Mira Veltman used to love Sundays.
She remembered them vividly, the smell of garlic and rosemary curling through the house, her mother's laughter echoing from the kitchen, and the rhythmic tap-tap-tap of her father's hammer drifting in from the workshop.
She'd sit cross-legged on the tile, watching her mother dance between the stove and the counter, weaving the scent of something delicious into the air. Her mother was a force of nature — radiant, determined, magnetic. Captain of the Valiants, one of Virelia's strongest symbiont crest bearers, a hero. But here, in their little home, she was Mama.
" is that powder I see on your nose" Cassidy veltman teases she wipes the flour of her daughter's nose
"Mama stop making fun of me" Mira shot back
"you know what snowflake??" Cassidy popped the question.
"No.... What is it"
"you're really cute when you're trying to act tough "cassidy teased again this time catching her daugther in a kindergarten choke hold.
Her father? A quiet man with strong hands, dark circles under his eyes, and a gentleness he reserved only for her. His fingers, rough from years of carpentry, were surprisingly deft when he'd kneel beside her chair in the morning, murmuring, "Hold still, princess," as he weaved her hair into neat little braids.
Little Mira thought Sundays would always be like this,
Little did she know the rifts, had other plans.
It tore through the hills without warning one faithful day, jagged red gash in the sky, bleeding light onto the earth. The alarms wailed. Crest signatures erupted across the city.
"I'll be back before you know it, my little snowflake"
Mira's mother kissed her once, twice, her hands trembling ever so slightly, and ran out the door half-armored, leaving behind the scent of garlic, rosemary, and something unfinished on the stove.
Mira waited.
And waited.
The news broke three days later.
A high-level breach. Unstable. Lethal.
Half the Valiants were gone.
The captain among among them.
The funeral came soon after, both the unlucky innocence who lost their lives and topplers who gave theirs to containing that that level 4 breach were honoured that day.
You'd expect mira to at least should a tear but she just stood their clad in a black dress staring at the emblem on her mother's gravestone.
It was the symbol of the valiants, a peregrine falcon.
Her father looked at his daughter and could only wonder what was going on in the mind of such a child.
He was starting to regret bringing her here in the first place.
He himself was having problem taking all this in so he can only imagine how hard it will be on his daughter.
Just then a man, probably in his late 50's, slim and built quite well for his age, backed by an entourage all clad in expensive black suits arrived and faced mira father to have a word with him.
Mira didn't even understand what it was they were Saying, but she was sure she had seen that man working with her mum before.
The house became a hollow thing. Her father, once full of quiet hums and sawdust and soft laughter, drifted like a shadow through their rooms. He worked more stayed out late, came home later, sometimes with women Mira didn't recognize, their perfume sharp and unfamiliar. They smiled too much. Laughed too loudly. Mira hated them.
School wasn't better. Kids her age whispered behind her back about her black sclera, the glowing white rings in her eyes, the curse of being omega-level. They called her dangerous, unstable, cold.
They weren't entirely wrong.
She hardened. She snapped at teachers, picked fights in the halls, let the chill inside her seep out. Her power, her grades, her name — they drew people close, but never close enough. Every friend felt like they were reaching out for what she could do, not for who she was.
She became sharp. Withdrawn. Angry.
And then there was that one day middle school, age thirteen when she stormed into the courtyard, fists clenched, looking to burn off the ache inside her. She saw a boy sitting quietly on a bench, lunch tray balanced on his knee, eyes lowered like he was miles away.
Mira stepped up, smirking, ready to pick a fight to remind someone, anyone, that she mattered, that she was here.
But the boy just looked up at her, calmly, no fear, no challenge in his gaze.
"You know, you look really cute when you're tryna act tough".
The words slipped past her defenses like a knife. She stood there frozen, blinking, as if he'd cracked the ice around her chest. For the first time in years, she didn't lash out. She didn't even know what to say.
By the time she found the words, the boy had already walked away.
Hailee and Josephine had been talking for a few minutes straight now, breaking down Marco's disappearance in exacting detail the footage gaps, the inconsistent statements from classmates, the discarded infirmary files. But Huey... wasn't listening anymore.
He stared through the tinted windows of the van, eyes narrowed but unfocused. His thumb slowly traced the edge of his cross chain like it was a trigger switch, his body still but mind still buzzing like static.
Josephine paused mid-sentence, tilting her head.
"You good?" she asked.
Huey's head dipped slightly, just once. "Yeah." He blinked slow, like the weight of something had just landed on him. "I need to be somewhere."
Hailee arched a brow. "What now?"
Huey was already pushing the van's side door open. "Thanks for having me."
"You're not gonna explain?"
"Later," Huey muttered, stepping out and into the night, his voice so quiet it was almost lost in the wind. "I plan to make it in time this time around".
The night air was thick, the sky above smeared with indigo and broken stars. Mira stood alone on the rooftop of the Gazet, the unofficial name for the highest point of the Virelia Institute. She liked it up here. No whispers, no expectations just wind and altitude.
She closed her eyes, letting the cool breeze rake through her purple-streaked hair. A ghost of a smile curled on her lips. This was the one place she could just exist.
Until it wasn't.
A swoosh in her peripheral.
She opened her eyes. Footsteps. Too soft to be security, too late at night to be students.
She turned sharply, iris-white eyes scanning the rooftop's edges. She counted three silhouettes hooded. Silent. One of them raised a g hand.
She felt it immediately the drop in the air pressure. Some kind of localized suppression field. Her limbs felt heavier. Not completely paralyzed... but slowed.
Two of them advanced while the third stayed back, fingers forming strange gestures in the air. Runes? Crest-induced tech?
Mira raised her hand, mist curling at her fingertips, but the energy stuttered fizzled. Her heart thudded. That had never happened before.
"You're not students," she spat, staggering a step back.
"Not tonight," one of them replied, voice low, distorted. "You're just the next in line."
"Line for what?"
He didn't answer.
Another moved too fast. Mira ducked, twisted, slammed her elbow into his ribs and backflipped into a roll, landing near the rooftop ledge. Her instincts screamed as her power sparked and died again.
A dart came flying from the shadows sleek, needle-tipped. She turned too late.
And then, it didn't matter.
The rooftop exploded in light.
A crash like thunder slammed into the ground as lightning struck the center of the ambush, flinging two of the attackers into the walls like ragdolls. The third staggered, shielding his eyes, only to feel the wind shift behind him.
Someone stood there, hood over his head, mask in place, katana drawn, blue plasma crawling along the blade. The glow of his irises bled through the shadows like twin halos of fury.
"You picked the wrong night," he said, his voice metallic under the mask.
The assailant lunged. Huey moved faster.
Blade met shoulder with a burst of crackling plasma, the scream swallowed by the wind. Mira, breathing hard, looked up from where she'd fallen, eyes wide not with fear, but something else.
Recognition.
Not of a name. Not of a face.
Of presence.
He turned to her, blade humming low at his side. "You alright?"
Mira blinked.
Then nodded.
Only one thought echoed in her mind.....