Savannah told her everything.

  From the moment she left camp to forgetting the extra vial…

  To the way the Demurge felt wrong in her senses…

  To the moment the real creature arrived.

  Bullseye didn’t say much while she listened—just nodded here and there, face unreadable, arms folded as she leaned in her chair. But the second Savannah said the word creature, something changed in her posture.

  Without a word, Bullseye stood up straight, crossed the room, and pressed a call button on the wall.

  “Tell Room Delta I’m coming with Red Gale,” she said into the comm. “Now.”

  Savannah blinked. “Wait—what?”

  Bullseye turned, her voice still calm but a bit lower now. “Can’t talk about that one in a med bay, sugar. Come on.”

  Savannah groaned. “You know I can’t walk, right?”

  Bullseye smirked. “Darlin’, I gotcha. Just sit tight and enjoy the ride. We’ll wheel you down.”

  ——

  She hated wheelchairs.

  Hated feeling small. Hated being pushed. Hated the clicking of the wheels on sterile tile.

  But Bullseye made it feel less humiliating somehow. The S-Rank’s coat swished around her boots, each step a quiet click that echoed with just enough weight to make people move out of the way.

  As they rolled down the hall, Bullseye glanced down at her. “So,” she drawled, “did you at least enjoy your time before hell broke loose?”

  Savannah gave a dry little exhale and nodded once. “Yeah. I guess I did. I’m just glad the damn creature’s dead. And Zoey’s ok…”

  Bullseye grinned. “Course, course. She should be waking up soon. And that creature? Made sure to blow its head and shoulders clean off, for good measure.”

  That actually made Savannah smile.

  “Thanks,” she muttered, the words soft but genuine.

  “Don’t mention it. Just do the same for me if I ever end up fightin’ somethin’ with a backup brain.”

  ——

  When they entered the debriefing room, Savannah’s smile vanished.

  It wasn’t just a standard E.R.O. ops chamber—it was loaded with high-ranking officials. Holographic displays lit up the room like a war room. Two Seers stood to the side murmuring into glowing runes, and agents in different faction colors whispered across long tables.

  And at the far end.

  Jason Foyer. The Dragon’s Butler.

  Her eyes widened. What the hell is he doing here?

  He didn’t look at her right away. Too busy reading a translucent file projected from his glove. But his presence alone told her everything.

  This wasn’t just a clean-up.

  This was a national-level incident.

  And now came the part she dreaded most.

  Hearing just how many lives were lost in Red Hollow Park.

  How many buildings collapsed.

  And how much blood now stained her name.

  The conversation went better than Savannah expected.

  Which, frankly, was saying a lot.

  Yes—a lot of people had died.

  Yes—the country looked like it got slapped by a falling star.

  Yes—Red Hollow Park was now a crater with a name tag.

  But… they weren’t blaming her.

  In fact, they’d praised her. Slightly. For holding her own against an S-Rank-level threat.

  S-Rank. The kind of classification that triggered Level Alpha events—the highest tier before an Omega designation, which meant Endbringer. And if that happened? There was no guarantee Earth would still be standing.

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  So for an A-Rank operative like Savannah to stand her ground—and walk away breathing—against something that powerful?

  That was supposed to be a win.

  Supposed to be.

  But she didn’t feel like a victor.

  The second they finished discussing rift pressures, magical decay zones, and the political fallouts already bubbling across three states, Savannah raised her hand. Slowly. Firmly.

  “Before we move on,” she said, voice hoarse but steady, “there’s something else.”

  All heads turned. Bullseye didn’t flinch—she was watching Savannah closely, the corner of her mouth twitching like she already knew what was coming.

  Savannah took a breath. Her eyes fixed on Jason Foyer—The Dragon’s Butler, calm as ever with his wrinkled suit and E.R.O. seal at his collar with an ironed purple tie.

  “You’re calling this a victory for me. But it wasn’t.”

  The room tensed.

  “I didn’t kill the creature,” she continued. “My captain did. If she hadn’t shown up when she did…” Her voice dipped lower, but there was no mistaking the crack of truth behind it. “I’d be dead. Everyone would be.”

  Jason’s silver eyes lifted toward her, focused now.

  Bullseye didn’t interrupt.

  “And more than that…” Savannah exhaled hard. “The creature wasn’t just a Demurge or rift-born abomination. It was—” Her voice faltered.

  “It was Howard. I’m not sure what his last name was… but he was part of my class. Somehow it was able to use Manifestation.”

  Gasps and murmurs stirred across the table.

  Savannah didn’t back down. “That thing… it was him. At least part of him. He was conscious. Aware. And he wanted to hurt people. This wasn’t just a rift rebound. This was a person turned into a monster.”

  She leaned back in her wheelchair.

  They seemed less surprised than she expected—maybe they’d figured it out already from the corpse? She had been out for a while, after all. Either way, that wasn’t her problem anymore. She said her piece. What they did with it wasn’t on her.

  But one thing still gnawed at her.

  “He used Manifestation,” she repeated, quieter this time. “But it didn’t follow any of the rules. No stance. No focus. No hand signs. No mental prep. Just… raw output. Like it skipped the fundamentals and went straight to the final result. Instantaneous. No channeling, no discipline. Just manifested.”

  A few eyes widened. Questions started bubbling from across the table, but Savannah couldn’t make sense of her own thoughts, much less theirs.

  What did that mean? Was it a shortcut? A mutation? Or something worse—something outside the system entirely?

  Her gaze flicked to Jason.

  He seemed oddly relaxed. Like none of this surprised him.

  “I also would like to add that Zoey Bail was an innocent party in all of this.”

  Jason’s voice cut through the murmurs, calm and cold as polished steel.

  “We’ve also got questions about Zoey Bail.”

  Savannah didn’t react outwardly. But her stomach clenched.

  Jason continued, fingers steepled before him, eyes unreadable. “We looked into her history. She’s been suspended multiple times, has a record for petty fights, one for possession of a stun-glove… seems she’s a bit of a troublemaker.”

  Savannah kept her gaze forward, saying nothing.

  “She also didn’t display any signs of supernatural activity. None. No aura disturbances, no unexplained energy readings, no incidents—except for one thing. She was friends with you.”

  Savannah’s eyes flicked up, just once.

  Jason leaned forward slightly. “So tell me… did you ever notice anything strange about her?”

  Savannah sat up straighter in the wheelchair, her voice measured, professional—but weaker now, like her words were losing weight. “No, sir. She was just a normal student. Bit reckless, yeah. But normal.”

  Jason studied her closely.

  “What’s strange is that she’s alive,” he said bluntly. “Unconscious, sure. But stable. She survived something that should’ve annihilated her.”

  “She wasn’t near the blast zone,” Bullseye added coolly, as she leaned on Savannah's wheelchair.

  Jason turned back to Savannah. “And how did she survive?”

  Savannah hesitated. “I put her in a wind dome… poured my Mani into it to hold it steady.”

  Jason’s brow lifted. “And you poured enough to keep it stable… throughout your battle with an S-Rank level threat?”

  Savannah opened her mouth, then closed it.

  The truth was—no.

  She hadn’t expected Zoey to survive. Not really. She thought the dome would give her a few extra minutes… a buffer to mourn later.

  She shifted uncomfortably. “I… didn’t think it would last,” she admitted. “I thought it would’ve collapsed during the fight. But she’s okay, right? Maybe she’s just the most lucky—and unlucky—person that day.”

  Jason chuckled, a dry amused sound that didn’t quite reach his eyes. “That’s one way to put it.”

  But his smile faded quickly, eyes hardening into something colder. Something heavier.

  “Now let me ask you a question that’s been bothering me since this began.” He leaned in slightly, hands still folded. “Why didn’t you notice a rift, Red Gale?”

  The room fell quiet. Savannah sat in silence, combing through every moment she could recall—

  And she had no good answer. Nothing stood out. Just the explosion and then chaos.

  She sighed, the breath shallow in her chest. “I don’t know, sir.”

  Before the weight of that answer could settle, a few voices around the table surged forward—interrupting, questioning, accusing.

  “Were you distracted before the spike?”

  “Could your Mani saturation have interfered with your senses?”

  “Did the creature suppress the rift signature?”

  Savannah flinched. Just slightly. The questions were too fast, too sharp, and her head throbbed under the weight of them.

  “That’s enough,” Jason’s voice cut in, firm and cold.

  “Sit down,” Bullseye added a beat later, less polite. “She’s still barely held together with duct tape and spirit.”

  The room settled again.

  Bullseye walked forward, arms folded as she spoke with quiet authority. “Let’s not forget—it wasn’t just Savannah. The E.R.O. systems didn’t pick it up either. No seismic, no rift spikes, no precursor pulses. I didn’t feel anything until I was in the damn crater. Whatever that thing was… it masked itself. Or it caused the rift the second it entered.”

  That caught their attention.

  Jason nodded slowly, tapping a few commands into his tablet. “If the creature caused the rift, or if it was part of something larger, then it’s the anomaly—not Savannah.”

  There were a few murmurs of agreement.

  Jason glanced at Savannah again. “Anything else that might help?”

  She hesitated.

  There were two things.

  She’d avoided saying them until now—not because they weren’t important, but because… honestly, they creeped her out.

  “Oi… it really wanted to be seen as a demon,” she muttered. “Not like a demon-demon, but in a weird way. Like from a game or religion. It needed to be seen that way.”

  That raised some brows.

  “And…” she said quietly, “it told me I was going to be part of its experiment.”

  Jason froze. “Experiment?”

  Savannah blinked at him. “…Yeah.”

  He waited for more. So did everyone else.

  She tried to shrug—but her arms didn’t respond. It came out more like an exhausted slouch and a long, awkward stare.

  Bullseye chuckled under her breath. “She’d shrug if she could. Just take that as her ‘hell if I know.’”

  Jason didn’t smile.

  He simply stared back at Savannah.