The diner sat on the edge of Sector 3 like a stain that wouldn’t wash out.
The sign above the door read BILLY’S in faded neon, half the letters burnt out, the rest flickering with the kind of stubborn persistence that came from decades of neglect.
The parking lot was empty except for a rusted sedan that looked like it hadn’t moved since before the Fracture.
Dom pushed through the door.
A bell rang overhead, tinny and tired.
The interior was dim, lit by fluorescent tubes that buzzed like trapped flies, and the air smelled of old grease and older coffee.
A counter ran along the back wall, stools missing their cushions.
A few booths lined the windows, their vinyl seats cracked and patched with duct tape.
One person sat in the farthest booth, tucked into the corner like she was trying to fold herself into the shadows.
Then something darted toward him.
Small.
Fast.
Glowing gold.
It stopped inches from his face, a fairy the size of a man’s palm, dragonfly-like wings shimmering with iridescent light, eyes bright with fearless curiosity.
Dom stared at it.
It stared back.
Then it reached out and tugged at his hood.
“Lume—no—I’m so sorry, she doesn’t—” A girl’s voice, soft and breathless, scrambling out of the booth.
“I’m sorry—”
Dom didn’t move.
He let the fairy tug at his hood, her tiny hands surprisingly strong, and watched the girl stumble toward him with the wide-eyed panic like someone who’d been apologizing her whole life.
She was slight, almost fragile-looking.
That was the first thing he noticed, the kind of build that made her look younger than she was.
The cardigan she wore was a size too big, but it barely did anything to hide what was underneath.
Full-chested, narrow-waisted, curves that strained against the worn fabric in ways that no amount of hunching or slouching could conceal.
She held herself like someone who’d learned to make herself smaller and failed at it anyway.
Shoulders curled inward.
Arms crossed loosely over her stomach.
Chin tucked down.
Her hair was a deep auburn that caught the dim fluorescent light and held it, spilling past her shoulders in soft waves.
A clip held part of it back, missing a tooth, and strands had escaped to fall across her face like she was trying to hide behind them.
Pale green eyes, almost luminous, with a thin ring of gold around the pupils, darted up to his face, then away, then back again, like she couldn’t decide whether eye contact was safe.
Dom took her in with a single, practiced sweep.
The contrast was jarring: a girl who looked like that, dressed like she was trying to disappear, working for a man like Dante.
The math didn’t add up.
He filed it away.
“You are the support, I assume,” he said.
She froze mid-apology.
Swallowed.
Nodded.
“Hi. I’m Emma. I’m your support. Dante sent me.” Another wince.
“I mean—he told me about you. Not about—I didn’t mean—I’m sorry.”
“Stop apologizing.”
“I’m—” She caught herself.
Swallowed again.
“Okay.”
The fairy, Lume, tugged at his hood again, more insistent this time.
Dom sighed.
“Your fairy’s persistent.”
“Ehmm, she—she likes you,” Emma said quietly.
“You said Dante sent you. Are we doing the briefing here or…?”
Emma straightened slightly, as she’d just remembered why she was there.
“Oh. In the back room. I’ve got the mission details ready. It’s… a lot.” She paused, her voice dropping even quieter.
“Then let’s not waste time.”
She nodded and turned toward the back of the diner.
Dom followed, Lume zipping ahead to hover at Emma’s shoulder, her glow casting faint gold light on the cracked linoleum.
They passed the counter, the empty stools, the coffee machine that looked like it hadn’t brewed a fresh pot in years.
A door at the back led to a narrow hallway, and at the end of the hallway was another door, heavy, metal, the kind that didn’t belong in a diner.
Emma paused with her hand on the handle.
“The details are… they’re bad. I want to warn you.”
“I’ve handled bad before.”
She opened the door.
The room beyond was a converted storage space, bare concrete walls, a single hanging lamp, a metal table covered in maps and notes.
A portable projector sat at one end, its lens aimed at a patch of blank wall.
Someone had been planning this for a while.
Emma crossed to the table and spread out the largest map.
It was a detailed schematic of the Fracture, the epicenter of the first gate, the place where the Great Fracture had begun fifteen years ago.
The map was covered in red marks indicating known hazards.
Black X’s marked the locations of the three previous teams’ last known positions.
“This is the job,” Emma said, her voice steadier now that she had something to focus on.
“Dante needs a package retrieved from inside the Fracture. The package was being transported via helicopter, but something attacked it. The helicopter went down deep inside the zone. The package survived. It’s in a reinforced box with a tracker.”
“What’s in the box?”
“I don’t know. Dante didn’t tell me. They just said it’s sensitive and irreplaceable.” She handed him a small device, a tracker, its screen glowing faintly.
“This will lead us to the box. The signal is still active. But the terrain is dangerous. It’s the place where everything started. Monsters have been nesting there for fifteen years. It’s officially a danger zone.”
Dom studied the map.
The Fracture was enormous, miles of ruined cityscape, collapsed buildings, and overgrown streets that had been swallowed by the initial gate breach and never reclaimed.
The helicopter had gone down near the center, close to the original epicenter.
The route in and out would take days—just him and Emma.
“We might come across railweaver spiders. We don’t know exactly where; the survivor from the third team couldn’t give clear coordinates, but it’s deep inside. The Queen of the nest, which is what we should mainly look out for, is an A-rank threat. Maybe higher. If we’re lucky, we’ll pass through her territory without meeting her.” She looked up at him, her pale green eyes suddenly very serious.
“If we’re not lucky, we won’t make it out.”
Dom’s system buzzed.
A faint vibration at the edge of his awareness, like the interface was reacting to something.
He ignored it.
” What else?”
Emma blinked.
“What else?”
“What other dangers? Traps? Rival scavengers? Environmental hazards?”
“There are… There are scavengers. Hunters who’ve gone rogue, living in the Fracture, preying on anyone who enters. And the environment itself is unstable; buildings collapse without warning, the ground is uneven, and there are pockets of residual mana that can interfere with skills.” She pulled out another map, this one showing a route marked in blue.
“I’ve mapped the safest path I could find. It avoids the known monster nests and keeps us out of the open as much as possible. But it’s still going to take three days, maybe four, to reach the crash site and get back out.”
Dom leaned over the map.
“What’s our supply situation?”
“We’ve got enough rations for a week. Potions for emergencies. Camping gear for both of us.” She paused.
“I packed light. I wasn’t sure what you’d want.”
“You did fine.” He straightened up and met her eyes.
“There’s one more thing you need to know.”
Emma tensed.
“What?”
“I’m going to be live streaming the entire mission.”
The color drained from her face. This chapter was copied from g.com without permission.
“You’re… you’re NyaaBlade.”
“You’ve seen the videos.”
“Everyone’s seen the videos.” Her voice pitched higher, with sparkles in her eyes.
“You’re the catboy with the dance and the sparkle finisher and the—” She stopped.
Swallowed.
“You’re famous. You have thousands of people watching you. I can’t—I can’t be on camera. I’m not—people will stare, and they’ll see me, and I’ll freeze up, and—”
“Emma.” Dom’s voice cut through her spiral, flat and steady.
“You don’t have to perform. You don’t have to answer questions. You have to keep me alive. That’s your job. Nothing else matters.”
“But they’ll see me—”
“They’ll see a Fairy Summoner who’s keeping her partner alive in the most dangerous place in the Midwest. That’s not something to be embarrassed about.” He paused.
“I’ll show you how the guest overlay works when we start. It’s not as bad as you think.”
She stared at him, her chest rising and falling with shallow, rapid breaths.
Lume flitted up to her cheek and pressed against it, chiming softly.
After a long moment, Emma nodded.
“Alright then.”
Then she added, very softly, “It’s really amazing how you’re comfortable with thousands of people watching you.”
“I wouldn’t say comfortable, but it pays.”
“That’s…” She shook her head.
“That’s insane.”
“Probably.” Dom folded up the map and tucked it into his jacket.
“We move at dawn. You stay behind me at all times. Lume scouts ahead. You keep your barrier on me whenever possible. You buff me when I say. If things go wrong, and they probably will, you run. I’ll catch up.”
Emma opened her mouth to argue, then closed it.
The expression on her face was something Dom recognized: the look of someone who’d been given an order that didn’t involve sacrificing herself and didn’t know what to do with it.
“You’re not… you’re not going to use me as bait?”
“No.”
“Why not?”
“Because I’m not Dante.” He met her eyes.
“Most importantly, you’re my support. That means I protect you. You protect me. That’s how this works. Understand?”
She nodded.
“Okay.”
“Good. Get some rest tonight. Tomorrow’s going to be a long day.”
They left the diner together.
Outside, the city was gray and cold, the winter sunlight thin and watery.
Dom pulled his hood up, the ears settling into place beneath the fabric.
Emma tugged at her cardigan, pulling it tighter around her shoulders, though it didn’t do much to hide her shape.
Lume settled on her shoulder, wings folding, still watching Dom with luminous curiosity.
Emma hesitated at the curb.
“Dom?”
“What?”
“Thank you. For… for not being like the others.”
Dom didn’t answer.
He just nodded once and started walking.
His phone buzzed.
A text from Dante’s people.
The final coordinates for the insertion point.
A reminder that the clock was ticking.
And a postscript:
Emma is more valuable than she knows.
Try not to get her killed.
Dom pocketed the phone.
Behind him, he heard her footsteps, light, hesitant, falling into step a moment later.