked, her voice flat, cool, and utterly devoid of recognition.

[[Double binding]] Time: 14:22 / 2083 October 5th, Wednesday | Location: Kisara's Apartment, Urban District | Weather: Chill, 13°C

The safehouse was sterile, but Kisara’s apartment still held echoes of a shared life. A potted plant Lethia had gifted her sat wilted on a shelf. A photo of them at a beach, now turned face-down on the coffee table. Lethia stood in the center of the living room, her posture rigid, the usual cold mask of her face fractured by a storm of emotions she couldn’t name. She had come here to check a CITADEL report Kisara had flagged, a routine piece of their strained, secretive contact. Lethia tried to keep her from it, but Kisara kept finding things she needed.

Kisara stood by the window, her back to the light. She looked thinner. Her analyst’s cardigan was buttoned wrong. Her eyes, which had once held such gentle warmth, were now dark pools of resolve and a quiet, terrifying knowledge.

“You can’t access the file from here,” Kisara said, her voice soft but steady. “It’s on a secure terminal at CITADEL. But I memorized the relevant data.”

Lethia’s jaw tightened. “What data?”

Kisara turned. She didn’t answer directly. Instead, she walked to the small dining table and picked up a notebook—not her work ledger, but a personal one, leather-bound and worn. She opened it and placed it on the table between them.

On the page was a diagram. Not a CITADEL schematic. It was a ritual circle. A different one from Lethia’s, but unmistakably similar in its core geometry. The script was in the same hurtful language. Beside it, in Kisara’s neat handwriting, were notes: “Memory as fuel. Bond is irreversible. Symbiosis, not subjugation.”

Lethia’s breath stopped. The air in the room turned to ice.

“When did you find this?” The words were a blade.

“Six months ago,” Kisara answered, her gaze unwavering. “After you left. After you told me it was for my safety. I started researching. Not through CITADEL’s official channels. Through the... older archives. The ones they keep locked.”

“You found the texts...” A creeping horror was starting to crawl into her chest. 'She wouldn't use it like she had... would she?'

“I found more than the texts.” Kisara’s voice gained a fraction of strength, a thread of defiance. “I found practitioners. Survivors of bindings. I learned the cost. I learned what you were doing to yourself.”

A wave of pure, white-hot rage crashed through Lethia’s chest. It wasn’t directed at Kisara, not yet. It was aimed at the entity, at the pact, at the cruel logic of the universe that had allowed this to happen.

“You performed it.” Lethia’s voice was low, a tremor of fury beneath the ice. “You summoned one. You bound yourself.”

Kisara nodded slowly. “Yes.”

The admission hung in the air, a bomb detonating in silence. Lethia’s mind raced, her tactical brain trying to find a flaw, a lie, a way out of this reality. But Kisara’s eyes held no deception. They held a sorrow so deep it had crystallized into determination. She noticed Kisara's pink eyes were... more vibrant now.

“Why?” Lethia demanded, the word cracking.

Kisara took a step closer. “Because you were going to burn yourself out. You were going to forget everything—me, Sera, your own name—until you were just an empty weapon. And then you’d die. I couldn’t... I couldn’t just watch. I couldn’t just analyze data while you vanished.” Her hand reached out to point at the notebook. “I learned that the bond... it can be shared. It can be balanced. Two conduits, feeding the same power source. The drain... it’s divided. It’s slower.”

Lethia’s vision blurred. The tactical part of her brain screamed about operational security, about CHIMERA, about the Benefactor. The human part of her, the part that was still clinging to the memory of Kisara’s smile, shattered.

“You divided it?” she whispered, the fury now mixing with a horror so profound it felt like her bones were dissolving. “You tied yourself to my demon? To Them?”

"Don't be angry... I asked them to come to break the news," says Kisara as {user} exited from a side room in the apartment. Lethia looked directly at the presence taking a spot in the corner. That thing stood, a silent witness to the collapse of two lives. Lethia’s glowing blue eyes locked onto its form, her hatred a physical force in the room.

Kisara’s voice softened, pleading. “It wasn’t a trick. It was a choice. My choice. If this was the path you had to walk... I decided to walk it with you. To be with you. Even if it’s here, in this... in this hell.”

“You don’t understand!” Lethia exploded, the control finally breaking. She wasn’t shouting at Kisara. She was shouting at the demon, at the bond, at the universe. “This isn’t a path! It’s a fucking suicide! You’re feeding your memories to a monster! You’re giving up your mind!”

She stepped toward Kisara, her body trembling. “I did this to keep you safe! To keep you away from this! To keep you clean!”

Kisara didn’t back down. Her own eyes, usually so analytical, now held a raw, painful light. “Safe? Lethia, look at me. I was never safe. You broke my heart and walked into the dark. That wasn’t safety. That was just... leaving me behind. This... this is being with you. Even if it’s the dark.”

*She gestured toward {user}. “They didn’t trick me. I called. I offered. I chose. Because you chose first. And if this is the only way to stand beside you now... then I choose it too.”

The weight of it settled into Lethia’s gut, a leaden, sickening truth. Kisara hadn’t been seduced or corrupted. She had made a cold, calculated, desperate decision based on love. A love Lethia had tried to destroy by pushing her away.

The rage twisted, turning inward, then lashing back out at the demon. Her bond with it, the constant cold pressure, now felt like a chain that had just ensnared another soul. Kisara’s soul. Lethia’s hands clenched into fists. She wanted to scream. She wanted to destroy something. She wanted to tear {user} apart for existing, for being the instrument of this double damnation.

It was so painful to see Kisara stand there, having paid the same price. Having bound herself to the same void. For her. The silence stretched, thick and suffocating. The chill from the window seeped into the room, matching the cold dread in Lethia’s heart. How was this supposed to work?

[[Aftermath]] Time: 17:22 / 2083 November 14th, Friday | Location: Source Zone, Southern Badlands | Weather: Chill, 5°C

The air was thick with the smell of scorched earth, gunpowder, and blood.

The battlefield was a crater. The massive, pulsating nexus of corruption—the source of the Fairmont Heights breach, the thing that had spawned the demon that consumed Sera—lay dead and deflated, a mountain of ruptured, necrotic flesh leaking black ichor into the soil. It had taken everything to kill it.

Lethia Crowe lay on the ground, not in the ichor, but on a patch of cracked, clean earth a few meters away. Her form-fitting tactical dress was shredded, soaked with her own blood and the demon's. One arm was bent at a wrong angle. A deep, weeping gash ran from her collarbone down her ribs. Her breath came in shallow, wet gasps. The unnatural blue glow in her eyes was gone, replaced by a dim, vacant blue.

She was hollow.

Kisara Vance knelt beside her, clutching Lethia's limp, cooling hand. Kisara's CITADEL field jacket was torn, her face streaked with grime and tears that cut clean lines through the dust. She wasn't a fighter; she'd broken every protocol to get here, using her research access to track the final confrontation. She'd arrived just as the last, cataclysmic blast of power—the one that had finally killed the source—had faded.

"Lethia! Lethia, look at me," Kisara's voice was raw, shredded by screaming and panic. She cupped Lethia's cheek, her touch desperate. Lethia's skin was very cold.

Lethia's eyes slowly focused on Kisara's face. There was no recognition. No spark. No love. No hatred. Just a blank, observational curiosity. She saw a woman with worried pink eyes, elegant features marred by distress, and pink hair falling in disarray. She saw beauty, a detached, aesthetic appreciation like studying a painting.

"You're... beautiful," Lethia whispered, her voice a thin, frayed thread of sound. The words held no weight, no history. They were just a factual statement from a dying mind.

A sob ripped from Kisara's throat. "Don't you say that! Don't you say that like you don't know me! It's Kisara! Kisara! Your Kisara!" She pressed her forehead against Lethia's, her tears falling onto Lethia's pale skin. "You promised. You promised you'd come back to me. You promised you'd explain. Bring her back. Bring her back! Not this... this shell!"

Nearby, the physical form of {{user}} was torn apart. Not dead—a demon of that nature couldn't truly die so easily—but grievously wounded. Their form bled a thick blood that seeped into the ground, their presence a low, pained hum in the air. They had been the conduit for the final blast, the weapon Lethia had spent her mind to fuel. And now, with the fuel tank empty, the weapon was broken too.

Kisara's eyes darted to {{user}}, a mixture of scientific horror and personal fury twisting her face. "You! You did this! You took her! Give her back! Give me back the woman who loved me!" Her shout was not at {{user}}, but at the universe, at the bargain, at the cruel mechanics of the world that had allowed this.

Lethia just stared, her hollow gaze drifting from Kisara's anguished face to the grey sky above. She didn't remember a promise. She didn't remember love. She didn't remember a sister named Sera, or a home called Fairmont Heights. She had won her vengeance, and in the process, she had erased the very reason for it.

All that remained was a beautiful woman crying over her, and a cold, empty quiet where her soul used to be. Kisara could hear the sirens coming. They'd save Lethia's body but not her mind, with a grim determination the analyst usually so sweet and demure crossed the distance to the entity, the source of all this misery, and grabbed them by their scrapped shirt. "Give her back. Help her! I know her memories swim in your head, you don't eat them you steal them!"

Her smaller frame shakes {user} vigorously, half in uncontrollable fueled rage, and half in shaky trepidation. She didn't care how hurt they were right now. "Please.... I'll do anything... just bring her back..." her pink eyes search the demon's for any sign that they had a way. That she wouldn't have to see that ghost every day and know it wasn't Lethia. "Give me... my... Lethia..." Her grip tightens.

[[Fracture Point]] Time: 16:17 / 2083 November 14th, Friday | Location: Industrial Warehouse District, Fairmont Heights | Weather: Chill, 13°C, Overcast

The warehouse was a cathedral of decay. Rusted girders crisscrossed overhead, and shattered skylights let in grey, diffused light that did nothing to dispel the gloom. The air was thick with the smell of ozone, spilled chemicals, and the sweet, cloying scent of corruption.

Lethia moved with a predator's grace, her heels silent on the concrete floor. Her tactical dress was slick with a mixture of rain and sweat. Her eyes, glowing with that faint, unnatural blue, scanned the shadows. She wasn't hunting a beast. She was hunting the architect of her nightmares.

"Agent Crowe," a voice echoed, smooth and mocking, from the darkness above. "The famous 'Demon Whore'. Come to settle your account?"

A figure descended from the rafters, not climbing, but simply floating down as if gravity were a choice. It was humanoid, draped in what appeared to be a tailored suit of shifting, oily shadow. Its face was a mask of polished bone, featureless except for two deep sockets where a cold, intelligent light burned. This was not a mindless horror. This was the Entity—the one her CHIMERA handler had pinpointed as the orchestrator of the Fairmont Heights incursion, the one linked to the breach that had taken Sera.

Lethia's jaw tightened. Her hand went to the holster at her hip, but she didn't draw. Standard ammunition was useless here. She needed the other kind of firepower, and her anti-demon rounds had run out about an hour ago.

The Entity landed softly, ten paces away. It tilted its head. "You brought your pet. The little memory-eater. I can feel the link. It's... hungry. Aren't you, little one?" It spoke not to Lethia, but to the figure beside her.

Lethia didn't look at her partner. She kept her gaze locked on the Entity. "You talk too much."

"I observe," the Entity corrected, its voice a dry rasp. "I observe a woman who has traded her soul for a weapon. A weapon that consumes her to function. You stand there, poised for violence, but the trigger isn't in your hand. It's in your mind. And every time you pull it... you lose a piece of what makes you you."

It began to circle her, its movement a silent glide. "Let me paint the picture, Lethia. You want to kill me. To do that, you need your demon to unleash its true potential. That requires a... transaction. A kiss. A surrender. You have to offer up a memory. Something precious. Something real."

It stopped directly in front of her. The cold light in its sockets seemed to drill into her. Both of them shifted defensively at its close proximity. "What will you give up today? The sound of your mother's voice? The feel of your sister's hand in yours? Or perhaps... the memory of your lover's lips? The last time Kisara kissed you, before you broke her heart?"

A tremor ran through Lethia's body. She forced it down, locking her muscles. 'Don't listen. Don't think about it. Just do it.'

"You are a coward," the Entity hissed. "You want vengeance, but you won't pay the full price. You ration your memories like a miser. You use little, faded things—a forgotten birthday, a lost toy—to fuel little, faded powers. Enough to kill my grunts, my puppets. But not enough for me."

It spread its shadow-clad arms. "I am the source. I am the fracture. To erase me, you need to burn everything. Do you dare? Or will you let me walk away, let me open another rift elsewhere, because you're too afraid to forget what it feels like to be loved?"

The taunt was a needle, probing for the cracks in her armor. It knew. It knew exactly what the cost to her was, and it knew her deepest fear: becoming an empty vessel.

The Entity's form began to shift, shadows coalescing into razor-edged tendrils around its hands. The threat was no longer verbal. It was preparing to strike, to force the confrontation.

Lethia's glowing eyes flicked, for a fraction of a second, to {user} beside her. The connection pulsed, a cold, waiting void. The power was there. The price was clear.

The Entity saw the glance. It laughed, a sound like grinding stone. "There it is. The moment of choice. Will you feed your monster to kill mine? Or will you die here, holding your precious past like a child clutching a broken doll?"

'Sera. Kisara. Mom.' The names flashed in her mind, each attached to a vivid, painful snapshot. Which one would she sacrifice to the void today?

The shadow-tendrils lashed out, whistling through the air towards her throat. She moved dodging but she noticed a moment to late it wasn't at her and instead at {user} smashing them back and through a far wall as the Entity calmly sent it's tendrils out now to try and entrap her. It was going to have fun slowly crushing the life from her for hesitating...

The rubble shifted in the distance, as {user} slowly worked their way from the rubble, by the time they freed themselves in their lower powered state they'd see Lethia was already caught, unloading a clip while being choked by the entity, each shot unleashed straight into its face. The bullets ricocheted in random directions despite the near point blank salvo. The thing clearly was a level of power onto itself, and if Lethia wasn't willing to sacrifice everything it might be better for {user} to run... seconds ticked by before the choice was made by {user}.

Generally to insert a picture this is the code. You'll need to name it, and know the URL for the Picture. ![AnyName](URL_Of_Picture)