174 Markend Hospitality
I never thought I’d end up back here at Markend, of all places. The skyline hit like a punch to the gut. This was the city where everything began: my first Pull, my first mask, my first cri spree,and my rise as Eclipse. My entire origin story was written in these streets…and now I was falling straight toward them again.
Light bent behind , and a cluster of bodies burst into the air with .
“Shit… Alia!” I grabbed her wrist with one hand and Keegan’s tunic with the other. The forr gladiator still carried the sack of magic weapons strapped across his back. He stared at the towering buildings with wide, terrified eyes.
“What sorcery is this?!” Keegan shouted.
Abner’s scream cut through the wind. “WE’RE DYING! WE’RE ALL DYING—!”
“Stop screaming!” Diane tried to reach him, but her voice disappeared in the roar of the drop.
Jacob, the na he’d finally chosen for himself, flailed until Diane’s body rippled and burst with draconic wings. Red scales shimred down her spine as she caught both him and Abner, pulling them toward her as if they weighed nothing.
I tightened my grip around Alia and Keegan, bracing to use intangibility to phase us through the ground in a controlled fall, but Alia beat to it.
Feathers exploded from her shoulder blades, wings of mottled brown spreading wide like a hawk’s as she shouted, “Diane, follow !”
She yanked us upward, stabilizing our drop, and Diane synchronized with her. The montum shifted from freefall to a sharp glide. We drifted toward the nearest rooftop and stumbled onto solid concrete a mont later.
Alia’s wings folded into her back, sinking into her skin until nothing remained but faint lines. Diane’s draconic features receded in a ripple of flesh and steam.
I stared, stunned. I’d never seen Alia use wings before.
It was probably the ‘reward’ from Dr. Ti, no doubt. So kind of augntation or power transplant he’d offered her half a year ago. I wanted to ask, but this was neither the place nor the mont.
“We need to move,” I said. “We’ll attract attention if we stay exposed.”
“I know a safehouse,” Alia answered quickly. “My father prepared it for ergency use only. This qualifies.”
“Good,” I said. “But first we need transportation. Follow .”
With leading, we headed to the rooftop stairwell. Diane helped Jacob adjust his cloak to hide the talon marks on his arms, while Abner kept a death grip on the railing, still pale from nearly plumting to his death. Keegan looked overwheld by every new sight.
We reached an upper-floor hallway with plain white walls, carpet, and apartnt doors every few ters. A normal building. The others stared all around them as though they’d stepped into a different era. Well, they kind of did.
“Eyes forward,” I warned softly. “Focus. Blend in.”
I pushed out a wave of psychic influence. Empathy softened our presence, telepathy blurred edges of attention. It felt rusty and sluggish, but it held. People walking past us barely noticed us.
“Wait here,” I whispered.
I phased through the door of an empty unit, squeezed through cleanly, without leaving a trace, and scanned for anything useful. A phone sat charging beside the couch. Perfect. I took it and slipped back through the wall.
“Move,” I ordered.
Alia pressed the elevator call button. When the doors slid open, she stepped in first. The others followed, cramming together awkwardly in the cramped space, the gladiator clutching his sack, Abner staring at every blinking light, and Jacob poking the tallic handrail.
I pulled up the stolen phone’s keypad and dialed a number. My pulse inched up as the elevator began its slow descent.
The call connected.
“It’s ,” I said quietly. “Eclipse.”
The line clicked, and Bunny’s voice ca through.
“I’ll see it for myself.”
Before I could answer, the phone sparked violently in my hand. Electricity burst across my palm, the device seizing and popping like a dying insect. I released it on instinct, but it never hit the elevator floor.
A hand caught it.
A figure now stood beside as if he had always been there, as if he had stepped out from the thin air between seconds. White hoodie, covered in explicit artwork that made half my group recoil on sight.
My group reacted exactly how I expected. Keegan reached for the sack of weapons. Diane grabbed for her spear from the sack. Jacob took a step behind her. Abner grabbed for his sword and nearly elbowed Alia.
“Stand down,” I ordered. “He’s a friendly.”
The tension eased, though only barely.
Bunny turned the ruined phone over in his hand. He looked…younger. Cleaner. Less frayed around the edges. The last ti I saw him, he was a consciousness trapped inside digital architecture, stripped down to code and interface. To see him here, solid and breathing, was surreal enough to make sothing twist in my chest.
“Long ti no see, Bunny,” I said.
He raised an eyebrow. “It’s George now. I get to live like a human again, so I’m sticking to my na. I even have property in Faust, legally.” A small smile tugged at the corner of his mouth. “And yeah… I’m happy to see you.”
I could feel the truth of it, a bright, sincere warm swell through my Empathy. It threw off more than I cared to admit.
“What happened to you?” I asked.
“Mutation,” George answered. “Glitch touched my core code and my power responded. Now I am… this.”
I studied the hoodie again how faint patterns of light flickered beneath the fabric as if his entire body was made of luminous circuits. A light-construct body. That had to be it.
“We need to be quick,” George said as he slid the broken phone back into my hand. “I’ll cover your tracks as much as I can. But you need to stay low. Seriously low. SRC sensors already pinged the anomaly.”
His gaze slid to the others.
“Quite the colorful bunch you’ve brought ho,” he muttered. “Armor guy. Leather guy. Three peasants from a period drama. You’ll need them in real clothes before soone calls the Committee.”
Abner snorted. “A warrior does not abandon his armor. I would rather—”
I gave him a tired look.
Abner deflated. “Fine… I will do it. But I’m not throwing the armor away. I spent my life savings on it.”
“Relax,” George sighed. “We’ll find a compromise.”
I leaned against the elevator wall, letting a breath slip out of . Being back here… Markend was a weight on my ribs. Every street here held a mory. So of them shaped . Most of them hurt.
George handed back the ruined phone. I thumbed the cracked screen. The date glowed faintly. Four months had passed here.
Four months since we vanished.
Dr. Ti wasn’t lying. Ti in that other world really did run slower.
George stepped back, his outline flickering at the edges, dissolving into a shimr of pale light.
“I’ll be watching,” he said. “Just don’t attract attention.”
The elevator lights flickered, and he vanished.
Before we left the building, I had to deal with another problem. My group looked like they had walked out of a dieval reenactnt. If we stepped outside like this, every cara in Markend would pick us up. Even with my pasychic camouflage, I’m not confident of escaping everyone’s eyes.
“We’re changing,” I said as I led them down the hallway.
We slipped into an apartnt that my Empathy confird was empty. I shut the door quietly behind us.
“Discard your clothes,” I added. “Use whatever you can find in the wardrobes.”
Abner groaned like I’d stabbed him. “But my armor—”
“You can keep it,” I said, pointing at a hard-shell suitcase leaning against a dresser. “Stuff it in there and drag it.”
He brightened imdiately and began dismantling himself like a stubborn toddler refusing to part with his toys. “Good. But I will keep my sword on my person. A warrior must always be ready.”
“Sure,” I muttered. “Whatever keeps you quiet.”
Alia frowned as Jacob and Keegan began rifling through a closet. “Nick, this is stealing from a perfectly normal family.”
“No one asked,” I replied. “We need to blend in, not apologize.”
She sighed, then found a frad picture of the family of three. She gently flipped it face-down on the shelf, like that made it better.
Keegan erged wearing a floral button-up shirt and a feminine skirt he sohow thought was part of the set. He twirled once. "This is… comfortable."
I pinched the bridge of my nose. “Pick shorts. Please.”
He rummaged again, found a pair of beige shorts and a floppy hat, and put them on. With his build, dark hair, and the cheerful pattern on his shirt, he looked like a tourist heading for a sumr beach.
Jacob complained next. “It’s cold here.”
I tossed him a jacket, a plain white shirt, and a pair of jeans. “Wear that.”
He changed quickly. With his newly washed curls and the modern clothes, he almost looked like a model pulled from a fashion ad.
Abner was the real challenge. The man was built like a battering ram, and everything looked too small on him. The only thing that fit was a dark blue tracksuit.
“This is… strange,” Abner said, adjusting the jacket nervously.
“It’s perfect,” I said. “You look like you belong in a gym comrcial.”
While I handled the n, Alia dragged Diane into the master bedroom and shut the door. I could hear Diane protesting through the wall.
When they ca out, Diane was bright red. Jacob stared.
“You look pretty,” he said.
Diane’s ears turned crimson. She didn’t know where to put her hands. She was wearing a simple blouse, a long skirt, and her hair was braided crookedly, but passable.
Then I looked at Alia.
She was in a black hoodie and jeans, bow slung across her back and a quiver strapped to her waist like so modernized hunter. Sohow, she made it look normal, which was unfair.
“You had ti to do her hair?” I asked.
She shrugged. “Soone had to make her look less… dieval.”
I exhaled, satisfied enough. “Good. Grab everything. Don’t leave any traces.”
Jacob gathered their old clothes into a plastic bag. Abner hefted the heavy suitcase with the armor inside, grunting as he dragged it toward the door.
We exited the building with leading the group, trying our best to look like we belonged, but even with modern clothes, we were a spectacle.
Diane still carried her spear. This ti, wrapped in cloth, though its shape was obvious. Abner had his sword strapped proudly at his waist like he was expecting a duel at any mont. Alia kept her bow slung casually across her back. And Keegan dragged a sack full of magic weapons from the Grant fiasco, making tallic clinks every few steps.
Jacob rubbed his stomach. “I’m hungry.” His appetite had grown worse since his freedom and since his power mutated from whatever Continuity and Grant had put him through.
“We’ll eat sothing real once we’re at the safehouse,” I said. “Try to hold it together.”
We walked down the street until I spotted an SUV parked by the curb. I placed my hand on the door, phased it through, and unlocked it from inside. Alia slid into the driver’s seat, because out of all of us she was the least likely to crash and she knew the safehouse.
The rest piled in awkwardly with Keegan and Abner wrestling with the sack and suitcase, Jacob whining about legroom, Diane trying not to poke anyone with the spear’s shaft. I sat in the passenger seat, glanced behind , and counted heads.
“Everyone in,” I said.
“Drive,” Alia muttered, already adjusting the mirrors like she’d been waiting for the chance.
We pulled out into Markend traffic, blending into the moving line of familiar cars and honking strangers. CCTVs dotted almost every corner, but I trusted George to wipe our footprints clean.
The others stared out the windows, mouths slightly open, like kids seeing magic for the first ti.
Skyscrapers. Neon signs. Buses. Trams. A man walking his dog. The normalcy must have been alien to them.
After a minute, I asked what had been on my mind since earlier.
“Your wings,” I murmured to Alia. “Why now? If you could fly, you would’ve used it against Grant.”
She kept her eyes on the road. “It was impossible there. That world capped us at rated-four, rember? All powers hit the ceiling.”
“Yeah, sounds about right,” I said. “Ever thought of coming back there?”
“No. And the… reward I got from Dr. Ti didn’t kick in until we returned.” She tapped her shoulder lightly. “He gave a source mutate. ‘Chira,’ he called it. A stimulant transplant that pushes my power closer to its origin. I had it for months but couldn’t experint with it with the restrictions in that world.”
We slowed as the traffic ahead grew denser. Cars clogged the street in a familiar evening gridlock. Just as Alia prepared to rge, a driver in a rust-red sedan screeched in front of us and cut her off.
He rolled down his window and shouted, “HEY! LEARN TO DRIVE, YOU BLIND FUCK! GO BACK TO WHATEVER HOLE YOU CRAWLED OUT OF!”
Ah.
Markend hospitality.
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