Crimson light bathed the command deck of the Aztlán, pulsing like a dying heartbeat.
Sweat trickled down Colonel Silva's temple as his fingers flew across the glass interface.
"Portal integrity at ninety-eight percent, Commander," Silva reported, his voice tight with suppressed nerves.
Nodding slowly, Atzel kept his eyes locked on the primary terminal.
Holographic displays projected a shifting web of blue and green vectors, mapping the dimensional tear ahead.
Cybernetic implants hummed behind his left temple, feeding him raw streams of telemetry data.
Pain—sharp, cold, and entirely psychological—shot through his chest.
Operation Chimera had started exactly like this, under a sky of synthetic fire.
His mind dragged him back to the burning ruins of that lost world, where his strategic foresight had failed to predict the enemy's final, desperate gambit.
Millions of lives had vanished in a blinding flash of absolute annihilation.
He forced his breathing to remain steady, his jaw clenching so hard a muscle twitched in his cheek.
"Initiate primary ignition," Atzel commanded, his voice a low, gravelly baritone that brooked no argument.
"Engage thrusters," Silva barked into his headset, relaying the order to the fleet.
Heavy vibrations rumbled through the deck plates of the massive command cruiser.
Around them, three dozen heavily armored gunships of the STV Union aligned themselves in a tight, defensive wedge.
Gravity-nullifying engines hummed, a low-frequency vibration that rattled the teeth in Atzel's jaw.
Glancing out the viewport, he watched the dimensional portal expand.
It was a violent tear in reality, sparkling with unstable temporal energy and crackling with white-hot lightning.
Beyond that tear lay a different Earth, one drowning in its own blood and archaic magical warfare.
"We are entering the threshold," Silva announced, bracing himself against his console.
With a deafening roar that defied the vacuum of space, the Aztlán plunged forward into the blinding white rift.
Sensory overload threatened to blind the crew as reality warped around the metal hull.
Colors bled into one another, turning the stars into long, smears of violet and gold.
Atzel stood unmoving, his heavy leather coat swaying slightly against the artificial gravity field.
Then, the blinding light shattered.
Below them, a sprawling, war-torn landscape materialized through the broken clouds.
Gray, ash-choked air pressed against the viewports.
Ruined cities scarred the European continent like open, festering wounds.
Black smoke billowed from skeletal buildings, rising thousands of feet into the sky.
Nothing of value remained in those burning streets, only the remnants of a civilization tearing itself apart.
Memories of his own failed campaign flashed behind Atzel's eyes.
He saw the burning plazas of his youth, the screams of millions echoing in the empty halls of his mind.
"Never again," he muttered to himself, his jaw clenching so hard a muscle twitched in his cheek.
Steel-shod boots clattered against the metal deck as crew members rushed to lock down their new coordinates.
"Establish a defensive perimeter," Atzel ordered, gesturing toward the tactical display.
"Deploy the vanguard," Silva added, transmitting the command to the escort vessels.
Every gunship in the fleet began to fan out, their heavy plasma cannons pivoting to cover all angles of approach.
These vessels represented the pinnacle of STV Union technology, built to withstand orbital strikes and dimensional shifts.
Yet, Atzel knew better than to trust in mere steel and fire.
Chaos was a living entity in these lower-tier worlds, often taking the form of divine meddling or unchecked anomalies.
Clouds parted beneath the fleet, revealing a vast, snow-covered forest crisscrossed by muddy trenches.
Artillery fire flashed in the distance, distant thuds vibrating through the air currents.
Sirens suddenly wailed inside the command deck, a harsh, dual-tone shriek that shattered the relative quiet.
"Warning," the automated system droned. "High-energy signature detected."
"Where is it coming from?" Silva demanded, leaning over his console to track the anomaly.
"Directly below us, rising fast," a sensor technician shouted, her fingers blurring across her keyboard.
"Multiple radar locks failing to hold," another crewman yelled. "It's moving too fast!"
Before Atzel could utter his next command, a blinding flash of blue light illuminated the clouds beneath them.
---
Cold air rushed into Atzel's lungs as he stared at the primary tactical display.
Data streams flickered wildly, unable to process the nature of the energy source.
"It's not technological," Silva muttered, his face pale in the glow of the holographic monitors.
"Magic," Atzel said, the word tasting like ash in his mouth.
He had read the archival files on this dimension.
This world was supposed to be in its infancy of industrial warfare, dominated by biplanes and bolt-action rifles.
Yet, the energy signature currently racing toward them defied every scrap of data they had gathered.
"All ships, raise forward kinetic barriers!" Silva commanded, his voice cracking under the strain.
"Negative," Atzel countered, his mind processing the trajectory in milliseconds.
"Angle the shields to the lower ventral quadrant," Atzel instructed, his cybernetic eye flashing yellow.
"She is not aiming for our hulls; she is aiming for our thrusters."
Silva gasped but immediately executed the adjustment.
Outside, the sky seemed to split in two.
Plunging through the cloud deck, the STV Union's escort gunships fired their heavy auto-cannons in a desperate bid to intercept.
Tracers of light tore through the gray mist, chewing up trees and earth below.
But the target was nimble, darting between the streams of metal with impossible agility.
It defied gravity, turning at angles that should have crushed a human pilot under raw G-force.
Atzel leaned closer to the glass, his breath fogging the viewport.
Through the smoke, he caught a glimpse of a small, airborne figure.
It was a young girl, clad in a military uniform that seemed a century out of date.
In her hands, she clutched a rifle, but it was not the weapon that drew his attention.
Around her chest, a metallic jewel glowed with a terrifying, divine light.
Her eyes burned with a mixture of cold calculation and absolute, unadulterated fury.
"Is that... a child?" Silva asked, his voice shaking.
"That is our anomaly," Atzel replied, his voice dropping to a dangerous whisper.
"Prepare the main batteries."
"Sir, she is already within our minimum engagement distance!" the technician screamed.
Static erupted across the command deck's screens, flickering with strange, runic symbols.
Atzel felt a sudden, heavy pressure in the air, a spiritual weight that made his chest tighten.
This was not just magic; it was something older, something deeply manipulative.
Being X was watching.
He could feel the unseen gaze of that self-proclaimed deity pressing down on his temples.
"She's diving!" Silva yelled, pointing at the main display.
As the STV Union's advanced gunships deploy, a single, impossibly fast silhouette, wreathed in cerulean magic, tears through their formation, leaving a trail of crippled vessels and a chilling question: how could anything move that fast?