D-Mo stirred to the gentle sound of a violin drifting through her headphones. She shifted against the worn cushions of the couch and slowly pushed herself upright. Across the room, Orion was slumped forward at his desk, asleep with his head resting against the keyboard.
She stood, quiet in her movement, and fetched a blanket from a nearby rack. Draping it over his shoulders, she lingered a moment before returning to the diagnostics console. As expected, most of the system alerts were cleared. Orion had already patched the worst of it—his handiwork meticulous as always. Her visor was still damaged, and she had no doubt he was already combing through black market inventories for a match.
She hated the thought of replacement parts. Not out of vanity, but attachment. This would be her fourteenth visor. None of them were original, but each had carried pieces of her story.
She wandered through the warehouse, tracing her steps past the familiar shelf. Resting on it were her discarded components—fractured limbs, scorched plating, ruined optics—all cataloged like trophies. Orion had kept them all, quiet memorials to every mission she'd survived.
They were labeled too. Bounties. Grudges. Accidents. Each one archived with a scrap of context in Orion's scrawled handwriting. It struck her as oddly sentimental—funny, even.
Funny...
She lingered on the word, as if it were foreign currency she couldn't quite spend. As usual, she let herself sit with it, turn it over in her thoughts like a worn coin. Her fingers absentmindedly fidgeted with one of her old arms—an elbow joint still stained with old burn marks, the plating warped where a blade had kissed too close.
She held it like one might hold the husk of a memory. Detached, but tethered all the same.
She placed the arm back in its spot on the shelf, careful to line it up just right. Then, without another glance, she pulled her hoodie over her head, letting the fabric drape low enough to shadow her visor. Hands sunk into pockets, she slipped out the warehouse door.
Maybe she'd stop by to see Diane again. Maybe watch the humans and pretend she understood how they worked. Anything to quiet the weight of her failure with Judge.
District A was the closest thing left to the old world—a crumbling pocket of forgotten tech and quiet nostalgia. Back when AC still powered cities and fluorescent lights buzzed like tired wasps. This place, with its broken windows and stubborn wiring, felt familiar in a way nothing else did. Like the world had aged wrong, but this part at least remembered how it used to feel.
She wandered with no real aim, as she often did. Taking new turns, tracing old shadows. That's when she saw it—something delicate. Unspoiled. A kind of beauty that didn't demand to be understood.
Something pure.
She found herself slowing down in front of an old tailoring shop, one of those stubborn little places that still believed in window displays. A single dress stood behind the glass—sleek, elegant, the kind of thing Diane might wear when the spotlight found her on stage. Maybe this was where she had gotten it.
D-Mo stared at it longer than she meant to. The reflection in the glass was almost too perfect—her figure lined up with the dress as if it belonged to her. As if she could step forward and slip into that version of herself.
That old feeling crept back in. Jealousy. Quiet. Sharp. Familiar.
But something shifted in her peripheral vision. Her gaze drifted upward, just slightly.
And there it was.
Not someone.
Something.
A figure, still and watching, perched on the rooftop like a shadow folded into the skyline.
An S.C.U.
It wore clothes. That alone set it apart—only S.C.U.s she'd ever seen do that were herself and, maybe, one or two oddities in archived footage. It unsettled her more than she expected. A mimicry of normalcy. Something about it felt... intimate. Too intentional.
She turned fully to face it.
But it vanished.
D-Mo lunged across the street, traffic blaring past her. A vault over a vehicle, a pivot through an alley, and she was already scaling a fire escape. The cold metal clanged under her as she bounded upward, landing on the rooftop with a fluid motion.
Eyes scanning.
There—a flicker of motion.
She caught the shape leaping down to a lower roof, maybe a hundred meters away.
Not an Enchanter. Too slow for that—an Enchanter would've blinked out by now.
Hound?
No. It was too slim. Too precise.
Her mind settled.
Another Phantom.
The chase broke out fast—D-Mo closing the distance with ease. She wasn't entirely sure what she'd do if she caught it. Interrogation wasn't exactly her strong suit.
Didn't matter.
She had to assess the threat. If it knew about Orion… about the warehouse… then this wasn't just curiosity—it was danger.
She moved like a shadow in motion—vaulting vents, slipping under rusted piping, scaling ledges like her body had no weight. It wasn't long before she was within reach. One more leap, and—
Wait.
A Phantom should've vanished by now. Cloaked. Laid traps. Slung a spell or two to slow her down. This thing didn't.
Which meant one of two things.
Either it was the most incompetent S.C.U. she'd ever seen… Or it was leading her.
It took them a few minutes to reach the ruins of an old mall, the building sunken in on itself like a broken ribcage. The unknown S.C.U. darted into the underground parking lot, slipping into the shadows below. D-Mo followed, fully aware it could be a trap. A few spells flickered in her mind—primed and ready—but she'd have to use them sparingly.
As soon as she stepped into the dark, her shoulder collided with something.
The S.C.U. had stopped.
D-Mo barely had time to register its size before the unit went tumbling from the impact. It was small—maybe two-thirds her height. A child.
Or… what used to be one.
It hit the concrete, then burst into a cheerful laugh, limbs rolling with the momentum before popping upright like a spring."Again! Again!" it chirped, voice clear and playful.
It wore a hoodie too, visor hidden beneath the fabric—only its colors clashed wildly in a chaotic patchwork of reds, greens, and yellows. Blue joggers. Bright red sneakers.
D-Mo's visor blinked, glancing down at herself—black hoodie, black cargo pants, heavy boots.
They were both dressed like humans. But only one of them looked like joy.
Clothes were pointless for S.C.U.s. D-Mo knew that better than anyone. She preferred the bare functionality of her chassis—especially when she expected a fight. Fabric only got in the way. It restricted movement, obscured cartridge ports, interfered with spellcasting.
So why was this Unit choosing to wear them too? D-Mo wondered.
"I want to show you something!" the little Unit said, practically bouncing in place. Her voice was high, sweet—young. Unmistakably human in cadence.
"My name is Spark, by the way! Or you can call me—"
SPELL CONTAINMENT UNIT
S-RK