Titanfall: Phase Two
1282 Words
[Location: Graviel (North Gate)]
(voice-over) The air sounded like a plucked string stretched to breaking. Above the shattered plaza, the Rift swelled, warping buildings and distorting the skyline into corrupted echoes. Fireballs streaked upward, arrows whistled past fractured lamp posts, and every spell left a residue of unstable light that crackled against cobblestones.
[SYSTEM ALERT]
Subphase Transition: Titan Phase Two - Core Instability
Effects Applied: Dimensional Drift, Reality Warping
Anchor Requirement Active: Kaien Rook
(Kaien’s Pov) (inner thought) Perfect. Phase Two. Because apparently, my last near-death wasn’t dramatic enough.
(voice-over) The Breach-Titan lumbered forward, half-rendered, its exoskeleton a mosaic of flickering textures. Its claw scraped the street, tearing not just stone but reality itself. Cracks shimmered in midair like broken glass. Nyra moved first. Her blade left streaks of resonant light, slashing apart Rift-crawlers as though cutting code itself. For every one that fell, two more skittered free from fresh tears in the cobblestones.
Nyra: ‘Keep channeling your inversion. The Rift responds to you.’
(Kaien’s Pov) (mutters) This power might tear me apart, but if it keeps us alive, I’ll endure it.
[BUG INVERSION]
Touch of Restoration → Corrupted Burst
Damage Output: 450 True Damage
Effect Radius: 120 (Environmental Instability Triggered)
(voice-over) A crawler lunged for his throat. Kaien slapped the heal hotkey and light detonated outward, tearing the creature apart in a spray of glitch-shards. The explosion rippled against the Titan’s leg, freezing its texture for a heartbeat before it recompiled.
[SYSTEM NOTICE]
Raid Progress: 27%
Instability Index: 78% → 71%
Anchor Stability: Maintained
(inner thought) Maintained. Translation: still alive, somehow, while every other i***t runs around screaming.
[Location: Developer HQ]
(voice-over) Monitors blazed with red. Lines of code scrolled faster than eyes could follow. Riko’s hands hammered her console.
Riko: ‘Every inversion Kaien triggers, is suppressing Rift surges. He’s bleeding chaos into order, like the system’s using him as ballast.’
Ava: ‘Like a death timer ticking down, his HP bar is draining faster than his potions can offset.’
Corven: ‘Doesn’t matter. Without the Anchor, Graviel’s gone. Keep the raid packets live, sync Nyra’s stabilizations, and tell guilds to funnel heals; not to him, but around him. Buy him space.’
Mara: ‘Or buy him time to burn out.’ (whispers)
(voice-over) No one answered her.
[Back at North Gate]
(voice-over) Guild banners whipped in corrupted wind. Tanks braced, shields glowing with runic wards as they absorbed crawler swarms. Archers fired volleys, arrows splitting into tracer trails. Mages stood in formation, hands shaking as they pushed unstable mana through glitching air. Then, a shout rang out.
Guild Leader: ‘Protect the Anchor! Circle formation!’ (shouts)
(voice-over) Dozens of players pivoted, shields locking around Kaien. For once, their fear turned into cohesion.
Player Chat Logs:
- ‘Glitch-boy’s nukes are our only chance!’
- ‘Protect him!’
- ‘Don’t let the Anchor fall!’
(Kaien’s Pov) (mutters) Oh, great. Now I’m officially the raid mascot. Maybe someone can knit me a sweater with “Bugged Cannon” stitched on the front.
(voice-over) Another inverted heal detonated. The Titan’s claw staggered mid-swipe, collapsing part of a wall but missing Kaien by meters. He exhaled shakily, sweat dripping down his temple. Nyra appeared beside him, scarf flickering with alpha-coded energy. She touched his shoulder briefly.
Nyra: ‘You’re holding the shard together. Do not doubt it.’
(Kaien’s Pov) (deadpan) Oh, sure. No pressure. Just casually keeping an entire city from deletion. Totally normal healer business.
[SYSTEM ALERT]
Dimensional Drift Intensifying.
Movement Speed: Decreased by 40%
Pull Force to Rift: Increased by 60%
(voice-over) The ground trembled. Kaien’s boots dragged toward a widening tear. He stumbled, nearly losing balance, until Nyra pulled him back. Across the plaza, players screamed as several low-level adventurers slipped into the cracks, vanishing in consistent bursts.
(Kaien’s Pov) (inner thought) … No respawn timer. They didn’t come back. That wasn’t a death; it was deletion.
(voice-over) Kaien’s hands trembled. For once, the sarcasm dried up. He forced his eyes on the hotbar, knuckles white against his fists.
(inner thought) If I falter, that’s the result for the rest of us.
(voice-over) Kaien slammed Bug Bloom. Light exploded, a shockwave scattering crawlers. The Titan’s torso flickered, its fragments freezing in mid-motion before snapping back.
[SYSTEM NOTIFICATION]
Bug Bloom: Mass Environmental Disturbance
- Titan Render Delay Triggered
Raid Progress: 34%
(voice-over) Shouts erupted.
- ‘Anchor’s destabilizing the Titan!’
- ‘Push damage while it’s frozen!’
(voice-over) Spells rained down, synchronized volleys hammering the monster. For the first time, its colossal health dipped visibly.
[Developer HQ]
Riko: ‘Look! His bug and Nyra’s alpha-code are syncing. One destabilizes, the other patches. It’s… symbiotic.’
Ava: ‘If they maintain rhythm, they can force a stagger window.’
Corven: ‘Then push every player into sync. Rotate cooldowns. Kaien’s inversion is now the raid’s successes only hope.’
[Back in Graviel]
(voice-over) The Titan shrieked; a vibration of corrupted audio that cracked windows and rattled armor. Its limb slammed into the plaza, scattering tanks like toy soldiers. HP bars dipped across the board.
[SYSTEM WARNING]
Titan Subphase Trigger: Reality Overwrite
- Effect: Random terrain rendering errors.
(voice-over) The ground around Kaien melted into shattered panels, shifting like liquid before hardening again. He nearly dropped into a void square that blinked open beneath him.
(Kaien’s Pov) (inner thought) Seriously? Now the floor wants to kill me?!
(voice-over) He cast again, inverted light detonating just in time to clear a crawler. The backlash cracked against his ribs, forcing him to his knees. Nyra caught his arm, pulling him upright.
Nyra: ‘Hold, Anchor. Every second you resist, the Titan weakens.’
(Kaien’s Pov) (breathless mutter) Yeah? Every second I resist, my HP looks like it’s speedrunning to zero.
(voice-over) Still, his trinket pulsed harder, syncing with his heartbeat. He felt, no... just saw, the Titan stutter again.
[SYSTEM GLOBAL NOTICE]
Raid Progress: 46%
Anchor Sync: Stable
Instability Index: 66% → 63%
(voice-over) Guild formations adjusted. Arrows whistled in repeated volleys. Mages layered firestorms and frost domes. Tanks locked shields to funnel crawlers toward concentrated AoE. The plaza transformed into organized chaos; a battle of survival where every role depends around the Anchor.
(inner thought) … They’re actually protecting me. Not out of kindness, but because without me, everything ends. Guess that makes me both liability and backbone of the battle
(voice-over) He cast again, a final inversion surging brighter than before. The Titan’s leg froze mid-animation. Its thorax fractured into wireframe, exposed for seconds.
[SYSTEM GLOBAL NOTICE]
Phase Two Stagger Triggered
Contribution: Anchor Sync Critical
Raid Progress: 52%
(voice-over) Players roared, unleashing every cooldown they had. The Titan reeled, damage numbers flashing across its body. Nyra stepped closer, her scarf pulsing in rhythm with Kaien’s trinket. Her eyes fixed on him, calm even in chaos.
Nyra: ‘Almost there. Synchronize with me. Anchor, you are the tether.’
(voice-over) Kaien’s breath came ragged. His hands shook as he aligned another heal, inverted light coiling around his body.
(Kaien’s Pov) (inner thought) … I’m no hero. I’m a bug, a glitch in the code. But if being broken is the only thing holding this world together...
(voice-over) He pressed the hotkey. The light detonated. Nyra’s blade resonated in perfect harmony. Together, their pulses chained into the Titan’s body, tearing its textures into fractured pieces.
[SYSTEM GLOBAL NOTICE]
Stagger Success.
Instability Index Decreasing.
- Raid Phase Progress: 55%
(voice-over) The Breach-Titan stumbled, crashing into the plaza with a quake that shook every wall in Graviel. For a heartbeat, silence. Then, the Rift screamed wider.
[SYSTEM WARNING]
Phase Three Rendering Imminent.
(inner thought) … Oh, good. Because two phases of cosmic bugged nightmare weren’t enough. Here comes the encore.
- Writer
