Chapter Nine : First Assignment
631 Words
Chapter Nine: First Assignment
Their first assignment outside the compound came too soon.
No time for nerves. No room for mistakes.
No second chances.
The briefing was short.
A collapsed town, deep in a mountain valley.
Flooding from broken riverbanks. Landslides choking the roads.
And worse—an ancient magic fault line, stirred awake by the disaster.
The team leading the mission was Lexie and Daniel—both seasoned, both sharp.
Shayne, Hunter, Miranda, and Nick were assigned as observers.
Which meant:
Learn everything.
Fix nothing without permission.
And don’t screw it up.
Their airship—a sleek vessel disguised as a humanitarian transport—waited on the far platform, gleaming under the early morning mist.
Glyphs etched along the hull shimmered faintly, hidden from mortal eyes.
Inside, the hum of magic mixed with the buzz of diesel engines, blending old world and new so seamlessly it was easy to forget how fragile it all was.
Nicole met them at the boarding ramp.
No speech.
No reassurances.
Just a pack for each of them—filled with emergency glyphs, dried herbs wrapped in oilcloth, water-cleansing stones, and small, powerful runes designed for quick, subtle use.
And a warning, simple and sharp:
“Don’t draw attention.
Don’t use your full power.
If something feels wrong—get somewhere safe.
Tell me only when you are safe.”
Her eyes met each of theirs in turn, serious and unblinking.
When she looked at Shayne, he felt it—not just the weight of the assignment, but the weight of trust.
He nodded.
They all did.
And then they were gone—rising into the clouds on a current of wind and silent worry.
The village they landed in didn’t look wounded.
It looked hollow.
Shattered houses slumped against blackened mud.
Water pooled in places it shouldn’t, gleaming oil-slick under a sunless sky.
The trees nearby leaned inward, almost watching.
The second Shayne stepped off the ship, he felt it.
Heat.
Wrong heat.
Not fire, not anymore—but the ghost of it.
A burn that had sunk into the earth’s bones.
He looked at Hunter.
Hunter was already crouched low, hand pressed to the mud.
“There was fire here,” Hunter said, voice tight.
“Big fire.”
Lexie swept the horizon with narrowed eyes.
“Wild magic,” she said finally.
“Uncontrolled.
And not from a student.”
They didn’t ask how she knew.
Lexie’s magic was tethered to instinct and deep knowledge—if she said it, it was true.
They worked through the night.
Miranda and Nick ran glyphs along the river to cleanse the poisoned water.
Daniel and Lexie stabilized the collapsing hillsides with stone sigils and earth chants.
Shayne and Hunter helped where they could—reinforcing, patching, healing shallow burns with their limited training.
All the while, that wrongness pressed in.
Closer.
Stronger.
Watching.
It was behind a half-crushed barn that Hunter found it.
Buried in the mud.
Half-hidden by broken boards and rotting straw.
A mask.
Silver.
Cracked down the left side, but still humming faintly with some energy that felt neither alive nor dead.
Hunter didn’t move.
Didn’t reach for it.
Some part of him—the part that had survived long enough to be here—knew better.
Touch it, and something might touch back.
The wind picked up around him, curling cold fingers through his hair.
Whispering.
Words he almost didn’t want to understand:
“It’s watching you now.”
Hunter’s blood ran cold.
He backed away—slow, deliberate.
Then, without thinking, he called for Shayne.
And when Shayne saw the mask, his gut twisted.
This wasn’t a relic.
This wasn’t an accident.
This was a message.
Someone—or something—had been here first.
And it wasn’t done.
- Writer
